and christian systems. The great duties of piety, confifting in the fear and love of God, and a chearful reliance on his providence, were, in a manner, unknown in antient times beyond the boundaries of Judea. And what can more evidently tend to enlarge the comprehenfion and faculties of the human mind, than the regards which are due to the maker and governor of the world?

While the attention of the heathens was wholly engroffed by fenfible things, those who were favoured with divine revelation, even in its most imperfect ftate, were engaged in the contemplation of their invifible author. They confidered the enjoyments of life as the effects of his bounty, and all the events of it as taking place according to the wife appointment of his providence. Thus was the power of affociation enabled to present to their minds the ideas of great and remote objects, by which their fentiments were influenced, and their conduct directed. By this means, limited as were the views of the ancient patriarchs, their conceptions were far more enlarged and confequently their minds more intellectual, than those of the Gentile world.

It is true that all the heathens were prone to fuperftition, and that a great number of their actions were influenced by regards to invisible agents; but (not to fay, what is very probable, that their religion was, in this refpect, a corruption, of the patriarchal) all the Gods, they

had

had any idea of, at least all with whom they maintained any intercourfe, were local and territorial divinities, liable to the influence of low and vulgar paffions, and limited in their powers and operations. It was not poffible, therefore, that their theology fhould fuggeft fuch fublime ideas, as must have been conceived by the Jews, from the perufal of the books of Mofes ; in which we find the idea of one God, the creator and lord of heaven and earth, who established, and who controuls the laws of nature, and who fuperintends the affairs of the whole world, giving the kingdoms of it to whomsoever he pleases; a being of unspotted purity, and a friend and protector of all good men. So far were the notions which the Gentiles entertained of their Gods below the conceptions of the Jews, concerning the Jehovah, the lord of of heaven and earth, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, destroying their enemies in the Red Sea, and feeding them with bread from heaven for the space of forty years; that they could hardly have had any ideas to fome of the fineft expreffions which occur in the facred books of the Jews; as, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and many others, which exprefs fentiments of the most pure and exalted devotion.

If any people have exalted and fublime ideas, they are fure to be found in their poetry; but how

poor and low is the facred poetry of the heathens in comparison with the Pfalms of David! The poems of Homer, of Hefied, or of Callimachus, in honour of the Grecian gods, can hardly be read without laughter; but the book of Pfalms (the greatest part of which were written long before the works of any of those Grecian poets, and by perfons who had travelled and feen far less than they had done) cannot be read without the greatest seriousness, and are ftill capable of exciting fentiments of the warmeft and most exalted, and yet the most perfectly rational devotion. They give us the moft fublime ideas of the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of God. This difference between the poetry of the Jews and the Greeks, in favour of the former, is fo great, that I think it cannot be accounted for without the fuppofition of divine communications. In point of genius, the Greeks feem to have been evidently fuperior, and they were evidently fuperior, and they were certainly poffeffed of the art of compofition in much greater perfection.

Whence, then could arife fo manifeft an inferiority in this refpect? It must have been because the Jewish theology gave that nation ideas of a being infinitely fuperior to themselves, the contemplation of which, with that of his works, and of his providence, would tend to improve and exalt their faculties; whereas the heathen theology gave them no ideas of beings much fuperior to the

race

race of man. In general the gods of the Greeks and Romans were supposed to have been mere men, beings of the fame rank and condition with themfelves; and though their powers were fuppofed to be enlarged upon their deification, their paffions. and morals were not at all improved, but continued just the fame as before; fo that their greater powers were employed about the gratification of the lowest appetites. This theology, therefore, could not infuse that noble enthufiafm which was infpired by the Jewish religion, but must rather have tended to debase their faculties.

That extenfive and perfect benevolence, which is fo ftrongly inculcated in the New Teftament, implies more enlarged fentiments, and greater perfection of the intellectual faculties, than that more limited benevolence, which is treated of by the heathen moralifts, which was hardly ever thought to extend farther than to a love of one's own countrymen, and which admitted flaves to none of the privileges of men, but confidered them as no other than the property of their masters. But, in the eye of a Chriftian, Jew and Gentile, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, are all equal. The boasted attachments of private friendship are not more endearing than that mutual love which Chrift recommends to his difciples. But, whereas private friendship was, with the Greeks and Romans, the perfection, and almost the end of all virtue, the brotherly love of christians

F 3

chriftians is only confidered as a branch of a more extenfive benevolence, and leads to the love of all the human race.

It is evident, that the duties of contentment, truft in divine providence, meeknefs, patience, forbearance, and forgiveness of injuries, are more infifted on by Chrift and his apoftles, than by any of the heathen philofophers; and thefe virtues certainly require a greater comprehenfion of mind than any other focial duties. Children are quick in their refentments, their anger is presently excited, and they are unable to conceal what little malice or revenge they are capable of; but, in proportion as men advance in age, in experience, and, confequently, in intellect, they are able to overlook affronts, and to fufpend, or wholly to ftifle their refentments; because they are able to take in more diftant confequences of paffions and actions; and the fentiments which are suggested by these extenfive views, moderate and overpower those which are prompted by their prefent fenfations.

Christianity, therefore, by extending these duties, fuppofes, and thereby favours and promotes a ftill greater advance in intellectual perfection. To act like a christian, a man must be poffeffed of true greatnefs of mind, a felf-command, fortitude, or magnanimity, which is infinitely more fuperior to the disguised revenge of which fome are capable, and which they can brood over for years, than this