let us not think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver, or stone graven by man's device."

The design of Moses, the inspired penman, or rather of that blessed spirit which inspired him in his history of creation, was not, says Mr. Whiston, the gratifying the philosophical inquiries of a few elevated minds, but of a more general and useful nature, namely to inform the Jews and the rest of the world, that the visible frame of heaven and earth, was neither existent from all eternity, nor the result of blind chance, fatal neceffity, nor unaccountable accident; but the workmanship of God Almighty, to make them sensible that every thing they had any knowledge of was derived from, and subject to that Jehovah whom they worshipped; and that in him, themselves, with all their fellowcreatures in the open air, on the wide earth, and in the deep seas, lived, moved, and had their being, who therefore must needs be the governor and ruler of them all; to affect their minds by this means with the awfulest veneration for the God of Ifrael, and inspire them with a just gratitude to him for all their enjoyments; who had not only created this earth for mankind, and furnished it with various various creatures for their use, but besides these terrestrial, had made the very celestial bodies subservient to their necessities, to demonftrate the original goodness and perfection of things; and that, therefore, whatever was evil, must have been the confequence of man's fall, and not God's primary introduction, and thereby to teach men humility, and raise their abhorrence of fin, the cause of all their miseries. To shew them the unreasonableness of all idolatry, or of the worshipping any visible beings, tho' never so useful and glorious: by assuring them, they were all in common the creatures of God, and all their influences, of what kind soever, intirely derived from him, and under his disposal.

In short, the main design was, to secure obedience to those laws he was about to deliver from God to them, by giving them the greatest and justest ideas of their legislator, the ALMIGHTY MAKER of heaven and earth,

2

SKETCH

SKETCH VIII.

OF RABBINICAL PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS THEORIES ERRONEOUSLY FOUNDED ON THE MOSAIC WRI TINGS.

SECT. I.

OF THE JEWISH WRITERS.

THE Jews, (of whom Apollonius gives

this character, αφυεσατες είναι των βαρβαρων, και δια τετο, μηδεν εις βιον ευρημα συμβεβλησθαι μονες. that they were the most illiterate of the barbarians, infomuch, that these alone were never the inventors of any thing useful in life,) were not altogether so bad or so ignorant as they have been represented. When we judge of others we should be careful to shew ourselves impartial, if we are not disposed to be charitable. The scriptures, it is true, accuse the mof being a stubborn and a refractory generation; they

they themselves own it, and plead guilty. It is urged, that where the power of God operated by a train of miraculous events, and where the divine will was made manifeft by a written revelation, it argued the worst of difpofitions to rebel. But let us be candid: Is not the revelation of the gospel far superior to that of the law-does it not exceed in glory, inasmuch as life and immortality are brought to light? But how have profeffing chriftians behaved ? If offences are in proportion to the information of the perfons, may we not conclude that christians have frequently behaved worse than Jews ? have they not turned aside to the grossest superftition and idolatry, to the adoration of faints and angels? 'tis true they did not facrifice their children, cafting them into the fire to Moloch; but they have, thro' false zeal, devoted their fathers, their children, their friends and fellow citizens to flames, to tortures, to the most cruel deaths.

It must be granted, that the Hebrews,wlien God was pleased to visit them in Egypt, were both as to literature and temporal wealth, the meanest and most enfeebled generation; but this happened left they should fay, that their own power and might had wrought their salvation.

vation. Whenever they turned away from the law of God, and defiled themselves with iniquity, exemplary vengeance followed them, and they seemed deprived almost of that reason which distinguishes men from brutes, particularly when they rejected the Meffiah. Since that time divine revelation seems to be a dead letter to them; and their folly is in nothing more confpicuous than in their cabalistical writings. Their Rabbies say, that to change a single letter of the sacred text, would be to destroy the whole; at the same time, that by strange and ridiculous tranfmutations, by acrostic, or anagrammatic difpositions of words and letters, they confuse, obscure, and perfectly deface the simple meaning of many passages, according to whims of their own imaginations. Their רחם Rechem, has been too often changed into חים Cherem; what was originally designed as the greatest of all blessings, they have rendered a curse.

But I am forry to say, that among profefsing christians, among the apparent zealous defenders of the gospel, perversions of a fimilar nature are too often found. Their erring zeal hurries them far beyond the bounds of rational credibility, to the injury of the chriftian faith,