laid down therein, is the most perfect and agreeable to right reason."

The Jews received similar favours and protec tion from those generals who succeeded to Alexander in the possession of the regions which had submitted to his arms. "Seleucus Nicator, made them free of all the cities which he had built in Asia, and lower Syria, and also of Antioch, the capital city of his kingdom; putting them upon the same footing with the Macedonians and Greeks who dwelt there." He paid great respect to their religion. Antiochus, as a reward for the assistance they had given him, in his contest with Egypt, decreed to supply. them with every thing which related to their sacrifices and religious services. He revered all their laws, and issued proclamations through all his kingdom, that no stranger should be per-. mitted to enter the inward court of the temple, or otherways violate any of their religious customs. He gave orders to Zeuxis his general, to place two thousand Jewish families from Mesopotamia and Babylonia, in the strong castles, and other necessary places; for, says he, Į take them to be friendly guardians of our affairs, both on account of their piety towards God, and the great testimony of fidelity which they gave to my ancestors."

It will not be necessary to proceed farther. The above are sufficient testimonies of the superior piety, and moral habits, of the Jewish people; and of the deep impression their holy religion had made upon the minds of the great rulers of the world. An impression which could not fail to extend its effects to their innume rable subjects, and in some considerable degree humanize their minds. The permission obtained by the Jews to establish synagogues, and worship the God of their fathers, wherever they were placed, would have a tendency to extend and confirm these impressions. Every synagogue was in reality a temple erected to the true God, amidst surrounding Paganism, and thus they shone as lamps in dark places. The superior purity of their worship would gradually bring the absurd and horrid rites of the Pagan worship into disrepute and abhorrence: and the morality of their laws, would attract the notice of all those who considered the moral duties of importance to the welfare of mankind. From these sources, philosophers were able to derive their maxims of wisdom, and the most renowned reformers their theological tenets.

It is a peculiarity which is worthy of notice, that although the Jews were so tenacious of religion, wherever they were placed, and preserved themselves distinct, by holding intermarriages with the heathen inhabitants, in abhorrence, they were in other respects social and accommodating: for in Chaldea, their intercourse with surrounding nations was so frequent and intimate, that their own language became corrupted, and, in some instances, it was totally forgotten. Those also who were settled in the Grecian provinces, acquired the title of Hellenists, from their familiar acquaintance with the Greek tongue. These two opposite circumstances united in the promotion of the grand object. Their scrupulous attention to the peculiarities of their own religion, preserved it from being blended with Paganism, as had been the case with the Israelites in the land of Canaan while their familiar intercourse with the surrounding Pagans, not only softened prejudices, but implanted a conviction of the moral and religious superiority of this singular people.

The reason of man readily assents to the existence of one universal cause of all things; the reason of man informs him, that the existence of

more than one is not necessary. The Monotheist must assert that superfuities are the creatures of the imagination. When he attends to the nature of superstition, he discovers that the Gods of human formation have a shape and character, analogous to the state and character of human minds. If these be savage, brutal, timid, the gods will be clothed with horrors, and become the Molochs of their worshippers. When a perception of benefits awakens the grateful feelings, and the designs of the cultivator, mechanic, or navigator prosper under his endeavours, he contemplates and worships the imaginary sources of good, as the benefactors of the human species. Thus will Ceres, Pomona, Bacchus, Neptune, &c. take place of more ferocious deities. The personification of wisdom produced a Minerva; of the arts and sciences, an Apollo; of beauty, Venus, and the graces. The civilized imagination of poets finally became so playful that it delighted to populate woods and groves, rivers and mountains, with nymphs, naiads, fawns, &c. animating the dulness of rural scenery, and introducing a vivacity of language,' to which the moderns themselves have recourse, in order to embellish their descriptions, notwith standing the delusion no longer exists.

Thus will the character of the divinity wor

shipped, always indicate the character of the worshipper; and whatever has a tendency to reform this, will necessarily reform Paganism. The admission of the Great Jehovah of the Jews among the divinities of Pagan worship, and his acknowledged superiority, introduced a new æra in Paganism itself. He was doubtless their Jupiter, the father of gods and men; and notwithstanding the intermixture which absurd and impure imaginations sometimes made, he was considered not only as more powerful, but of a more perfect character than the others. The idea of a Supreme, reduced the other beings into a salutary subordination. Their empire was more limited, their morals were more pure. That great Being, whose condescension is infinite, winked at these times of ignorance, as the Apostle expresses it; resented not so unworthy an alliance; for by these means he was gradually leading forwards his untutored offspring, to a more perfect knowledge of himself.

The Apostle Paul observed, when he was at Athens, an altar erected to the unknown God. Whether this was a general confession of the ignorance and embarrassment of their minds, respecting the great first cause, as some suppose,