Part II: The Continuation of Religion

Above all, religion and the progress of the people ol i. God considered in this manner, is the greatest and "

CI ti ai most useful of all objectSi that can be proposed to man. }l How beautiful is it to take a review of the states of God's people, under the law of nature, and the patriarchs; under Moses, and the written law; under David, and the prophets; from the return out of captivity, until Jesus Cfhrist; and lastly, under Jesus Christ himself, that is, under the law of grace, and the gospel; in the ages that have expected the Af essiab, and in those, wherein he hath appeared; in those, wherein the worship of God was rcduce<i to one people, and in those, in which, agreeably to ancient prophecies, it was spread abroad over all the earth; in those, in fine, where men, yet full of infirmity aud grossness, stood in need of being supported by temporal rewards and punishments, and in those wherein the faithful, better instructed, are no longer to live but by faith, having their affections set upon eternal good and suifering, in hopes of possessing them, all the evils that can possibly exercise their patience* And, surely, Sir, tiothing can be conceived more worthy of God, than to have, first of alU Vft himself st people, who should be a of his eternal providence; a people, whose good or ill fortune should depend upon their piety or impiety, and whose condition should give testimony to the wisdom and justice of Him who governed them. With this did GK)d begin, and this did he make manifest in the Jewish people. But after having, by so many sen* sible proofs, established this immoveable foundation, that He is the sole and absolute disposer of all the events of this life, it was time to raise men's minds to higher notions, and to send Jesus Christ, for whom it was reserved to discover to new people, collected from all the nations of the world, the secrets of the life to come.

You may easily trace the history of both the old and new people, and observe, how Jesus Christ is tjieir common centre of union; since either expected, or giveU) He hath been, in all ages, the consolation and hope of the children of God.

Behold then religion ever uniform, or, rather, ever the same from the foundation of the world! The same God hath ever been acknowledged the maker, the same Christ, the saviour of mankind.

Thus you shall see, that there is nothing more ancient among men, than the religion you profess, and that it is not without reason your ancestors have placed their greatest glory in being protectors of it.

What a convincing testimony is it of the truth, to find, in the times wherein profane histories have nothing to tell us but fables, or at most confused, and half-forgotten facts, the scripture, which is, without dispute, the most ancient booK in the world, carries us back by so many precise events, and by the very chain of things, to their true principle, that is, God, the author of all; and points out to us so distinctly, the creation of the universe, that of man in particular, the happiness of his Sr&t state, the causes of his miseries and frailties, the corruption of the wo; Id, and the deluge, the origin of arts and the distribution of lands; in short, the propagation q( other matters of like importance, whereof human histories speak bat confusedly, and oblige us to seek elsewhere the certain sources of them.

But if the antiquity of religion gives it so much authority, its progress continued without interruption, or DteVation, during so many ages, and in spite of so many interposing obstacles, makes manifest the hand of God supporting it.

What can be more wonderful, than to behold it still subsist upon the same foundations from the beginning of the world, without either the idolatry and impiety which on all sides. surrounded it, or the tyrants, who have persecuted it, or the heretics and infidels, that have endeavoured to corrupt it, or the cowards, that have basely betrayed it, or its unworthy followers, who have dishonoured it by their crimes, or, in fine, the length of time, which alone is sufficient to destroy all human things; without any, or all of these, having ever been able, not to say, to extinguish, but even to alter it!.

If we now come to consider what idea that religion, whose antiquity we revere, gives us of her object, that is, of the first being, we shall confess her above all huraao cpnception, and worthy to be regarded, as come from God himself.

The God, whom the Jews, and Christians have ever worshipped, hath nothing in common with the divinities, full of imperfection, and even of vice, whom the rest of the world adored. Our God is a God, infinite, perfect, alone worthy to avenge wickedness, and to crown virtue, because He alone is holiness itself.

He is infinitely above that first cause, and first mover, whom the philosophers have owned, yet without adoring. Those of them who have been widest of the mark, have set forth to us a God, who, finding matter eternal and self-existent, as well as himself, took and by that matter, and its dispositions, which make: without ever being able to mailer is from itself, it was not to expect its. perfection from a foreign hand, and that, if God is infinite and perfect, He stood in no need of any thing but Himself, and his own Almighty will, to make whatsoever He pleased. But the God of our fathers, the of Abraham, the God, whose wonders Moses hath recorded to US, did not only put the world in order, but made it entirely both in its matter and form. Until he gave being, nothing had it but himself only. He is represented to us as the maker of all things, and as making all things by the word of his power, as well because He makes all things by reason, as because He makes all things without any trouble; and the performance of so great works costs Him but a single word, that is, it costs Him but to will it.

Now, to pursue the history of the creation, since we have begun it, Moses hath taught us, that this mighty architect, whose works cost Him so little, has been pleased to perform them at several times, and to create the universe in six days, to show that he does not act by necessity, or a blind impetuosity, as some philosophers have imagined. The sun darts forth at once, and without reserve, all the rays it has; but God, who acts by understanding, and with a sovereign liberty, applies his power where He pleases, and how far He pleases: and as in making the world by his word, He shows that nothing is hard to Him; so by making it at different times, He demonstrates, that He is master of his matter, of his action, of his whole undertaking; and that He has, in acting, no other rule than his own will, ever infallibly right in itself. This conduct of God lets us see also, that every thing proceeds immediately from His hand. The nations and philosophers, who have believed, that the earthy mixed with the water, and assisted, if you by the heat of the sun, had, of itself, and by its own -pruuucea nie piams ana animals, nave most grossly erred. The scripture hath given us to mderatandf that the clemetvU w Wvea, if the word of God do not lender them fruitAiI. Neither the earth, nor the water, nor the air, would ever have had the plants and animals we see in them, if God, who had made and prepared their matter, had not also formed it by his Almighty will, and given to every thing the seed proper for its multiplication in all ages.

Those who see the plants derive their spring and growth from the sun's genial heat, might possibly be apt to fancy that he is the creator of them. But the scripture exhibits to us the earth clothed with grass and all manner of plants, before ever the sun was created, that so we may conceive that every thing depends on God alone.

It pleased the great artificer to create the light, even before He reduced it to the form He gave it in the sun and stars; because he meant to teach us, that those great and glorious luminaries, of which some have thought fit to make deities, had in themselves, neither that precious and shining matter, whereof they were composed, nor that admirable form, to which we see them reduced.

In short, the account we have from Moses of the creation, discovers to us this great secret of true philosophy, that in God alone dwells all fullness and absolute power. Happy, wise. Almighty, alone self-sufficient. He acts without necessity, as He acts without need; never confined or cramped by matter, but makes of it what he pleases; because He it is, who hath given it, by his sole will and pleasure, the foundation of its being. By this sovereign right He turns it, He moulds it, He moves it, without any sort of difiiculty: all depends upon Him: and if, according to the order established in nature, one thing depends on another, for instance, the rise and progress of plants, upon the heat of the sun, it is by reason that the same God, who made all the parts of the hath been pleased to link them to one another, and to display wisdom by the wonderful concatenation.

But all that the holy scripture the creation of the universe} is nothing In compa*' rison of what it says of the creation of man.

Hitherto God had done all in a commanding waj:

Oen. I Let there be light: lei there be a firmament in the midst of the waters; let the waters be gathered together unto one place; let the dry land appear, and lei it bring forth:

let There be great to divide the day from the night;

let the waters bring forth fowl and fish: let the earth bring forth living after their several kinds.

But when he comes to the producing of man, Moses

4}en.L makes him talk in a new style: Let ms make saitb

He, in our after our likeness.

It is no longer that authoritative word of command, but one more mild, though no less efficacious. God holds council in Himself:' God excites himself, as it were, to signify to us, that the work he is now setting about, surpasses all the works he had till then performed.

Let us make man* God speaks within Himself; He speaks to some one who makes as well as He, to some one, of whom man is the creature and image 5 He speaks to another self; lie speaks to Him, by whom all things were made, to Him, who saith in his John gospel, Whatsoever things the Father doth, these also doth the Son likewise. In speaking to his Son, or with bis Son, He speaks at the same time, with the Almighty Spirit, equal to, and co-eternal with both.

It is a thing unknown in all the scripture language, that any other than God hath ever spoke of himselfin the plural number; Let us make. God himself deth not speak thus above two or three times in scripture: and this extraqrdinary style begins to appear, when He goes about the creation of man.

When God changes his language, and, in some sort, bis conduct too, it is not that he changes in Himself; but He shows us, that he is going to begin according to his eternal councils, a new order of things..

Thus man, so highly exalted above all the other creatures, whose geuenAvQU Moses had described to

US, is produced in a method entirely nenr. The Trinity begins to declare itself, in making a reasonable creature, whose intellectual operations are an imperfect image of those eternal operations whereby God is fruitful in Himself.

The word of counsel, which God makes use of, de* notes, that the creature, which is about to be made, is the only one, that can act by counsel and understanding. Alb the rest is no less extraordinary. Till now we had not seen, in the history of Genesis, the finger of God applied to corruptible matter. But to form the body ot man, Himsell takes earth; and that earth moulded by such a hand, receives the most beautiful figure, that hath ever yet appeared in the world.

That particular attention. which appears in God, when he is making of man, shows us, that he has a particular regard for him, though every thing else be immediately conducted by his wisdom.

But the manner in which he produces the soul, is far more wonderful: he does not extract it from matter; be inspires it from above: it is a breath of life, that proceeds forth from himself

When He created the beasts, He said. Let ike wa* ter bring forth Jishes; and after this manner He created the sea-monsters, and every moving creature that hath life, that was to fill the waters. He said also. Let the earth bring forth every living creature, cattle, and g-*- creeping thing. Thus were to spring those living souls, of a brutish and bestial life, to whom God allots no other sphere of action, than some motions dependent on the body. God calls them forth from the womb of the waters, and of the earth; but that soul, whose life was to be an imitation of his own, which was to live as himself by reason smd understanding, which was to be united to Him, by contemplating And loving Him, and which on that account was made in his image, could not be derived from matter. Gody in fashioning matter, may but turn or fashion it bow He will, He never will find in it his own image and likeness. The soul, made after his image and capable of being happy in the enjoyment of Him, must be produced by a new creation; it must come from above; and this is what is signified by that breath of life, which God breathes from bis mouth.

Let us always remember, that Moses set forth to carnal men, by sensible images, pure and intellectual truths.

Let us not fancy that God breathes after the manner of animals. Let us not fancy that our soul is a subtle air, or thin vapour. The breath, which God inspires, and ivhich bears in itself the image of God, is neither air nor vapour. Let us not believe, that our soul is a portion of the divine nature, as some philosophers have dreamed. God is not a whole that can be divided. Though God should have parts, they would not be created ones. For the creator, the uncreated being, could not be composed of creatures. The soul is made, and so made that it is no part of the divine nature; but only a substance made after the image and likeness of the divine nature; a substance, that is ever to continue united to Him that formed it. This is the meaning of that divine breathing ] this is what that breath of life represents to us.

Behold, then, man formed! God forms also out of him, the companion He is pleased to give All men spring from one marriage, in order to be for ever but one and the same family, however dispersed or multiplied.

Our first parents, thus formed, are placed in that delightful garden, which is called paradise: God owed to himself to make his image happy.

He gives a command to man, to let him know, that he hath a master; a command relating to a sensible thing, because man was made with senses; an easy command, because he would render his life as comfortable, as it should be innocent.

Man does not keep a SQ lie hearkens to the tempting spirit, and to himself, instead of hearkening to God only: his fall is inevitable; but we must consider it in its origin, as well as in il$ consequences.

God had, at the beginning, made his angels pure spirits, and distinct from all matter. He who makes nothing but what is good, had created them all in holiness, and they had it in their power to secure their felicity, by a voluntary submission to their creator. But whatever is derived from nothing is defective. A part of those angels suffered themselves to be seduced by self-love. Wo to the creature that delights in itself, and not in God! ft loses in a moment all its gifts. Strange efiect of sin! those spirits of light became spirits of darkness: they had no longer any light, but what turned to mJicious cunning. A malignant envy now took place of love: their native greatness now was only pride; their happiness was changed into the dismal comfort of getting themselves companions in their misery, and their former blessed exercises to the execrable employment of tempting men. The niost perfect of them all, who had also been the most proud, proved the most mischievous, as he was the most miserable. Man, tvhom God had made a Utile lower than the by uniting him to a body, be-came an object of jealousy to so perfect a spirit: he wanted to draw him into his rebellion, that he might afterwards involve him in his destruction. Let us hear how he bespeaks him, and dive to the bottom of his artifices. He addresses himself to Eve, as the weaker vessel: but in the person of he speaks to her husband as well as to her: hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? If He hath made you reasonable creatures, you ought to know the reason of every thing: this fruit is not poison t Ye nuf dice Bebold, how the spirit of revolt begins! The command is disputed, and the obedience is brought into doubt. Ye shall he as gods y free and dependent, happ/ in yourselves, wvA

J ourselves; ye shall know good and evil: notbiog shall e impenetrable to you. By these persuasive arguments does the deluding spirit set himself up against the creator's order, and above his rule. Eve, balfgained, looks upon the fruit, whose beauty promised ufe. a- pleasant taste. Finding that God had united in man a soul and body, she thought, that in favour of man, he might possibly have also annexed to plants supernatural virtues, and intellectual giftd to sensible objects. After eating of this beautiful fruit, she presented of it also to her husband* Behold him dangerously attacked! Example and complaisance add strength to the temptation: be is beguiled into the sentiments of the tempter, so powerfully backed j a deceitful curiosity, a flattering thought of pride, the secret thought of acting spontaneous, and according to one's own inclinations, allure and blind him: he is willing to make a dangerous trial of his liberty, and tastes, with the forbidden fruit, the pernicious sweets of pleasing his fancy; the senses mmgle their allurements with this new charm, he follows them, he submits to them, he makes himself their slave> who was before their master.

At the same time every thing changes to him. The earth smiles no longer upon him as formerly; he shall have no more from thence, but by the sweat of bis brow; the sky has no more that serenity of air: the animals, which all, even the most odious and fiercei were wont to afford him an innocent pastime, assume to him hideous forms. God, who had made thing for his turns every thing in a moment

into his punishment. He is a burden to himself, who had enjoyed such self complacency. The rebellion of his senses makes him observe in himself somewhat shameful. It is no more that first work of the creator, in which all was comely. Sin hath nmda m. nt>va work, that needeth to be bid. Man can no longer support his shame, and would fain cover it from his own eyes. But God becomes still moce to him.

Tbat great God, who bad made bim after bis likeness, and bad given bim senses, as a necessary belp to bis understanding, was pleased, sometimes, to sbow bim-self to him under a sensible form: roan can no longer endure bis presence. He seeks the deepest recesses of the woods, to bide himself from the presence of formerly was bis whole happiness. His conscience accuses biro before ever God speaks. His woful excuses complete bis confusion. He must die: the remedy of immortality is taken from him, and a more dreadful death, namely, that of the soul, is figured to him by that bodily death, to which he is condemned. But behold our sentence virtually pronounced in bis! God who bad resolved to reward bis obedience in all his posterity, the moment he fell from it| condemns and smites him, not only in bis own person, but also in all his children, as in the most tender and dearest part of himself: we are all cursed in our first principle: our birth is tainted and infected in its source.

Let us not here pretend to examine those terrible rules of divine justice, by which the biiraan race is cursed in its original. Let us adore the judgments of God, who looks upon all men as one, in bim, from whom he means to make all proceed. Let us also look upon ourselves as degraded in our rebellious parent, as stigmatized for ever by the sentence, tnat dooms him, as banished with bim, and excluded paradise, which he ought to have preserved for our birth* place.

The rules of human justice may help us to enter into the depths of divine justice, whereof they are a shadow: but they can never discover to us the bottom of that abyss. Let us believe that the justice, as well as mercy of God, will not be measured by those of men, and that both have far more extensive and profound.

But whilst God's severities upon mankind alarm us, let us admire, how he turns our eyes to

Under the figure of the serpent, whose j*S 'crooked windings were a lively image of the dangerous insinuations, and fallacious devices of the evil spirit, God shows our mother Eve her enemy vanquished, and points out to her that blessed seed, which was to bruise her vanquisher's head, that is, to humble his

?ride, and pull down his empire, over the whole earth. *his blessed seed was Jesus Christ, the son of a virgin; that Jesus Christ, in whom alone Adam had not sinned, because he was to spring from Adam in a divine manner, and to be conceived, not by man, but by the Holy Ghost.

But before the Saviour should be given us, it was fit mankind should by a long experience know, the Deed they had of such a succour. Man was then left to himself, his inclinations became corrupt, bis enormities went beyond all bounds, and iniquity covered the whole face of the earth.

Then God meditated a vengeance, the remembrance of which he resolved should never be blotted out from men: that of the universal flood, the memory of which accordingly is still lasting in, all nations, as well as that of the wickedness which occasioned it.

Let men no longer fancy, that the world moves alone; and that what has been, shall always be, as being of Itself. God, who hath made all things, and by whom all tbinss subsist, is about to drown both man and beast, that is, he is about to destroy the most beautiful part of his work.

He had need of nothing, besides himself, to destroy what he had made, by a word: but he judged it more worthy of him to make bis creatures the instrument of his vengeance, and he calls the waters to ravage the land already overflowed with wickedness.

There was found in it however, one just man.

God, before he saved him from the deluge of waters,

; had preserved him by his grace from the deluge of joiqaiiy. His family was reserved to replenish the eanby which was about Vo be >uV solitude. By the cares of that righteous person, God saves the aoimalsi that so man may understand, they are made for him, and subjected to bis dominion by tkeir creator.

The world becomes new again, and the earth once more rises out of the bosom of the waters but in this new world there remains an eternal impression of the diViae vengeance. Until the flood, all nature was stronger! and more vigorous; by that immense body of waters, which God brought upon the earth, and by their long continuance on it, the juices it contained were altered; the air, clogged with an excessive moisture, strengthened the principles of corruption; and the old constitution of the world being thus weakened, tibe life, which before would run to near a thousand years, gradually decreased: herbs and fruits had no longer their former strength, and there was a necessity for giving men a more substantial food in the " flesh of animals.

Thus by degrees were to disappear and wear out the remains of the primitive institution; and nature changed gave man intimation, that God was no more the same to him, since he bad been provoked by so many crimes.

Moreover, that long life of the primitive men corded in the annals of the people of God, has notHesto. been unknown to other nations, and their ancient ditions have preserved the memory of it. Death &d- vancing with swifter steps, caused men to feel a speed- Joseph ier vengeance; and as they daily plunged deeper and 4. Heiu deeper into wickedness, it was fit they should be wise, so to speak, daily plunged deeper in their punishment.

The single change of diet might have intimated to them, how much was growing worse, since by becoming weaker, they at the same time became more voracious and bloody. Before the time of the deluge, the food men found without violence in the fiutts, which fell of their own acccnrd, ttad mXVxt which also dried so fast, was, doubtless, some remaids of the primitive innoceocey and of the mildness to which we were formed. Now for our nourishment we must spill blood, in spite of the horror it naturally excites in us; and all the refinements we make use of to cover our tables, are srarce sufficient to disguise to us the carcases we must devour tu satisfy us.

But that is the smallest part of our misfortunes. Life, already shortened, is still more abridged by the violences introducing among mankind. Man, whom we saw in the primitive times sparing the life of beasts, now accustomed not to spare even that of his ellow-creatures. In vain did Ood, presently after the deluge, forbid the shedding of human blood: in vain, to preserve some vestiges of the mildness of our naGeiiix.ture, while he allowed to eat the flesh of beasts, had be reserved the blood. Murders multiplied without measure. It is true, that before the flood Cain had Gen. sacrificed bis brother to his jealousy. Lamech, sprung niuju from Cain, h&d committed the second murder, and we may believe that more were committed after those damnable examples. But wars were not yet invented. It was after the deluge, that appeared those ravagers of provinces, called conquerors, who, incited by the sole glory of command, have exterminated so many innocent persons. Gea.!. Nimrod, a cursed spawn of Ham, who was cursed by his father, began the making of war, only to establish an empire to himself. From that time ambition hath wantonly sported with the lives of men: nay, they came the length of killing each other in cold blood: the height of glory, and the most noble of all arts, was to put one another to death.

Such were the beginnings of the woUd, as the history of Moses represents them to us: beginnings happy at first, but afterwards bie with mischiefs: with respect to God, who makes all things ever admirable; 8uch| in short, that we learn by revolving them in our miod, to <;onsider the universe and mankind ever UMr d€r the band of the creator, brought out of nothing by his word, preserved by his goodness, governed by his wisdom, punished by his justice, delivered by his mercy, and ever subject to his power.

This is not the universe philosophers have conceived it, formed, according to some, by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, or which, according to the wisest of them, furnished its matter to its author, which conseqfuently depends on him, neither in the esbence of its being, nor first estate, and ties him up to certain laws, which himself cannot violate.

Moses, and our ancient fathers, whose traditions Moses hath collected, afford us other notions. The God he hath declared to us, hath a very different power: be can do and undo just as he pleases; he giveth laws to nature, and abrogates them when he will.

If, in order to make himself known in times, when the greatest pftrt of cnea had forgot him. He wrought astonishing miracles, and forced nature to recede from ber most constant laws. He by so doing, continued to demonstrate, that He was her absolute master, and that his will is the only bond, that keeps up the order of the world.

And this was just what men had forgot: the stability of so beautiful an order served now only to persuade them, that that order had ever been, and that it waf from itself: whereby they were prompted to worship either the world in generals or the stars, the elements, and, in short, all those great bodies which compose it* God hath therefore shown to mankind a goodness wor« thy of himself, in reversing, upon remarkable occasions, that order, which not only no longer struck them, because they were accustomed to it, but which even prompted them, so grossly were they blinded, to imagine eternity and independence elsewhere than in God.

The histoiy of the people of God attested by its own progression, and by the religion, as well of those who wrote it, as of those, who have preserved it with SD much care, has kept, as in a idSM\A

I memory of those miracles, and gires us thereby a true idea of the supreme dominion of God, Almicbty master of bis creatures, whether to hold them subject to the general laws he hath established, or to give them others, when he judges it necessary by some surpris* ing stroke to awasen sleeping mankmd.

Such is the God, whom Moses hath proposed to us in his writings, as the only one we ought to serve; such the Gud, whom the patriarchs worshipped before ever was; in a word, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; to whom our father Abraham was willing to offer up his only son; of whom Melchisedec, the type of Jesus Christ, was high priest; to whom our father Noah sacrificed, upon coming out of the ark; whom righteous Abel had acknowledged in offering to him of his most precious substance; whom Seth, given to Adam instead of Abel, had made known to his children, called also the children of God; whom Adam himself bad set forth to his descendants, as himi out of whose hands he had lately come, and* who alone could put an end to the woes of his unhappy po8« terity.

O excellent philosophy, which eives us such pure ideas of the author of our being Excellent tradition, that preserves to us the memory of his glorious works! How holy the people of God, since by an uninterrupt* ed succession, from the foundation of the world down to our days, they have ever preserved so holy a tradi* tion and philosophy! VL But as the people of God began under the patriarch bwT Abraham, to take a more regular form, it will be ne* Sir, to dwell with you a little upon that great ''• man-He was bom about three hundred and fifty years after the flood, at a time, when human life, thouch re* duced to narrower limits, was still very long. Ifoah was but just dead; Shem his eldest son was yet alive, mdA Abraham might have passed the most of his days vrith bim.

figure then to yourself the world still new, and still, SO to speak, drenched in the waters of the deluge, when men, so near the origin of things, bad no occasion, in order to know the unity of God, and the ser« Tice that was due to him, for any thing but the tradition which bad been preserved of it from Adam and Noah: a tradition otherwise so cpnformable to the light of reason, that one would have thought so clear and important a truth could never have been darkened or forgotten among men. Such is the first state of religion, which continued down to Abraham, when to know the greatness of God, men had only to consult their reason and memory.

But reason was weak and corrupted, and lionablj as men removed further from the origin ot\ things, they confounded the ideas they had received from their ancestors. The untoward, or ill-taught children, would no longer believe their old decrepit grand-sires, whom they scarcely knew after so many

{generations; human sense brutified» (if I may be owed the term) could rise no more to intellectual ob- ' jects, and men choosing no longer to worship aught but what they saw, idolatry diffused itself over the whole world.

The spirit, who had beguiled the first man, tasted now, the full fruit of his seduction, and beheld the complete effect of his saying, ye shaUbe as gods. From the moment he uttered it, he designed to confound in men the idea of God with that of the creature, and to a name, whose majesty consists in being incommunicable. His ETcheme succeeded. Men swallowed up in flesh and blood, bad, however, preserved an obscure idea of the divine power, which maintained itself by its own force; but being blended with the image, that entered by their senses, made them fall dowR and worship all things in which there appeared any activity or power/ Thus the sun and stars, which made their mfluences felt at such a distance, the fire and elementSi whose effects were so uni?ersal| became fhe first objects of public adoraiion. The great kings and conquerors, who were so mighty in the earth, and the authors of inventions useful to human had soon aAer divine honours paid them. Men subjected themselves to the tyranny of their senses; the senses decided every thing, and made, in spite of reason, all the gods that were adored upon earth.

How wide!/ distant did man now seem from bis first institution! nd how was the imase of Ood defaced in him! Could God have made him with those per* verse inclinations, that were daily more and more declaring themselves? And did not that amazing pro* pensity he had to submit to every thing but bis natu* ral Lord, betray too visibly the strange hand, by which God's workmanship had been so deeply altered in the, human mind, that scarce could &ny trace ofit be found? Driven by that blind impulse which swayed him, he hurriied into idolatry, nor was any thing able to stop his career. So great an evil made a wonderful prog-tess. But lest it should infect all mankind, and extinguish the knowledge of God, that great God, called from on high his servant Abraham, in whose family ho meant to establish his worship, and preserve the ancient belief, as well of the creation of the universe, as of the particular providence, with which he governs human things.

Abraham has ever been celebrated in the east. It is not only the Hebrews that look upon him as their fa-

the Idumeans boast the same original. Ish*

mael, the son of Abraham, is known among the Arar bians, as the fountain from whence they sprung. Cir*

is continued with them, as the mark of

3t- their origin, and they have at all times received it, not on the eighth day, after the manner of the Jews, but their thirteenth year, as the scripture informs us, it

given to their father Ishmael; a custom which

among the Mahometans. Other Arabian

nations commemorate Abraham and Keturah, and wsSitbejr are the 'same the scripture derives from that

. jnarriagt. This patriarch was a and diosecat

Eeople, famed (or their astrooomical obserrations, aye counted Abraham as one of their most learned observers. The Syrian historians have made him ■{»<>• king of Damascus though a stranger, and cume from the confines of Babylon, and they tell that he quitted the kingdom of Damascus, in order to settle in the country of the Canaanites, afterwards called Judea. ul But it is better worth while to observe what the his-xiu ii. tory of the people of God relates to us concerning ounu. this ereat man. We have seen, that Abraham follow- «d the kind of life, which the ancients did before the world was reduced into kingdoms. He reigned bis family, with which he embraced that pastoral go noted for its simplicity and innocence; rich in flocks, in slaves, and in money; but without lands, and without inheritance, and yet he lived in a foreign Er/ixkingdom, respected, and independent as a prince. His piety and integrity, protected by God, won him SSuLc. this respect. He treated as an equal with kings, who courted his alliance, and thence came to the ancient opinion, that he made himself a king. Though his Ufe was simple and peaceful, he knew how to make war, but only in defence of bis oppressed allies. He defended them, and revenged them by a signal victory. He restored them all their riches, retaken from the emies, without reserving any thing, but the which he offered to God, and the portion that belonged to the auxiliary troops which he had carried to battle. Moreover, after so great a service, he refused to receive the presents of the kings with an paralleled magnanimity, and could not endure that any man should boast, he had made Abraham rich. He would owe nothing but to God who protected him, and whom alone he followed with perfect faith and obedience.

Guided by that faith he had left his native country, to come into a land which God showed him. God, who bad called him, and rendered him worthy of his covenant, concluded it upon these conditions. He declared to him that he would be bis and i9- the God of his children, that is, that he would be their protector, and that they should serre him as the only God, creator of heaven and earth. He promised to htm and to his seed after Am, a land (namely that of Canaan) for an everlasting posses- and for the seat of religion. Abraham had no children, and Sarah his wife \t.c6. was barren. God sware to him by himself, and by his eternal truth*, that of him and that woman should spring a nation, that should equal the stars of heaven, and the sand of the sea for multitude.

But here comes the most memorable article of the divine promise. All nations were running headlong into idolatry. God promised to the holy patriarch, xvui48.that in him, and in his seed, all those blinded nations, which had forgot their creator, should be blessed, that is, restored to the knowledge of him, wherein alone true blessing is to be found.

By this saying Abraham is made father of the faithful, and his posterity is chosen to be the source, whence the blessing is to flow throughout the whole earth*

In this promise was included the coming of the Messiab, so Often foretold to our fathers, but always foretold as him, who was to be the saviour of the Grentiles, and of all the nations of the world.

Thus that blessed seed promised to Eve, became also the seed and offspring of Abraham.

Such is the foundation of the covenant; such its conditions. Abraham received the token of it in cumcision, a ceremony, the proper effect of which was to signify, that that holy man belonged to God witk all his family.,

Abraham was childless when G04I began to bless

»r.2r his race. God gave him no seed for several years.

A/lervrards be had Ishmael, who was to be father oi a great but not of that chosen people so loDg promised to Abrabam. The father oi the chosen people was to spring from biro, and bis wife Sarah, who was barren. At length, thirteen years after Ish- mael, came that so long wished for child: he was named Isaac, that is a child of joy, a child of miracle, a child of promise who shows by bis birth, that the true children of Ood are bom of grace.

This blessed child was now grown up, and uf an age SS.' in which his father might expect other children bj him, when ail of a sudden God him to offer him up. To what trials is faith exposed! Abraham carried lisaac to the mountain which God had told him of, and was going to sacrifice that son, in whom alone, God promised to make him father both of his people and of the Messiah. Isaac presented bis bosom to the knife, which his father held ready to pierce it. God, satisfied with the obedience of both father and son, wants no more of them. After these two great men had given the world so lively and beautiful a type of the voluntary oblation of Jesus Christ, and tasted in smrit the bitterness of the cross, they are judged truly worthy to be bis ancestors. The faith- fulness of Abraham makes God confirm to him all his promises, and bless anew not only his family, but also m his family, all the nations of the earth.

Accordingly, he continued bis protection to Isaao his son, and Jacob his grandson. They were imitators of him, adhering like him to the primitive faith, to the primitive way of life, which was the pastoral, to the primitive government of mankind, where every father of a family was prince in his house. Thus, amidst the changes daily introducing among men, holy antiquity revived in religion, and in the behaviour of 4i:)raham and his children.

Therefore (jod repeated to Isaac and to Jacob, the promises he had made to Abraham; and as be had called himself the God of Abrabam, be took also the 13, name of the God of Isaac, and of lh« God ol

Under his protection those three greit men begun to sojourn in the land of Canaan: but only as stran* gers, and without possessine; a foot of land in it; till the lamine drew Jacob into Egypt, where his children multiplying, soon became a great nation ab God had

Moreover, though that people whom God caused to be born in his covenant, was to be propagated by generation, and though the blessing was to Follow the blood, that great Ood, nevertheless, manifested in them the election of his grace. For, after having chosen Abraham from amidst the nations, among the children of Abraham he chose Isaac, and of Isaac's twins he chose Jacob, to whom be gave the name of Israel.

Jacob bad twelve children, who were the twelve pa* triarcbs, beads of the twelve tribes. They all were to enter into the covenant: but Judah was chosen among all his brethren, to be father of the kings of Israel, and father of the Messiah, so long promised to his ancestors.

The time was to come, that ten tribes being cut off from the people of God, for their infidelity, the pos* terity of Abraham should preserve their primitive blessing, that is, religion, the land of Canaan, and the hopes of the Messiah, only in the tribe of Judafai which was to give name to the rest of the Israelites, who were called Jews and to the whole country which was named Judea.

Thus the divine election appears still, eren in that carnal people, who were to be presenred by ordinary propagation.

Jacob saw in spirit the secret of this election. When he was about to die, and his children around his bed were craving the blessing of so good a father, God discovered to him the state of the twelve tribes, when they should be in the promised land: he unfolded i% in a few words, and those few words contain rable mysteries.

Tbough all he says of Judah's brethren be expressed with an extraordinary dignity, and bespeaks a man transported beyond himself by the spirit of God; yet when he comes to Judah, he rises still higher. Judahj says he, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise; thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies: thy father* s children shall bow down before thee. Judah ts a whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion: who shall rouse him up? The sceptre, (that is, the authority,) shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver i from between his feet, uxdl Shiioh and unto him I ' shall the gathering qfthe people be: or, according to another reading, which is, perhaps, no less ancient, but which in the main differs nothing from this, until he whom things are and the rest as we have above recited it.

The sequel of the prophecy literally refers to the country which the tribe of Judah was to possess in the holy land. But the former part of it, take it how we will, can signify nothing else, than Him, who was to be the son of God, the minister and interpreter of his will, the accomplishment of his promises, and the king of the new people, that is, the Messiah, or the Liord's anointed.

Jacob speaks of hi ra expressly to Judah only, from whom that Messiah was to spring: he comprehends JD the destiny of Judah alone that of the whole nation, which, after its dispersion, was to see the of the other tribes re*united under Judah's standards.

All the terms of the prophecy are clear: there is only the word sceptre, which the custom of our Ian* guage might make us take for the royalty alone; whereas, in the sacred language, it signifies, in general, power, authority, magistracy. This use of the word 18 to be met with in evenr page of scripture: it pears even manifestly in Jacob's prophecy; and the patriarch means, that in the days of the Messiah all authority should cease ia the house of Judah, which implies the total overthrow of a state.

Thus the times of the Messiah are marked out here by a double change. By the first the kingdom of Ju* dab, and of the Jewish nation, is threatened with its final ruin. By the second, there is to arise a new king* dom, not only of one people, but of aU nations, of whom the Messiah is to be the head and hope. li. 1st. In scripture style, the Jewish people is called in the RonLz. singular number, and by way of eminence, the uiiior, the people of God; and when we find many or, the nations f those who are versed in the scriptureSi understand the other nations, who bad been ako pro* mised to the Messiah in the prophecy of Jacob.'

That great prophecy in a few words» the whole history of the Jewish people, and of the Christ, who is promised to them. It points out the whole progress of the people of nor is its effect yet ceased.

But 1 do not intend to make you a commentary upon it: you will have no occasion for that, since by barely observing the progress of the people of Ood, you will see the sense of the oracle unfolded of itself, and simple events shall be its interpreters* uSSL the death of Jacob, people of God so-or the journed in Egypt, till the time of the mission of that is, about two hundred years. Thus 4dO years passed away, before God gavie bis oHbr land he had promised them. He meant to accustom his elect to rely upon his promise, with firm confidence, that it would be fulfilled or later, and always in the time appointed by his eternal providence. iniquity of the Amorites, whose land and be resolved to give them, was not yet, as he declares to Abraham, come to the height for which he waited, in order to deliver them up to the severe and unpitying vengeance, that he intended to wreak upon theoi bjr the jbands of his chosen people.

was fit to give ihia people time to multiply, so to be in a conditioD to fill the land, that was destined them, and to take possession of it by force, by exterminating its inhabitants accursed of God.

He was willing that tbey should undergo in Egypt a bard and insupportable captivity, that wtien delivered by unheard of wonders, they might love their and eternally celebrate bis mercies.

Such was the order of God's counsels, as he himself hath revealed them, in order to teach us to fear Him, to adore Him, to love Him, and to wait for Him with faith and patience.

The time being arrived, be hears the cries of bis people cruelly afflicted by the Egyptians, and sends Moses to deliver his children from their tyranny.

He makes himself known to that great man, more than he bad ever done to any man living. lie appears to him in a manner equally glorious and comforting: he declares to him, that b6 is He, who is. All that is before him is but a shadow. I am, says he, that lam: being and perfection belong to Me alone. He assumes a new name, which denotes being and life in Him as in their source; and it is, under that great name of God, terrible, mysterious, incommunicable, that he will henceforth be served.

I shall not give you a particular detail of the plagues fx?«. of Egypt, or of the hardness of Pharaoh's heart, or of the iMissage of the Red Sea, or of the thunderings, lightnings, noise of the trumpet, or of the smoke that was seen by the people on Mount Sinai. God there wrote with bis own hand, upon two tables of stone, the fundamental precepts of religion and society: he dictated the rest to Moses with a loud voice. To maintain this law in its full force, he bad ordevs to form a venerable assembly of seventy elders, which '*" might be called the senate of the people of God, and the perpetual council of the nation- God appeared publicly, and caused bis law to be \tv

34G AN UxNIVEUfeAL HISTORY.

presence, with an astonishing demonstration offals majesty and power.

Till then God bad given nothing in writing, that could be a rule to man. The children of Abraham had only circumcisiony and the ceremonies, that ac» companied it, as a token of the covenant, which God bad made with that chosen race. They were distinguished by this token from the nations that worshiped ikise deities: moreover, they preserved themselves in God's covenant, by the remembrance they bad of the promises made to their fathers, and were known as a people, who served the God of Abrahami Isaac and Jacob. God ivas so strangely forgot, that it was necessary to distinguish him by the name of those who had been his worshipers, and of whom he was also the declared protector.

This great God would no longer leave to the bare memory of men the mysteries, of religion, and of his covenant. It was time to set stronger barriers to idolatry, which was overflowing all mankind, and like to extinguish totally the remains of natural light.

Ignorance and blindness had prodigiously increased in the days of Abraham. In his time, and a little after, the knowledge of God appeared also in Pales-tine and in Egypt. Melchizedek, king of Salem, was S?*i8 priest of the Most High God, possessor of heaven m.' 'and earth. Abimelecb king of Gerar, and his success sor of the same name, feared God, sware by his name, admired his power. The threatenings of this 23.' great God were dreaded by Pharaoh, king of Egypt; in Moses's time, those nations were perverted. STit, The true God was no more known in Egypt, as the God of all the nations of the world, but as the God of the Hebrews. Men worshiped the beasts and Kxod. reptiles. Every thing was god, but God himself; and world which God had made to manifest his power, seemed to have become a temple of idols. Mankind went so grossly astray, as to worship their own vices nnd passions *, nor must we bo. at it. There was no power more unavoidable, or more tyrannical than theirs. Man, accustomed to think every thing divine, that was powerful, as he felt hiniself drawn to vice by an irresistible force, came easily to believe that force without him, and soon made a God of it.

Thence it was that unchaste love iiad so many tars, and that the most horrid impurities began to be mingled with the sacrifices.

Cruelty entered into them at the same time. Guilty man, racked with the sense of his wickedness, and looking upon ih« deitj 10 an •nomy, thought he could not appease him with ordinary victims. He must shed human blood along with that of beasts: a blind fear drove fathers to offer up their children, and to burn them to their gods instead of incense. These sacrifices were common in the days of Moses, and made hut a part of those horrible iniquities of the Amorites, whose vengeance God committed to the Israelites.

But they were not peculiar to those people. It well known, that in all nations of the world, excepting one, men have sacrificed their fellow crea-GaLvi. tures; and there is not a place on the face of the nb?Lr. earth where they have not served some of those dis- ™' mal and shocking deities, whose implacable hatred to mankind required such sort of victims. Sbjm,

Amidst so much ignorance, man came to worship the very work of. his own hands. He thought himself able to lodge divinity in statues, and so profoundly got that God had made him, that he thought in his turn he might m?ike a god. Who could believe it, did not experience convmce us, that so stupid and brutal an error was not only the most universal, but even the most inveterate and incorrigible among men. Thus we must own, to the confusion of mankind, that the first truths, that truth which the world proclaims, that truth, whose is the most powerful, was now the farthest from the sight of man. Tradition, which preserved it in their minds, though yet and sufficiently present

Plin.

lib.

zxx.

Athen.

tentive to it, was ready to vanish away; monstrous fables, as full of impiety as extravagance, assumed lis place* The moment was come, when the truth, so ill kept in the memory of men, could no longer be preserved but by writing: and God having, moreover, resolved to form his people to virtue by laws more expressly, and in greater number, he resolved at the same time to give them in writing.

Moses was called to this work. That great man collected the the history of past ages, those of Adam» Noah, Abraham, laaac, Jacob, and that of Joseph, or, rather that of God himself, ainl of his wondrous acts.

Ho had no need to dig very deep for the traditions of his ancestors. He was born an hundred years after the death of Jacob. The old of his time might have conversed several years with that holy patriarch: the memory of Joseph, and of the wonders God had done by that great minister of the kings of Egypt, was still fresh. Two or three men's lives reached as far back as Noah, who had seen the children of Adam, and touched, so to speak, the origin of things.

Thus the ancient traditions of mankind, and those of Abraham's family, were not hard to recollect: the memory of them was yet alive, and we need not won* der if Moses, in his Genesis, speaks of things that pencd in the first ages as certamties, of which.too there were still to be seen remarkable monuments, both in the neighbouring nations, and in the land of Canaan.

Whilst Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had inhabited that land, they had every where erected monuments of the things which had befallen them. There were still to be shown the places where they bad inhabited; the wells they had digged in those dry countries, to water their families and flocks; the mountains, where** on they had sacrificed to God, and on which be bad appeared to them; the stones they had erected or piled up, for a memorial to posterity; and the tombs, whexwi their sacted

N

AN UiNlVEKSAL HISTOttV.

The memory of those great men was recent, not only in the whole country, but likewise over ail the east; where several famous nations have never forgot that they came of their race.

Thus, when the Hebrew people entered the promised land, every thing there celebrated their ancestors; both cities and mountains, nay the very stones there spoke of those wondrous men, and of the astonishing visions, by which God had confirmed them in the prim* itive and true belief.

They, that are ever so little acquainted with antiquity, know how curious the first times were in erecting and preserving such monuments, and how care* fuiJy posterity retained the occasions, on which they had been set up. This was one way of writing history: stones have pome since to be fashioned and polished: and statues have succeeded, after pillars, to the gross and solid masses erected in the first times.

We have even great reason to believe, that in the lineage (vherein the knowledge of God was preserved, they preserved also in writing, memoirs of ancient times.

For men have never been without this care. At least, it is certain, that a sort of carols or songs were made, which fathers taught their children; and which, being sung at the feasts and assemblies, perpetuated the memory of the most signal actions of past ages.

This gave birth to poetry, varied, in process of time, into several forms, the most ancient of which is still preserved in the odes and hymns used by all the ancients, and even at present by the nations, who have Dot the use of letters, to pratise the deity and great men.

The style of those canticles is bold, uncommon, yet natural, in that it is suited to represent nature in its transports, bounding, for that reason, by quick and impetuous sallies, free from the ordinary ties, which regular discourse requires, at \Ue

Deut xnii.

J50 AN UNIVERSAL mSTORT.

hended in harmonious numbers vrblcb aogment its force; it surprises the ear, catches the imagination, moves the heart, and more easily imprints itself upon the memory.

Among all the nations of the world, that in which such songs were most in use, was the people of God. Moses mentions a great many of them, which he de-p-ioiL nominates by the first verses, because the people knew ''"' the rest. He made two of this kind himself. The first sets before our eyes the triumphant passage of the Red Sea, and the enemies of the people of God, some already drowned, and others half dead with fear. By the second, Moses confounds the ingratitude of the people, by celebrating the goodness and wonders of God. Following ages imitated him. It was God and bis wondrous ivorks, that made the subject of the odes they composed: God inspired them himself, and there was properly none but the people of God to whom poetry came by inspiration.

Jacob had pronounced in this mystical language, the oracles, which contained the destiny of his children, that so each tribe might the more easily retain what concerned it, and learn to praise him, who was no'Iess glorious in his predictions, than faithful in their accomplishment.

Such be the means, which God made use of, to preserve down to Moses the memory of things past. That great man, instructed by all these means, and raised above them by the Holy Ghost, hath wrote the works of God, with an exactness and simplicity, which at* tracts belief and admiration, not to him, but to God himself.

He joined to things past, which contained the origin, and ancient traditions of God's people, the wonoers which God actually wrought for their deliverance. Of this he produces to the Israelites bo other witness thaD their own eyes. Moses does not tell them things that pass* ed in impenetrable recesses, and deep winding caves;

be does not speak iQ cloudb; be particularises.

and circumstantiates every thing, as a man, who is not afraid to be belied. He founds all their laws, and their whole constitution on the wonders they had seen. Those wonders were nothing less than nature changed all of a sudden, upon different occasions, for their deliverance, and for the punishment of their enemies; the sea the dry land disclosed, a bearenly bread, abundant water gushing from the rocks at the stroke of a rod, heavens giving them a visible signsd to direct their march, and other like miracles, which they saw for forty years-

The people of Israel were no more intelligent, or more refined than the other nations, who being wholly given up to their senses, could not conceive an invis* ible God. On the contrary, they were gross and re* bellious, as mucbj or more than any other people. But that God, though invisible in his nature, rendered himself so perceptible by continual miracles, and Moses inculcated them with so much energy, that at last this carnal people suffered themselves to be touched by that pure idea of a God, who made all by his word; of a God, who was only spirit, only reason and intelligence.

In this manner, while idolatry, so greatly increased since Abraham, covered the whole face of the earth, the sole posterity of that patriarch was exemjit from it. Their enemies bore them this testimony, and the nations, wherein the truth of tradition was not yet wholly extinguished, cried out with astonishment. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacobs neither hath he seen per- terseness in Israel. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacobs neither is there any divination against Jurael: the Lord his God it and the shout of a king is among them.

In order to imprint on their minds the unity of God, and the perfect uniformity he required in his often repeats, that in the promised land one God would choose a place, in which alone the fcastS; the aad the yiMq ' ll2i uld be perrormed. In the meantime, till this desired place should be found, while the people wandered in the wilderness, Moses built the tabernacle, a moving temple, where the children of Israel presented their petitions to the God, who had made heaven and earth, and who thought no scorn to journey, if I may so say, along with them, and to be their guide.

Upon this principle of religion, upon this sacred foundation was the whole law built; a law holy, just, and good, wise, provident, and simple, which connected the society oi men with one another, by the sacred society of man with God. To these holy institutions he added noble ceremonies, feasts, which recalled the wviil. memory of the miracles, whereby the children of Israel had been delivered; and, what no other lawgiver had ever presumed to do, express assurances, that all should go well with them, so long as they lived subject to the law, whereas their disobedience should be pursued with nianifest and inevitable vengeance. FIc must have been warranted by God, to give such a foundation to his laws, and the issue has evinced, that Moses did not speak of his own head.

As to the great number of rites he enjoined the Hebrews, though ihey now may seem superfluous, they were then necessary, in order to distinguish the people of God from other nations, and served as a barrier to idolatry, lest it should have drawn aside that chosen people along with all the rest.

To maintain religion, and all the traditions of the people of God, among the twelve tribes, one was made choice of, to whom God allotted for its portion, together with the tithes and oblations, the care of sacred things. Levi and his children are themselves consecrated to God, as the tithe of all the people. Out of Levi Aaron is chosen to be high priest, and the priesthood made hereditary in his family.

Thus the altars have their ministers the law hatb its advocates; and the progress of God's people is tes-

tified by the succession of its priests, which goes on without interruption, from Aaron the first of them.

But what was most excellent in this law, was, that it prepared the way for one more august, less incumber* ed with ceremonies, and more productive of virtues.

Moses, to keep the people in expectation of this law, assures them of the coming of that great who was to spring from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

XTiC Jjvrti o€ky« vcp unto prophet from the midst of thy like unto tne: unto him shaU ye hearken. That prophet, like unto Moses, a lawgiver as himself, who can be be, but the Messiah, whose doctrine was one day to rule and sanctify the world.

Until bira there was no prophet to arise in Israel like unto Moses, to whom God should speak face face, and who should give laws to his people: and so till the time of the Messiah, the people at all times, and in all difficulties rely upon Moses only. As Romo revered the laws of Romulus, Numa and the twelve ta« bles; as Athens bad recourse to those of Solon; as Lacedemon preserved and respected those of Lycur-? gus; the Hebrew people cohtinually pleaded those of Moses. And, indeed, so well had the lawgiver adjusted all things, that none had ever any occasion to make the least alteration in them. Therefore the body of the Jewish law is not a collection of different statues, made at different times and occasions. Moses, enlightened by the spirit of God, had foreseen every thing. We see no statutes of David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat, or Hezekiab» though all three zealous for justice. The good princes had only to cause the law of JJg** Moses to be observed, and contented themselves with fcc. recommending the observance of it to their succes-iv.l.' sors. To add to it, or diminish from it one title, an attempt, the people looked upon with horror. They had occasion for the law every moment, to regulate not only the feasts, sacrifices, and ceremonies, but also all other public and private a.c\ioxiB>

H4 riages, successioDS, funerals, the very fashion of their dress, and, in general, every thing relating to manners. There were no other books, wherein to study the precepts of a good life* They were to peruse it, and meditate upon it night and day; to collect sentences from it, and to have them always before their eyes. It was therein the children learned to read. The only rule of education, that was given to ibctr parooto, w»« tn teach thpm, id inoulikatc upOii them, to make them observe that holy law, whicb alone could render them wise from their infancj'*

Thus it was to be in every body's hands. Besides

'** 'the constant reading every one was bound to give it in private, there was every seven years, in the solemn

?ui\ of release and rest, a public reading, and, as it were, a new publication made of it, at the feast of tabernacles, when all the people were assembled for

Juikeight days. Moses caused the original of Deuteronomy to be deposited in the side of the ark: this was an abridgment of the whole law. But to prevent its being altered in the course of through the malice or negligency of men, besides the copies that were current among the people, authentic transcripts of it were made, which being carefully revised and kept by the priests and Levitcs, were used instead of originals* The kings, (for Moses had well foreseen, that his peo*

Ele would at length have kings, as all other nations) the ings, I say, were obliged, by an express law of Deu- teronomy, to receive from the hands of the one of those transcripts thusreligiously corrected, that they might write it, and read therein all the days of their life. 1 he copies so revised by public authority, were had in singular veneration with all people: they regarded them as proceeding immediately from the hands of Moses, as pure and entire as God had dictated them to him. An ancient book of that strict:2Kinsiand religious correctness, having been found in the of the Lord, under the of Josiab, or per- /Ji4r' original itself> vrbich Moses bad

to be put In the side of the ark, excited the piety of that good king, and proved an occasion of his bringing that people to repentance. The great effects wrought at all times by the public reading of this law, innumerable. In a word, it was a perfect book, which being annexed by Moses to the history of the people of God, taught them at once their origin, their religion, their polity, their manners, their philosophy, every thing that tends to regulate life, every thing that unites and forms society, good and bad examples, the reward of the one, and the rigorous punishments that had attended the other.

By this admirable discipline, a people, come out of slavery, and kept forty years in a desart, arrives Alii formed at the land they are to possess. Moses conducts them to the entrance, and, being warned of approaching end, he commits what remains to dbne to Joshua. But before he died, he composed that long and admirable song, which begins with these words: Give O ye and I will speak; O earthy the wards of my mouth. In this silence of all nature, he speaks first to the people, with inimitable strength, and foreseeing their inndeiity, he dis- *covers to them the heinousness and horrors of it. All of a sudden he goes out of himself, as finding all buznan language beneath so grand a subject; he relates what God said, and makes him speak with so much majestj', and so much goodness, that it is hard to say whether be inspires most, awe and confusion, or love and confidence.

All the people learned by heart that divine song, by order of God, and of Moses. And then that great man died contented, as having foreot nothing that might tend to preserve among his followers, the memory of the benefits and commands of God. He left bis own children lost in the crowd of their without any distinctiojij and with6ut any extraordinary settlement*

lag bath been admired, not only by bis own peoplej but by all the nations of the world; and no lawgiver hath ever had so great a name among men.

It is thought he wrote the book of Job. The sublimity of the thoughts, and majesty of the style, render that history worthy of Moses. Lest the Hebrews should have been puffed up, by arrogating the grace of God to themselves only, it was proper to let them know, that that sreat God had his elect even in the race of Esau. What doctrine was more important? What more useful entertainment could Moses give to the people afflicted in the wilderness, than that of the patience of Job, who, when delivered into the bands of Satan to be tried by all manner of hardships, sees himself deprived of his substance, of his children, and of every earthly comfort; presently after smitten with a loathsome disease, and distracted inwardly by the temptation of blasphemy and despair; who, nev-' jobxUi.ertbeless, by holding fast his integrity, shows that a faithful soul> supported by divine aid, amidst the most dreadful trials, and in spite of the gloomiest thoughts ' the evil spirit can suggest, cannot only preserve an invincible confidence, but even raise itself by its own calamities to the highest contemplation, and acknowledge, in the troubles it endures, the nothingness of man, and the supreme dominion and infinite wisdom of God? Such are the lessons taught in the book of Job. To keep up the character of the occasion, we see the holy man's faith crowned with temporal prosperity: but yet the people of God learn to know what is the virtue of sufferings, and to foretaste the grace that was one day to be fastened to the cross. Moses had tasted it by anticipation, when he chose iA.Heb!rather to suflfer affliction and shame with the people of 26, 2c! God, than to enjoy the pleasures and plenty of the house of the king of Egypt. From that time God caused him to taste the reproaches of Jesus Christ. He tasted them still more in his precipitate flight, and ia bis forty years exile. Bui Vie droiik dce9 oithe cnp of Jesus Christ, when being chosen to deliver people, be had to bear with their continual revolts, in which bis lire was often in danger. He learned what it costs to save the children of God, and showed afar off what a higher deliverance was one day to cost the Saviour of the world.

That great man had not even the consolation of entering the promised land: he beheld it only from the Numb. top of a mountain, and was not at all ashamed to re- "']& cord, that he was excluded from it by a sin, which, slight as it appears, deserved to be so severely punish- ed in a man, who was endued with so eminent a por- 51,5s: tion of grace* Moses afforded an example of the severe jealousy of God, and of the judgment he exercises with so terrible strictness upon those, whom his gifts make bound to a more perfect fidelity.

But a higher mystery is set forth in the exclusion of Moses. This wise lawgiver, who does, by so many wonders, only conduct the children of God into the neighbourhood of their land, is himself a proof to us that his law made nothing perfect, and that without being able to give the accomplishment of the promises, it makes us embrace them afar off, or conducts us at most, as it were, to the entrance of our inheritance. It is a Joshua, it is a Jesus, for this was the true name of Joshua, who by that name, and by his office, represented the Saviour of the world; it is that man, so far inferior to Moses in every thing, and only superior to him by the name he bears; it is he, I say, who is to bring the people of God into the holy land.

By the victories of that great man, before whom Jordan turns back, the walls of Jericho fall down of themselves, and the sun stands still in the midst of heaven. God establishes his children in the land of Canaan, from whence he by the same means drives out the abominable nations. By the hatred he gave his faithful towards them, he inspired them with an extreme abhorrence of their impiety; the punishment he inflicted on them with an awe of divine justice, whose decrees they One oart of those nations, whom Joshua expelled their land, settled in Africa, where was found after in an ancient inscription, the monument of their flight, and of the victories of Joshua. After those miraculous victories had put the Israelites in posjdT.udsession of the greatest part of the land promised to Nam. their fathers, Joshua, and Eleazar the high priest, with the heads of the twelve tribes, made a division of it among them, according to the law of Moses, and to the tribe of Judah the first and greatest lot, 3.ayu.From the time of Moses, it had surpassed the others iSb'snin number, in courage, and in dignity. Joshua died, the people continued the conquest of the holy ibii. iv*]and. God would have the tribe of Judah to march at the and declared that he had delivered the country into its hands. Accordingly, that tribe defeated the Canaanites, and took Jerusalem, which was to be the holy city, and the capital of the people of God. This was the ancient Salem, where Melchisedec had reigned in the days of Abraham: MelchiseHeh'Vii'dec, that king of (for so his name imports) and at the same time king of peace, as Salem signifies j7eace, whom Abraham had ackoowledged as the greatest highpriest in the world, as if Jerusalem bad been thenceforth destined to be a holy city, and the fountain-head of religion. That city was given at jud. Lgpjpt to the children of Benjamin, who being weak, and few in number, were not able to drive out the Jebusites, the ancient inhabitants of that country, and so dwelled among them. Under the Judges, the people of God were variously treated, according to their good or bad behaviour. After the death of the old men, who had seen the miracles of God's hands, the memory of those great works decays, and th6 universal tendency of mankind draws away the people to idolatiy. As oft as they fall into it, they aftypunished: as oit as they repent, they are delivered. - iVith in providence, and the truth of the pfOxniBes adfUbreatenings of Moses IS more and more coofirmed in the hearts of true believiers. But God prepared still greater exam* pies of it. The people demanded a king, aod God gave them Saul, who was soon rejected for his sins: he resolved at last to establish a royal faiffily, whence the Messiah should spring, and this he chose in Judah. David, a young shepherd, come of that tribe, youngest of the sons of Jesse, whose father, and bis family, were unacquainted with his merit, but whom God found after bis bearf, was anointed by Samuel, in Bethlehem, his native city.

Here the people of God assume a more august form, jjjjj The kingdom is established in the house of David* the ' This house begins with two kings of different ters, but admirable both. David, a man of war, and conqueror, subdues the enemies of the people of God, whose arms he causes to.be feared over all the east; and Solomon, renowned for bis wisdom both at home and abroad, renders that people happy by a profound peace. But the progress of religion requires of us here some particular remarks upon the lives of those two great kings

David reigned first over Judah, powerful aod victo*> rious, and he was afterwards acknowledged by all Is«- rael. He took from the Jebusites the strong- hold Sion, which was the citadel of Jerusalem. Master of '/ that city, he established there, by God's order, the seat of the kingdom, and of religion. Sion was his dwel-s.' lifig-place: be built it round about, and named it the city of David. Joab his sister's son built the rest of JiPJj*- the city, and Jerusalem took a new form. The men of Judah possessed the whole country, and Benjamin, few in number, dwelled interaaixed with them.

The ark of the covenant built by Moses, where God dwelled between the churubims, and where the two tables of the decalogue were kept, had then no fixed place. David, brought it in triumph into Sion, Jif,f» which he had conqaered by the Almighty aid of God, that so God might rtigii in Sioo; and thaX be there acknovrledged as the protector of David, of Jerusalem, and of the whole kingdom. But the fa« wherein the people had served God in the sxL 99. wilderness, was still at Gibeoo: and there it was that the sacrifices were offered on the which Moses had set up.

This was only till such time as there shouJd be a

2 Sam. temple, where the altar should be re-united with the icihro.ark, and wherein 'he whole service should be When David had defeated all his enemies, and the conquests of the people of Ood as far as the Euphrates; peaceful and victorious, he turned all

his thoughts towards the establishment of divine ship; and upon the same mountain, where Abraham,

Jot.Antready to offer up his only son, was stayed by the hand of an angeJ, he marked out, by God's appointment, the place for the temple.

He formed all the plans of it; he collected its rich and precious materials; he dedicated the spoils of the conquered nations and kings to its use. But this tern- which was to be prepared by the conqueror, was ▼ui. ' to be reared by the peaceful prince. Solomon built upon the uiodel of the tabernacle. The altar of vLvii. the altar of perfumes, the golden candlestick, the tdtiles of sbew-bread, and all the rest of the sacred furniture of the temple, were taken from like pieces, which Moses had caused to be made in the wilderness: Solomon added nothing but magnificence and crandeur. The ark, which thf> man of God had huilt, was placed in the holy of holies, a place inaccessible, a symbol of the impenetrable majesty of God, and of heaven, forbidden to men, until Jesus Christ had opened an entrance into it by bis blood* On the day of the dedication of the the temple, God appeared there in his majesty. ' He made choice of that place to establish his name and his worship there; and It was prohibited to sacrifice any where else. The unity of God was demonstrated by the unity of his temple, Jerusalem became a holy city, an image ot' i the church, where God was to dwell, as in his true temple; and of heaven, where be will make us eternally happy by the manifestation of bis glory.

After Solomon had built the temple, be built also the palace of the kings, the architecture of which was worthy of so great a prince. His pleasure-bouse which was called the house of the forest of wai equally stately and delightful. The palace be rearea fer the queen, was a new ornament to Jerusalem. Every thing was grand in those edifices, the porches, galleries, walks, the king's throne, and the tribunal where he sat to do judgment and justice: cedar was the only wood be made use of in these works. Every shone resplendent with gold and precions stones. Cit-ohrra. izens and strangers, all admired the majesty of the kings of Israel. Every thing else was correspondent to this magnificence; the cities, arsenals, horses, chariots, and the prince's guard. Commerpe, navigation, and good order, together with a profound peace, had rendered Jerusalem the richest city of the east. The kingdom enjoyed peace and plenty: every thing in it represented the heavenly glory. In David's.wars were exhibited the toils whereby it was to be attained; and in Solomon's reign was shown how peaceable was its enjoyment.

Moreover, the exaltation of those two great kings, and of the royal family, was the effect of a particular election. David himself celebrates the wonder of that election by these words: " Howbeit, the Lord God of Israel chose me before all the house of my father, to be king over Israel for ever: for he hath chosen Judah to be the ruler; and of the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father, he liked me, to make me kmg over all Israel: and of all my sons (for the Lord hath given me many sons) he bath chosen Solomon my son, to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel."

This divine elation had in a higher object than at first appean. That promised as the son of Abraham, was also to be the son of David, and of all the kings of Judah. It was with an eye to the Messiah, that God promised to David, '* that his throne should stand fast for ever." Solomon chosen to succeed him, was destined to represent the person of the Messiah. And therefore

*' ' be his father, and he shall be my son," a thing he never said with that em- <o. ' phasis of any other king, or any other man.

Thus in David's time, and under the kings his offspring, the mystery of the Messiah declares itself more than ever by prophecies glorious and clearer than the sun.

David had seen him afar and sung him in his psalms with a loftiness that nothing will ever equal. Oftentimes, when he meant only to celebrate the glory of Solomon his son, being all at once ravished out himseM*, and transported far beyond that subject; xu.42! he saw him, '\vho is greater than Solomon in glory,' ixxi.5. as well as in wisdom. The Messiah appeared to him seated on a throne more lasting than the moon. He saw at his feet all nations subdued, and at the same lime blessed in hiniy conformably to the promise tuade to Abraham. He raised his prospect still higher; he saw him in the beauties of holiness, and from the fs. ex. of the morning,' proceeding eternally from the bosom of his father, a priest for every and without successor, as succeeding nobody, created in an extraordinary manner, not according to the order of Aaron, but cffier the order of Melchisedec a new order, which the law did not know. He saw him sitting at the right hand of God, beholding from the highest heavens, nis enemies made his footstool.' He is astonished at so grand a spectacle; and transported with the glory of bis son, he calls him his Lord. He saw him whom God had anointed, to make reign over all the earth bif truth, meekness, and *''i'?' righteousness. He was present m spirit at the council of God I and heard from the eternal father's own moutfa that expression which be addresses to bis only son: Thu day have I begotten thee: to which God joins a promise of ' the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his posses- i. sion. In vain do the people rage; in vain do the kings si and princes take counsel together." The Lord from the height of heaven laughs at their mad projects, and in spite of them establishes the empire of his Christ, fa "' He establishes it over themselves; and they are obli- ged to be the first subjects of that Christ, whose yoke they wanted to shake off. And though the reign of that gieat Messiah be often foretold in the scriptures under glorious ideas, God did not conceal from Uavid the Ignominies that were to be offered to that blessed fruit of bis loins. This instruction was necessary to the people of God. If that people, yet weak, stood in need of being allured by temporal promises, they were not, however, to be suffered to look upon human greatness as the sovereign felicity, and as their sole reward: wherefore God shows them from afar that Messiah so long promised, and so much desired, the pattern of perfection, and the object of his complacency, overwhelmed in sorrow. The cross appears to David as the true throne of this nev king; he sees his hands and feet pierced, all his I9nes staring through his skin, by the whole weight of his body violently }J suspended; his garments divided, lots cast upon his ps;.. vesture," his tongue moistened with gall and vinegar, his enemies raging all him, and glutting them- selves with his blood. But he sees at the same time the glorious effects of his humiliation: all the ends of the world remembering and turning to their God,' 26. 27 whom they had so many ages forgot, the poor coming '"" the first to the table of the Messiah, and afterwards the rich and powerful, all adoring and blessing him, himself presiding in the great and numerous congrega" tion, that is, in the assembly of the converted nations, and there declaring to his brethren the name of mad his eternal trutbs. Davidi h. foil.

acknowledged, upon seeing them, that the kingdom of bis son was not of this world. He is not astonished at it, for he knows that the world passeth away; and a prince always so humble upon the throne, saw plainly that a throne was not a bliss, in which his hopes ought to terminate.

Other prophets have no less seen the mystery of the Messiah. There is nothing great or glorious, that they have not said of his reign. One sees Bethlehem, a city the least among the thousands of made illustrious by his birth; and at the same time rising a little higher, he beholds a birth whereby he comes all eternity out of the bosom of his father: another sees the virginity of his mother; an Emanuel, a Ood with us, proceeding from that virgin womb, and ix.6.j wonderful child, whom he calls God, One per- ceives him coming to his another beholds him Is.' Id. glorious in his rest, or in his grave, where death was 9?'""' conquered. While they publish his glory, they do not conceal his reproaches. They saw him sold to bis i3- people, tbey knew the number and use of the thirty pieces of silver at which he was prized.' At the same time that they beheld him, exalted and extolled, they uj-3. saw him despised Jand rejected of men; the astonishment of many, as much by his humiliation, as his greatness; the least desirable of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, bearing the iniquity of us all;' doing good to those who hide their faces from him;' disfigured by his wounds, and by them healing ours; treated as a malefactor; brought to the slaughter with the wicked/ and as an innocent lamb, opening not his mouth; a long generation proceeding from him by this means, and vengeance overtaking his unbelieving people. That nothing might be wanting to the prophecy, they numbered the years till his coming, and unless we wilfully blindfold ourselves, it is no longer possible to mistake it.

IVot only did the prophets see Jesus Christ, but iheyalso were a type of him, and represented his

teries, especially that of the cross. Almost all of them suflTered persecution for righteousoess sake, and by their sufferings haire figured to us, the innocence and truth persecuted in our Lord. We see Elijah and Elisha constantly threatened. How many times was Isaiah made the scorn of the people, and of the kings, who, in the end, as the allowed tradition of the Jews bears it, him to their Zachariab, the son of Jehoida is stoned: Ezrkiel seems ever in affliction: the misfortunes of Jeremiah are continual, and inexpressible; and we see Daniel twice cast into the den of lions* Not one of them but has been gainsayedy and maltreated; and all have showed us by their example, that if the weakness of the ancient people required in general to be supported by temporal blessings, the strong men of Israel, and those of an extraordinary sanctity, were no less fed with the bread of affliction, and drunk beforehand, for their further sanctification, of the cup prepared for the son of God: a cup, as much more bitter, as the person of Jesus Christ was holier.

But what the propbets saw most clearly, and what they also declared in the sublimest terms, was, the blessing extended towards the Qen tiles m the Messiah. TTie root of and of David, appeared to the holy prophet Isaiah as an ensign given by God to the people, and to whom the Gentiles should seek.' The man of soirows, whose stripes were to be our healing,' JJ; J; was chosen to wash the Gentiles by an holy sprinkling; ivhich is in bis blood and in baptism. 7%e kings struck with an awful reverence at his presence, dare not to open their mouth before him: ' for that which had not been told them they see, and that which they had not heard, they are called to consider Behold, He is given for a witness to the people; a leader commander to the Cientiles.' Under him 'a nation that they knew not shall be joined to the people of God, and the nations that knew not them shall run into them/ This is the rigbteoasness of ie6 shall go forth as brightness/ this is the saliration

thereof, which shall be as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see his righteousness, and all kings the glory' of that man, so celebrated in the prophe*

cies of Zion.

But behold him st'ill better described, and with a peculiar character. A man of wonderful meekness,

the singularly 'elect of God, and in whom his soul

deligbteth, brings forth judgment to the Gentiles: and the isles wait for his law.' Thus the Hebrews call Europe, and other distant countries. He shall make no noise: he shall not cry nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street:' so meek and peaceful shall he be. ' A bruised reed shall he not break| and the smoking flax shall he not quench.' Far from confounding the weak, and sinners, his gracious voice shall call them, and his merciful band shall be their stay. He will open the blind eyes, he will bring out the prisoners from, the prison, and they that sit in darkness, out of the prison-bouse.' His power shall be no less than his goodness His essential character 18, to join together meekness and efiScacy, wherefore that sweet voice shall run in a moment, from one end of the world to the other, and without causing any sedition among men, shall excite the whole earth. He is neither forward nor impetuous; and be, whom they hardly knew, when he was in Judea, shall not only be a foundation for the covenant of the but also

SlS" '/ Gentiles. Under his blessed reign the Assyrians and Egyptians shall make with the IsraeU ites, but one and the same people of God. All be* comes Israel, all becomes holy. Jerusalem is no more a particular city; it is the image of a new so*

ig,, ciety, in which all nations are gathered together:

glory among called by the name of Israel, shdl be called by a new name in which shall be signified the accoffiplisbmeBt

AN mrtVERSAL fflSTORY. lft7 of the promises and a bappj Amen. The priests and LmteSf who hitherto came of Aaron, shall be taken henceforth out of the midst of the heathen." A new sacrifice, more pure and more acceptable than the old lo. in one, shall be substituted in their pl|ice, and it shall be known why David had celebrated an highpriest of a new order. ' Drop down ye heavens, from above, 1 and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the ' earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together." Heaven and earth shall unite m producing as by one <:ommon birth, him, who shall be at once heavenly and earthly: new ideas of virtue shall appear to the world in bis example, and doctrine; and the grace, which he shall dispense, shall imprint them on men's hearts. All things change at his coming, and God swears by. himself, that every knee shall bow before him, and that every tongue shall confess his sovereign power.

This was a part of the wonders which God showed to the prophets under the kings, the sons of David, and to David above all the rest. They all wrote before-* hand the history of the son of God, who was also to be made the son of Abraham and of David. And thus every thing followed regularly in the order of the divine counsels. That Messiah exhibited at a distance, as the son of Abraham, is also shown nigher, as the son of David. An eternal kingdom is promised him: the knowledge of God spread abroad throughout all the earth is specified as the certain sign, and as the fruit of his coming: the conversion of the Gentiles, and the blessing of all the th- nations of the world, so long promised to Abraham. Isaac, and Jacob, is confirmed anew, and all the people of God live in this expectation.

In the mean time God continues to govern them inssam. an admirable manner. He makes a new covenant with David, and obliges himself to protect him and thei kidss kings his descendants, if they walk in the statutes heimdfoi. hath them by Moses; but if not he

7iSt severest punishments. David, who for- gets himself for a little, is the first that feels them; but having made amends for hisfauU by bis repentance, be is crowned with prosperity, and proposed as a model of a perfect king., 1 be throne is established in his bouse. So long as his son Solomon imitates his pi- he is happy: he goes astray in his old age, and who spares him for his servant David's sake, declares to bim, that he will not punish him in the person of his son. Thus he shows parents, that according to the secret order of his judgments, he continues their rewards or punishments after their death; and holds them in submission to his laws by their dearest tie. That is, by the tie of their children. In execu- 1 jKingtion of his decrees, Rehoboam, headstrong in himself, is given up to a foolish council: his kingdom is diminished by ten tribes. Whilst these ten rebellious and schismatic tribes turn aside from their God and from their king, the children of Judah faithful to God, and to David whom he had chosen, stand fast in the covenant and faith of Abraham. The Levites, with Benjamin adhere to them: the kingdom of the people of God subsists by their union under the name of the kingdom of Judah; and the law of Moses is maintained there in all its rites and ceremonies: notwithstanding the idolatries and dreadful corruption of the ten separated tribes, God remembers his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His law goes not quite out among those rebels: he does not cease to call them to repentance by numberless miracles, and by continual warnings, which he sends them by bis prophets. But they, being hardened in their wicked- 7,andnes6, he can no longer bear with them, and so drives them out of the promised land, without hopes of ever being re-established in it. t 0, t! Meanwhile the history of Tobit happening at that ' same time, and about the beginning of the captivity of the Israelites, shows us the conduct of God's elect, wbo remaineed in the separated tribes. This holy

Qjan, by dwelling among them before the captivity, found means not only to preserve himself from the idolatries of his brethren, but even to perform the law, and worship God publicly in the temple at Jerusalem, unmoved either by bad example, or by fear. When a persecuted captive at Nineveh, he persevered in piety with bis family; and the wonderful manner in which he and his son are rewarded for their faith, even upon earth, shows, that in spite of captivity and persecution, 32. God had secret ways of making his servants taste the blessings of the law in raising them, however, by the misfortunes they bad to suffer, to more exalted notions. By the examples of Tobit, and by his wholesome admonitions, the men of Israel were excited to acknowledge, at least under the rod, the hand of God, which chastened them; but amost all continued in their stinacy: the children of Judah, far from profiting by the chastisements of Israel, imitated their bad pies. God docs not cease to warn them by his proph- etSf whom he sends them time after time, rising vp uxvl early and sending as be says himself, to express Si? bis paternal care. Provoked by tbeir ingratitude, is moved against them, and threatens to deal with them as with tbeir rebellious brethren.

There is nothing more remarkable in the history of J

Sam. xxviii.

the people of God, than this ministry of the proph- ets. We see men set apart from the rest of the peo- xix!"!! pie, by a retired life, and by a peculiar garb: have habitations, where we see them live in a sort of community, under a superior, whom God gave themf. Their poor and self-denied life was a type of the mor- x. ©. tification, which was to be enjoined under the gospel. *ia'n?»' God communicated himself to them in a particular|KJngs manner, and made manifest to the eyes of the people, that wonderful communication; biit it was2«! so eminently conspicuous as in the timea of der, when idolatry seemed about to abolish the law of God. During tbose unhappy times, the prophets loudly proclaimed on all sides, %xA i 70 AX UNIVERSAL HISTORt.

by writing, the tbreatenings of God, and the tcstimany Ihey bore to bis truth. The writings they composed were in the bands of all the people, and carefully-preserved in continual remembrance to future agesf. Exod. jTbose of the people that kept faithful to God, adbe- 14. red to them; and we see that even in Israel, idolatry reigned, the few faithful there were, celebrated i6./«rwitb the prophets the sabbath, and the feasts estabxxvL lished by the law of Moses. It was they that encourxuvt. aged good people to stand fast in the covenant* of them sutTered death; and after their example, were in the worst times, that is even in the rei§n I.Dan, of Manasseb, infinite numbers of the faithful who laid their lives for the truth, in so much (hat it has been a single moment without a witness. ill le. Thus the society of the people of G6d always subsisted and the prophets continued in it: a great number of the faithful strenuously persisted in the law of God, with them and with *' the priests and sons of Za- who," as says Ezekiel, when the children of Israel astray from God, kept the charge of the sanctuary.

Yet, in spite of the prophets, in spite of the faithful priests, and of the people united with them in the observance of the law, idolatry, which had ruined Israel, often drew aside, even in Judah itself, both the princes, and the bulk of the people. Though the kings forgot the God of their fathers, he bore long with their iniquities, for the sake of David his servant. David is ever in his siglit. When the kings, the sons of David, follow the good example of their father, God works surprising wonders in their behalf: but they feel, when they degenerate, the invincible strength of his arm> which then falls heavy upon them. The kings of Egypt, the kings of Syria, and, above all, the kings of Assyria and Babylon, serve as instruments to his vengeance. Impiety increases, and God raises up in the east a king more haughty, and more formidable than all that bad till then appeared: and tbfit is Nebucha4DG;zzat k\i\£ ol xas«x terrible of all conquerors. God points him out off to the nations and kings, as the avenger destined to punish them. He draws nigh, and terror marches be- lue. fore him. He takes Jerusalem a first time, and lies away a part of its inhabitants to Babylon: yet nei- tbep do they who remain in the country, nor they who are transported, though warned, those by Jeremiah, and these by Ezekiel, turn to repentance. They prefer to those holy prophets, the prophets who siedlies to tAem, and flattered them in their wicked- ness. The avenger returns into Judea, and the yoke of Jerusalem is made heavier; but she is not quite destroyed. At last impiety comes to its height; pride increases with weakness; and Nebuchadnezzar reduces the whole to ashes.

God spared not his own sanctury. That glorious temple, the ornament of the world, which was to have been eternal, had the children of Israel persevered in piety, was consumed by the fire of' the Assyrians. In vain did the Jews cry out incessantly, '*The temple ofthe Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord," is among u?, as if that sacred temple had been to protect them of itself. God had resolved to let them see, that he was not confined to a fabric of stone, but that he would have his habitation in faithful hearts. So he destroyed the temple of Jerusalem; he delivered its treasure to the spoilers, and the many costly vessels consecrated by pious kings, were given to an impious tyrant.

But the fall of the people of God was to be the edification of the whole world. We see in the person of this impious, and at the same lime victorious king, what are those men called conquerors. They are for the most part but instruments of the divine vengeance. God exercises his justice by them, and then exercises it upon them. Nebuchadnezzar, vested with the divine power, and become invincible by that ministry, punishes all the enemies of the people of God: he ravages the Idumeans, (he

be overthrows the kings of Syria; Egypt, under whose power Judea had so often groaned, is now the

Erey of the proud tyrant, and becomes tributary to im: his power is no less fatal to Judea itself, which knows not how to improve the reprieves God vouchsafes her. She totally falls, is totally destroyed by the divine justice, whereof Nebuchadnezzar is the minister: he too shall fall in his turn, and God who employs the hand of that prince to chastise his children, and pull down his enemies, reserves him for his own alnaighty arm.

He left not his children ignorant of the destiny of that king, who chastened them, and of the empire of the Chaldeans, under which they were to be captives. Lest they should be surprized at the glory of the wicked, and of their haughty reign, the prophets denounced their short duration. Isaiah, who saw the slory of Nebuchadnezzar, and his mad pride, a long time bexivu. fore bis birtb, foretold his sudden fall, as well as that zfTiii. of his empire. Babylon was scarce any thing, when that prophet saw its power, and a little after, its downfall. Thus the revolutions of the cities and empires, which harassed the people of God, or profited by their destruction, were written in their prophecies. These oracles were followed by a speedy execution: and the Jews, so severely punished, saw fall before or a very little after, according to the predictions of their prophets, not only Samaria, Idumea, Gaza, Ascalon, Damascus, the cities of the Ammonites and Moabites their perpetual enemies; but the capitals of the great empires, Tyre mistress of the sea, Tanis, Memphis, hundred-gated Thebes, with all the riches of its Sesostris; Nineveh itself, the seat of the kings of Assyria their persecutors; and proud Babylon, victorious over all the rest, and rich with their spoils

It is true, Jerusalem perished at the same time for her sins: but God doth not leave ber without hope, ry.xiir, 'saiah, who had foretold her ruin, had seen her glori-

'/'' ous restoration, and had Cyrus her delirercr, two hundred years before he was born. miah, whose predictions had been so precise in point- jngoutto that ungrateful people their certain over-io. throw, had also promised them their return after y threescore and ten years captivity. During those yearS; the humbled people was respected in its prophets: these captives pronounced to kings and nations their dreadful dooms. Nebuchadnezzar, needs be worshipped, does himself worship bid.iv. Daniel, astonished at the divine secrets he discovered ®' to him: he learns from him his sentence, soon followed by execution. This victorious prince triumphed jer. in Babylon, which he made the greatest, strongest,""- and most beautiful eity the sun had ever beheld. There it was God intended to confound his pride. Happy and invulnerable, so to speak, the head of his ar-mies, and during the whole course of his conquests, he was to fall, in the place where he was created, and in the land of his nativity," according to the oracle of Ezekiel. While admiring his greatness, the beauty of Babylon, he exalts himself above humanity, God strikes him, deprives him of his understand- ing, and degrades him to the rank of the beasts. He recovers his senses at the time assigned by Daniel, and confesses the God of heaven, who had made him feel his power. But his successors did not take warning from his example. The affairs of Babylon fall into confusion, and the time pointed out by the prophecies for the restoration of Judah, arrives amidst ail these troubles. Cyrus appears at the head of the Medes and Persians: every thing gives way to that formidable conqueror He makes but slow advances towards the Chaldeansi and his march meets with fre-xenoph quent interruptions. The rumour of his coming isuiViij. heard from afar, as Jeremy had foretold: at last he is determined: Babylon, often threatened by the phets, ever proud and impenitent, sees her queror arrive, and despises him. Her riches, lofty walls, her numberless

compass, which contained a whole large country, as all the ancients altcst, and her infinite stores, all these puff up her uiind with undoubted security. Besieged a long lime without feeling any inconvenience, she laughs at her enemies, and at the ditches Cyrus was digging about her: nothing is talked of there but and rejoicings. Her king Belshazzar, grandson to Nebuchadnezzar, as proud as he, but not so a man, makes a solemn feast to his lords. This ieast is celebrated with unheard of excesses. Belsbazzar commands to bring the sacred vessels which had been taken out of the temple, and mingles profanation with luxury. The wrath of God declares itself: a heavenly hand writes terrible words upon the wall of the room where the feast is held. Daniel interprets the meaning of it:. and that prophet who had foretold the fatal fall of the grandfather, shows also to the grandson the thunder that is ready to burst upon him. In execution of God's decree, Cyrus makes all at once a breach in Babylon. The Euphrates turned aside into the channels he had been so long preparing it» discovers to him its immense bed: and he 17 xxi*. enters by this unexpected passage. Thus ' that j.kir.'liaughty Babylon' was delivered up a prey to the iiJil Meaes, to the Persians, and to Cyrus,' as the proph- 'ih'ee.' ets had said. And thus perished with her the em-i6kn.' Chaldeans, which had destroyed so many other kingdoms, and the hammer which bath broke.Ter.L the whole earth in pieces, was cut asunder and ft. xiv. broken' Itself. Well hath Jeremiah foretold it. The broke the staff, wherewith he hath smote so many nations.' Isaiah had foreseen it. The nations accustomed to the yoke of the Chaldean kings Ibid, now see them under the yoke themselves: Art thou also,' say they, ' become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thou who hast said in thine heart, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I be like the Most High.' This the same Isaiah bad pronounced. BaA>yVoTi U fallen, is fallen,' as bud said that prophet, of ber gods are broken unto the ground. ' Bel boweth down, and Nebo,' her great god, from whom the kings took their name, ' stoopetb:' for the Persians their enemies, worshipers of the sun, would not suffer idols, nor kings made gods. But how did this Babylon perish? just as the prophets had declared. Hep waters were dried up, as Jeremiah had foretold, to ' give passage to her conqueror: drunk, sleeping, be se. i.' ' trayed by ner own rejoicing, according to the same prophet, she found herself m the power of her enemies, and was taken, as in a snare, without being aware.' All her inhabitants are put to the sword: for ' the Medes,' her vanquishers, as Isaiah had said, i7. 'regarded neither gold nor silver,' but touiasf' satiate their hatred by the destruction of a cruel pie, whose pride made them the enemy of all the nations of the world, The messengers came one after another to show, the king of Babylon, that city was taken at one end;' and so Jeremiah had 14. 15.' described it. Her astrologers, in whom she trusted, and who promised her perpetual empire, could not save her from her destroyer. Isaiah and Jeremiah declare it with one accord. In that dreadful slaugh- w. e.* ter, the Jews, having timely warning, escaped from the sword of the victors. Cyrus, become by this conquest master of the whole East, acknowledges in that people, so often conquered, something, I do not know what, divine. Enraptured with the oracles, which bad foretold his victories, he confesses, that he owes his empire to the God of heaven, whom the served, and signalizes the first year of bis reign by restoration of bis temple and people. i*»

Who would not herct admire the divine providence so manifestly declared upon the Jews and Chaldeans, upon Jerusalem and Babylon f God means to punish fcoth; and that they may not be ignorant, that it is he alone who does it, he is pleased to declare it by above an hundred prophecies. Jerusalem and Babylon, both threatened at the fiame prophets, fall one after another in the time limited, God here discovers the great secret of the two chastisements he inflicts: a cuastisement of severity upon the Chaldeans; a fatherly chastisement on the Jews, who are bis children. The pride of the Chaldeans (for this was the characteristic of the nation) and the spirit of the whole empire is hurahled without iuak retrieve. The most proud shall stumble and and Uxiii raise him said Jeremiah; and Isaiah be-i9. ' fore him, ' Babylon the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, to whom God left no resource. But as for the Jews, it is not so with them; God chastened them as disobedient children, whom he turns again to their duty by correction, and then moved with their tears, he forgets their faults. iwJ.28.' Fear ibou riot, O Jacob, ray servant, saith the Lord, for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations, whither I have driven thee; but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure: yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.* Wherefore Babylon taken for ever from the Chaldeans, IS delivered unto another people; and Jerusalem restored by a wonderful revolution, sees her children return from all quarters.

It was Zerubbabel, of the tribe of Judah, and of the blood royal, that brought them back out of captivity. The men of Judah return in crowds, and hll the whole country. The ten scattered tribes are lost among the Gentiles, save those, who, under the name of Judah, and re-united under its standards, come again into the land of their fathers.

In the mean time the altar is re-erected, the temple is rebuilt, the walls of Jerusalem are reared anew. The jealousy of the neighbouring nations is checked by the kings of Persia, now become the protectors of people of God. The bighpriest resumes his office, with all the other priests who proved their suecessiou by genealogy from the public registers: the

rest were, as put from the priesthood. Ezra a priest himself, and doctor of the law, and Nebemiah the governor, reform all the abuses which the captivity had introduced, and cause the law to be kept in its purity. The people mourn with them for the transgressions, which had brought those severe chastise- ments upon them, and acknowledge that Moses had foretold them. They all together read in the sacred books the threatenings of the man of God: they see the accomplishment of them: the oracle of Jeremiab, and the so often promised return, after the seventy years captivity, astonishes and comforts them: they adore the judgments of God, and once more reconciled tvjtb him, live in peace.

God, who does every thing in his own due time, had made choice of this to cause the extraordinary means, that is, prophecies, to cease among his people, henceforth sufficiently instructed. There yet remain* ed about five hundred years unto the days of the Messiah. God, in honour of his son's majesty, silences the prophets during that whole time, to keep bis people in expectation of Him, who was to be the accomplishment of.all their oracles.

Bat towards the expiration of the times, in which God had resolved to put an end to the prophecies, be seemed willing to spread abroad all his light, and to the counsels of his providence: so clearly did he reveal the secrets of times to come. During the captivity, and especially towards the time it drew to an end, Daniel, revered for bis piety, even by infidel kings, and employed for his prudence in the greatest affairs of their kingdoms, saw in successive order, at different times, and under different figures, four monarchies, under which the Israelites were to live. He distinguishes them by their proper!>«». characters. We see pass as a torrent the empire of n. ' a king of Grecia; which was that of Alexander. By its fall we see established another empire less than his, and weakened by its divisions; axA X\»& of his successors, among whom there are four pointed out in the prophecy. Antipater, Seieucus, Ptolemy, and Antigonus are visibly described. It is evident from history, that these were more powerful than the rest, and the only ones whose power descended to »»xt their children. We see their wars, their jealousies, and their deceitful alliances; the cruelty and ambition of the kings of Syria; the pride, and other marks which distinguish Auliochus lllustris, the implacable enemy of the people of God; the shortness of his reign, and speedy punishment of his excesses. We see arise, in fine towards the latter end, and as it were out of the womb of these monarchies, the reign -By name you understand iVvi Christ; but that reign of the son of man is ' also called the kingdom of the saints of the Most High." All nations are made subject to this great and peaceful empire: eternity is promised to it, and it is to be the only one whose kingdom shall not be left to another people.

When that son of qaas, and that so much longed for Christ shall com*, and how he shall accomplish the work committed to him, that is, the redemption of mankind, God discovers manifestly to DanieL he is taken up about the captivity of his ki. pie in Babylon, and the seventy years, which God had determined to accomplish in the desoRtions of Jeru* salem, in the midst of the supplications ne makes for the deliverance of his brethren, he is all of a sudden raised to more transcendent mysteries. He sees another number of years, and another far more important deliverance. Instead of the seventy years foretold by Jeremiah, he is shown seventy weeks, to commence from the going forth of the commandment from Artaxerxes Longimanus, in the twentieth year of his reign, for rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. There is marked in precise terms, at the end of these weeks, the reconciliation for iniquity, the everlasting reign of r/f hteousness, the full accomplishment of the

ecies; and the anointing of the Most Holy.' The CHRIST is to execute bis office, and appear prince of the people after weeks After fAne (lor the prophet repeats it) the Messiah is to he cut off: be is to die a violent death: he is to be made a sacrifice in order to fulfil the mysteries. One week is distinguished among the rest, which is the last And seventieth. It is that wherein the Messiah shall be sacrificed, wherein the covenant shall be confirmed; and in the midst of which the sacrifice and oblation shall cease, doubtless, by the death of Christ: for it is in consequence of his death, that this change is signified. 'After the death of the Messiah, and abolition of the sacrifices,' nothing is to be seen but horror and confusion: we see ' the destruction of the holy city and sanctuary; a people and a prince, who come to destroy every thing; the abominations in the temple, and the final and irremediable desolation' of the people, rebellious against their God, and ungrateful towards their Saviour.

We have seen, that those weeks reduced to weeks of years, according to the scripture manner, make 490 years, and bring us precisely from the 20th year of Artaxerxes down to the last week; a week full of mystery, in which Jesus Christ offered up puts an end by his death to the sacrifices of the law, and fulfils the figures of it. The learned make various computations to make the times quadrate exactly: but that which I have proposed to you, is attended with no inconvenience. It is so far from obscuring the series of the history of the kings of Persia, that it throws light upon it; although there would be notliing very surprizing if there should be found some uncertainty in the dates of those princes, and eight or nine years, the most that could be disputed in a reckoning of 400, will never make any important question. But what need we say more? God hath cut off the difficulty, if there was any, by a decision that admits ne reply. A manifest event sets us above oil the

ISO UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

cbroDoIogers; and the total destruction of the Jews, which followed so close upon the death of our Lord, demonstrates to the meanest understanding the accomplishment of the prophecy.

It now remains only to observe to you one circumstance of it. Daniel discovers to us a new mystery. The oracle of Jacob had taught us, that the kingdom of Judah was to cease at the coming of the Messiah; but it did not tell us that his death should be the cause of that kingdom's downfal. God hath revealed this important secret to Daniel, and declares to him, as you see, that the ruin of the Jews shall be the consequence of the death of Christ, and of their own ingratitude. Mark well this passage, if you please, and the series of events will Foon make you an excellent commentary on it. You see what God showed to the prophet Daniel, a little before the victories of Cyrus, and rebuilding of the temple. While it was building, he raised up the prophets Haggai and Zechariah; and immediately after he sent Malachi, who was to close the prophecies of the ancient people.

What did not Zechariah see? One would think, that the book of the divine decrees had been laid open to this prophet, and that he bad read the whole history of God's people from the captivity. The persecutions of the kings of Syria, and the wars they wage against Judah, are discovered to him in all their consequence. He sees Jerusalem taken, and sacked, a dreadful pillage, and infinite disorders, the people flying into the wilderness, uncertain of their late, to live or die, and when on the brink of utter desolation, a new light all of a sudden appearing to them. The enemies are conquered; the idols are thrown down in all the holy land: we see peace and plenty in town and country, and the temple is revered m the whole east. One memorable circumstance of those wai-s is re- vealed to the prophet: that Jerusalem was to be be-

trayed byber own children, and that amongst b«r enemies many Jews should be found.

Sometimes he sees a long train of prosperity: dah is filled with strength: the kingdoms that pressed her are humbled; the neighbours, who didiuiolif. not cease to harass her are punished: some are conFerted, and incorporated with the people of God. The prophet beholds his crowned with divine fa- Tours, among which he reckons the triumph, no less modest than glorious, of the king, just, lowly, and 9.' ' having salvation, who riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass, coroeth unto his city of Jerusalem.'

After having recounted their prosperity, he resumes from the beginning the whole series of their calamities. He sees all at once the temple on (ire, the whole country destroyed with the capital, murders, violences, and a king authorising them. God takes pity on his forsaken people, he becomes himself their shepherd, and his protection is their stafi*. In the end civil wars break out, and things turn to decay. The time of this change is specified by a certain mark, and three princes degraded in one month speak the commencement of it.

Inlbe midst of these woes appears a still greater, A little after those divisions, and in the times of decay, »3. Ood 18 prized ai thirty pieces of by his ungrateful people; and the prophet sees every thing even to the patterns Jield, or that of the graver, on which the money is bestowed* Hence follow extreme disorders amongst the shepherds of the people; at last they are blinded, and their power is destroyed.

What shall I say of the wonderful vision of riah, who sees the shepherd smitten, and the sheep scattered?' VVhat shall I say of the look the people ''• cast upon their God, whom they have pierced,' and of their mourning fo; a more lamentable death than that of an only sod, or than that of Josiah f Zechariah saw all these things: but the greatest saw was, " The Lord, sent by Ihe Lord to iobabit Je- where he calls the Gentiles, to join them to "• his people, and to dwell in the midst of them."

Haggai says less, but what he says is surprizing, jn* Whilst the second temple is a building, and the old men, that bad seen the first, melt into tears, on comparing the meanness of this latter edifice with the magnificence of the former, the prophet, who sees farther than tbey» publishes the glory of the second temple, and prefers it to the He explains whence this Ji" new house shall proceed; ihe desire of all nations shall 10- come: that Messiah promised two thousand years, and from the beginning of the world, as the Saviour of the Gentiles, shall appear in this new temple. Peace shall be established there; the whole world shaken shall bear witness to the coming of its Redeemer; there is now but a little while to expect him, and the times appointed for that expectation are in their last period.

At length the temple is finished; victims are offered up; but the covetous Jews present defective sacrifices. Malachi, who reproves them for it, is raised to a higher consideration, and upon occasion of the polluted offerings of the Jews, be sees an offering purcy and unpolluted, which shall be presented to hod, no longer as aforetime only in the temple of Jerusalem, ihe rising of ihe sun, even unto the going down of -the same: no longer by the Jews, but by the GentUeSy among whom he prophecies, that the name of God shall be great.

He sees also, like Haggai, the glory of the second temple, and the Messiah honouring it with his presence: but he sees, at the same time, that the Messiah is the God, to whom that temple is dedicated. *' BeMaim. I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come into his temple; even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold he shall come,saith the Lord of hosts." messengers are angels: but here is a messenger of a wonderfttl dignity, a messenger, who bath a temple; a messenger, who is God, and who entereth into the temple as his proper dwelling; a messenger desired by all the people, who cometh to make a new covenant, and who is, for that reason, called the angel of the covenant, or, of the New Testament.

It was, therefore, in the second temple, that God, the messenger of God, was to appear: but an- e* other messenger goes before, and prepares his ways. There we see the Messiah preceded by bis harbinger. The character of that forerunner is also showed to the prophet. This is to be a new Elijah, remarkable for his holiness, for his austerity of liTc, for his authority, and for his zeal.

Thus the last prophet of the ancient people pointed out the first prophet, that was to come after nim, or that Elijah, the forerunner of the Lord, who was to appear. Till that time God's people had no prophet to expect, the law of Moses was to be sufficient for them, and therefore Malachi concludes with these words: "Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes, and judgments. Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet, who shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children;'' who shall show to these what the others have expected.

To this law of Moses, God had joined the prophets, who had spoken in conformity to it; and the history of God's people composed by the same prophets, in which were confirmed, by visible experiences, the

Rromises and threatnings of the law. All was careful- written; all was digested in the order of time: and this was what God left for the instruction of his people, when he made the prophecies to cease.

Such instructions made a great change in the man- ners of the Israelites. They bad no more need either times of vision, or manifest prediction, or of those unheard of wonders which God so often wrought for their servation. The prooft thej had gpt and their incredulity) not only convinced by the event of things, but likewise so often punishedi had at last rendered them tractable.

Wherefore, frora that time we see them no more return to idolatry, to which they were so strangely in* clined. They had sufficiently found the bad effects of rejecting the God of their fathers. They were ever calling to mind and their own destruction so often foretold in all its circumstances, and yet sooner come than expected. No less did they ad- mire their restoration brought about, contrary to alt human appearance, in the time, and by the person that had been pointed out to them. Never did they behold the second temple, without remembering why the former had been destroyed, and how this latter had been rebuilt: and thus did they confirm themselves in the faith of their scriptures, to which their whole state bore testimony.

There were no more false prophets to be seen among them. They had thrown off at once the pro- pensity they had to believe them, and that which they iX 6- nad to idolatry. Zechariah had foretold by one and the same oracle, that both these things should happen to them. His prophecy received a manifest accomplishment. The false prophets ceased under the second temple: the people, scandalized at their impostures, were no longer in the humour of hearkening to them. The true prophets of God were read over and over, continually: they wanted no commentary: and the things which 'came daily to pass in execution of their prophecies, were too faithful interpreters of f*»Hhem. '

Islxuii. In fact, all their prophets had promised them a proii/x!i8,found peace. We still behold with pleasure the beau- 2?' Si tiful picture which Isaiah and Ezekiel draw of the liv'ir bappy times, that were to succeed the captivity of kf ix. Babylon. AH the breaches are repaired, the cities kVlz.and towns magnificently rebuilt, the people is without the enemies are brought low, and plenty t abounds in town and country: in both we see joy'|J;JJ rest, and, in short, all the fruits of a long peace. promises to keep his people in a lasting and perfect tranquillity. They enjoy it under the kings of rersia. So long as that empire stood, the decrees of Cyrus, who was the founder of it, secured the peace of the Jews. Though they were threatened Kstb. with their final destruction under Ahasuerus, whoever Hivii. he was, God, moved by their tears, turned all the king's heart, and took a signal vengeance on Ha-man their enemy. Except in this juncture, which was soon over, they knew no fear: instructed by their prophets to obey the kings, to whom God had subjected them, their fidelity was inviolable. And so were they ever mildly treated. In consideration of an easy tribute, which they paid to their sovereigns, who were rather their protectors than their masters, they lived according to their own laws: the sacerdotal power was preserved entire: the priests conducted the people:* the public council first established by Moses, enjoyed its full authority, and they amongst themselves the power of life and death, with- J«w. out any one's interfering with their conduct. So thet"**?' kings ordered it. The destruction of the empire the Persians made no alteration in their affairs. ander respected their temple, admired their prophe* 2 coat, cies, and augmented their privileges. They somewhat to suffer under his fii-st successors. Ptolemy sonfof Lagus took Jerusalem by surprize, and carried away from thence into Egypt an hundred thousand captives: but he soon ceased to hate them. He himself made them citizens of Alexandria, the capital of his kingdom; or rather confirmed to them the grant that Alexander had already made them; and finding in all his dominions none more faithful than the Jews, he filled his armies with them, and committed to their ' trust the most important places. If the some consideration of them, they were still betterxu!& treated by the under whose empire they

lired. Seleucus Nicanor, head of that familv, settled them in Antioch; and Antiochus Theu8» his grandson, having caused them to be received in all the ties of the lesser Asia, we have seen them spread themselves all over Greece, living there after their own law, and enjoying the same privileges with the other citi-* zens, as they did at Alexandria and Antioch. In the mean time their law is turned into Greek Kb?iiL Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. The Jewish religion is made known among the tiles, the temple of Jerusalem is enriched by the gifts of princes and of people, the Jews live in peace and liberty under the power of the Syrian monarchs, and had hardly ever tasted such a tranquillity under their own kings. This tranquillity seemed to promise an everlasting continuance, had they not disturbed it by their dissentions. Three hundred years had they enjoyed this rest so much foretold by their prophets, when ambition and jealousies arising amongst them, had to have undone them. Some of the most powerful '»Ma betrayed their people to flatter the kings; they wantiiu ir. ed to render themselves famous after the manner of lifii the Greeks, and preferred that I'ain pomp to the solid J6,kc glory, which the observance of the laws of their ancestors acquired them among their countrymen. They celebrated games like the Gentiles. J his novelty dazzled the eyes of the people, and idolatry cloathed with this niagnificence appeared lovely to many of the Jews. To these changes were joined disputes for the high-priesthood, which was the chief dignity of the nation. The ambitious devoted themselves to the i>Bn. kings of Syria in order to attain it, and that sacred TiLSf dignity was the price of the flattery of those minions jealousies and divisions of individuals, did not fail quickly to cause, as usual, great mischiefs to the people. Antiochus Illustris, king of Syria, con* 4;sziLceived the design of destroying this divided order to seize upon their wealth. That prince ap<- novf with all the cbarftcters Paniel bad givea

AN UNrVfiKSAL HISTORY. ie>} bim; ambitious, covetoas, crafty, cruel, insolent, ous, mad, elated with bis victories, and then enraged at his losses. He enters Jerusalem in condition to attempt any thing; the factions of the Jews, and not own force, embolden him: and so Daniel fore- saw it. He commits unheard of cruelties: his pride carries faim to the last excesses, and he pours forth blasphemies against the Most High, as foretold by the same prophet. In execution of these prophecies, and by reasons of the sins of the people, an host, (or power,) is given him against the daily sacrifice. He profanes the temple of God, which the kings bis ancestors had revered: he pillages it, and repairs with the riches he there finds, the ruins of his exhausted treasury. Under pretext of settling a conformity in the manners of his subjects, but in reality to satiate niac. his own avarice by plundering Judea, he commands the Jews to worship the same gods with the Greeks: above all, be will have them to adore Jupiter Olympius, whose idol he places in the very temple; and more impious than Nebuchadnezzar himself, be attempts to destroy the feasts, and the law of Moses, the sacrifices, religion, and the whole people. But the successes of this prince had their limits set by the prophecies. Mattathias makes head against his lences, and unites all the good people under his ban-Jofepb ner. Judas Maccabeus his son, viith an handful of men, performs unheard of exploits, and purifies temple of God three years and an half after its fanation, as Daniel had foretold. He pursues the ixiit. Idumeans, and all the other gentiles, that joined An- tiochus, and having taken from them their strongest places, he returns victorious and humble, just such Jsaiah had seen him, singing forth the praises of God, who had delivered into his hands the enemies of bis and still red with their blood. He continues his victories, notwithstanding the prodigious armies of the captains of Antiocbus. Daniel had allowed six years to this wicked prince to torment the

18d ; and behold at the time fixed be Itarns at smm. Ecbatan the heroic deeds of Judas. He falls into a

melancholy, and dies as the holy prophet bad foretold, miserable, but not by the hand of roan, after acknowledging, but too late, the power of the

God of Israel.

I need not now tell you in what manner his successor prosecuted the war against Judea, or the death of Judas its deliverer, or the victories of his two brothers, Jonathan and Simon, successively high-priests, whose valour restored the ancient glory of the people of God. These three great men saw the kings of Syria, and all the neighbouring nations combined against them; and what was more deplorable, they saw at different times the men of Judab itself in arms against their own country, and against Jerusalem: a thing till then unheard of, but expressly noted by the prophets. In the midst of so many calamities, znch. the confidence they had in God rendered them un- 1 Mw. daunted and invincible. The people was ever happy xK 20,* under their conduct, and at length in Simon's time, being freed from the yoke of the Gentiles, they sub- 2Mae. JGCted tbomselves to him and his children, with the ifcVou! consent of the kings of Syria.

But the art whereby the people of God transfer to

Simon the whole public authority, and grant to him the royal powers, is remarkable. The decree bears,

1 Mae. ' that he and his posterity shall enjoy them, until xiv.4i.jjjpj.g a|.[5g faithful and true prophet.

The people accustomed from their origin to a divine government, and knowing that ever since the time David had been set upon the throne by God's appointment, the sovereign power belonged to bis house to which it was at last to be restored against the time of the Messiah, joined this express restriction to the power they gave their highpriests, and continued to live under them io expectation of that so often promised Christ.

Thus did that absolutely free kingdom make use or its right, and provide for its government. The posterity of Jacob, by the tribe of Judah, and the rest that ranked themselves under its standards, preserved itself in a body politic, and enjoyed independently and peaceably the land that had been assigned them.

By virtue of the people's decree we have been speaking of, Joannes Hyrcanus, son of Simon, sue- ceeded to his father. Under bim the Jews aggran- dize themselves by considerable conquests. Theyjer. subject Samaria, (Ezekiel and Jeremiah bad foretold it: they subdue the Idumeans, or Edomites, the Phi- listines, and the Ammonites, their perpetual enemies, Agt. and these nations embrace tbeir religion. (Zecharlah n.'is, bad noted it.) At last, in spite of the hatred and jealousy of the nations round about them, under the authority of their priests, who became at length their princes, they found the new kingdom of Asoioneans, or and that one more extensive than if we except the times of David and Solomon.

In this manner did the people of God still subsist amidst so many revolutions: and that people sometimes punished, and sometimes comforted in its affile* tions, by the different treatment they meet with according to tbeir deserts, bear a public testimony to the providence, which governs the world.

But in whatever state they were, they lived always ID expectation of the Messiah's times, wherein they promised themselves new favours, greater than any they bad yet received; and there is no one but sees« that that faith in the Messiah and his miracles, which continues to this day among the Jews, has been trans-mitted to them by their patriarchs and prophets from the very origin of their nation. For in that series of years, in which themselves acknowledged, Apiom that by a counsel of providence there arose no prophet among them, and that God gave them no more any new predictions or promises, that faith in the Messiah who was to come, subsisted more lively erer. It proved so well established, when the second temple was built, that tbeie needed no more any prophet to confirm the people in it. They lived under the faith of the ancient prophecies, which they had seen so punctually accomplished before their eyes in so many particulars: the rest, from that time, never appeared to them any way doubtful, noj had they the smallest difficulty to belie that God, so faithful in every thing, would also, in his own good time, fulfil what related to the Messiah, which was the chief of bis promises, and the foundation of all the others.

And indeed, their whole history, every thing that happened to them from day to day, was only one continued unfolding of the oracles which the Holy Ghost had left them. If, being reinstated in their own land after the captivity, they enjoyed three hundred years profound peace; if their temple was revered, and their religion honoured in all the east; if at last this

Eeaee was disturbed by their dissentions; if the augbty king of Syria made unheard of efforts to destroy them; if he prevailed some time; if a little after he was punished: if the Jewish religion, and the whole people of God were restored with a more wonderful glory than ever they had before, and the kingdom of Judah received accessions in the latter times from new conquests; you have seen, Sir, that all this was to be found written in their prophets. Yes, every thing was specified there, the very time the persecutions were to last, the very places where the battles were fought, and the very lands that were to be conquered. I have related to you in general something of those prophecies: a minute detail would be matter for a longer discourse. I mean here to give only a first tincture of those important truths, which are so much jijg more to be discovered, the more one enters into particulars. I shall only observe here, that the proporoh. people of God have had, during all irard, when the heathens when a For waL those times, so manitest an accomplishment, that after-

AX UNIVERSAL HI3T0KT. pbyry, or a Jalian the apostate, otherwise enemies to the scriptures, have wanted to give examples of pro* J«Bnpbetlcai predictions, they have been fain to seek tnem among the Jews.

And I may even affirm to you with truth, that if, during five hundred years, the people of God were without a prophet, the whole state of those times was prophetical: the work of God was going and Ibe ways were insensibly preparing for the full accomplishment of the ancient oracles.

The return from the captivity of Babylon was but a shadow of the greater and more necessary liberty, which the Messiah was to bring to men, the captives of sin. The people scattered in divers places of the Upper Asia, Asia Minor, in Egypt, in Greece itself, began to show forth among the Gentiles the name and glory of the God of Israel. The scriptures, which were one day to be the light of the world, were put into the language most known upon earth: their anti* quity is acknowledged. While the temple is revered, and the scriptures spread abroad among the Gentiles, God gives some idea of their future and lays afar off the foundations of it.

What passed even among the Greeks, was a kind of preparation to the knowledge of the truth. Their philosophers were sensible that the world was ruled by a God very different from those whom the vulgar adored, and whom they worshiped themselves with the vulgar. The Greek histories evince, that this excellent philosophy came from the east, and from the places where the Jews had been dispersed: but from whatever place it may have come, so important a truth propagated among the Gentiles, however opposed, however ill followed, even by those who taught it, began.to awaken mankind, and furnished by anticipation, certain proofs to those, who were one day to rescue them from their ignorance.

But as the conversion of the Gentile world was a \totk reserved for the Messiah, and llie

FECteristic of bis coming, error and impiety prevailed over ail. The most enlightened and wisest nations, the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Phenicians, Grecians, and Romans, were the most ignorant, and the blindest in the article of religion: so true it is, that we must be trained to it by a special grace, and by a more than human wisdom! Who would dare to narrate the ceremonies of the. immortal Gods, and their impure mysteries? Their loves, their cruelties, their jealousies, and all their other excesses, were the subjects of their feasts, of their sacrifices, of the hymns that were to them, and of the paintings that were consecrated m their temples. Thus wickedness was worshiped, and owned necessary to the service of the The gravest of the philosophers forbid drinking to excess, if it was not m the leasts of Bac- and to the honour of that God. Another, after at.' severely lashing all unseemly images, excepts those of the gods, who chose to be honoured by such inde- One cannot read without astonishment the honours that were to be paid to Venus, and the pros-i.*L 'titutions that were established for her worship. Greece, as polite and wise as she was, had received those abominable mysteries. Upon pressing cies, private persons and public weals devoted courtesans to Venus; and Greece did not blush to ascribe her preservation to the prayers ihey put up to their goddess. After the defeat of Xerxes and his formidable armies, there was placed in the temple a picture, wherein were represented their vows and processions, with this inscription of Simonides, the famous poet: 'These prayed to the goddess Venus, who for their sake saved Greece.

If love was of necessity to be worshipped, it should at least have been honourable love: but here it was not so. Solon, who could believe it, or expect from so great a name so great a scandal f Solon, I say, erected at Athens a temple to Venus the prostitute, or unjcbaste love. All Greece was filled with temples dOnsecrated to this and conjugal love had fiot one in the whole country.

Tet they detested adultery both in men and wo« Daen: the conjugal tie was sacred among them. But when they applied themselves to religion, they appeared possessed with a strange spirit, and their natural light forsook them«

Nor did the Roman gravity treat religion any more seriously, seeing it consecrated to the honour of the Gods, the impurities of the theatre, and the bloody spectacles of the gladiators, that whatever can be imagined most corrupt and barbarous.

I don't know whether the ridiculous follies men blended with religioip, had not a still more pernicious effect, by bringing it into so great a contempt. Could people preserve the respect due to divine things, amidst the impertinencies that stuffed the fables, whereof the representation or commemoration made so great a part of the divine worship? The whole public service was but one continued scene of profanation, or rather a derision of the name of God, Und there must needs have beeii some power, an enemy to that sacred name, naving designed to disparage it, prompted men to use it in so contemptible things, and even to prostitute it to so unworthy subjects.

'Tis true, the philosophers had at last confessed that there was another those the vulgar wor- 'shipped; but they durst not avow it. On the con-JJ°- Irary, Socrates delivered it as a maxim, that every one oiigbtto follow the religion of his country. Plato leg, v. his disciple, who saw Greece, and all the countries in the world filled with an absurd and scandalous worship, does nevertheless lay it down as a foundation of his republic, men a1e never to make any change in the religion they find established, and that they must have lost all common sense so much as to think of it." So grave philosophers, and who said so excellent things concerning ifee li not dare to oppose the public error, and despaired of being able to conquer it. Socrates cused of denying the gods the public adored, be vindixeb. cated himself Kom it, as from a crime; and Plato, wTitf- speaking of the Ood who had formed the universe, to declare him to the people. He protests, that he never speaks of him but enigmatically, for fear of ex posing so great a truth to ridicule. In what abyss was mankind plunged, when it could not bear the least idea of the true God? Athens, the LH. most polite, and most learned of the Grecian cities, for atheists those who spoke of intellectual things? ulsttid. this was one of the reasons for which Socrates was condemned. If some philosophers presumed to teach, that statues were not gods, as the vulgar apprehended, they found themselves obliged to recant this doctrine, and even after that were they banished, as profane persons, by sentence of the Areopagus. The whole earth was possessed with the same error: truth durst not set up its head. The great God, the Creator of the world, had neither temple, nor worship, but in Jerusalem. When Gentiles sent thither their offerings, they did no other honour to the God of Israel, than that of joining him to the other gods. Judea alone was acquainted with his holy and severe jealousy, and knew that to divide religion between him and other gods, was to destroy it.

And yet, in the latter the Jews themselves, who knew him, and who were the guardians of religion, begun (so prone are men ever to weaken the truth) not to forget the God of their fathers, but to mingle in religion superstitions unworthy of him. Un«.Tos.. der the reign of the Asmoneans, and in the lime of tiiLs! Jonathan, the sect of the Pharisees arose among the Jews. They acquired at first a great reputation, by the purity ol their doctrine, and oy their strict obiBidi servance of the law: add to this, that their conduct >vas mild, though regular, and that they lived in grqat

Ooion among themselves. The rewards and punish- Jf-JJ**- ments of the future state, which they zealously assert- JjJ edj gained them much honour. At last, ambition entered among them. They would needs govern, and accordingly assumed an absolute power over the peo-> pie, set themselves up for arbitrators of learning and religion, which they insensibly perverted to superstitious practices, subservient to their interest, and the dominion they wanted to usurp over consciences; and the true dpirit of the law was like to be lost.

To these evils was added a greater, pride and presumption; but a presumption which went so far as to arrogate to itself the gift of God. The Jews accustomed to bis benefits, and enlightened so many ages by bis acquaintance, forgot that his goodness alone had set them apart from other nations, and looked upon his. favour as their due. Being a chosen race, and ever blessed for two thousand years, they judged themselves alone worthy of knowing God, and tiiought themselves of a different species from other whom they saw deprived of the knowledge of him. From this principle, they look upon the Gentiles with an insupportable disdain. To be come of Abraham after the fleshy seemed to them a distinction, which naturally above all others; and puffed up with so noble an extraction, they fancied themselves holy by nature, and not by grace: an error, which still prevails among them. It was the Pharisees, who seeking to glorify themselves on their own lights, and on their strict observance of the ceremonies of the law, introduced this opinion towards the latter As their sole aim was to distinguish themselves from other men, they multiplied external usages without number, and delivered all their notions, however contrary to the law of God, as so many authentic traditions. '

Although these sentiments had never passed by a public decree into tenets of the synagogue, they insensibly stole in among the people, $sffir turbulent and seditious. At length the divfvisions, which» according to their propbets, were to Jjfflfi, be ibe beginning of their sorrows, broke out on occa- '» sion of the quarrels that entered into the house of the Tot It was bardJj sixty years to Jesus Christ, Ant*, when Hyrcanus and Aristubulus, sons of Alexander Iw.'i' Janneus, fell out about the priesthood, to which the jSl 4 was annexed. This is the fatal moment, wherein history fixes the first cause of the destruction ij>T. of the Jews, rompey, whom the two brothers called be umpire between them, subjected them both, at z!:ch. same time that he dispossessed Antiochus, sur- 8' named Asiaticus, the last king of Syria. These three princes, degraded ' together, and as it were at one blow, were the signal of the decay marked in precise terms by the prophet Zechariah. It is certain from history, that this change of affairs in Syria and Judea was made at the same time by Pompey, when, after putting ao end to the Mithridatic war, being about to return to Rome, he settled the affairs of the east. The prophet observed only what concerned the destruction of the Jewi), who, of two brothers, whom they had seen both kings, saw one, a prisoner, adorn Pompey's triumph, and the other (the weak Hyrcanus) from whom the same Pompey took, together with his dem, great part of his dominions, now retain but au empty title of authority, which he soon after lost.. Then it was that the Jews were made tributary to the Romans: and the ruin of Syria brought on theirs, be* cause that great kingdom, reduced into a province in their neighbourhooo, so greatly augmented there the Roman power, that there was no more safety but in obeying them. The governors of Syria made continual attempts upon Judea; the Romans rendered themselves absolute masters there, and weakened its government in many respects. By them, io fine, the kingdom of Judah passed from the hands of the Asmoneans, to whom it had submitted, into those of Herpd, a foreiguer and Idameaa. The cruel and ambitious policy of that king, who professed only in ance the Jewish religion, altered the maxims of the ancient government. Tbey are no longer those Jews> masters of their own fate under the vast empire of the Persians and first Seleucidse, when the only thing re* quired of Ibem was to live in peace. Herod, who keeps tfaeni almost enslaved under his government, puts every thing in disorder; confounds at his pleasure the succession of the priests; weakens the pontificate, which he renders arbitrary; enervates the authority of the council of the nation, which can no longer do any thins: the whole public power passes into the hands of Herod, and of the Roman?, whose slave he is, and he shakes the foundations of the Jewish com* monwealth.

The Pharisees, and the people, who were entirely led by their sentiments, bore this state with the utmost impatience. The more they felt themselves galled by the yoke of the Gentiles, the greater contempt and hatred did they conceive for them. They were no more for any Messiah, who should not be a warrior, and formidable to the powers that enthralled them. Thus forgetting all the prophecies, which told them so expressly of bis humiliations, they had no longer cither eyes or ears, but for those which announced them triumphs, though very different from those they desired.

In this decline of religion, and of the Jewish affairs, at the end of Herod's reign, and in the time the Phar- chrij isees were introducing so many abuses, Jesus Christ was sent upon earth, to restore the kingdom into the***"* Louse of David, after a more sublime manner than the carnal Jews understood itj and to preach the doctrine, which God had resolved should be declared to the whole world. This wonderful child, called by Isaiah, " The mighty God, the everlasting father," and '' f= prince of peace," is bornof a virgin at Bethlehem, and comes there to acknowledge the origlti oC ?kS.sji, Concrired by the Holy <5hos, \10\5 \v\

«!t lea AN ursivERSAti ntsrow.

irortbf to make atonement for the guilt of ours, be the name of Jesus, or because " he was to save us from our sins.'' Immediately upon his birth) a new star, the type of that light he was to show to the Gentiles, appears in the east, and guides to the yet infant Saviour, the first-fruits of the conrersion of the Gentiles. A little after, that Lord, so greatly desi*

red, comes to his holy temple, where Simeon beholds

not only as " the glory of Israel," but also as ' a light to lighten the Gentiles." When the time of preaching his gospel drew near, Bt. John who was to prepare his ways, called all sinners to pentance, and with his crying made the whole wilder

cess resound, where he bad lived from his tcnderest infancy with equal austerity and innocence. The pec*

pie, whd for five hundred years had seen no acknowledged this new Elias, and were ready to take him for the Saviour, so great did his sanctity appear:

but be biiiiseir pointed out to the people. Him, '* whose

John shoe latcbet be was not worthy to unloose." At length

'**'' Jesus Christ begins to preach bis gospel, and to reveal

Xatth. the secrets he saw from all eternity in the bosom of

Kuk his father. He lays the foundations of bis church by

"16* calling of twelve fishermen, and puts St. Feter at

the head of the whole flock, with so manirest a pre-

rogative, that the evangelists, who in the catalogue

55iM8. they make of the apostles observe no certain order, unanimously agree in naming St. Peter before all the rest as the first. Jesus Christ makes a tour through all

Judea, filling it ftith his benefits; healing the having compassion upon sinners, whose true pbysiciaa he shows himself, by the free access he allows them to his presence, making men feel at once an authority and sweetness, that never had appeared but in his per*

son. He declares high mysteries; but confirms by great miracles: he enjoins great virtues; but at the same time, great illumination. And thereby

does he appear " full of grace and truth, and wc al)

receive of his fulaess,''

Every thing is consistent in bis person; his life, his doctrine, his miracles. The same truth shines through the whole: every thing concurs to exhibit in him the master of mankind, and pattern of perfection.

He, and only He, living among men, and in sight of all the worid, could say without danger of being beh'ed, which of you convinceth me of sin? And again, I am the light of the world; my heart is to dc the will of biro that sent rae. He that sent me is with n». tz,. me: the father hath not left me alone; for I do always It those things that please him.'

His miracles are of a peculiar order, and of a new character. They are not '' signs in heaven, such as Ibe Jews sought after; be works them almost all men themselves, and towards healing of their inGrmities. All these miracles speak more goodness than power, and do not so much surprize the beholders, as they touch the bottom of their hearts. He performs tbem with authority: devils and diseases obey him: at his word the blind receive their sight, the dead arisci and sins are forgiven. The principle of the miracles ' is wiUiin himself; they flow from their proper I perceive," saith he, '* that virtue is gone out of ▼«*•£ me." And, indeed, none had ever performed either ' so great or so many miracles; and yet he promises that his disciples shall, in his name, do still greater works than these: so fruitful and inexhaustible is virtue be contains in himself.

Who ivould not admire the condescension with which he tempers the sublimity of his doctrine? It is milk for babes, and at the same time meat for the $trong. We see him full of the secrets of God; but we see him, not astonished at them, like other mortals to whom God is pleased to communicate himself: he speaks naturally of them, as being born in that mystery and glory; and what he hath tvithovt he dispenses with measure, that so our weakness may be pkble to bear it.

Although he be sent for the faifflseir at first only to the lost sbeep of the house of Israel, to whom indeed he was sent in a more especial manner: but he prepares the way for the conversion of the Samaritans and Gentiles. A woman of Sama« ria acknowledges him the Christ, whom her nation ex*- ' pected, as well as that of the Jews, and learns of him the mystery of the new worship, which should no longer be confined to any one certain place. A woman of Canaan and an idolatress, though at first forces from him, so to speak, the cure of her daugh* 55j!g; ter. He discovers, in several places, the.children of Abraham among the Gentiles, and speaks of his doc- 11- 'trine as being to be preached, gainsayed and received over the whole eaith. The world had never seen any such thing; and his apostles are astonished at it. He does not at all conceal from his followers, the fiery trials which they were to pass through. He shows them violence and seductiop employed against them, persecutions, false doctrines, false brethren, war within, and war without, t|ie faith purified by all these trials; in 'the last days, the decay of this faith, and charity waxing cold among his disciples; in the midst of so many dangers, his church and the truth never to be prevailed against.

Here then behold a new conduct, and a new order of things! The children of God are no longer buoyed up with the hopes of temporal rewards; Jesus Christ sets forth to them a future life, and keeping them suspended in that expectation, he teaches them to disengage themselves from all things of sense. The cross, and patience under it, become their portion upon earth, and heaven is proposed to them as to be taken by force. Jesus Christ, who points out to men this new way, is the first himself to enter into il: he preaches pure truths, which confound but self-conceited men: he detects the hidden pride and hypocrisy of the Pharisees and doctors of the Jaw, who corrupted it by their interpretations. In iJbe midst of these veproaclies \si&a*

J.

istrjr, and Moseses seat where they sit. He is often in 2au.2. the temple, causing its holiness to be reverenced, and sends back to the priests the lepers be has cleansed* He thereby instructs men how they ought to reprove and check abuses, without prejudice of the ministry appointed by God: and sbdws, that the body of the synagogue subsisted notwithstanding the.corruption of Its particular members. But it was visibly tending to its ruin. The chief priests and Pharisees stir* red up against Jesus Christ, the Jewish people, whose religion was degnerating into superstition. That people cannot bear the Savrour of the world, calling themf'to.a solid, but difficult practice. The holiest and best of all men, nay, holinessiand goodness itself becomes the most envied and bated. He is not discouraged, nor ceases doing good to bis coutrymen but he sees their ingrantude; he foretels its punishment with tears, and denounces to Jerusalem her approaching fall* He prophecies also, that the enemies to the truth be declared to them, should be delivered up to error, and become the sport of false prophets..Mean time the jealousy of the Pharisees and chief priests is bringing him to an infapious pun* ishment: his disciples forsake him; one of them betrays him: the first, and most zealous of them denies him thrice. Accused before the council, he honours the priest's office to the last, and answers in precise terms the highpriest, that inteirogates him judicially. But the moment was come, for the synagogue's reprobation. The highpriest and whole council condemn Jesus Christ, because he called: bimself the Christ, the son of God. He is delivered up to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor: his innocence is acknowledged by his judge, whom policy and interest induce to act contrary to his conscience: the just one is condemned to death; the most heinous of all crimes makes way for the most perfect obedience that ever the world saw. Jesus master of his life, and of all things, gives up himself

30® AN UNIVERSAL mSTORV,

Tvicked men, and offers the sacrifice, which was iq he the expiation of mankind. On the crossy he beholds 10 the prophecies, what jet remained for him to do r '"'fi's it, and says at last, It is finished. At this word, the world undergoes an universal change; the law ceases, its figures pass away, its sacrifices are abol-* isbed by a more perfect oblation. This done, Jesus Christ, with aloud cry, gives up the ghost: all nature is moved: the centurion who watched him, astonish-

ed at such a death, cries out. Truly this was the son cf u. Qod; and the spectators return smiting their breasts.

XT,S9. On the third day he rises again; he appears to his followers, who bad deserted bira, and who obstinately persisted in disbelieving his resurrection. They see him, talk with him, touch him, and are convinced. To confirm the faith of his resurrection, he shows himself to them at sundry times, and in divers circum* stances. His disciples see him in private, and they see him also all together: he appears once to above hundred brethren assembled. An apostle, who has recorded it, assures, that the greatest part o{ them were yet alive, when he wrote it. Jesus Christ risen again, gives his apostles what time they please to consider him well, and after having put himself into their hands in all the shapes they desire, so that there can no longer remain the smallest doubt, he com* mauds them to bear witness of what they have of what they have heard, and of what their hands have handled. And that none may doubt of their can.- dour, any more than of their persuasion, he obliges them to seal their testimony with their blood. Thus their preaching is unshaken; the foundation of it is a positive fact, unanimously attested by those that saw it. Their sincerity is justified by the strongest proof imaginable; which is that of torments, and of death itself* Such are the instructions the apostles received. Upon this foundation twelve fishermen ' undertake the conyersion of the whole world, which they sanr 50 set thef had to

AN UMVfiRSAL HISTORY. 2ID& and the truths they bad to proclaim. They are inanded to begin at Jerusalem, and tbence to go all the world, and teacb all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the VauT Holy Ghost." Jesus Christ promises to be with them alway, even. unto the end of the world; and by this paying assures the perpetual continuance of the eccle* siastical function. Having thus spoken, he ascends into heaven in their presence.

The promises are about to be accomplished: the prophecies are goine to receive their final Sement. The Grentiles are called to the knowledge of God by the orders of Jesus Christ risen. A new is instituted for the regeneration of the new people: and the faithful learn that the true God, the God of Israel, that one undivided God, to whom they are consecrated in baptism, is at once Father, SoD, and Holy Ghost.

There then are set forth to us the ble depths of the Divine Being, the ineflable greatness of his unity, and the infinite riches of that nature, still more fruitful within than without, capable of communicating itself without division to three equal persons.

There are unfolded the mysteries, which were wrapped, and, as it were, sealed up in the ancient scriptures. We now understand the secret of that saying, '* Let us make man in our image;" and Trinity intimated in the creation of man, is expressly declared in his regeneration.

.We learn what is that wisdom, " which the Lord Yrot/ possessed in the beginning of his way, before works of old;" the wisdom, who is bis daily delight, and by whom all bis works are ordained. We know who he was, whose birth David saw from the womb of the morning; and the New Testament teacheth us, that he is the Word, the internal Word of God, and bis eternal who is always in his and by whom all thmgs were made*.

StH AN UMVTERSAIi HISTORY.

We thereby can answer the mysterious questjoh proposed in the proyerbs: ' What is the name and what is his Son's name, if thou canst tell i For we know thatthis name of God, so mysterious and so is the name of the understood in that profound sense, which makes us conceire him from eternity Father of a son equal to himself, and that the name of his son is the name of the Word; the Word which he eternally begets by the contemplating of himself which is the perfect expression of his troth, hb image, his only Son, the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.'

Together with the Father and the Son we know also the Holy Ghost, the love of both, and their eternal union. It is that spirit who makes the prophets, and is in them to discover to tbem the counsels of xMih God, and the secrets of futurity; the spirit of whom it is written/* The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me,' who is distinguished from the Lord, and is also the Lord himself, since he sends the prophets, and discovers future things. That Spirit, who speaks to the prophets, and by the prophets, is united with the Fatlier and the Son, and interposes with them in the consecration of the new man.

Thus the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God in three persons, shown more darkly to our fathers, is clearly revealed in the new covenant. In* Structed in so high a mystery, and astonished at its in- comprehensible depth, we cover our faces before God with the seraphims, which Isaiah saw, and with tbein we worship him who is tbrice holy.

It belonged to the only Son who was in the bosom

of the Father,' and who, without leaving it, came to us; to him it belonged to' discover to us fully those wonderful secrets of the Divine Nature, which Mose?

and the prophets had but slightly glanced at.

To him it belonged to make us understand whence it came to pass, that the Messiah promised as a man, wAo was to save olheT mei\« the same time UNIVERSAL HISTORT.. 206:

bibited as God in the singular number, and absolutely after the same manner in which the creator is designed to us: and this indeed he has done, by teaching us that, though the son of Abraham, ' before Abraham was, He is/ that he ' came down from heaveui and that he is in heaven:'that he is at once God, the Son' ' of God, and Man, the son of man; the true Emanuel, God with us; in short the Word made flesh, uniting in his person the human nature with the divine, in order to reconcile all things unto himself, sa'

Thus are revealed to us the two great mysteries, that of the Trinity and that of the incarnation. But he who has revealed them, makes us to fiud the image of them in ourselvesi that so they may be ever present wHb us, and that we may understand the dignity of Dur nature.

In fact, if we impose silence on our senses, and shut ourselves up for a while in the inmost recesses of our soul, that is, in that part where truth makes its voice to be beard, we shall there see some image of the Trinity we adore. The thought, which we perceive to up as the bud of our mind,.as the son of our derstanding, gives us some idea of the Son of eternally conceived in the mind of the heavenly Fa-deTrin! tfaer. Wherefore this Son of God assumes the name el;. of the Word, that so we may understand him spring- evm"* ing up in the bosom of the Father, not as bodies spring J;. up, but as does that internal Word, which we perceive civ. w. in oursouJ, when we contemplate the truth. fi"'

But the fruitfulness of our mind is not confined to that eternal world, that intellectual thought, that image of the truth, which is formed in us. We love both that internal word, and the mind, in which it springs; and by loving it we perceive in ourselves something, no less precious to us than our mind and our thought, which is the fruit of both, which unites them, is uoited to them, and constitutes with them but one and the same life.

Tbds, and as far as there can be found an; between God and man, thus, I say, is produced in God the eternal love, which proceeds from the Father who thinks, and from the son who is his thought, ki order to make with him and his thought, one and the same nature equally happy and perfect.

In short, God is perfect; and his Word, the living image of infinite truth, is no less perfect than he; and his love, which proceeding from the inexhaustible source of good, hath all the fulness of it, cannot fail of having an infinite perfection: and since we have no other idea of God, than that of perfection, each of these three subsistences considered in itself deserves to be called God: but because these three agree necessarily to one and the same nature, these three are but one God.

We must not then conceive any thing unequal, or separate in this adorable Trinity: and however incomprehensible the equality may be, our soul, if we listen to it, will tell us something of it.

It is, and as it knows perfectly what it is, its under* tlfdt, standing is correspondent to the truth of its being; and as it loves its being, together with its understanding, as much as they deserve to be loved, its love equals the perfection of both. These three are never to be separated and contain one other: we understand that we are, and that we love; and we love to be, and to understand. Who can deny this if he understands himself f And not only one is no better than another, but the three together are no better than any one of them in particular, seeing each contains the whole, and in the three consists the happiness and dignity of the rational nature. Thus, and in an infinitely higher degree is the Trinity, whom we worship, and to whom we are consecrated by our baptism, perfect, inseparable, one in essence, and in short equal in every sense.

But we ourselves, who are the image of the Trinity, in another respect are also the image of the incar* nation.

OuF soul, of a spiritual and incorruptible nature, has a corruptible body uDited to it; and from the union of both results a whole, which is man, a mind and body together, at the same time incorruptible and ble, at once intelligent, and merely brutish. These attributes agree to the whole, with relation to each of its two parts: thus the divine Word, whose virtue sus-v&eri* taiois the whole is united in a peculiar manner, or er, becomes itself, by a perfect union, that Jesus the Son of Mary, which makes one to be God and n)an|7mb. together: begotten in eternity, and begotten in time; ever living in the bosom of the Fatber, and dying upoa the cross for our salvation*

But wherever Ood is concerned, comparisons drawn frooi human things cannot but be imperfect. Our soul is not before our body, and something is wanting to that, when separated from this. The Word, perfect in itself from all eternity, unites itself to our nature, only to honour it. That soul which presides over the body, and makes various changes in it, suffers itself some from it in its turn. If the body is moved at the command, and according to the will of the soul, the soul id troubled, the soul is afflicted, and agitated a thousand ways, either painful or pleasing, according to the dispositions of the body; so that as the soul ex* alts the body to it by governing it, it is also debased beneath it by the things it suffers from it. But in Jesus Christ the Word presides over all, the Word keeps all under its management. Thus man is exalted, and the Word is not debased by any situation: immoveable and unalterable, it rules in all things, and in ail places that nature which is united to it.

Hence it comes, that in Jesus Christ, man is absolutely submissive to the inward direction of the Word, which exalts hinv to itself, has none but divine thoughts, none but divine affections. All he thinks, all be wills, all he says, all he conceals within, all he discovers without, is animated by the Word, guided by the Word, worthy of the Word, that is worthy ofrea* son itselfi of wisdoin itself, and of tvuXli

20a e all Is light in Christ Jesus, his conduct is a rule; bis miracles are iustiiictions; bis words are and Ihey are life.

It is not given to all rightly to understand these sub* lime truths, nor perfectly to see in themselves that mar* vellous image of divine things, which St. Augustine, and the other fathers have believed so certain. The senses govern us too much, and our imagination, will intrude itself in all our thoughts, does not permit us always to dwell upon so pure a light. We do not know ourselves; we are ignorant of the riches we bear about our nature, and none but the finest eyes can perceive them. But the little we do enter into this secret, and do not make shift to discern in ourselves the image of the two mysteries, which are the foun«- dation of our faith, is sufficient to raise us above all earthly things, and to put us beyond the reach of mor* tality.

And therefore does Jesus Christ call us to an mortal glory, which is ibe fruit of the faith we have in the mysteries.

That God-man. that incarnate truth and which makes us believe so great things upon his sole authority, promises us the clear and beatific vision of them in eternity, as the certain reward of our faith.

In this way, is the mission of Jesus Christ infinitely exalted above that of Moses.

Moses was sent to rouse by temporal rewards, sen-* sual and brutish men. As they were become all body and flesh, it was necessary to lay hold of them at first by the senses, in order to inculcate upon them by this means a knowledge of God, and an abhorrence of idolatry, to which mankind had so prodigious an clination.

Such was the ministry of Moses: it was reserved for

Jesus Christ to inspire man with higher notions, and to convince him with the fullest evidence, of the immortality, and eternal felicity of his soul.

During the times of that is, during

$ tjfues wbicb preceded Jesus Christ, what ibe soul knew of its dignity and ianmortality, led it most com* monlf into error. The worship of dead persons was almost the whole ground of idolatry: almost all men sacrificed to the that is, to the souls of the dead. So ancient errors show us indeed bow ancient was the belief of the soul's immortality, and demon* that it is to be ranked among the first traditions of mankind* But man who perverted every thing, bad strangely abused this, when it brought him to sa* jorifice to the dead. Nay some went to that excess, tbatthey sacrificed livipg men to them; they their slaves, and even their wives, in order to worship tfaem ia the other world. This the Gauls practised with many other nations; and the Indians, distinguished by pagan authors among the first asserters of the immortality of the soul, were also the first that, under pretepce of religion, introduced those abominable murders upon eartb. The same Indians killed selves to hasten the happiness of the future life; and that deplorable blindness continues among those nations to this day: so dangerous is it to teach the truth in any other order than that which God hath followed, and to explain clearly to man, what be is, before he has known God perfectly.

It was for want of knowing God, that most of the philosophers could not believe the soul immortal, without believing it a portion of the deity, a deity itself, an eternal being, uncreated as well as incorruptible, and having no more beginning than end. What shall I say of those, who believed the transmigration of souls; who made them roam from heaven to earth and then from earth to heaven again; from animals into men, and from men to animals; from happiness to misery, and from misery to happiness; without these revolutions having ever any fixed period, or certain order? How was the divine justice, providence, and goodness darkened amidst so many errors! and bow necessary was it to know i>10 wisdom previous to the knowledge of the soul, and its immortal nature!

For which reason the law of Moses gave man but a first notion of the nature of the soul and its felicity* We have seen the soul at the beginning made by the power of Gody as well as the other creatures, but with this peculiar that it was made after his own image, and by the breath of his mouth that so it might understand of whom it held its exist* ence, and might never think itself of the same nature with bodies, Tor formed by the concourse of them. But the consequences of this doctrine, and the wonders of the future state were not then universally unfolded; and it was in the day of the Messiah, that this great light was to appear openly.

God hath scattered some sparks of it in the ancient scriptures. Solomon had said, that as the dust shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit shall return to God who gave it.' The patriarchs.and prophets lived in this same hope. Daniel had foretold that there should come a time when ' many of them that sleep S' in the dust of the earth should awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.' Bui at the same time, that these things arc revealed to him, be is commanded to 'sbgt up the words, and seal the book, even to the appointed time of the end,' in order to let us understand, that the full discovery of those truths belonged to another season, and to another age*

Although then the Jews had in their scriptures some promises of eternal happiness, and though towards the times of the Messiah, wherein it was to be they spoke much more about it, as appears by the books of wisdom, and the Maccabees; this truth was so far from being a general tenet of the ancient people, that the Sadducees, who did not acknowledge it, were not only admitted into the synagogue, but even promoted to the priesthood. It is one of the racteiistics of the uevr people, to lay for the tion of religion the belief of a future state, and ibis was to be the fruit of the coming of the Messiah.

Wherefore, not contented with telling us, that a life eternally happy was reserved for the children of God, be bath also told us wherein it consists. And this is life et€rna], to be with him where he is, in the glory of God the father: life eternal is to behold the glory he Iiath in the bosom of the Father from the foundation of the world: life eternal is, that Jesus Christ be in us, as in his members, and that the eternal love wherewith the Father loveth his Son, extending itself towards us, may enrich us with the same gifts: life eternal, in a word, is to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent; but to know him after that manner, which is called the clear sight, the seeing face and openly, the sight which re-J.{j;»5;; forms and perfects in us the image of God, according >2. to what St. John saith, fVe shall be like him: for we shall see him as he is.

That sight shall be attended with an immense love, a joy unspeakable, and endless glory. An eternal and an eternal Amen, with which the hea- venly Jerusalem resounds, speak all sorrows done|J»- J-away, and all desires satisfied; and nothing morere-5»a, ' mains, but to praise the divine goodness;

With so new rewards, Jesus Christ must* propose also new ideas of virtue; a practice more perfect, and more refined. The end of religion, the soul of all virtues, and the sum of the law, is charity. But, until Jesus Christ, we may affirm, that the perfection and effects of this virtue were not fully known. 'Tis Jesus Christ properly, who teacheth us to place our delight in God alone. In order to set up the kingdom of chality, aiid to discover to us all the duties of it, he proposes to us the love of God, even to the hating of our-* selves, and persecuting, without respite, the principle of corruption, which dwells in all our hearts. He proposes to us the love of our neighbour, so as to extend that beneficent bclinatioD towards all ai2 even our verj persecutors: be proposes to us mortification of sensual desireSj even to Ibe cutting off of our own members, that is, wbatever bas got the strongest and most intimate bold of our beart: he proposes to us submission to the will of God, so as even to rejoice in the sufferings be sends us: be proposes to us humility, so as even to love shame for the glorj of God, and to believe, that no injury can make us so vile in the sight of men, but that we are still viler in ' the sight of God through our sins. Upon this foundation of charity he perfects all estates and conditions of human life. Thereby marriage is reduced to its primitive form; conjugal love is no more derided; so holy a society knows now no end, but that of life; and children see no more their mother put awav, to have a stepmother substituted in her place. Celibacy is set forth to us as an imitation of the life of angels, which is solely taken up with God, and the chaste delights of his love. Superiors learn that they are the servants of others, and appointed for their good; their inferiors acknowledgie the ordinance of God in lawful powers, even when tbey abuse their authority: this thought sweetens the pains of subjection, and under the hardest masters obedience is no longer a hardship to the true christian.

To these precepts he joins counsels of eminent perfection: to renounce all pleasure; to live in the body, as if out of the body; to forsake all; to give all to tli« poor, in order to possess nothing but God only; to live upon little or nothing, and to look for that little from the hand of divine providence.

But the law, most peculiar to the Gospel, is that of bearing the cross. The cross is the true test of faith, the true foundation of hope, the perfection of charity, in a word, the road to heaven. Jesus Christ died upon the cross; he bore his cross all bis lifetime j His to the cross he will have us to follow him, and sets eternal life at that price. The first to whom he particularly promises the of the future worlds is a companioo of'his cross: To-day/ says he, shalt thou be me in paradise. So soon as be was on the cross, veil, that covered the sanctuary, was rent from top to bottom, and heaven was open to the souls of saints. It was upon coming from the cross, and from the horrors of his passion, that he appeared to his apostles, all glorious, and conqueror of death, to the end that they might understand, it was by the cross he was to enter into his glory, and that he showed no other way to bis children.

Thus was given to the world, in the person of Jesus Christ, the lively image of an accomplished which has nothing, and expects nothing upon earth; which men reward only by continual persecutions; which does not cease to do them good; and on which its own good offices draw the most ignominious pun* ishment. Jesus Christ dies, without finding either gratitude in those he obliges, fidelity in his friends, or equity in his judges. His innocence, thoush acknowledged, does not save him; his Father bimself, in whom alone he had placed his hope, withdraws all marks of his protection: the just One is delivered up to his enemies, and dies forsaken both by God and man.

But it was requisite to let the good man see, that In the greatest extremities, he has no need either of human consolation, or even of any sensible mark of the divine aid: let him but love and trust, resting assured that God is mindful of him, tboujgb be give him no token of it, and that an eternal felicity is reserved for him.

The wisest of philosophers, when investigating the idea of virtue, found out, that, as of all the wicked, would be the most wicked, who could so well clokede his maliciousness, as to pass for a good man, and by that means enjoy all the credit which virtue has power to bestow: so the most virtuous must unquestionably be he, upon whom his virtue, by its perfec* tioD| draws the envy of all meU) lasQOkUCtL j214 an universal history.

bare nothing on bis side but bis conscience, and see bimself exposed to all manner of injuries, so as even to be nailed to the cross, witbout bis virtue being able to afford him the poor assistance of exempting bim from such a punishment. Would not one think that God bad put this wonderful idea of virtue into the mind of a philosopher, only to render it exemplified in the person of his Son, and to show that the right*' eous has another glory, another rest, in short, another happiness, that can possibly be attained upon earth?

To establish this truth, and show it so visibly accomplished in himself, at the expense of his own life, was the greatest work a man could possibly perform; and so great did God judge it, that be reserved it for the so long promised Messiah, for that man whom he made the same person with his only Son.

Indeed, what greater could be reserved for a God coming upon earth f and what could he there perform more worthy of him, than to set forth virtue in all its purity, and that eternal bliss, to which the most exquisite sorrows conduct?

out if we come to consider what is higher and more interior in the mystery of the cross, what human wit shall be able to comprehend it? There are shown ua virtues, which the Man-God alone was capable of performing! what other could, like him, have put him* self in the stead of all the ancient sacrifices, abolished them by substituting in their room a victim of an in* finite dignity and merit, and established, that henceforth there should be none but only himself, to offer unto God. Such is the act of religion which Jesus Christ exercises on the cross. Could the eternal Father have found, either among angels or men, an obedience equal to that which his well beloved Son renders him, when, nothing being able to take away bis life, he lays it down voluntarily to please him f What shall I say of the peifect conformity of all bis desires to the divine will, and of the love whereb/?fr keeps himself uoived toftft who teas in kinkt

AN UNrVERSAL HISTORY. JSSlS toncUing the world vmto himself 9 In this incomprehensible union he includes all mankind, be makes heaven at peac« with the earth, be plunges with an immense ardour into that ocean of blood, wherein be was to be hsgptized with all his followers, and darts forth from his wounds the fiare of divine love, which was to kindle the whole earth. But behold what passetb ail under- standing t the righteousness fulfilled by this who sufereth himself to be condemned by the world, that so the world may stand eternally condemned by the enormous iniquity of that judgment. ' Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of xu.ji. this world be cast out/ as Jesus Christ himself pro* nounces. Hell, which bad subdued the world, is now going to destroy him: by attacking the innocent it be obliged to release the guilty, whom it held captive: the woful hand writing, whereby we were delivered over to rebel angels is taken. out of Jestis Christ hath nailed it to his cross, to be there ted out by his blood: hell spoiled of its prey, groaneth: the cross is a place of triumph to our Saviour, and the hostile powers trembling attend the victor's car. But a greater triumph presents itself to our eyes: divine justice is itself overcome; the sinner, its due victim, is snatched out of its hands. He hath found a surety able to pay an infinite price for him. Jesus Christ unites eternally to himself the elect, for whom he gives himself; they are his members, and bis body: the eternal Father can no more; look upon them but in their head: and thus he extends towards them the infinite love wherewith he loves his Son. bis Son himself, who requests it of him: he cannot be separated from the men he hath redeemed: ' Father,' saith he, I will that they also be with me;' John they shall be filled with my spirit; tbey shall enjoy 34/H my glory: they shall be partakers with me of my fev. very throne.

After so inestimable a benefit, nothing but acclamations of joy can express our gratitude. O

cries a great philosopher and martyr, O lacomprer hensible exchange! and amazing contrivance of di- £fl& wisdom V one only is smitten, and all are deliver-ms-' smites his innocent Son for the sake of guilty men, and pardons guilty men for bis Son's sake, '* The Justjpayeth that he doth not and acquitteth sinners of thai they do owe; for what could hetter cover our sins than his righteousness? How could the rebellion of servants be better expiated, than by the obedience of the Son 9 The iniquity of many is done away in one righteous person, and the righteousness of one alone eauseth many to be To what then are Rom. we not to pretend? Ue who loved us, while we \%vol were yet sinners, so as even to lay down his life for us, what will be refuse us now that be bath reconciled and justified us by his blood.' Every thing is ours through Jesus Christ: holiness, life, glory, blessing: the kmgdom of the Son of God is our inheritance; there is nothing above our reach, provided only we do Qot debase ourselves.

While Jesus Christ crowns our desires, and exceeds our hopes, he the work of God begun under the patriarchs, and in the law of Moses.

Then God was pleased to make himself known by sensible experiences: he showed himself magnificent, in temporal promises; gracious, in loading bis children with such good things, as are pleasing to the senses; powerful, in delivering them from the bands of their enemies; faithful, in bringing tbem into the land promised to their fathers; just, by the rewards and punishments, which he sent them manifestly according to their works.

All these wonders paved the way for the truths, which Jesus Christ was coming to teach. If God is so gracious, as even to give us what our senses require, hovi much rather shall he give us what is requisite for our mind made after his own image? If he is so tender and bountiful towards )x% children, shall he con-foe hh love and bounty to the few years that constitute the term of oar lire f Shall he give to those be loves, only a shadow of felicity, ooly a land fruitful in corn and oil f Shall there not be a country, where he will abundantly dispense real blessings f

There shall doubtless; and Jesus Christ cometh to show it us. For indeed the Almighty would have performed works but little worthy of him, did all his magnificence terminate only in the grandeur exposed to our weak senses. Whatever is not eternal, is cor* respondent neither to the majesty of an eternal God, nor to the hopes of man, to whom he has made known his eternity; and that unalterable faithfulness he keeps to his servants,. shall never have an adequate until it be extended towards something immortal and

Sermanent. It was necessary therefore, that at last esus Christ should open to us the heavens, in order to discover to the eyes of our faith, that continuing StsJ, where we are to be gathered after this life. He shows }J» J|' that if God takes for bis eternal title, the name of le. the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it is because those holy men are ever living before him. God is not the God of the dead: it is not worthy of him to act as xxii.12. men do, only to accompany bis friends to the grave, ii%. without leaving them any hope beyond it; and it were a reproach upon him to call himself, with 90 much the God of Abraham, had he not founded in heaven an eternal city, where and his children might live happy.

Thus it is, that the truths of the future life are un* folded by Jesus Christ. He shows us them even in the law. The true promised land is the heavenly kingdom. It was after that blessed country that Abra*» ham, Isaac, and Jacob panted: Palestine did not deserve to bound all their wishes, nor to be the ject of the so long expectation of our fathers.

The £gypt, whence we must come out, the wilderness, through which we must pass, the Babylon, whose prisons we must break, to or return to, our native country is the worid, with its vcA it is there we are truly captive, and wandering, seduced by sin and its lusts; we must shake off this yoke in j order to find in Jerusalemi and in the city of our God, 3 o«. true liberty, and a sanctuary not made where ' the glory of the God of Israel may appear to us.

By this doctrine of Jesus Christ the secret of God is discovered to us: the law is all spiritual, its promises introduce us to that of the Gospel, and serve as a foundation to it. One and the same light appears through the whole: it arises under the patriarchs; under Moses and the prophets it increases: Jesus Christ, greater than the patriarchs, of more authority than Moses, more enlightened than.all the displays it to us in its fulness.

For that Christ, for that Man-God, for that man, who holds upon earth, as St. Augustine speaks, the place of truth, and exhibits it personally dwelling amongst us; for him, I say, was reserved to show us all truth, that is, the truth of the mysteries, of the virtues, and of the rewards, which God hath prepared for those he loveth.

It was such greatness that the Jews were to look for in their Messiah. There is nothing so great, as to bear about in one's self and to discover to men the whole truth, which nourishes them, directs them, and puri« fies their eyes, so as to render them capable of serfng God.

When the truth was to be shown to men with that fulness, it was also appointed to be proclaimed throuebout the whole earth, and to the end of time. God gave Moses only one people, and one determinate time: all ages, and all nations are given to Jesus Christ: he has his elect over all, and his church extended as the universe, shall never cease to bring them forth Go ye therefore,' saith he, and teach all na- tions, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and i?ao. of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them te observe all thingS| whatsoever I have commanded you:

aod lo, I am with jrou alwiBiy» eyen unto the end of the world.

Id order to propagate in all places, and in all ages, me dach exalted troths, and to enforce, in the midst corruption, so refined a practice, there required more than human virtue. For which reason Christ promises to send the Holy Spirit to strengthen meat of his apostles, and eternally to animate the body of «hurch.

The power of the Holy Spirit, to declare itself the mento more, was to appear in weakness. And I send, umm Baith Jesus Christ to his apostles, the promise of my Fa- that is, the Holy Ghost, upon you: in the time tarry ye in the city ofJerwalem; undertake noth-tues. log, until ye be endued with power from on high. xxiv.

In conUirmity to this order they continue shut up forty days: the Holy Ghost descends at the time appointed; fiery tongues lighting upon Christ's disciples speak the efficacy of their word; preaching begins; the apostles bear witness to Jesus Christ; they are ready to suffer every thing for the testimony that they have seen him risen again. Miracles attend their words; at two sermons of St. Peter eight thousand Jews are and bewailing their error, are washed in the blood they had shed.

Thus the church is founded in Jerusalem, and among the Jews, notwithstanding the incredulity of the bulk of the nation. The disciples of Jesus Christ exhibit to the world a charity, a power, and a meekness which no society had ever before been blessed with: persecution arises; faith increases; the children of God learn more and more to desire nothing but heaven; the Jews, by their obstinate wickedness, draw upon themselves the vengeance of God, and hasten the dreadful calamities, with which they were threatened: their state and affairs decline. While God continues to set apart a great number of them, whom he ranks among his elect, St. Peter is sent to baptize Cornel** niB the Roman centurion. He learoa first by a bea-

2i0 UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

▼eoly vision, and afterwards by experience, that the Gentiles are called to the knowledge of God. Jesus Christ, who resolved their conversation, speaks from on high to St. who was to be their teacher; and by a miracle till then unheard of, from a persecutor he makes him not only a defender, but a zealous preacher of the faith: he discovers to him the profound se-.cret of the calling of the Gentiles through the reprobation of the ungrateful Jews, who render themselves more and more unworthy of the Gospel. St. Paul stretches forth his hands to the Gentiles; he treats with a wonderful power these important points: That Acti Christ should suffer, and that he shfiuld be the first should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles:" he proves the affirmative by Moses and the prophets, and calls idolaters to the knowledge of God, in the name of Jesus Christ risen from the dead. They are converted in multitudes. St. Paul shows that their call is an effect of grace, which no longer makes any distinction between Jew and (ventile: fury and jealousy transport the Jews; they form terrible combinations against St. Paul, enraged chiefly at his preaching to the Gen* tiles, and bringing them to the true God: they deliv« er him up at last to the Romans, as they had done Jesus Christ. The whole empire was moved against the infant church; and the persecutor of all man* kind, was the first persecutor of the faithful. That tyrant causes St. Peter and St. Paul to be put to death. Rome is consecrated by their blood; and the martyrdom of St. Peter, chief of the apostles, establishes in the capital of the empire, the principal seat of religion* Meanwhile the time approached, when the divine ven-

Seance was to break forth upon the impenitent Jews; isorder takes place among them; a false zeal blinds them, and renders them odious to all men; their false prophets bewitched them with promises of an imaginirjr kingdom: seduced by their impostures, they can no looger bear any lavrCuL set no

l ta their audacious attempts. 'God gives them up to a reprobate sense. They revolt agaiost the Romans, wad are overthrown by them; Titus himself, who de-f 6troys them, is sensible that he does but lend bis band to God provoked against them.* Adrian completes their extirpation. They perish with all the marks of divine vengeance; driven out of their land, and slaves Jojd« all over the world; they have no longer either temple, jmuib. altar, sacrifice, or country: nor is there any form of people to be seen in Judah.

God however had taken care to provide for the eternity of bis worship: the Gentiles open their eyes, and are united in spirit to the converted Jews. They enter by this means into the stock of Abraham, and having become bis children by faitb, they inherit of the promises that had been made him. A new people is lormed, and the new sacrifices so much celebrated by theprophets, begin to be offered oirer the whole earth* Thus was punctually fulfilled the ancient oracle of Jacob: Judah is multiplied from the beginning more than all his brethren; and, having ever preserved a certain pre-eminence, receives at last the kingdom hereditary. In process of time, the people of God is reduced to his single family, and being confined to his tribe> takes his name. In Judah is continued that

Jreat nation promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to acob; in bim are perpetuated the other promises, the worship of God, the temple, the sacrifices, the possession of the promised land, which is no longer called any thing but Judea. Notwithstanding their different states, the Jews remain still in a regular body of a people, and kingdom, subject to their own laws. We see still raised up among them, either kings or magistrates and judges, until the Messiah comes: He comes, and the kingdom of Judah by degrees falls into ruin. It is utterly destroyed, and the Jewish people is driven without hope out of the land of their fathers. The Messiah becomes the expectation of atid reigns over a new people*

But in order to preserve the succesrion and perpe** tuitji this new people must be grafted, so to upon the former, and as St. Paul says, the wUd olive tree into the good olive tree, in order to bartaha-of its root and fatness.' And so it that the church, established first among the Jews, received at length the Gentiles, in order to make with them one tree, one body, one people, and to render them par* takers of her grace and promises.

What afterwards befals the unbelieving Jews Vespasian and Titus, no longer relates to the progression of the people of God. It is only a cnastisine of rebels, who by their infidelity towards the Seed promised to Abraham and David, are no longer Jews, nor sons of Abraham, but after the flesh, and renounce thepromise, whereby all nations were to be blessed.

Thus the last and dreadful desolation of the Jews is no more a transportation like that of Babylon; it is not a suspension of the government and state of God's people, or of the solemn service of religion: the new people, already formed and continued with the old|;iQ Christ Jesus, is not carried away; they extend, and spread themselves abroad without interruption, from Jerusalem, where they were to have their rise, to the uttermost parts of the earth. The Gentiles incorporated with the Jews, become henceforth the true Jews, and the true kingdom of Judah, as opposed to that schismatic Israel, cut off from the people of God, the true kingdom of David, by the obedience tbejr pay to the laws and gospel ojf Jesus Christ the Sod of David.

After the establishment of this new kingdom, no wonder if every thinz goes to wreck in Judea. The second temple was of no more use, after the Messiah had.accomplished in it what was marked out by the prophecies. That temple had had its promised glory, when the desire of nations was come into it. The visible Jerusalem had done what remained for her to do, siace the church had taken there its rise, and from

AN 0Niy£aiSAL HISTORY. jQg tb€DCe was daily extending its branches all over the earth. Judea is now nothing peculiar to God, or religion, any more than the Jews; and it is but just that in piHiishment of their hardness of hearty their ruins be dispersed over the whole world. And this was to be their fate at the time of the Messiah, according to Jacob, Daniel, Zechariah, and all their prophets: but as they are one day to return to that Messiah, whom they have disowned, and as the God of Abra- B«n.' ham hath not yet exhausted his mercies towards the race, though faithless of that patriarch, he hath found means, whereof there is not in the world another instance to preserve the Jews out of their country, and in their desolation, even longer than the nations that liave conquered them. There are no more to be seen any remains either of the ancient Assyrians, ancient Medes, ancient Persians, ancient Greeks, or even of the ancient Romans. Every trace of them is lost, and they are blended with other nations. The Jews, who have been the prey of those ancient nations, so celebrated in history, have survived them.all; and God by preserving them keeps us in expectation of what be will yet do for the unhappy remnant of a people once so highly favoured* However, their obstinacy conduces to the salvation of the Gentiles, and affords them the advantage of finding, in unsuspected bands, the scriptures, which have foretold Jesus Christ and his mysteries. We see among other things in these scriptures, both the blindness, and misfortunes Dan. of the Jews, who so carefully preserve them. Thus Mauf are we gainers by their overthrow; their infidelity is one of the foundations of our faith; they teach us to fear God, and are an eternal example of the judgments xxviu. be executes upon his ungrateful children, that we may S?"* learn never to glory in the favours shown to our fathers. A mystery so wonderful, and so useful for the instruction of mankind, deserves to be well considered. But we have no need of human discourses in order te understand it: the Holy Gboat bA& :dkKVi

2lU AN UmVERSAL HISTORT.

explain it to us by the mouth of St. Paul; and I be* you to attend to what that apostle has written to the Romans upon that subject.

After having spoke of the small number of Jews, Tvho had received the Gospel, and of the blindness of the rest, he enters into a deep consideration of what was to become of a people honoured with so many favours, and discovers to us at the same time the be-* neilt we reap from their fall, and the fruits which £ff,\ their conversion shall one day produce. Have the Jews stumbled,' says he, that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come to the Gentiles, for to provoke them to an emulation/ that should make them look back into themselves. *Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles,' who have been converted in so great numbers how much more their fulness? For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead f For if th£ first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou,' a Gentile, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in amongst them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive-tree, boast not against the branches: but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, the branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. For if Go<l spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.'

Who would not tremble at hearing these words of the apostle? Can we possibly not be alarmed at the vengeance, which has fallen so many ages so terribly upon the Jews, since St. Paul warns us from Crod, that our ingratitude will bring like treatment on us t But let us hear the sequel of this great mysteiy* The apostle continues to speak to the converted Gentiles. Behold therefpre,' says he, ' ihe goodness and se- of God: on them which fell, severity; but to- *»**' wards thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shall be cut off. And they also, if they bide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God,' who cut them off, is able to graft thera in again. For if thou wert cut out of the which is wild by nature, and wert grafted cimtrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much mure shall these, which be the natural branches, be fcralted into their own olive-tree?' Here the apostle rises above all be has been saying, and entering into the depths of the counsels of God, he thus pursues his discourse. ' For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, (lest ye should be wise in your own conceits) that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant, unto them, when I shall take away their sins.'

This passage of Isaiah, which St. Paul cites here to toe Septuagint, as was his custom because that version was known overall the earth, is yet strong, er in the original, and taken in its full extent. For the prophet there foretels, first of all, the conversion of the Gentiles, by these words: "They shall fear the J* Byname of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun." Then under the figure of a flood, Isaiah sees afar off the persecutions that shall pronaote the growth of the church. Lastly, the Holy Spirit informs him what shall become of the Jews, and declares to him, that the Redeemer shall come out of Zion, and unto them that turn from sion in Jacob. As for me, this is my covenant with tbem, saith the Lord: my Spirit thieit is upc»n thee/ O prophet, and tnj words which I have put in thy nottth, aball not depart out oC tiaif the mouth of thy seed, nor out or the tnoulh of tby seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth, and for ever..

He shows us therefore clearly, that after the con*' version of the Gentiles, the Redeemer, whom Zioo had refused to know, and wboui the children of Jacob had rejected, shall turn towards them, shall blot out their and restore to them the understanding of the prophecies, which they bad so lone lost that it may be handed down successively to all after generations, and be no more forgot.

Thus the Jews shall return one day, and they shall return, never more to go astray: but they shall not return till after both the east and the west,' that is the whole world, shall have been filled with the fear and knowledge of God.

The Holy Spirit discovers to St. Paul, that that py return of the Jews shall be the effect of the love wherewith God loved their fathers. Wherefore he finishes thus his reasoning: As concernmg the Gos« pel,' says he, which we now preach 1o you, ' the?l8i Jews are enemies for your sake: if God bath cast them out, it was, O Gentiles, in order to call you: but as touching the election, whereby they were cbosei from the time of the covenant sworn toAbrahami they are beloved for the father's sake. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.' For a0 ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief,' God having been pleased to choose you in their stead: even so have the Jews also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all,' and that all might know the need they have of his grace. ' O the depth of the. riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! bow un« searchable are his judgments, and bis ways past find* in; out! For who hath known the mind of the Lordf or who bath beeu cqwmUqi i Or who huth gif en to hiffii and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen/

Tnis is what St. Paul saitb concerning the election of the Jews, their fall, and return, and the at length conFersion of the Gentiles, who are called to fill their room, and to bring them back at the end of time to the blessing promised to their fathers, that is, to the Christ, whom they have denied. That great apostle shows us grace passing from one people to to keep all nations in fear of losing it: and manifests to us its invincible power, in that after having converted the idolaters, it reserves as its last work, the conviction of the Jewish hardness of heart and perfidy.

By this profound counsel of God the Jews still subsist amongst the nations, where they are scattered and captive: but they subsist with the badge of their reprobation, being fallen visibly, through their infidelity, from the promises made to their fathers, banished the promised land, not even having any land to cultivate, slaves wherever they are, without honour, without liberty, without the least form of a people.

Into this state they fell eight and thirty years after they crucified Jesus Christ, and after spending in the persecution of his disciples the time that had been allowed them to repent. But while the ancient people are cast out for their unbelief, the new people are every day increasing among the Gentiles; the covenant formerly made with Abraham is extended according to the promise, to all the nations of the world, Vfho had forgot God: the Christian church calls all men to her, and calm during many ages, amidst unheard of persecutions, she shows them, that they are hy no means to expect their felicity upon earth.

This, Sir, was the worthiest fruit of the knowledge of God, and the effect of that great blessing, which the world was to expect in Jesus Christ. It continued daily to diffuse itself from family to family, and from people to people Qpened more to a sight of the blindness, wfaereioto idolatry bad plunged them; and spite of alF the Roman er, the Christians, without revolt, without reusing any disturbance, and only by suffering all manner of inhumanities, were seen to change the face of the worId| and extend themseJFes all over the globe.

The surprising suddenness, with which this freal change was brought about, is a visible miracle. Jesus Christ had foretold, that his Gospel should spon be

E reached throughout all the earth: that wonder was to appen immediately after his death; and he bad said, lm%i when he should be lifted up from the earthy that xu.' S2! when he should be nailed to the cross, he would draw all men unto him. His apostles had not yet finished their course, when St. Paul already told the Romans, Rom. (c That their faith was spbken of throughout the whole coi.i. world." He said to the Colossians, that the Gospel ' ' was heard ' by every creature under heaven; that it was preached, that it brought forth fruit, that it was KiS' propagating in all the world.' An allowed tradition mforms us, that St. Thomas carried it to the Indies, and the rest into other distant countries. But we have no need of history to confirm this truth: the effect itself speaks, and We sufficiently see, -with bow great reason St. Paul applies to the apostles that passage of the psalmist. Their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world. Under their disciples, there was hardly any country so remote and so unknown, where the gospel had not penetrated. An hundred years after Jesus Christ, St. Justin reckoned iLadv. already among the faithful a great many savage nations, and even those vagabond people that wandered op and down in chariots, without having any fixed abode. It was by no means a vain exaggeration; but a certain and notorious fact, which he advanced in presence of the emperors, and in the face of all the world. St. THt,i Irenus comes a little after, and then we see the nuoiber of churches increase. Their unity was admirahie; what was beliQTtd in Uia Gauls, in the in Germany, was believed in Egypt, and in the east; and as *' there was but one sun in the whole world, the same light of truth shone in the whole church, from one end of the earth to the other."

If we advance but a little farther, we shall be astonished at the progress we see. In the middle of the third century, TertuUian and Origen show in church whole nations, who, a little before, were notJud. admitted within its pale. Those whom Origen ex- cepted, who were the most remote of the known world, 2i\n' are admitted a little after by Aroobius. What could the world bare seen, that it should surrender so rea- n-dily to Jesus Christ? If it saw miracles, God had a Am* visible hand in the work; and if it was possible " it had seen none, '' would it not be a new miracle" greater and more incredible than those which men will not believe, *'.to have converted the world without a miracle," to have made so many of the rant enter into so high mysteries, to have inspired many of the learned with an humble submission, " and to have persuaded unbelievers " of so many incredi' ble things?"

But the miracle of miracles, if I may so speak, i:i, that together with faith in the mysteries, the most eminent virtues, and most painful practices, spread themselves over all the earth. The disciples of Jesus Christ followed him in the most difficult paths. To endure all things for the truth was an usual exercise among his children; and in order to imitate«lhelr Saviour, they embraced pains with greater ardour than others-did pleasures. ' Fis impossible to enumerate the instances of the rich, that made themselves poor to relieve the poor; of the poor that preferred poverty to riches; of the virgins, that imitated upon earth the life of angels; or of the charitable pastors, who made themselves all things to all men, ever ready to bestow upon their flocks not only iheir watchings and labours but their very lives. What shall I say of their penitence and mortificatioa?

ercise justice more severely on a crimioal, than did penitent sinners upon themselves. Nay more, the innocent punished in tbeni:»elves with an incredible ri« gour, that strong propensity we have to sin. The life of St. John Baptist) which seemed so surprising to the Jews, became common amone the faithful; the deserts were peopled with his imitators, and there came to be so many Anchorets, that the more perfect of them were obliged to seek more profound solitudes: so much did people fly the ' world, so much vras relished the contemplative life.

Such were the precious fruits, which the Gospel was to bring forth. The church is no less rich in examples, than in precepts, and the holiness of her doctrine appeared by its producing an infinite number o{ saints. God knowing that the strongest virtues spring up amidst suiTerings, founded her by martyrdom, and kept her three hundred years in that state, without allowing her a single moment's respite* After he had shown by so long experience, that he stood in no need of human help or of earthly powerS} to establisb his church, he called at length the emperors into her, and made the great Constantine a declared protector of Christianity. From that time kings came into the church from every quarter, and all that was written in the prophecies concerning her future glory, was accomplished before the eyes of the whole earth.

But if she hath been invincible against all efforts from without, she is no less so against intestine divisions. Tbt)se heresies so much foretold by Jesus Christ and his apostles came accordingly to pass, that the faith persecuted by the emperors, suffered at the same time from the heretics, a more dangerous perse* cution. But this last never was more violent than at the time when that of the heathens was observed to cease. Hell exerted then its utmost eflbrts to destroy that church by her own hand, which the attacks of her declared enemies had served but to confirm. Scarce /lad she begun to breathe a little through the peace which Constantine afforded her, when behold Arius, that unhappy priesti stirs her up greater troubles than she had ever met with. Constantius, the son of Constantine, seduced by the Arians, whose doctrine he espouses, harasses the Catholics through the whole earth, turning a new persecutor of Christianity, and so much the more formidable, that under the name of Jesus Christ he made war upon Jesus Christ himself. To crown her mistoriunps, the church thus divided falls into the hands of Julian the apostate, who set every engine at work to destroy Christianity, and finds no means more etfectual than the fomenting of the factions with which it was torn. After him comes a Valens, as much attached to the Arians as Constantius, but fnore violent. Other emperors protect other heresies with a like fury The church learns by so much experience, that she has no less to suffer under the christian, than she had suffered under infidel emperors; and that she must shed of her blood to defend not only the whole body of her doctrine, but even every particular article. And indeed there was not one that she did not see attacked by her own children. A thousand sects and heresies coming forth from her own bosom, set themselves up against her. But if she saw them all arise according to the predictions of Jesus Christ, she saw them also fall according to his promises, though oftentimes supported by emperors and by kings. Her true children were known, as St. Paul says, by this trial; the truth did but gain new strength whenever it was contested, and the church remained unshaken.

Whilst I have endeavoured to show you uninter- J™: ruptedly the progression of the counsels of God, incuiar' the perpetual duration of his people, I have been obliged to hurry over abundance of facts which merit profound reflection. Allow me therefore here to sume them, that you may not lose things of so greater the consequence.

And in the first Sir, I

J32 h a more particular attention the fall of the hrist Jews wbereof every circumstance bears testimony to the Gospel. Those circumstances are explained to us by iniidcl authors, by Jews, and by heathens, who without perceiving the train of God's counsels, have related to us the important facts he hath been pleased to declare it.

We have Josepbus, a Jewish author, a most faithful historian, and very well acquainted with the affairs of bis nation, whose antiquities he has illustrated by an admirable work. He has written the last war wherein it perished, having been an eyewitness of the whole, and having himself served his country in it with a considerable command.

The Jews furnibh us also with other very ancient authors, whose testimonies you shall see. They have ancient commentaries upon the hooks of scripture, and among others the Cbald;.ic paraphrases, which they print with their bibles. They have their book which they name Talmud, that is, doctrine which they regard no less than the scripture itself. It is a collection of tracts and sentences of their doctors; and though the parts whereof that great work is composed be not all of equal antiquity, the latest authors quoted in it lived in the earliest ages of the church. There amidst an fnfinity of impertinent fables, which are observed to take their rise for the most part after the time of our Lord, we find some beautiful remains of the ancient traditions of the Jewish people, and proofs that might serve towards their conviction.

And first, it is certain from the confession of the Jews themselves, that the divine vengeance did never more terribly, nor more manifestly declare itself than in their last desolation.

It is an allowed tradition, attested in their Talmud, and confirmed by all their Rabbins, that forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, which comes preXiy near to the time of the death of Jesus Christy strange things were seen in the temple.

Daily did there appeiir new prodigies, insomuch that afamous Rabbin cried out one day: *' O temple, temple! what is it that moves thee, and wherefore thou make thyself afraid?" |on of

What is more noted than that dreadful noise which was heard by the priests in the sanctuary on day of Pentecost, and that audible voice which issued forth from the innermost part of that sacred place, Let us go hence, let us go hence! The holy angels, guardians of the temple, loudly declared, that they were forsaking it, because God, who had tbere established bis dwelling during so many ages, bad now given it up to reprobation.

Josepbus and Tacitus himself have both related prodigy. It was perceived only by the priests: here is another prodigy, which was visible to the eyesxiiT» of all the peolple and never had any other people seen liist. the like. ' Four years before the war was declared, a countryman,' says Josepbus, fell a crying, voice is gone out from the east, a voice is gone out Ja<*- c from the west, a voice is gone out from the four winds: a voice against Jerusalem and against the a voice against bridegrooms and against brides, a voice against all the people." From that time he ceased neither night nor day, crying, wo to Jerusalem! He redoubled bis cries on iba feast days. No other word came there out of his mouth; those who pitied him, those who cursed him, those who gaire him the necessaries of life, could none of them ever get aught from him but that terrible sentence, PVo to Jerusalem! He was siezed, examined, and condeiiied by the magistrates to be whipped: at every question, and every lash, be answered, without ever once complaining, fVo toJerusa* lem! Being dismissed as a madman, he ran up and down the whole country, incessantly repeating his sad prediction. Seven years did he continue to cry in this manner, without relaxation, yet without his voice being weakened. At the time o5 V3>\ rtualem, he shut himself tip id the city/ patroltng m« defatigablv round the walls, and crying with all bis might, IVo to the temple! Wo to the dty! Wo to all the people! At last he added, Wo to mysdfl and at the same instant was carried off by a stone shot from an engine.

Would not one think, Sir, that the divine vengeance bad in a manner rendered itself visible in this man, who subsisted only to pronounce its decrees; that it had filled him with its power, to make him equal the woes of the people by bis cries; and that he was at last to perish by an effect of that vengeance he had so long denounced, in order to render it the more sensible and striking, when he should be not only the prophet and witness, but even the victim of it.

This prophet of the woes of Jerusalem, was called Jesus, it seemed as if the name of Jesus, a name of salvation and peace, was to prove a fatal omen to the Jews, who had despised it in the person of our Saviour; and as those ungrateful wretches had rejected a Jesus, who proclaimed to them grace, mercy, and God sent them another Jesus, who had nothing to pro* claim to them but irremediable calamities, and the inevitable decree of their approaching ruin.

Let us penetrate a little farther into the judgments of God, under the guidance of his scriptures. Jerusalem and its temple were twice destroyed 5 once by Nebuchadnezzar, a second time by Titus. But in each of these times the justice of God declared itself by the same methods, though more plainly in the latter.

The better to understand this order of the counsels of God, let us lay down before all things this truth so often established in the sacred pages; that one of the most terrible effects of the divine vengeance is, when in punishment of our past sins, it gives us np to a reprobate sense, so that we prove deaf to all its wise ad- /nonitipns, blind to the ways of salvation that are pointed out to ready to that teads

AN tJNIVERSAL mSTORT, SKU to undo VLBf provided only it flatter usi fool-hardy enough to attempt any thing, without measuring our strength with that of the enemies we provoke.

Thus perished the first time Jerusalem and ces, under the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of ylon. Feeble, and always beat by that victorious princei they bad often experienced that they made but vain efforts against bim, and had been obliged to swear fidelity to bim. The prophet Jeremy declared to them on God's part, that God himself had delivered them up to that prince, and that there was no safety for them, but in submitting to the yoke. He spake Jer. to Zedekiab king of Judah, and to all his people, say- ing, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve bim and bis people, and live. Whr will ye die? wherefore should this city be laid waste i They did not give credit to his word. Whilst Nebuchadnezzar kept them closely blocked up by the prodigious works, with which he had encompassed their city, they suffered themselves to be deluded by their false prophets, who buoyed up their minds with ima* ginary victories, and told them in the name of God, although God had not sent them, *' I have broken ijviii. the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full 2, years will 1 bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, with all the captives of Judah." The people, seduced by these promises, endured ine and the hardest extremities, and held out so long through their mad resolution, that there was no more mercy for them. The city was overthrown, the temple was burned down, all was destroyed.

By these signs the Jews knew that the band of God was upon them. But that the divine vengeance might be as manifest in the final destruction of Jerusalem, as it had been in the first, there appeared in both, the same seduction, the same temerity, and the same hardness of heart.

Although their rebellion had drawn the Roman arms upon and thoug\i

AN UNIVERSAL BI9T0RY.

yoke under wbicb the whole world had bendedi Titus was very unwilliog to destroy them: on the contrary, he caused several gfers of pardon to be made them, Aot only ID the beginning of the war, but even when they could no longer reasonably hope to escape bis hands. He had already raised abont Jerusalem a vast high wall, fortified with towers and redoubts, as strong as the city itself, when he sent to them Josephus fellow-citizen, one of their captains, one of their priests, who bad been taken in that war defending his country. What did be not say to move them? By how many forcible arguments did he invite them to return to their obedience? He showed tbem heaven and earth, conspired against them, their destruction inevitable in resistance, and at the same time their safety in the clemency of Titus. Save, said he, the liiSe yourselves, save that temple the der of the world, which the Romans reverence, and iv. which Titus is loth to destroy.'' But how was it pos* sible to save people so obstinately resolved to undo themselves? Seduced by their false prophets, they hearkened not to those wise and salutary overtures. They were reduced to the last extremity; the famine killed more than the war, and mothers eat their own children. Titus, touched with their calamities, took the Gods to witness, that he was not the cause of their destruction. During these miseries, they gave faith to the false predictions, which promised them the empire of I lie world. Nay more, when the city was already on fire in every quarter, those iufalualed people still believed the false prophets, who assured them that the day of salvation was come, that so they might hold out to the last, and that there might be no more mercy for them. Accordingly every thing was massacred, the city was utterly demolished, and except some remains of towers, which Titus left for a monument to posterity, there remained not one stone upon anotber. You see then, Sir, \iu vengeance showed up-

OD Jerusalernx that had before appeared under Zedekiab. Titus is no less sent by God than Nebuchadnezzar; the Jews perish in the same oianner. We see in Jerusalem the same rebellion, the same the same extremities, the same ways of safety open, the same seduction, the same hardness of heart, the same fatal fall; and that every circumstance might exactly tally, the second temple is burned under Titus in the same month, and the same day of the month, that the first had been under Nebuchadnezzar.

There are however some very remarkable differences between the two overthrows of Jerusalem and the Jews, but ail serve to show in the last a justice more severe and more declared. Nebuchadnezzar caused the temple to beset on fire: Titus left no method untried for its preservation, though his counsellors represented to him, that so long as it stood the Jews, who held their destiny inseparable from it, would never cease to be rebels. But the fatal day was come: itxt,ia was the tenth of August, which had already seen the temple of Solomon burned to the ground. Notwithstanding the prohibitions of Titus before both Romans and Jews, and notwithstanding the natural inclination of the soldiers, which should have rather led them to plunder than consume so much riches, a soldier prompted, says Josephus by a dmne causes his com- panions to hold them up to a wintiow, till be sets fire to that august temple. Titus flies to the place, and commands them to baste and extinguish the spreading flame, [t seize? the whole in an instant, and that stupendous structure is reduced to ashes.

But if the obduracy of the Jews under Zedekiab, was the most terrible eflect and surest sign of the divine vengeance; what shall we say of the blindness that was flagrant in Titus's time?

In the first ruin of Jerusale|ii| the Jews were at least in good understanding amongst themselves; in the last, Jerusalem besieged by the was torn by three

opposite factions. If the hatred thej all bore the Komans went even to fury, they were no less cruelly exasperated against one another; the conflicts without cost the Jews less blood than those within. The next moment after sustaining assaults from the foreign enemy, the city recommenced their intestine war; violence and robbery reigned through the whole city. When it was perishing, when it was now but one great field covered with dead bodies, the heads of the factions disputed the command in it. Was not this an image of hell, where the damned hate one another no less than they hate the ilevils, their common enemies, and where every thing is full of pride, confusion, and rage?

Let us then confess, Sir, that the justice, which God executed up(»n the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar, was but a shadow of that, whereof Titus was the minister. What city hath ever lost eleven hundred thousand men in seven months time, and that in one single siege? So many Jews fell in ihf* last siege of Jerusalem. They bad suffered nothing like it from the Chaldeans. Under tbem their captivity lasted but seventy years: these seventeen hundred years have they been slaves all over the world, nor do they yet find any mitigation of their slavery.

We need no longer wonder if Titus, when returned victorious from the taking of Jerusalem, would not receive the congratulatory compliments of the neigh* bouring nations, nor the crowns they sent him, in hon-our of his victory. No many memorable circumstan* ce9, the wrath of God so express, and his hand, which he yet saw before his eyes, kept him in a profound astonishment: and it was this made him say what you bave heard, that he was not the conqueror, but only the weak instrument of the divine vengeance.

He knew not the whole secret of it; the hour was pot yet come, when the emperors were to acknowledge Jesus Christ. This was the time of the bumi*

UatioQ and persecutiou of the churcb. Wherefore

enlightened enough to know that Judea perished by a manliest efiVct of the justice of God, biew not crime which God bad thought fit to punish so terribly* It was the most heinous of all crimes, a crime till then unheard of, namely, Deicide, which therefore gave occasion to a Tengeance, whereof the world bad seen no precedent.

But if we open our eyes a little, and consider the course of things, neither that crime of the Jews, nor its punishment, can remain hid from us.

Let us remember only what Jesus Christ, had foretold them. He had foretold the utter ruin of Jerusa-. lem, and of the temple, There shall not be left,' saith be one stoqe upon another.' He bath foretold manner, bow that ungrateful city should be besieged, and the dreadful circumvaUation that was to encompass h it: he had foretold that terrible famine, which was to liuke devour its inhabitants; nor had he forgot the false prophets, by whom thf y were to be seduced. He had warned the Jews, that the nme of their calamity was at band: He bad given certain signs, which were to mark the precise hour of it. He had laid open to them the long series of crimes, which were to draw such punishments upon them: In a word, he had traced the whole hisfory of the siege and desolation of

And please. Sir, to observe, that he made them all these predictions towards the time of his passion, that so they might the better know the cause of all their miseries. His passion drew nigh, when he said to them: Behold I send unto you prophets and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and m. die. crucify; and some of them shalj ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: Tbat upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Baiachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all things shall come upon this generation. O thou that kille&t

ErophetSi and stoDest them which are sent unto theeg ow often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings; and ye would not! Behold, your house is left Unto you desolate.'

Such is the history of the Jews 1 they persecuted their Messiah, both In his person, and in that of hi& followers: they st'rred up the whole world afi;ainsti]is disciples, and allowed them no rest in any city: they armed the Romans and Emperors against the infant church; they stoned St. Stephen, killed the two James's, whose sanctity rendered them venerable even among them, slew St. Peter and St. Paul with the sword, and by the hands of the Grentiles. They needs must perish. So much blood mingled with that of the prophets, whom they have massacred, cries to God for vengeance: Theirhouses and their city shall be desolate: Their desolation shall be no less than their wickedness; Jesus Christ forewarns them of it. The time is at band: ' This generation shall not pass till Mwk things be fulfilled;' and again, " This genexm.3o. ration shall not pass till all these things be done;" that isj that the men then living were to be witnesses of them.

But let us hear the series of our Saviour's predictions. As he made his entry into Jerusalem some days before his death, touched with the calamities it was to bring upon that wretched he wept over it: xhL42. ' unhappy city, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day,' that is yet allowed thee to repent, ' the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are nid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee: and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.' This was clearly enough both the man-

Mr of the siege, and the final effects of the vengeance. But Jesus must not go to execution without denouncing to Jerusalem, how dear! j it should one day pay for the unworthy treatment it was giving him. As he went to Calvary, bearing his cross upon his shoulders, there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, fall on us; and to the hills, cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry f" If the innocent, if the just one suffer so rigorous a punishment, what are the guilty to expect i

Did ever Jeremiah more bitterly lament the destruction of the Jews? What stronger expressions could the Saviour make use of to to them their misery and despair, and that famine fatal to children, and fatal to who saw their breasts dried up, who had longer any thing but tears to give their chiVren, and who eat the fruit of their wombs?

are the predictions he made to all the people. TAose he made in particular to his disciples deserve still greater attention. They are contained in that «»"- long and admirable discourse, wherein he joins togeth- destruction of Jerusalem and that of the world, of "our This connexion is not without mystery, the design of J;."* which was this. piainjlJKJerusalem, the blessed city, which the Lord had he?r" chosen, so long; as it continued in the covenant, and puST in the faith of the promises, was a type of the church and figure of heaven, where God manifests himself to his children. For this reason do we frequently see »y* ike prophets join in the progress of the same ai what concerns Jerusalenii with what concerns the church and the celestial glory* This b one of the secrets of the prophecies, and one of the keys which open the meaning of them. But Jerusalem, reprobate and ungnLteful towards its Saviour, was to be the image of hell. Its perfidious inhabitants were tO represent the damned; and the terrible Judgment which Jesus Christ was to execute upon them, was a type of that, which he shall execute upon the whole world, when he shall come at the end of time in his fjlorious majesty to judge the quick and the dead, t is a custom in scripture, and one of the means it makes use of to imprint mysteries upon the mind, to interweave for our instruction the type with the truth* Thus our Lord hath interwoven the history of Jerusalem destroyed with that of the end of the world, as appears in the discourse we are speaking of.

Let us not however, imagine that these subjects are so blended, that we cannot discern what belongs to either. Jesus Christ hath distinguished them by certain characters, which I could easily specify, were it a thing in question. But 'tis sufficient for me to explain to you, what concerns the isolation of Jerusalem and the Jews. When the apostles (at the time of the passion too,) ti2. assembled round their master, were him the xiiKi, temple, and the buildings about it; when they were iijuke admiring its stones, its regularity, its beauty, its solidiXXL5, ly. ]jQ uQto them, 'see ye these great buildings! there shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.' Astonished at the saying, they ask him the time when so terrible an event should be? He, who had no mind to have them surprised in Jerusalem, when it should be sacked, (for he was willing that there should be in the sacking of that city an image of the final separation of the good from the evil) began to relate to them all the calamities as they were to happen one after another. First, ha shoni th«m and

AN UNIVERSAL BISTORT.. 24S

And earthquakes id diyers plades; and history bears testimony) that these things bad never been more freauent, nor retaarkable, than t|iey were in those times. He adds, that there should be through the whole world troubles, wars, and rumours of that nation should rise against nation/' and that all the earth should be in a ferment; Could be better repre- to, n. tent to us the last years of Nero» when the whole Roman empire, that is, the whole world, so peaceful ever since the victory of Augustus, and under the power of the emperors began to totter; and when the Gauls, the Spaniards, all the kingdoms, whereof the empire was composed, arose in. commotion at once; when four emperors set themselves up almost at the same time Nero, and against one another; when the Pretonan Cohorts, the armies of Syria, Germany, and all the rest that were spread both over east and west, fell foul upon each other, and traversed under the conduct of their emperors, from one end of the world to the other, in order to decide their quarrels by bloody battles? These are great evils, saitb the son of God; but the end shall not be yet' The Jews shall suffer like the rest in that general commotion of the but there shall come upon them soon after more pe-8.Liike culiar calamities, *' and these shall be but the begin- nine of their sorrows."

He adds, that his church, constantly afflicted ber first establishment, should find persecution kindled against ber more violent than ever, during those Tou have seen that Nero, in his latter yeai*s, attempted the destruction of the Christians, and caused St. Peter and St. Paul to be put to death. This persecution, excited by the jealousy and violence of the Jews, hastened their destruction, but did not yet ascertain the precise time.

The coming of false Christs and false prophets seemed to be a nearer step towards utter ruin: for the usual fate of those, who refused to lend ear to the truth, is to be hurried oxk theic deaUufiXvcyciVs prophets. Jesus Christ does not conceal from hi§ apostles that this misfortune should befal the Jews*

Many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive ma«

And again, *' Beware of false Christs and of false

2&Lakeprophets."

Let it not be said, that this was a thing easy to be guessed at by one who knew the humour of the na* tion: for on the contrary, I have showed you, that the Jews, scandalized at their seducers, who had so often caused their ruin, and especially in the time of Zedekiah, had so entirely lost conceit of them, that they would hearken to them no more. Upwards of five hundred years passed without any false prophet ap«* pearing in Jerusalem. But hell which inspires theros roused itself at the coming of Jesus Christ; and God, who checks deceiving spirits as he pleases, now gave them loose reins, in order to send at the same time that punishment to the Jews, and that trial to his faithful people. Never did there appear so many false prophets, as in the times that succeeded the death of our Lord; especially during the Jewish war, and xinr der the reign of Nero, who commenced it. Jo» shows us an infinity of these BeiuiLwho drew the people to the wilderness by vain en* chantments and magic arts, promising them a speedy miraculous deliverance. 'Tis also for this reasoa that the desert was specified in the predictions of our Lord, as one of the places that should hide those false deliverers, whom you have seen draw the people iq the end into utter rum. You may believe that the name of Christ, without which there was no perfect deliverance for the Jews, was interwoven in those im« aginary promises, and you will see in the sequel reason to be convinced of it.

Judea was not the only province exposed to those delusions. They were common in the whole empircj

There is not any one time wherein history discoveni io us a greater number of those impostors, who pre*

lend to foretel thingA to waii the peoplt

Matth. zxiv.

bj their eDchantments* A Simon Magus, an Elymas, an Appolionius Tbyaneus, and an infinite number of other sorcerers mentioned both in sacred and profane bistoryi arose during that age, in which bell seemed to exert its last eSurts to support its tottering empire. And therefore it is, that tlesus Christ observes at this time, especially among the Jews, that prodigious number of false prophets. Whoever will narrowly consider what he says, will see, that they were to multiply both before and after the destruction of Jerusalem, but chiefly about those times; and that it should be then that seduction, strengthened by false miracles and false doctrines, should be at once so subtle and powerful, that '* the very elect, if possible, should deceived by it."

I do not say that at the end of the world there is not also to happen something of like nature, and even more dangerous; since we have but just seen, that the transactions in Jerusalem, are a manifest type of the latter times: but certain it is, that Jesus Christ hath given to us this seduction, as one of the sensible effects of the wrath of God upon the Jews, and as one of the signs of their destruction. The event has justified his prophecy: every tbing is here attested by undeniable proofs. We read the prediction of their errors in the gospel: we see the accomplishment of it in their histories, and particularly in that of Josephus.

After Jesus Christ had foretold these things; pursuant to the design he had to deliver his followers from the calamities wherewith Jerusalem was he comes to the nearer of the utter desolation of that city.

God vouchsafes not always to his elect such tokens. In those terrible punishments which make his power to be felt by whole nations, be often smites the righteous with the guilty; for be has better ways of distinguishing them, than those that are obvious to our ees. The same strokes that bruise the chaff separate the good grain; gold is refined m\kt

24$ AN imiVERSAL histoht.

in the cbaflf is consumed; and under the same tisements, whereby the wicked are exterminatedi the; faithful receive new degrees of purity* But in the desolation of Jerusalem, that the image of the last judgment might be the more express, and the divine vengeance more remarkable upon the unbelievers, be would not that the Jews, who had received the gospel, should be confounded with the rest; and Jesus Christ gave his disciples certain signs whereby they might know, when it should be time to get out of that reprobate city. He founded his instructions, according to his custom, upon the ancient prophecieSi whereof he was the interpreter, as well as the end; and reflecting on the passage, wherein the final ruin of Jerusalem was so clearly shown to Daniel, he said, 55t.is.* When ye shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy itan.iz. place, (whoso readeth let him understand') or as Mark Lttk?' hath it, in the place where it ought not; then that be in Judea flee to the mountains.' St. Luke relates the same thing in other words: ' When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know, that the desolation thereof is nigh: then let them, which are in Judea, flee to the mountains.'

One Evangelist explains another, and by comparing these passages together, it is easy to understand, that that abomination foretold by is the same gJl'Tf-ihing with the armies encompassing Jerusalem. The Mat holy fathers have so understood it, and reason us that it is so. The word abomination in sacred signifies idol: and who does not know that the Roman armies bore in their ensigns the images of their gods, and of their Cesars, who were more reverenced than all their gods together. These ensigns were to the soldiers an object of worship; and because idols, according to the commands of God, were never to appear in the Holy Land, the Roman ensigns were banished from it. And therefore we find in history, that so long as the teUined any degree of re-

JkN mnVZRBAL HISTORY. fi|9 feftrd for the they never displayed their banners in Judea. It was on this account, that Vitellius, when he passed into that province in order to carry the war into Arabia, caused his troops to march without en-JJSfl*' signs; the Jewish religion was still had in reverence, c. 7, and even the enemies of the Jews wodd by no means force that people to suffer things so contrary to their laWk But in the time of the last Jewish war, we may well believe that the Romans did not spare a people whom they were resolved xp extirpate. Accordingly, ivhen Jerusalem was besieged, it was encompassed with as many idols as there were imperial ensigns; and the abomination never appeared so much where it vugAt noty that is, in the Holy land, and round about the temple.

Is this then, will it be said, that great sign which Jesus Christ was to give? Was it time to fly, when Titus besieged Jerusalem, and so closely blocked up its avenues, that there was no more any possibility of escaping? Here lies the wonder of the prophecy. Jerusalem was twice besieged in those days: the time by Cestius, governor of Syria, in the 6Hth yearfieu. of our Lord; the second by Titus, four years after, that is, in the year 72. In the last siege there was no

f possibility of fleeing; Titus waged the war too hotly or that: he surprised the whole nation assembled in Jerusalem at the feast of the -passover, without suffering a soul to escape; and that dreadful circumvallation which he drew round the city, left no more any hope to its inhabitants. But there was nothing like this the siege of Cestins; he lay encamped 50 furlongs, c. 23,' that is, six miles from Jerusalem. His army was spread ' ' all around, but without making any intrenchments*; and he conducted the war so negligently, that he missed the opportunity of taking the city, when terror,. sedition, and even intelligence opened the gates to him. At this juncture, so far was a retreat from being

Sracticable, that history expressly notes, that many ews did retire. It was thea

Si48 e gone out; and this was the signal the Son of

God gave to his followers. So likewise did be most plainly distinguish the two sieges: the one, wherein x£ft3. be encompassed round vnth trenches and towers; then there should be nothing but death for

.lute all who were shut up*in it: the other, wherein it should

". be only cofkpassed with armiesy and rather inFested than besieged in form; then was it they were to flee to the mountains.

The C hristians obeyed their Master's voice. Though there were thousands in Jerusalem and Judea, we read neither in Josephus, nor in any of the other that there was one found in the city, when it was taken* vii. ' On the contrary, it is certain, from ecclesiastical his« k ubf' tory, and all the monuments of our forefathers, that Kmd. retreated to the little city Pellay in a mountainous and country, not far from the wilderness on the confines "" of Judea and Arabia.

From this we may be sensible, how precisely they had been warned; nor is there any thing more remarkable than that separation of the unbelievinK Jews from the Jews converted to Christianity: the former having stayed in Jerusalem, there to undergo the punishment of their infidelity; and the latter having retreated, as did Lot out of Sodom into a little city, where they beheld with trembling the effects of the divine vengeance, from -which God had been pleased to secure them.

Besides the predictions of Jesus Christ, there were predictions of many of bis disciples: among others, those of St. Peter and St. Paul. As those two faithful witnesses for Jesus Christ risen, were dragged to execution, they denounced to the Jews, who were de- them to the Gentiles, their approaching ruio. lurt. t<*ld them, " That Jerusalem was going to be uttierly destroyed; that they should perish by hunger and despair; that they should be for ever banished irom the land of their fathers, and sent into captivitjr throughout the wViole eax]DL x that the time was not fur off when all those evils should befal them, for havuig insulted with such cruel mockings, the well beloved Son of Gody who had declared himself to them by so many miracles." Pious antiquity hath preserved to us this prediction of the apostles, which was to be followed with so speedy an accomplishment. St. Peter had made many others, whether by a particular inspiration, or in explaining his Master's words; and Phlefcon, a heathen author, whose testimony Origen produces, had recorded, that every thing that apostle bad foretold, was punctually accomplished. apud'

Thus nothing befals the Jews, that hath not been prophesied to them. The cause of their misery is udc clearly pointed out to us in the mock they made of Jesus Christ and his disciples. The time of grace was past, and their destruction was inevitable.

In vain then. Sir, did Titus desire to save Jerusalem and the temple* Their sentence was gone forth from above: there was not one stone to bp left upon another. But if one Roman emperor vainly attempted to prevent the demolition of the temple, still more vainly did another Roman emperor attempt to rebuild it* Julian the having declared war against Jesus Christ, thought himself able to brinis; to nought his predictions. In the design he had to stir up on all sides enemies to the Christians, be stooped so low as to court the Jews, who were the oflT-scourings of the earth* He excited them to rebuild their temple; he gave them immense sums, and strengthened their hands with the whole power of the empire. But mark the event, and see how God confounded haughty princes. The holy fathers, and ecclesiastical historians relate it with one accord, and justify their relation by the monuments that were still remaining in their time* But it was fit the thing should be attested by the heathens themselves. Ammianus Mareellinus, a tile by religion, and a zealous defender of Julian, bath narrated it in these terms: Whilst Alipius, assisted nit! the governor of the provtiice» ' with all his might) terrible globes of fire issaed from the foundations, which they had first reat by violent shocks; and the workmen, who often attempted to begin the work anew, were at different times burned alive: the place became inaceessiblef and the enterprise fell to the ground."

Ecclesiastical writers, more exact in representing so memorable an event, add fire from heaven to the fire of the earth. But in short, the word of Jesus Christ

stood fast. St. John Chrysostom cries out, " He built

«bBw his church upon a rock, nothing hath been able to overthrow it: He overthrew the temple, nothing hath been able to rebuild it, none can pull down what God raiseth up; none can raise up, what God puUeth down.*'

Let us talk no more of Jerusalem, nor of the tem-

!\le; but let us cast our eyes on the people themselves, brmerly the living temple of the God of hosts, and DOW the object of bis hatred. The Jews are more demolished than their temple* or city. The spirit off truth is no longer among them: prophecy is extinguished in them: the on which they built their hopes, are vanished away: every thing is over-thrown in this people; and there is not left one skme upon another. And observe to wbat pitch of error they are ed up. Jesus Christ had said to them: I am come in my and ye receive me not: tf another shall come in his ovm name, him ye mil receive. From that time, the spirit of seduction has reigned so powerfully among them, that they are still ready every moment to be carried away by it. It was not enough that the false prophets had betrayed Jerusalem into the hands of Titus; the Jews were not yet banished Judea, and the attachment they had to Jerusalem had induced many of them to choose their abode among its ruins; when behold a false Christ, who comes to complete their destruction. Fifty years after Jerusalem takeoi ia the ceoluty of .Vi«. d«a&.(i of our Lord,

AN universaii history. 261 the iofamous Barchocbebas, a robber, a miscreant bfe« cause his name signified the son of a star, called him- self the star of Jacob foretold in the book of and gave himself out for the Christ. Akibas, a man of the greatest authority of all the rabbins, and after his example, all those, whom the Jews called their wise men, entered into his party, without the impos* dej«- tor's giving them any other token of his mission, than that Akibas said the Christ could not now be far off. The Jews revolted, through the whole Roman Em. under thfe conduct of Barchochebus, who promised them the empire of the world. Hadrian killed six hundred thousand of them: the yoke of these happy wretches grew heavier, and they were banish* 12.* ed judea for ever.

Who does not see that the spirit of seduction had

?;ot possession of their hearts? They received not the ove of the truths that they might be saved. And for this God sent them strong that they should ielieve in a lie. There is no imposture so gross, but it seduces them. In our days, an impostor called himself the Christ in the east: all the Jews began to flock about him: we have seen them in Italy, in in Germany, and at Metz, preparing to sell and leave all to follow him. Tbey were now big with the thoughts of being presently masters of the worlds when lol they understood that their Christ had turned Turk, and forsaken the law of Moses.

We need not be astonished, that they have fallen into such stray ings, nor that the storm scattered them, when they quitted their course. That course was marked out to them in their prophecies, particularly in those, which specified the time of the Christ* They let slip those precious moments without improving them: wherefore we see them afterward given up to delusion, and tbey no longer know which waj to steer.

Allow me yet a moment to recount to you the «e- ries of their error?) and all the

2S2 CfNTVEHSAL HIS70ftT.

to sink themselves into the abyss. The wbercM people go astray join always to the high road; and way by considering where the straying began, people walk? more securely in the right way. We have seen. Sir, that two prophecies pointed out the time of Christ to the Jews; that of Jacob, and that of Daniel. They both fixed the dowofaii of the kingdom of Judah at the time the Christ should come. But Daniel showed that the total destruction of that kingdom was to be the consequence of the death of Christ: and Jacob told plainly, that, in the decline of the kingdom of Judah; the Christ, who should then come, should be the ejopectation of the peo' pie; that is, that he should be made their deliFerer, and that he should make to himself a new kingdom, not of one nation only, but of ail nations of the world. The words of the prophecy can have no other meaning, and it was the allowed tradition of the Jews, that they were thus to be understood. Hence that opinion, which prevailed among the c- ii. ancient Rabbins, and which is still to be seen in their Talmud, that at the time the Christ should come, there should be no more magistracy: so that there was nothing of greater importance towards ascertaining the time of their Messiah, than to observe, when they should fall into that unhappy state.

Indeed, they had begun well; and bad they not bad their minds possessed with the worldly grandeur which they wanted lo find in the Messiah, in order to share it under his empire, they could not possibly have mistaken Jfsus Cbrist. The foundation, they bad laid, was certain: for so soon as the tyranny of the first Herod, and the alteration of the Jewish commonwealth, which happened in his time, had painted eiit to them the moment of the decay marked in the prophecy, they made no doubt but the Christ was coming, and that they should see that new kingdom wherein all nations were to be united. One thing they \4%») Vha.t the power of life and death was taken from them. Tbis was change; as that privilege had ever been preserved them until then, to whatever dominion ihey were subject; and even in Babylon during their captivity. The history of Susanna makes it sutiScienlly evident, and it was a constant tradition amongst tbem. The kings of Persia, who restored tbem, allowed them power by an express decree, ol which we have taken notice in its place: and we have also seen, that the jSrst Seleucids had rather augmented than restrained their privileges. I need not here speak again of the reign of the lifecabees, wherein they were not only made free, but powerful and formidable to their enemies. Pompey, who weakened them in the manner we beheld, contented with the tribute he imposed upon them, and with putting them in a state of being at the Roman people's disposal, left them their prince with full jurisdiction. 'Tis well known, that the Romans dealt thus by tbem, and never meddled with the civil government of the countries, to which they left their natural sovereigns.

In short, the Jews are agreed that they lost that power of life and death, only forty years before the desolation of the second temple: and it cannot be doubted, but it was the first Herod who began to give this wound to their liberty. For since, in order to revenge himself on the Sanhedrim, where he been obliged personally to appear before he was king j >''• and afterwards, in order to engross the authority, he had attacked that assembly, which was, in a manner, the senate founded by Moses, and the perpetual council of the nation, wherein the supreme jurisdiction was exercised; by degrees that great body lost its power, and had very little of it remaining, when Jesus Christ <;ame into the world. Things grew worse and worse under Herod's children, when the kingdom of Arche* laus, whereof Jerusalem was the capital, being reduced into a Roman province, was governed by prefects, who the emperors sent thither. In this

State, the Jews so little claimed the power of life and death, that in order to put to death Jesus Christ, whom they wanted at any rale to destroy, they were fain to have recourse to Pilate: and that eak governor having told them, that they might juitge him themselves, they answered with one voice. It is not laivful for us im. death. And so it was bj the Jiands 3L of Herod, thai ihey slew St. James the brother of xiLi, St. John, and put St. Peter in prison. VVhen they had resolved the death of St. Paul, they delivered him into the hands of the Romans, as they had done Jesus Christ; and the sarrilegious vow of their en thusiastical bigt)ls, who swore neither to eat nor drink until they had killed that holy apostle, sufficiently evinces, that they thought themselves deprived of the power of putting him to dei<th judicially. But if they stoned St. Stephen, it was tumultuously, and through an effect of those seditious transports, which the Romans had net always power to restrain, in those, who then styled themselves the Zealots. It is therefore to beheld certain, as well from those histories, as from the ' consent of the Jews, and the state of their affaii:s, that towards the times of our Lord, and especially in those, wherein he began to exercise his ministry, they entirely lost all temporal authority. They could not behold that loss, without calling to mind the ancient oracle of Jacob, which foretold them that against the time of the Messiah, there should be no more among them either power, authority, or magistracy, their most ancient authors remarks it, and lifj magna is in the right to own, that the sceptre was no more «eu.' in Judah, nor the authority in the prince of the since the public power was taken from them, and the Sanhedrim being degraded, the members of that venerable body were no longer considered as JudgeSf but only as private doctors. Thus, according to their own account, it was time that the Christ should ap- pear. As they saw this certain sign of the approach o{ that new king, NChose empire was to extend over all people, they believed that he was really Ibout to make his appearaoce. The rumour went abroad through all the country, and the whole East wdp persuaded it would Dot be long ere they saw come out of Judea, those who should reign over all the earth.

Tacitiis and Suetonius relate this rumour as raised upon a standing opinion, and an ancient oracle, in the sacred books of the Jewish people. Josepbusc'ia recites the prophecy in the same terms, and says, hke bSt them, that it was to be found in the holy books. The authority of these books, the prediction of which been seen so visibly accornplisbed up4>n so many occa- J«r- sions, was great in all the east: and the Jews more attentive than others in observing conjunctures, which ivere chiefly marked for their instruction, acknowledged the time of the Messiah, which Jacob had fixed in their decline. Thus the reflections they made on their state were jii4, ami so far were they from mistaking the times of the Christ, that they knew he was come at the time he actually did. But, O the weakness of the human mind! O vanity, infallible source of blindness! The humility of the Saviour hid from those proud spirits, the true greatness they were to look for iQ their Messiah. They wanted to have him a king like unto the of the earth. Wherefore the terers of the first Herod, dazzled with the grandeur Her. and magnificence of tfiat prince, who, tyrant as he was,rodiaik did nevertheless enrich Ju lea, said he was himself that so long promised king. And this it was, that rise to the sect of the Herodians, so much spoke of in the gospel, and whom the heathens also knew, seeing itu. is. Persius and his scholiast inform us, that never in Ne-vetscb! re's time, the birth of king Herod was celebrated byfjJ',J5. his followers with the same solemnity as the Sabbath. Josephus fell into a like error. This person, " instruct- Jnd.ui! ed as he says himself, in the Jewish prophecies, as ' being a priest, and sprung of priestly race," acknowledged indeed that the coming of the king promised by, Jacob agreed with the times of Herod, wherein he is

256 at so much pains to show a manifest beginning of thei ilowoikll of the Jews: but as he saw nothing in natiofl thai Tulfilled the ambitious ideas it had conceived of its Christ, he drove the lime of ihe pfopheCy a farther forward, and applying it to Vespasian, firmed "that that oracle of scripture signified that prince declared emperor in Judea."

Thus did he wrest the holy scripture to countenance his bh'nd flattery, which transferred to strangers the hope of Jacob and Judah; which sought in Vespasian the son of Abraham and David; and ascribed to an idolatrous prince the title of him, whose light was to bring the Gentiles out of idolatry.

The juncture of time favoured him: but whilst he ascribed to Vespasian, what Jacob had said of the Christ, the bigots, that defended Jerusalem, arrogated it to themselves. It was on this onljr (bundatioDf that they promised themselves the empire of the world, as Josephus relates; they were more reasonaJaiJib.ble however than he, in that they did not at least go out of the nation) to find the accomplishment of the promises made to their fathers.

How was it that they did not open their eyes to the rich fruit, which was from that time brought forth among the Gentiles by the preaching of the gospel, and to that new empire wherein piety reigned, wherein the true God triumphed over idolatry, whrrein eternal life was proclaimed to infidel nations? And was not the empire of the Cesars itself but a vain pomp in comparison of it? But this empire was not showy enough in the eyes of the world.

How thoroughly must we be disabused of human frandeur, in order to know Jesus Christ! The Jews new the time: the Jews saw nations called to the God of Abraham according to the oracle of Jacob, by Jesus Christ and his disciples, and yet for all that they mistook that Jesus, who was declared to them by 80 many tokens. And although both in his lifetimei after bis dealh he coifinned his mission hy so many miracles, those blind people rejected nim, cause be had nothing in him but solid greatness void of all pageantry which strikes the senses, jnd.came rather to condemn than to crown their blind atdbition.

And yet forced by the juncture and circumstances of the time, in spite of their blindness, they seemed sometimes to get free from their prejudices. Every thing ivas so disposed at the time of our Lord's coming, for the manifestation of the Messiah, that they sus- Jjj'fg pected St. John Baptist might possibly be he. i austere, extraordinary, astonishing manner of life struck them: and in default of worldly grandeur, they seemed willing at first to content themselves with the eminence of so surprising a deportment. The simple and ordinary life of Jesus Christ, as it shocked that as gro3s as proud generation, who could be catched only by the and who besides were so far from a sincere conversion, that they would admire nothing but what they looked upon as inimitable. In this manner St. John Baptist/ whom they judged worthy to be the Christ, was not believed when he pointed out the true Christ; and Jesus Christ, who was to be imitated when believed in, appeared too humble to the Jews to be followed.

However, the impression they had received, that the Christ was to appear at this time, was so strong, that it remained nigh a century amongst them. They, thought that the accomplishment of the prophecies might have a certain extent, and was not always confined to one precise point of a period; insomuch that for near an hundred years there was nothing to be heard of amone them but false Christs, who got theniselves followed, and false prophetsi who proclaimed them. Former ages had seen nothing like this, nor did the Jews offer to prostitute the name of Christ, either when Judas Maccabeus gained so many victories over their tynknt, or whenjiis brother Simon freed them from the yoke of the Gentiles, or when the first HTTcanus made sa maiijr conquests. The timeaaadl

25B f otber marks did not agree; nor was there, till the age of Jesu9 Christ, the least talk of all those Messiahs. The Samaritans, who read in the Pentateuch the prophecy of Jacob, made Christs to themselves, as well as the Jews, and a little adter Jesus Christ they acFrtlt. knowledged their Dosilbeus. Simon Magus, of the wkiui country, boasted also that he was the Sen of tom.14. God, and Menander, his disciple, styled himself the Sire. Saviour of the world. In Jesus Christ's life-time, Samaritan woman had believed that the Messiah urns Joim about to come: so undoubted was the opinion in the nation, and among ail those, who read the ancient oracle of Jacobs that the Christ was to appear in those days.

When the time was so far past, that there was no longer any to expect, and the Jewi had found by experience, that all the Messiahs they had followed, far from delivering them out of their calamities, liad only sunk them deeper into them; then were tbey a long time without there appearing any new Messiahs among them, and Barcbochebas was the last whom tbey acknowledged as such in those first ages of Cbrisiianity. But the old impressions could not be utterly eraced. Instead of believing that Christ had appeared, as they bad done even in time; under the Antonines Jiis successors, they took it into their heads to say, that their Messiah was in the world, although be did not yet make his appearance, because he wailed for the prophet Elias, who was to come to Justin, anoint him. Such language was common in St« JusTimlin's time, and we find also in their Talmud the of one of their most ancient masters, viho said, iiem. ' " Christ was come, as pointed out in the San. si. prophecies but that he kept, himself concealed somewhere at Rome the poor mendicants/'

Such a wild conceit could not ground;

and the Jews, forced, at last to confess that the Mes*

s/ab was not come in the time thejr bad reason to ez« prrt bin) accordmgla \ie\T fell into \kviNNs.\ of renouncing the hope of their Messiah, who had not kept his tune; and many followed a fitmous rabbi, whose words are still to be found preserfed in the Talmud. This man seeing the term so far past, con- JJ-|«»- ciuded that the Israelites more any Messiah is. Ab-to expect, because he had been given them in person of king Hezekiah. *****

Indeed, this opinion, far from prevailing among the Jews was detested by them. But as they no longer know any thing about the times signified in the prophecies, and are at a loss which way to get out of this labyrinth, they have made an article of faith of that expression; which we read in the Talmud, " All terms that were fixed for the coming of the Messiah, x. Mo-are past;'' and have pronounced with one consent, Mai. " Cursed be they who shall compute the times of the Messiah;*• as we behold in a storm, which has driven the ship too far offils course, the despairing pilot quits »n.de bis reckoning, and goes where chance carries him. SS

From that, time, their whole study, hath been to elude the prophecies, in which the time of the Christ was pointed out: they did not care if they overthrew all the traditions of their fathers provided they could Ijfcno but deprive the rhristians of those admirable prophe'Sao'bcd. cies; nay, they have gone so far as affirm, that of Jacob did not relate to the Christ. [Jfj;.

But their own ancient books give thertrTthe That prophecy is understood of the Messidh in the rosou Talmud, and the manner in which we explain it, is to wg. be found in their paraphrases, that is, in the most thentic and most regarded commentaries extant among them.

We find there, in express terms, that the house and kingdom of Judah, to which the whole posterity of Jacob, and people of Israel, were to be one day reduced, should always produce *' judges and magistrates," until the coming of the Messiah, under whom vtbere should be formed a kingdom

260., AW UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

This was the testimony which the most celebrated ' and approved doctu s of the Jews bore to them in the earliest ages'-of christianitj. ancient so steady and well established, could not be abolished all at once; and although the Jews did not apply to Jesus Christ the of Jacob, they had not yet dared to deny that it agreed to the Messiah. They came not to that wild extravagance till long after, and when hard pressed by the christians, they at last perceived that their own tradition was against them.

As for the prophecy of Daniel, wherein the comm% of the Christ was limited to the term of 490 years, to count from the twentieth of Artaxerxes Longimanus; as that term carried to the end of the fourth millenary, of the world, it was also a very ancient tradition among the Jews, that the Messiah should towards the end of that millenary, and about two thousand years nfier Abraham. One Elias, whose name is great among the though he was not the prophet, had thus taught before the birth of Jesus Christ and the tradition is preserved in the book of the Talmud. Ytui have seen this accomplished at the coming of our Lord, since he actually appeared about two thousand years after Abraham, and towards the 400()th year of the world. However, the Jews knew Imp not, and being disappointed of their expectation, roey said that their sins had retarded the Messiah, wf)o was to come. But nevprtheless our dates are ascertained by their own confessions; and it is a strange degree of blindness, to make a term depend on Men, which God hath so precisely fixed in Daniel* It is also no small embarrassment to them, to find that that prophet makes the time of Christ go before that of the destruction of Jerusalem; insomuch that this time being accomplished, that which precedes it must needs be so too. Josephus has grossly erred in this particular. He tut. dM rigbily computed ibe which were to be foUoir*

eJ by the desolation of the Jewish people; and find- j£ ing therti fulfilled at the time that Titus laid iieee to Jerusalem, he made no doubt but the moraeot of the destruction of the city was come. But be did not consider that that desolation be preceded by the coming of the Christ, and death; so that he understood but one half of the prophecy.

The Jews, who came after him, were willing to supply this defect. They have forged to us an Agrippa of Herod, uhom the Romans, say they, put to death a little before the destruction of Jerusalem; and they will have it, that this Agrippa, Christ by bis title of king, is the Christ spoken of in Daniel: a fresh proof of their blindness! For besides that this Agrippa can neither be the righteous, nor the holy One, nor the end of the prophecies, such as the Christ, whom Daniel pointed out in that place, must have been; besides that the murder of that Agrippa, in which the Jews had no hand, could not be the cause of their desolation, as the death of Daniel's Christ was to be; what the Jews say oo this head is all a fable. That Agrippa descended of Herod was on the side of the Romans: he was always well treat- Jj*«"' ed by their emperors, and reigned in a canton of Jimius Judea a long time after the taking of Jerusalem, asBibUo. Josephus and other cotemporaries attest.

Thus all that the Jews devise to elude the pcpphecies, serves but to confute them. They themselves do not rely upon so gross fictions, and their best defence consists in that law, which they enacted, to pute no more the days of the Messiah. Thereby do they willingly shut their eyes to the truth, and re« nounce the prophecies, wherein the Holy Ghost hath himself numbered the years: but whilst they renounce them, they fulfil them, and demonstrate the truth of what they say of their blindness and fall.

Let them answer what they will to the prophecies; the desolation, which these foretold, hath befallen them at the time appointed j the event U oC force than all their quibbles: and if the Christ did not come in that Aital conjuncture, the prophets, in whom they trust, have deceived them.

And to complete their convict ion, please observe ' two circum<%tancps, that attended their fall, and the coming of the SaAyir of the ivorld: the one, ttiat the succession of pwsts, uninterrupted and unalterable from Aaron, came then to an end; the other, that the dis!inctioii of tribes and families, ever preserved till that time, was then lost, by their own coofeteion.

This distinction was necessary till the time of the Messiah. Fnun Levi were to proceed the ministers in sacred things. From Aaron were to come forth the priests and highpriests. From Judah was to spring the Messiah himself. Had not the distinrtion of families subsisted till the destructicm of and coming of Jesus Christ, the Jewish sacrifices would have perished hefore the time» and David would have been disappointed of the glory of being acknowledged as father of the Messiah. Is the Mes*«iah come f Is the new priesthood, after the order of iWelrhizedefc, commenced in his person, and has the new kingdom, which was not of this world, appeared? We have no more need then of Aaron or Levi, Judah or David, or their families. Aaron is no longer necessary in a Su27 when sacrifices were to cease, according to Dan* iei. The house of and Judah hath fulfilled its tvhen the Christ of God had proceeded from it; and as if the Jews themselves renounced their liope, they forget precisely at this time the succession of families, till now so carefully and religiously remembered.

Let us not omit one of the marks of the coming of the Messiah, and perhaps the principal one, if we can rightly understand it, though it constitutes the scan* dal and horror of the Jews. It is the remission of sins in the name of a suffering Saviour, of a Saviour, hum« bled and obedient even unto death. Daniel had specified among his weeksi the mysterious week, which

rf e have observed, wherein the Christ was to be offered up, wherein the ancient sacrifices were to lose their eflScacy. Put we Daniel and Isaiah together, and ue shall come to the very bottom of so great a mystery; we shall see "the man of soriows, uiih the iniquity all the peopie-iaid upon him, pi'wug out his soul unto death for their ffansgressions, ana by his stripes healing them. Open your eyes ye unbelievers! is it not true thatvlbe letnission of sins hath been preached to you in the name of Jesus Christ crucified? Had there ever bden such a mystery dreamed of? Who else but Jesus Christ, either before or after him, hath g oried in washing away our sins by his blood f Can he have caused himself to be crucified, merely to acquire a vain honour, and accomplish in himself so fatal a pro* phecy? You ought Xo be silent, and adore in the gospel* a doctrine which could not even enter into the heart of man, if it were not true.

The Jews are exiremely puzzled in this point: they find in their scriptures too niany wherein mention is made of the humiliations of their Mess ah. What shall become then of those, which speak of his|je glory and triumphs? the natural interpretation is, he shall come to triumph!)y conflicts, and to glory by sufferings. But O intp-diblel the Jews have rather ''•'■ chosen to admit Messiahs. We find in their Talmud and other books o like antiquity, expect a suffering Messiah, a Messiah full of the one dead and risen again; the other ever happy and victorious: the one, to whom agree all the passages where weakness is spoken of; the other to whom allude, all those wljere greatness is mentioned; one in fine, the son of Josepii, for they have not been able to deny, him one of the characters of Jesus Christ, who was the reputed son of Joseph; and another the son of David, without ever caring to know that this Messiah the son of David was, according to David himself,

to drink of the b ookin the way before he should his head;' that is, to be afflicted, before be was triucaei.

phant; as saith the son of David himself: O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory f

Moreovtr» if we understand the itfessiah, that great passage ivhere Isaiai| represents to us. jn so lively a manner l he man oWorrows our transgressions, and of no form or comeliness, that we stjuuld uiiii. desire him;' we are also supported in the interpretation, as well as in all the by the ancient, tradition of the Jews: and in spite of their prejudices, the Gen. chapter, so often cited in their Talmud, teaches us, salihe. pcrson ' of no form or comeliness, with ub.xi. the transgressions of the people laid upon him, shall be the Messiah.' The sorrows of the Messiah, which shall be occasioned him by our sins, are noted '" in the same place, and in the other books of the Jews, There is frequent mention in them of the entry, equally humble and glorious, that he was to make into Jerusalem riding up(m an ass, and that celebrated prophecy of Zechariah is applied to him. What reason have the Jews to complain.'* Every thing was marked to them in [)recise terms by their prophets: their ancient tradition had preserved the natural explication of those famous prophecies, and there is nothing more just than that reproach, which is made them by J555' the Sa»U>ur of the world: Ye hypocrites, ye can dis- cem of the sky, and tell whether it shall be fair xu. 56. or foul weather: but how is it that ye do not discern this time?' Let us conclude then, that the Jews have truly had reason to say, that ''all the terms of the Messiah's coming are past." Judah is no more a kingdom, nor a people; other nations have confessed the who was to be sent. Jesus Christ hath been shown to the Gentiles: at that sign they have turned witboat delay to the God of Abraham, and the blessing of that

?atriarch hath diffused itself over the whole eartb» 'he man of sorrows bath been preached, and the remission of sins proclaimed by his death. All the weeks have the desolation of the people, and of the sanctuary, a just punishment of the death of Christ, hath bad.its final accomplishment; in short, the Christ bath appeared with all the characters the tradition of the Jews confessed in him, and iheir credulity remains without excuse.

So do we see, from that time, undoubted marks of. their reprobation. After Jesus Christ, they did nothing but plunge themselves more and more into ignorance and misery, whence the extremity alone of their calamities, and the shame of having been so often a prey to error shall deliver them; or rather the goodness of God, when the time appointed by his providence for punishing their ingratitude and subduing their pride shall be accomplished.

In the mean time they remain the scorn of nations, and the object of their aversion; nor hath so long a captivity made them yet come to themselves, though that one would think should be sufficient to convince them. For indeed, as St. Jerom to them, " what dost thou expect, O unbelieving Jew.? Thou didst commit much wickedness during the time of thr? judg-Dar.** es: thine idolatry had made thee a slave to all the na- tions round about; but God soon took pity on thee and was not slow to send thee Saviours. Thou didst multiply thine idolatries under thy kings y But the abominations into which thou fellest under Abaz and Manasseh, were punished only by seventy years captivity. Cyrus came and restored to thee thy native country, thy temple, and thy sacrifices. At length thou wast overthrown by Vespasian and Titus. Fifty years after, Adrian completed thy extirpation; and four hundred years hast thou groaned under oppression. Thus St. Jerom. The argument is.strengtbened since, and thirteen hundred years have been added to the desolation of the Jewish people. Let us say then instead of four hundred years> that cen« tunes have beheld the continuauce o{ xVwra

Mat. xxvii.

nor has their yoke become lighter. " What have ye done, O ungrateful people! Slaves in all countries, and of all princes, ye do not serve strange gods. How hath God, who had elected you, forgotten you, and where are his former tender mercies? What wickedness, what greater crime than idolatry, makes you feel a chastisement, that your idolatries had never brought upon you? Ye hold your peace. Ye cannot comprehend, what makes God so inexorable. Remember that expiession of your fathers: His blood be on us,?hn children; and acain: We have no king but x\x.i5, Cesar. The Messiah shall not be your king; hold fast that which you have chosen: continue the slave of Cesar and of the kings, until the fulness of the Gen- tiles be come in, and so all Israel be saved, piSc- This conversion of the Gentiles was the second that was to happen at the time of the Messiah, lions and the surest mark of his coming. We have seen how rjn- /the prophets had clearly foretold it, and their promii»f"tteSes were verified in the times of our Lord. It is certiies" neither sooner nor later, what The* the philosophers never dared to attempt, what the prophets nor the Jewish people, when it was most of (iodi protected and most faithful, were able to effect, wM fishermen sent by Jesus Christ, and witnesses pleased of his resurrtcliou, accomplished. The conversion of world, was neither to be the work of philosophers, nor even of prophets: it was reserved for the Christ, and was the fruit of his cross.

Sui's behoved indeed that Christ and his apostles reasoxiT should go forth from the Jews, and that the preacliing th6**°of the gospel should begin at Jerusalem. "A inoun- ™i tain was to be established and exalted in the last days," according to Isaiah: and this w*as the christian church, tiiem. *' Ail the Gentiles were to come thither, and many lusia! nations were to flow unto it. The Lord alone was to?a be exalted in that day: and the idols he was utterly to But Isaiah, who saw these things, saw bIso at the same time, that *' the law, which was to judge among the nations, should go forth out of Zion; and that the word of the Lord, which was to rebuke many people, should go forth from Jerusalem;" which made our Saviour say, that "salvation was' of Jews." And it was fit that the new light, wherewith the people plunged in idolatry were one day to be enlightened, should spread itself abroad through the whole world, from the place where it had ever been. It was in Jesus Christ, the Son of David and Abraham, that all nations were to be blessed and sanctified. This we have oft taken notice of; but we have not yet observed the cause for which this suffering Jf'sus, Jesus, crucified and set at nought, was to be the sole author of the conversion of the Gentiles, and the alone conqueror of idolatry.

Saint Paul hath explained this mystery to us in the first chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, and it may not be improper to consider that beautiful passage in its full extent. Christ, said he, sent me preach the Oospel not with vnsdom of words and hu-iaii'9>: man reasoning, leH the cross of Chnst should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness: but unto uss which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the under- standing of the prudent. Where is the wise 9 Where is. "'' is the scribe 9 Where is the dispvter of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this worlds Doubtless, since it could not bring men out of their Ignorance. But the reason St. Paul gives for it is this: that in the wisdom of God, that is, in thejgf; creatures he had so wisely ordained, the world by wis* dom knew not God, he took another way, and was pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save them that oelieve, that is, by the mystery of the cross, wherein human wisdom can comprehend nothing.

New and admirable design of divine providence I Ood bad introduced man way soever be turned bis the wisdom of the tor shone conspicuous, in the greatness, magnificencei riches, and disposition of that so glorious work. Man nevertheless mistook him: the creatures, which presented themselves to raise our mind higher, fixed it here below: blind and brutish man paid thetn adoration; and not satisfied with worshipping (he works of GoiVs Lands, he fell down to the works of his own. Fables more ridiculous than those that are told to children, constituted his religion: he forgot reason: but God will have him to forget it in another manner. A work, the wisdom whereof he understood, touched him not; another work is presented to him, wherein his reasoning loseth itself, and in which all appeareth to him foolishnefis: immety, tbf« cross of Christ* It is not by ri-a!<oning we come to understand this mystery,

but '* by bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;" but by casting down imaginations," (or reasonings) **and every high?hing that exaltetb itself against the knowledge of God."

And indeed, what do we comprehend in this mystery, wherein the Lord of glory is loaded with reproaches; wherein the divine wisdom is branded with folly; wherein He, who, secure in himself of his tive majesty, *' thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of ho reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant; humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross?" All our thoughts are confounded; and as St. Paul said, there is nothing appeareth more foolish to those, who are not enliehtened from above.

Such was the remedy that God prepared for idolatry. He knew the mind of man, and knew that it was not by argument an error must be destroyed, which argument had not established. There are errors, into which we fail, through reasoning; for thereby man often confounds himself: but idolatry had come m by the opposite extreme, by stifling all reasoning, by su&nng Oie Vq wbicb were for clothiog every thing with the q<3alities are aSecied with: and thus bad the Deity become visible and gross. Men gave the divinity their own figure, and what was still more shameful, their vices and passions. Keasoning bad no share in so brutal an error. It was a subversion of all right reason, a delirium, a phrenzy. Argue with a frantic person, or against a man in the rage of a burning fever; you do but the more provoke him, and render the distemper incurable. You must go to the cause, correct the temperament, and calm the humours, whose violence occasions such extravagant transports. Just so it must not be reasoning, that will cure the delirium of idolatry. What have the philosophers gained by their pompous discourses, their sublime style, their reasoning so artfully framed? Did Plato with his eloquence, which was thought divine, overthrow one single altar, where those monstrous divinities were worshipped? On the contrary, he and his disciples, and all the wise men of this world sacrificed to a lie: " They became vain in their imaginations: their foolish heart was darkened: professing themselves to be wise they be* came fools," since, contrary to their natural light, they paid adoration to creatures.

Was it not then with reason, that St. Paul cried out in that passage, Where is the wise? Where is the I S' scribe.♦* Where is the disputer of this world i*" Did they so much as suspect it their duty openly to oppose so many blasphemies, and to suffer, not to say the severest punishment, but even the smallest affront for the truth? So far from that, they held the truth in and laid it down as a maxim, that ' in matters of religion, they were to follow the people: the people, whom they so much despised, was a rule in a matter the most important of all, and in which their superior lights seemed the most necessary. What bast thou then availed, O philosophy.'* '*Hath Ood made foolish the wisdom of this world," as said St. '<Hath be not destroyed k&

;irO wise, and brought to Dotbing the uoderstandiog of ike prudent?"

Thus bath God shown by that the overthrow of idolatry could not be' the work of human reason alone. Far from committing to it the cure of such a malady, God completed its confusion by the mystery of the cross, and at the same time carried home the remedy to the source of the evil.

Idolatry, if we rightly understand it, took its rise from that profound attachment which we have to ourselves. This it was that had made us contrive gods like unto ourselves; gods who in reality were but men, subject to like passions, weaknesses, and vices: so that under the name of deities, it was really their own thoughts, pleasures, and fancies, that the Gentiles worshipped.

Jesus Christ leads us into other paths. His poverty, ignominy, and his cross rendered him an object shocking lo our senses. We must, if I may so say, divest us of ourselves, renounce all, crucify all, in order to follow him. Man torn from himself, and from all that his corruption made him fond of, becomes capable of adoring God and his eternal truth, whose rules alone he resolves henceforth to walk by.

Then perish and vanish away ail idols, both those that were worshipped upon the and those that every one served in his heart. These had set up the others. Men worshipped Venus, because theyyieldtul themselves up to the dominion love, and were chanced with its power. Bacchus, ihe most wanton of all the gods, had altars because the people abandoned themselves, and sacrificed, so to speak, to the delight of their senses, more pleasing, and intoxicating than wine. Jesus Christ by the mystery of his cross comes to imprint upon their hearts the love of sufferings instead of pleasures. The idols that were worshipped without were scattered, because those that were worshipped NV\X\vva subsist: the

.VI;* If-pore in spirit, saitb Christ himself, are rendered capa* ble of seeing God; and man, far from making God like to himself) strives rather, as far as his weakness can suffer bim, to become like unto God.

The mysterj of Christ Jesus hath let us see, how the Deity could without diminution of its glory be united to our nature, and clothe itself with our infirmities. The word is made flesh: he who bad the form and nature of God, without losing what he was, took upon him the form of a servant. Unalterable in him- self, he unites, be assumes to himself a foreign nature. O men! ye were for gods that should be, to say the truth, but men, and those vicious men too: this was no small blindness. But here is a new object of adoration for you! God and man together; but a man, who hath lost nothing of what he was by taking upon him what we are. The Deity remains immutable; and without a possibility of debasing itself exalts what it unites with it.

But further, what is it that God bath taken of us? our vices and sins f God forbid; be took nothing of man, but what he made in man; and it is certain that he had made in him neither sin nor vice. He had made his nature, bis nature he took upon him. It may be said that he had made mortality with the infirmity that attends it, because, although it might not be in the first design, it was the just punishment of sin, and in that quality was the work of the divine justice. So therefore God did not disdain to take it upon him; and, by taking upon him the pain of sin without sin itself, he showed that he was not a guilty person puninhed, but the righteous atoning for the sins of others. So that instead of the vices, which men feigned in their Gods, all the virtues appeared in this God-man; and that they might shine forth in the severest trials, they appeared amidst the most horrid torments. Let us no more seek another visible God after this: he only is worthy to pull down all idols; and the victory be was to gain over them, \s

2f3i AN UNIVJBRSAZ. HISTORT.

That is to say, it is fastened to an apparent folly, I Jews, as St. Paul goes on, require a where-g»24, by God moving all nature with power and great as he did at the departure out of Egypt, may set them visibly above tbeir enemies; and the Greeks, or the Gentiles seek after wisdom, and laboured discourses, like those of tbeir Plato and Socrates. But we, continues the apostle, preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and not a sign; and unto the Gentiles foolishness, and not wisdom: but unto them which are dialled, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God, Because the foolishness of God is loiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Behold the finishing stroke, that was to be given to our conceited ignorance. The wisdom to which we are called, is so sublime, that it appears folly to our wisdom; and its rules are so exalted, that the whole seems an extravagant flight of error.

But if that divine wisdom is impenetrable to us in itself, it declares itself by its effects, k virtue goes out from the cross, and all the idols are shaken. We see them fall to the ground, thotigh supported by the whole Roman power. It is not the wise, it is not the noble, jt is not the mighty that have wrought so great a miracle. The work of God bath been carried on by succession; and what he had begun by the humii.2B/ liation of Jt;sus Christ, he hath finished by the liation of his disciples. For ye see your calling, breth" ren, thus St. Paul concludes his admirable discourse, you see those whom God hath called amongst you, and of whom be hath composed this church victorious over the world; " how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things that are mighty: and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen; yea, and things wfaich are not, to lo \Vi%l ace; that 'flo flesh should glory

and their disciples, tiie outcasts of the ivorld, nay, mere nothing itself, to behold them with human eyes, have prevailed Over all the emperors, and the whole empire. Men had forgot the creation, and God hath renewed it by producing out of that nothing, his church, which he hath rendered all powerful against error. He hath confounded together with idols all human greatness that interposed in their defence; and be hath performed so great work, as he had done the universe, by the sole power of his word.

Idolatry appears to us weakness itself, and we can hardly conceive how so much strength should have been requisite to destroy it. But on the contrary, its ofidoiextravagance shows the difiSculty there was to conquer it, and so great a subversion of right reason sufficiently demonstrates how much the first principles were taint- ed. The world was grown old in idolatry: and infa-afaise* tuated by its idols was become deaf to the voice of nature which cried out against them. What power was there not necessary to recal to the momory of man the true God so profoundly forgot, and to recover phy mankind from so woful a state of stupidity. here- 1

All the senses, all the passions, all interests fought for idolatry. It was quite calculated for pleasure: diversions, shows, and even lewdness itself made a part of the divine worship. The festivals were nothing but tri-farces; and there was no scene of man's life, whence modesty was more industriously banished, than from the mysteries of religion. How shall you accustom minds so corrupted to the regularity of true religion, whicVi is chaste, severe, an enemy to the senses, and solely intent upon invisible joys As St. Paul spoke to Felix governor of Judea, '' of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, he trembled, and an- swered, Go thy way for this time; when F have a 25. convenient season I will call for thee." This was a discourse to be put far off by a man, who was resolved to enjoy, without scruple, and at any rate, the good things of the earth.

Would you see the efforts of interest, that poifrerful spring, which gives motion to human affairs? In that great dovvnery of idolatry, which Bt. Paul's preaching begun to cause in all Asia, the crafisroeu who got their living by making little silver sbrtnes, or temples, of Diana of Ephesus, assembled themselves together, and the leading man among them represented to tbem, that iheir gain was like to cease: and only," says he, ''this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also the temple of the great goddess Diana shall be despised, and her magnificence shall be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth." 1

• How powerful is interest, and how bold, when it can cloak itself with the pretext of religion! There needed no more to stir up the workmen. They forth with one accord like so many madmen, crying oul, Great is Diana of the and dragging ISt. Paul's companions to the theatre, where the whole city was lumultuously assembled. Then the cries were redoubled, and for the space of two hours the publir place rung with these words, Great is Diana of the Ephesians. St. Paul and his conjpanions, were with difficulty rescued out of the hands of the people by the ruagistrates, who feared lest there should happen greater disorders in the uproar. If to the interest of private persi»ns you join the interest of the priests, who were about to fall with their and to all this add the interest of the cities, which false religion rendered considerable, as the city of Ephesus, which owed to its temple its privileges, and the resort of strangers, whereby it was enriched; what storm must there arise against the infant church? and need we be surf>rised to see the so often beaten, stoned, and eft for dead in the midst of the populace f But a 'greater interest is about to move a greater machine; the interest of the state is about to put the senate, people, and emperors all in action.

The decrees of the senate bad lone prohibited uvjib. Strange religions. The emperors had entered intotc. the same policy; and in that great consultation sibout reforming abuses of the government, one of the chief jp-Wo. regulations that Mecenas proposed to Augustus, wastul. a' the preventing of irmovations in religion, which er failed to occasion dangerous commotions in a state. The maxim was just: for what is there that more vi- "-2. olently agitates men's minds, and carries them to stranger excesses? But God was resolved to show that the establishment of the true religion excited no such troubles; and this is one of the wonders, which demonstrates his having had a hand in the work. For who would not be amazed to see that during three bundred long years, that the church had to suffer all the cruelties that the rage of persecutors could invent, amidst so many seditions and civil wars, amidst so many conspiracies against the persons of emperors, there should nerer be found one single Christian, good bad? The Christians defy their greatest enemies name one; indeed, there never was one: so much veneration for the public powers did the Christian doctrine inspire; and so deep was the impression made on all their minds by these words of the son of God: " der unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."

That beauiiful dislinction conveyed so clear a light into their minds, that never did the Christians cease to reverence the image of God, in princes, even when these were persecutors of the truth. This principle shines so bright in all their apologies, that they inspire, even at this day, tht»se that read them, with the love of public order, and shows that they expected from none but God the establishment of Christianity. Men determined against the fear of death, who filled whole empire, and all the armies, did never once fly out into any disorder during so many ages of sufferings. They forbid themselves not only seditious actions, but even the smallest murmur. The finger qC

2fQ was in thework, and no other hand but his could have restrained spirits provoked by so many injuries.

Indeed, it was hard for them to be treated as public enemies, and enemies of the emperors, them who breathed nothing but obedience, and whose most ardent wishes were for the safety of the princes, and happiness of the state. But the Roman poh'cy thought itself attacked in its foundations, when its gods were despised. Rome boasted of being a holy city from her foundation, consecrated at her original by divine auspices, and dedicated by her founder to the god of cic. war. She almost believed Jupiter more present in the pra capitol, than in heaven. She thought she owed her ora?* victories to her religion. It was thereby she had over- 2jy™;come both nations and their gods, for such was the perva-reasoning at the time: so that the Roman gods must (kl'& have been masters of other gods, as the Romans were wasters of other men. Rome by subduing Judea had reckoned the God of the Jews among the gods she had ySira* V2i"q">shed: to pretend to establish his reign, was to Hist. sap the foundations of the empire; it was to hate the victories and power of the Roman people. Thus the Christians, enemies of the gods, were looked upon at the same time as enemies of the republic. The emperors took more pains to exterminate them, than to exterminate the Partbians. Marcomans, or Dacians. Christianity overthrown appeared in their inscriptions with as much pomp as the Samaritans defeated. But they unjustly boasted of having destroyed a religion which was still growing under fire and sword. In vain were calumnies joined to cruelty. Men who practised virtues above man, were accused of vices, which are shocking to human nature. Those were accused of incest, whose chastity was their delight. Those were accused of eating their own children, who did all the good in their power to their persecutors. But in spite of the public hatred, the force of truth drew favourable reports from the mouths of their enemies. Every body /S?** what the younger Pliny wrote to Trajan con- 97. ceroing the good ol G\vm<vwia. They

ivere justified, but not exempted from the severest punishment; for this last stroke ivas requisite in order to finish in them the image of Jesus Christ crucifiedf Sknd they like him, go to the cross with a public declaration of their innocence.

But idolatry did not lay its whole stress upon violence. Although its basis was a brutal ignorance, and a total depravation of common sense, it was willing to -colour itself over with some show of argument. How many times did it endeavour to disguise itself in order to cover its shame! it sometimes anected a reverence for the deity, saying, whatever is divine is unknown: the Deity alone itself; it is not for us to enter jnto so high matters; wherefore we are to believe our forefathers, and every one ought to follow the religion, which he finds established in his country. By these maxims, errors equally gross and impious, which filled the whole earth, were without remedy; and the voice of nature, which proclaimed the true God, was stifled. There was ground to think that the weakness of our erring reason stood in need of some authority to bring it back to its first priciple, and that it is from antiquity we must learn true religion. And so you have seen the uninterrupted progression of it from the beginning of the world. But of what antiquity could Paganism boast, which could not read its own histories -without finding in them the origin not only of its religion, but even of its Gods? Varro and Cicero, not to mention other authors, have sufficiently shown this. Or should we have recourse to those numberless thou-De. sands of years, which the Egyptians filled with sed and impertinent fables, in order to establish the tiquity they boasted; yet there too were to be seen the birth and death of the divinities of Egypt, and that people could not make themselves ancient, without pointing out the beginning of their gods.

But behold another form of idolatry; and this would have men to adore every thing that passed for divine. The Roman policy, which so strictly prohi*

bited strange allowed the worAipping of the

Sods of the barbarians, provided it bad adopted them* it did affect to appear equitable towards all as well as towards all men. xt sometimes offered in« JJ cense to the God of the Jews with the rest. We find JJJJ- a letter of Julian the apostate, wfaerebj be promises or. to tJje Jews to rebuild the holy city, and with them to to God the Creator of the universe. It was a common error. We have seen, that the heathens were very willing to worship the true God, but not the true God alone; and it was not the fault of the empe* rors, that Jesus Christ himself, whose disciples they were persecuting, had not altars among the Romans* How! could the Romans ever think of honouring as a God him whom their magistrates had condemned to the most infamous punishment, and whom of their authors have loaded with reproaches? The thing is incontestibie, nor need we be astonished at it.

Let us first of all distinguish what general assertions a blind inveteracy dictates, from positive facts ascertained by proof. ertain it is that the Romans, though they condemned Jesus Christ, did never tax bim with any one particular crime. This made Pilate condemn bim ivith such reluctance, when overcome by the clamours and threats of the Jews. But what is much more wonderful, the Jews themselves, at whose instance he was crucified, have not preserved in their ancient books the memory of any one action, that might cast the least blemish upon his life, so fap were they from remarking any that should have made him deserve the crudest and most ignominious punishment: whereby is manifestly confirmed what we read in the Gospel, that our Lord's whole crime was bb having called himself the Christ the Son of God. Indeed Tacitus gives us an account of Jesus Christ's suffering under Pontius Pilate, and during the empire of Tiberius; but he mentions not one crime that should have made bim worthy of death, save that of

iDg the author of a sect Gonvieted of bating man* kind, or of being bateful to it. Sucb was the crime of Jesus Christ and the Christians; and their greatest enemies could never accuse them but in vague terms, without ever producing one positive fact that could be laid to their charge.

It is true, that in the last persecution, and three hundred years after Jesus Christ, the heathens, being quite at a loss how to brand either him or his disciples, published forged acts of Pilate, wherein they pretended the crimes were to be seen, for which our Saviour had been crucified. But as we hear nothing of those acts in all the preceding ages, and as neither uader Nero, nor Domitian, who swayed the imperial sceptre in the beginning of Christianity, how great enemies soever they were to it, do we find one word about tbem, it evidently appears that they were cooked up for the purpose; and there were among the so few certain proofs against Jesus Christ, that his enemies were obliged to have recourse to fiction.

Behold then one clear point, the innocence of Jesus Christ irreproachable* Let us add another, the holiness of his life and doctrine acknowledged. One of the greatest Roman emperors, namely, Severus, admired our Lord, and caused some tences of his Gospel to be inscribed on the public 45, 5v works, as well as in his own palace. The i|ame emperor commended, and proposed as a pattern, the godly caution with which the Christians ordained mU sisters in sacred things. But this is not all: there lyas in his palace a sort of chapel, where be sacrificed every morning. He had consecrated the images of holy among which he ranked with Orpheus, Jesus Christ and Abraham. He had another chapei« or as you please to translate the Latin word of less dignity than the former, wbere were to be seen thf images of Achilles, and some other great men; but Jesus Christ was placed in the foremost rank. 7is a heathen that recprds it, and for a witness he

AN UN1VERSAI> HISTORY.

cites an author of Alexander's own time. These theit are two witnesses of this one fact, and' here is another fact, which is no less surprizing, pwjh. Although Porphyry, by abjuring Christianity, had declared himself an enemy to it, he nevertheless, in ™cb.*ihe book entitled Philosophy by owns that isr.iii. there were of them very favourable to the holidiicK.ness of Jesus Christ.

God forbid that we should learn from lying oracles the glory of the Son of God, who silenced them by bis birth. Those oracles quoted by Porpliyry are mere inventions of men: but it is proper to know what the heathens put into the mouths of their gods concernitig our Lord. Porphyry then assures us that there were oracles, " wherein Jesus Christ is called a pious man, and worthy of immortality; and the Christians, on the contrary, termed an impure and deluded ' people." He afterward recites the oracle of the goddess Hecate, where she speaks of Jesus Christ as '-Gf a man eminent for his piety, whose body indeed yielded to torments, but whose soiil is in heaven with the blessed souls. This soul," said Porphyry's goddess, by a kind of fatality, hath instilled error into the souls, to whom destiny hath not allotted the gifts of the gods, and the knowledge of the great Jupiter; f wherefore they are enemies to the gods. But take care how you blame him," pursues she, speaking of Jesus Christ, and only pity the error of those whose unhappy fate I have related to you." Pompous expressions, and entirely void of meaning! but they prove that the glory of our Lord forced praises from bis enemies.

Besides the innocence and holiness of Jesus Christ, '*doial 's third thing of no less consequence than 4t.coiD. either; and that is, his miracles. Certain it is, that Tr.«tethe Jews never denied them; and we find in their Talmud some of those which his disciples wrought in his name. Only, in order to blacken them, said./S/aeu he bad performed which be bad

AN UNIVERSAL mSTWT. JZ61 learned in Egypt; or by the name of God, unknown and ineffiJiile name, whose virtue is all pow« erful, according to the Jews, and which Jesus Christ had dicovered, none knows how, in the sanctuary; or in fine, because be was one of those prophets pointed out by Moses, whose lying miracles were to turn the people to idolatry. Jesus Christ, the conqueror of idols, whose Oospel hath caused one God alone to be acknowledged through all the earth, needeth not to be justified from this imputation: true prophets have QO less preached his divinity than he bath himself; and what must result from the testimony of the Jews is, that Jesus Christ worked his miracles in order to prove his mission-Moreover, when they tax him with having performed them by the power of magic, they would do lyell to consider, that Moses was accused of the same crime. This was the ancient opinion of the Egyptians, who, astonished at the wonders God had wrought in their country by that great man, had clashed him in the number of chief magicians. We may likewise see this opinion in Pliny and Apuleius, where JlJjfj Moses stands named with Jannes and Jambres, those ' celebrated enchanters of Egypt, whom St. Paul speaks 2%m of, and whom Moses had confounded by bis miracles. But the answer of the Jews was easy. The delusions of the magicians never had a lasting effect, nor do Jtbey tend to establish, as did Moses, the worship of the true God, and holiness of life; besides that, God knows always bow to get the mastery, and to perform weeks that defy the imitation of adverse power. The very same arguments set Jesus Christ above so vain an accusation, which therefore, as we have already remarked, serves only to prove his miracles incoutestable.

So eminently are they so indeed, that the Gentiles could no more disallow them than the Jews. Celsus, the great enemy of the Christians,,and who attacks c«|k.

them in the earliest times with all searching with infinite pains for every thine that mfgbc make to their prejudice, did not pretencTto deny all our Lord's miracles; hef shifts it off by saying with the

Jews, that Jesus Christ had learned the secrets of the Egyptians, that is, magic, and that he arrogated to himself divinity from the wonders that he wrought nudm by the power of that damnable art. It was for the ' reason that the Christians were accounted magi-

clans; and we have a passage of Julian the apostate which treats our Lord's miracles with contempt, but iSf. calls them not into question. Volusian, in bis epistle

to St. Augustine, does the same, and this way of talk-*

'*- ing was common among the heathens.

We need therefore no longer be astonished, if they who were wont to deify all men in whom any thing extraordinary appeared, should be willing to rank Jesus Christ among their divinities. Tiberius, upon the accounts he had from Judea, proposed to the senate to grant divine honours to Jesus Christ. rertuL xhis is not a fact advanced at random, for Tertulliaii relates it as public and notorious in his apology, which he presented to the senate in the name of the church, who would not have chose to weaken so good a cause as his by assertions, in which he might have been so easily confuted. But if we want the testimony of a author, Lampridius will tell us, that ' Had* rian had reared temples to Jesus Christ, which were still to be seen at the time he wrote;" and that Alex* ander Severus, after first worshipping him in private, would have altars publicly erected to him, and commanded that our Lord should be numbered with the

Gods.

There Is certainly great injustice in resolving to believe nothing concerning Jesus Christ, but from thoso who were none ef his disciples: for 'tis to seek faith in infidels, or care and exactness in those who being taken up with other matters, held religion as a thing indifferent, But it is true nevertheless, that the |;lory of Jesus Qhrist shone with so irresistible bright*

AN UMVERSAL HISTORY. neas, that the world could not forbear rendering hioi some testimony, and I can bring jou none more authentic than that of so many emperors.

I confess however, that they had also another sign. There was a mixture of policy in the honours they paid to Jesus Christ. They expected that at last the religions would be united; and that the Gods of all sects would come to be common. The Christians had no notion of this mixed worship, and despised no less the condescensions than the cruelties of the Ro» man policy. But God was resolved that another principle should make the heathens reject those temples which the emperors were designing Jesus Christ. The idol priestSi as we learn from the heathen author already so often quoted, remonstrated to the emperor Hadrian, That ' if he consecrated those temples built for the use of the christians, a!) the other temples would be forsaken, and all the world would embrace the christian religion." Idolatry itself felt in our religion a virtorious pnwer against which the false gods could not stand, and pr()\t d itself the truth of that saving of the apostle, Wtiat concord hath Christ with Beliid.' And what agreement hath the temple 2 Cqr. of God with idols?" ii. "[

Tbus by the power of the cross, the pagan religion, confuted by itself, was falling to ruin; and the unity of G(Ki was prevailing in such sort, that at length even idolatry seemed not very averse to it. It argued, that Macro, the divine nature, being so great and so extensive, n?& could be expressed neither by one name, nor under one form; but that Jupiter, Mars, Juno, and the of «he (iods, were in the main but one and the same Aug-. God, whose infinite virtues were explained and repre-thV sented by so many different words. When afterwards "' it was obliged to come to the impure histories of the Gods, to their infamous genealogies, their unchaste loves, their feasts and mysteries, which had no other foundation than those extravagant fables, all religion was turned into allegory: It was the world or the sun, that proved to be that one God; it was the stars, the air, the fire, the water, the earth, and their various combinations, that were concealed under the names of the Gods, and in their loves. Weak and pitiful evasion! For besides that the fables were scandalous, and all the allegories flat and forced, what was found out at last, but (hat that one God was the universe with all its parts f So that the foundation of reh'gion was nature, and still the creature adored instead of the creator.

These weak pleas for idolatry, though drawn from philosophy of the Stoics, did not quite satisfy the philosophers. Cebus and Porphyry sought fresh aids oonv. m the doctrine of Plato and Pythasoras; and you shall see how they reconciled the unity of God with

the multiplicity of the vulgar deities. There was,

Stin**" supreme God: But he was so Apui that he did not concern himself with small matterSt sJ5r* Contented with having made the heavens and the stars, deSiT. deigned to put a band to this lower world, left it to be framed by his subalterns; and Iseq. man, though born to know him, because he was mor-' tal, was not a work worthy of bis bands. And thus was he inaccessible to our nature, he had bis dwelling too high to behold the clildren of men; the celestial spirits who bad made us, were to be our mediators with him, and therefore we are to worship them* present business to refute those dreams atfyo- of the Platonists, which do indeed fall of themselves. The mystery of Jesus Christ destroyed tbem funda* mentally* Tbat mystery taught men, that God who bad made tbem in bis own image, was very far from despising tbem; that, if they stood in need of a mediator, it was not on account of their nature, whipb God had made as he had done all the rest, but on account of their sin, wbereof they were the sole authors; moreover, that tbeir nature was so far from removing them from God, that God did not disdain te unite himself to them by becoming man, and gave

AN tJNIVERSAL HISTORY. 2SB ihem for a mediator, not those celestial spirits called demons by the philosophers, and by the scripture angels, but a man, uho joining the power of God to our frail nature, should be a remedy, for our weakness.

But if the pride of the Jiatonists could not stoop to the humiliations of the Word made flesh, should they not at least have conceived, that man, though a little lower than the angeb, was, for all that, like them, capable of possessing God; so that he was rather their brother than their servant, and was not to worship them, but to worship with them in the spirit of fellowship, Him who had made both them and him after bis own likeness f It was therefore not only the last meanness, but also the last ingratitude in man* kind, to sacrifice to any other than God; and nothing was blinder than paganism, which, instead of reserving for him that supreme worship, rendered it to so - many demons.

Here it was that idolatry, which seemed at its last struggle, completely discovered its weakness. Towards the end of the persecutions, Porphyry being hard put to it by the Christians, was forced to say that sacrifice was not supreme worship; and behold bow far he carried bis extravagance. That most high God, he said accepted no sacrifice: whatever is ma- terial is impure in his eyes, and may not be ofiered d« Abr to him. Speech itself ought not to be employed inAuS. his worship, because the voice is a corporeal thing: Jf we should adore him in silence, and by bare meditation; any other worship is unworthy so exalted a majesty.

Thus God was too great to be praised. It was unlawful to express, as we can, what we conceive of his greatness. Sacrifice, though it was but a way of declaring our profound dependence, and an acknowfr_ edgment of his sovereignty, was not for him. So Porphyry expressly affirmed; and what else was this, but to abolish and to leave entirely without

J28S rship, him whom they, that wanted to do acknowledged the God of gods.

But what then were those sacrifices which the Gentiles o?ered in all their temples f Porphyry found out 4?3? secret. There were, he said, some unclean, lying, mischievous spirits, who, out of an extraragant pride, apod would needs pass for and be worshiped as such vi?'deby men. it was proper to please them, lest they '3. should hurt us. Some, more gay and jovial, suffered themselves to be won by spectacles and games; the more gloomy humour of others required fat odours, and delighted in bloody sacrifices. To what purpose refute such absurdities f 'Tis enough that the Christians plained their cause. It remained certain that all the goas. lo whom the Gentiles sacrificed, were evil spirits, whose pride arrogated divinity: so that idolatry, to consider it in itselfi appeared only ihe effect of a brutish ignorance; but to trace it to its source, it was a device deeply hatched, and carried on to the last excess by malicious spirits. And this is what the christian?} had always asserted; this is what is t-aught in the Gospel; this is what was sung by the psalmist: '* All the gods of the nations are idols; but the Lord made the heavens."

And yet, Sir, such was the strange blindness of mankind! idolatry reduced to the lowest extremity, and confuted by itself, did nevertheless keep its ground. There needed only to clothe it with a specious appearance, and to explain it in words of a sound agree-. able to the ear, in order to get it entrance into the minds of men. Porphyry was admired. Jamblicus bis follower was esteemed a divine person, because he had the art of wrapping up the sentiments of his mas* ter in terras seemingly mysterious, though in reality they meant nothing. Julian the apostate, cunning as be was, was caught by these appearances, as the thens themselves relate. Enchantments, true or falsOi Mgiai.which those philosophers boasted, their mistaken aus« afti70a.terity; their ridiculous which went so far

ais to make it a crime to eat the flesh of animals, superstitious in fine, their which evaporated into empty chimeras, and their Ubjut words as little solid as they seemed sublime, upon the world. But this was not the main matter. The of the christian manners, the contempt of pleasure which it enjoined, and more than all, the humility, which was the very soul of Christianity, offen* ded men; and if we take it rightly, pride, sensuality, and licentiousness were the on!y supports of idol* atry.

The church was daily rooting it up by ber doc* trine, and still more by her patience. But those wicked spirits, who had never ceased to deceive men, and who had plunged them into idolatry, did not now forget their malice. They stirred up in the church those heresies which you have seen. Men, falsely and thereby vain and turbulent, had a mind to get a name among the faithful; nor could they content themselves with that sober and temperate wisdom which the apostle had so much recommended to Christians. They launched too deep into the mysteries, which they pretended to measure by our weak conceptions: new philosophers, who blended human reason with faith, and undertook to lessen tne difficul« ties of Christianity, not being able to digest all the foolishness which the world found in the gospel. Thus were all the articles of our faith successively, and with a sort of method, attacked: The creation, the law of Moses the necessary foundation of ours, the divinity of Jesus Christ, his incarnation, his grace, his sacraments, every thing in short afforded matter for scandalous divisions. Celsus and others cast them in our teeth. Idolatry seemed to triumph. It considered Christianity as a new sect of philosophy, that was sharing the fate of the rest, and like them,«»njwas subdividing into several other sects. The church appeared to them but a human work, ready to fall of itself. Men, concluded that in matters of religion tbey were not to refine upon their nor to attempt to change the world. In this confusion of sects which pretended to be God did not fail his church. He knew how lertui. Preserve to her a badge of authority which could never assume. was catholic and uni* she included all ages; she extended on all sides. She was apostolic; the continual succession, (he chair of unity, the primitive authority belonged to ben All that forsook her had formerly acknowledged her; nor were they able to efface the marks of their innovation and rebellion. The heathens themselves looked upon her as the stock, the whole from whence the parts had broke off, the ever living trunk ivhicb the lopt branches had left quite entire. Cel-sus| who reproached the christians with their divisions, into so many scbismatical churches which he perceived starting up, observed one church distinguished from all the rest, and always the strongest, which he called, for that reason. The great Church. " There are some, said he, among the christians, who do not acknowledge the Creator, nor the traditions of the Jews;" meaning the Marcionites: " but," pursued he, " the Euseb. great church re ceiveth them." In the troubles which £cci. P(iul of Samosata excited, the emperor Aurelian had diflBcully to know the true Christian Church to which the house of the Church belonged, whether this was the place of prayer, or the Louse of the bishop. He adjudged it to those '' who were in communion with the bishops of Italy and Rome," in regard that he saw the bulk of christians always in that communion. When the emperor Constantius embroiled the whole church, the confusion into which he threw her, could not hinder Ammianus Marcellinus, though a heathen, from acknowledging that the emperor was erring from the right way '' of the christian reJg;?- ligion, plain and precise of itself, " both in its doctrine )ib.n. and practice. For the true church had a majesty and a rectitude which heresies could neither imitate nor obscure: on the contrary, they unwittingly bore testimony to the catholic church. Constantius, who perse- ', cuted St. Atbanasius the defender of the ancient faiths " earnestly wished," says Ammianus Marcellinus, " to have him condemned by the authority, which the bish- op of Rome had over the rest." By seeking the aid of that authority, he made the very heathens sensible what was wanting to his sect, and honoured the church from which the Arians had seceded: and thus the Gentiles themselves confessed the catholic church. If any one asked them where she held her assemblies, and who were her bishops, they were never at a loss to tell. As for the heresies, do what they would, they never could get rid of the names of their authors. The Sabellians, Paulianists, Arians, Pelagians, and the rest, were in vain offended at the partv-title that was ' given them. The world, however ill they took it, would speak naturally, and denominated each sect from him to whom it owed its rise. As for the great church, the catholic and apostolic church, it never was possible to name to her any other author than Je BUS Christ himself, not to specify the first of her pas* tors without going up to the apostles, nor to give her any other name than that which she assumed. So that all the heretics could do, it was not in their power to conceal her from the heathens. She opened to them her bosom over the whole earth; and they flocked into it from every quarter. Some were perhaps lost in the bye paths; but the catholic church was the liighway, whereinto entered always the most part of those who sought Jesus Christ; and experience hath shown that to her it was given to gather in the fulness of the Gentiles. It was her therefore that the infidel emperors assaulted with all their force. Origen informs us that but few heretics suffered for the faith. St. Justin, more ancient than he, hath observ- otig. ed, that the persecution spared the Marcionites andceif.v. the other heretics. The heathens persecuted but the churchy which they saw throughout the whole earth, and acknowledged her alone for the church of Jesus Christ. What though some branches were plucked off? her good sap was not lost for all that: she shot forth by other places, and the lopping of the superfluous wood did but render her fruit the better. Jn fact, If we take a view of the history of the church, we shall find, that, as oft as any heresy has dinninished her, she has repaired her Josses, both by extending without and growing in light and pitly within, while we see the cut-off branches wther in reniole corners. The vorks of men have perisbcd, maugre the power of bell which supported them: the work of God hath stood fast, and the church hatli triumphed over idolatry and alJ errors. GeSl This church, ever attacked, and never vanquished, a perpetual miracle, and a shining testimony of the on the immutability of the counsels of God. Amidst the vacon-

**"*■ always with an invincible power, insomuch that by an I uninterrupted series of above seventeen hundred stant rious agitatious of human affairs, she maintains herself pro- — - -

IJio?*" uninterrupted

"heaffi trace her back to Jesus Christ, in whom she nity takes up the succession of the ancient people, and finds herself united to the prophets and patriarchs. iweeD Tijiis the many astonishmg miracles which the cient Hebrews saw with their eyes, serve even at this Scrip- day to confirm our faith. That great God, who wrought them for a testimony to his unity and omnipotence, v>hat could he do more authentic to preserve the memory of them, than leave in the hands of a whole great nation, the records that attest t beta digest* ed in the order of time? And this we stHl have in the book. nf the Old Testament, that is, in the most ancient books that are in the world: in the books which are the only ones of antiquity wherein the knowledge of the true God is taught, and his service ordained; in the books which the Jewish people have ever so religiously kept. It is certain that this is the only people who have known, from their original, God the Creator only one consequcntly that must have been the depositary of the divine secrets. They have also preserved them with an unexampled religiousness. The books which the Egyptians and other nations called divine, are long ago lost, and scarce is there left us any confused memorial of them in the ancient histories. The sacred bojLiks of the Romans, wherein Numa, the author of their religion, had written the mysteries of it, have perished by the bands of the Romans themselves; and the senate caused them to be burned, as tending to overthrow religion. These same Romans af last suffered to perish Sviib. the Sibylline books, so long revered among them prophetical, and wherein they would have had ihevam world to believe that they found the decrees of immortal Gods concerning their yet ever having exhibited to the public, not to say single volume, but so much as one sing e oracle. Thevits. 3evis have been the only people whose sac»'ed writings have been held the more in veneration, the more they have been known. Of all the ancient nations they are the only one that have preserved the primitive monuments of their religion, though abounding with proofs of their infidelity, and of that of their progenitors. And even at this day that same people remain upon the earth to convey to all nutions whither they have been scattered, together with the progressof religion, the miracles and predictions which render it unshaken.

When Jesus Christ came, and when, sent by his Father to fulfil the promises of the law, he confirmed his mission, and that of his disciples, by new- miracles; these were written with the same exactness. The records of them were published to all the earth; the circumstances of time, persons, and places, rendered the inquiry easy to whosoever was solicitous about his salvation. The world informed itself, the world believed, and any one, who hath ever so little considered the ancient monuments of the church, must that never was there an affair examined with more deliberation and knowledge.

But in the affinity the books of the two testaments have to each other, there is one difference to be con* sidered, which is, that the books of the ancient people were composed at different times* Some are the times of Moses, some those of Joshua and the Judges, some those of the Kings, some those wherein the peo* pie were brought out of Egypt, and received the law, some those wherein they conquered the promised land, some those wherein they were, by visible miracles, re-established in it. To convince the incredulity of a people wholly addicted to its senses, God took a long series of ages, wiierein be distributed his miracles and his prophets, that so he might frequently reneiv the sensible proofs whereby he attested his sacred truths. In the New Testament he followed another method. He will no more reveal any thing new to his church after Jesus Christ. In him is perfection and fulness; and all the divine books composed in the new covenant were written in the time of the apostles.

That is to say, that the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of those whom Jesus Christ himself was pleased to make choice of as witnesses of his resurrection, was sufficient for the Christian church. Whatever came afterward might edify her, but she regarded nothing as purely inspired by God, but what the apostles wrote, ot what they confirmed by their authority.

But in this difference which is found between books of the two Testaments, God bath always observed that admirable order, of causing things to be written at the time they happened, or when the memory of them was fresh. And so those thdt knew them wrote them; those that knew them received the books which bore witness of thein: both left them to their descendants as precious inheritance, and pious posterity hath preserved them.

Thus was formed the body of the holy Scriptures, as well of the Old aa Testament: Scrip*

tures which, from their original, were looked upon as true in every particular, as given by God himself, and which were therefore preserved with so much re1i« gion, that it was believed none could, without the highest impiety, alter a single letter of them.

And thus have they been transmitted to us, ever holy, sacred, inviolable; the one preserved by the constant tradition of the Jewish nation, and the other by the tradition of the Christian people, so much the more certain, that it hath been confirmed by the blood and martyrdom as well of those who wrote the divine books, as of those who received them.

St. A'jgusttne, and the other fathers, ask upon what authority we ascribe profane books to certain times and authors? Every one immediately answers, thatzxxiL books are distinguished by the diSerent relations have to the laws, customs, histories 4)f a certain time, by the very style, which bears stamped upon it the character of particular ages and authors; over and above all that, by the public testimony and constant tradition. All these things concur to establish the divine bo6ks, to distinguish their times, to ascertain their authors; and the more religious care there has been taken to preserve them entire, the more is the tradition that preserves them to us incontestible.

And so hath it ever been acknowledged, not only by the Orthodox, but also by heretics, and even In- Tertuil fidels. Moses hath ever passed in all the East, and mie. afterwards in all the world, for the law-giver of the Jews, and author of the books they ascribe to him. The Samaritans, who received them from the separated tribes, have preserved them as religiously asFailrt, the Jews. You have seen both their tradition history. - /'"•*

1 WO SO opposite nations took them not from each x"ni. other, but both received them from their common iSv!* origin in the times of Solomon and David. The cient Hebrew characters, which the Samaritans still sufficiently demonstrate that they followed

SH AN UmVERSAL HISTORF.

Ezra who changed them. Thus the Pen ta teach of the SamaritanS) and that of the Jews, are two com* plete oririnals, independent of each other. The per* feet conformity to be seen in the substance of the two texts, proves the candoar of both nations. They are faithful witnesses, which agree without conclusion, or to say better, which agree in spite of their and whom immemorial tradition on both sides hath alone united in the same mind.

Those therefore who bare thought fit to say, though without any manner of reason, that those books being lost or having never been, were recovered, or composed anew, or altered by Ezra; besides that, they are confuted by Ezra himself, as we had occasion to take notice in the course of his history, they are so likewise by the Pentateuch, which is to be found even at this day in the hands of the Samaritans, such as it was read in the primitive ages, by Eusebius of Cesarea, St. Jerom, and other ecclesiastical writers; such as that people had preserved it from their original: and so weak a sect seems to subsist so long for no other reason but to bear this testimony to the antiquity of Moses.

The authors who wrote the four Gospels receive a testimony no less infallible, from the unanimous consent of the faithful, of the heathens, and of the heretics. That great numbers of different nations, who received and translated those divine books as soon as Ihey.ivere finished, do all agree about their date and authors. The heathens contradicted not this tradition. Celsus who attacked those sacred books almost at the beginning of nor Julian the apos« tate, though he can be charged with neither ignorance omission of any thing that could possibly hurt their credit; nor any other heathen ever suspected Iheir being spurious: on the contrary, all gave them the same authors as the Christians. Ihe heretics, though confounded by the authority of those books, did not dare to Ihat they were not the genuine

positioDS of our Lord's disciples. There were some of those hereticsi who bad seen the beginnu)£S of the Church, and before whose eyes the books of the Gospel were written. So the fraud, could there have been any, would have beep too closely detected, to have had any chance for success. 'Tis true, that after the apostles, and when the church was now extended all over the earth, Marcion and Manes, certainly the most daring and ignorant of all notwithstanding the tradition directly come from the apostles, continued by their disciples, and by the bishops to whom they had left their chair, and the care of tne people, and unanimously received by the whole Christian church, had the boldness to assert, that three of the Gospels were spurious; and that that of St. Luke which they preferred to the rest, nobody knows why, as it had come by no other channo), had been falsified. But what proofs did they bring for their assertioos f None but mere visionary dreams, not one positive matter of fact. The only reason they gave was, that what was contrary to their sentiments, must necessarily have been invented by others than the apostles, and all the proofs they urged were the very opinions disputed by them: opinions besides so extravagant, and so manifestly preposterous, that it is still amazing bow they could ever enter into the human mind. But surely, to tax the fidelity of the church, they must have had in their hands some originals different from hers, or some demonstrative proof. When challenged, both they and their disciples, to produce Aug. them, they were struck dumb, and left by their silence an undoubted proof, that in the second age of chris* tianity, wherein they wrote, there was not so much as a symptom of falsity, nor the smallest conjecture that could be opposed to the tradition of Jibe church.

What shall I say of the agreement of the books of scripture, and of the admirable testimony all the times of the people of God bear to one another? The times of the second temple presuppose those of the

29S ry us back to Solomon. Peace came only by wars, and the conquests of the people of God bring us up to the Judges, to Joshua, and to the coming out of Egypt. By beholding a whole people go out of a kingdom, wherein they were strangers, we call to mind how they came into it. The tweire patriarchs immediately appear, and a people who nerer ed itself but as one family, conducts us naturally to Abraham, who was the stock of it. Was this people wiser and less prone to idolatry after their return from Babylon? It was the natural effect of a sore chastisement, which its former offences had drawn upon it. If this people glories in having seen, for many ages, mir« acles which other nations never saw, it may likewise glory in having had the knowledge of God, which no other nation was blessed with.

What would we have the circumcision, and the feast of tabernacles, the passover, and the other feasts celebrated in the nation time immemorial, to signifv, if not the things we find specified in the book of Moses? That a people distinguished from all others by so pe» culiar religion and manners, preserving from its origin, upon the principle of the creation, and fdith of pro* vidence, so coherent and exalted a doctrine, so lively a remembrance of a long train of facts so necessarily linked together, ceremonies so. regular, and customs so general; that such a people should have been without a history to point out their origin, and without a law to prescribe their customs during a thousand years that they were in the body of a state; and that Ezra should have been the first to give them all at under the name of Moses, together with the liistory of their antiquities, the law ivhich formed their manners, when that people become captive saw their ancient monarchy utterly overthrown: what more incredible fiction could possibly, have been invented f And can we give credit to it, without joining igno* ranee to blasphemy?

To lose such a law, when it bath ooce been received, a people must either be extirpated, or by various vicissitudes inust come to have but a confused notion of their origin, religion and customs. If this misfortune happened to the Jews, and if the law so well known under Zedekiab was lost threescore years after, notwithstanding the care of an Essekiel, a Jeremiah, a Baruchy a Daniel, not to reckon others, and kt the very time that law had its martyrs, as the persecutions of Daniel and the three Children evince; if, 1 say that holy law was lost in so short a time, and remained so profoundly forgot, that Ezra might rt*store it as he pleased, this was not the- only book he had to frame; he bad at the same time to compose all the

Erophets old and new, that is, those who had written oth befor«* and after the captivity; those whom the people had seen write, as well as those whose -memory they preserved; and not only the prophets, but also the books of Solomon, the psalms of David, and all the historical books, as there will hardly be found ia the whole history one single considerable fact, or in all the other books one single chapter, which, taken separate from Moses, such as we have him, can subsist a moment. Every thing speaks of Moses, every thing is founded upon Moses, and it ought to be so, seeing Moses, and his law, and the history he wrote, were in fact the whole foundation of public and private con* duct in the Jewish nation. It was indeed a marvel-lous attempt in Ezra, and quite a new thing in the world to make so many men of different characters and style, speak at the same time with Moses, and each in a uniform manner, and always like to itself; and all at once to make a whole nation believe that those were the ancient books they had ever reveredy and the new ones they had just seen composed; as if they had never heard of any thing in their lives, and as if the knowledge of the present time as well as that of the past were all of a sudden abolished. Such are the prodigies we must swallow v(b«.w n

Will not believe the miracles of the Almighty, nor re* ceive the testimony whereby it is certain, that it was said by a whole great people, that they bad seen them with their eys.

But if that people returned from Babylon into the land of their fathers, so new, and so ignorant that they hardly remembered they had been; so as to bare received without inquiry whatever Ezra thought fit to give them; how then do we see in the book that Ezra wrote, and in that of Nehemiah his cotemporary all that is there said of the divine books: With what face do Ezra and Nehemiah dare to speak of the law of Moses in so many places, and that publicly, as of a thing known to every body, and which every body had in their hands? How is it that we see the whole people act voluntarily in consequence of this law, as "" it ever before them? But how is it said at the same time, and upon the return of the people, that all the people admired the accomplishment of Jeremiah's prophecy concerning the seventy years captivity? That Jeremiah, whom Ezra had just forged with all the other prophets, how did he find credit thus all of a sudden? by what new artifice was it possible to per* suade a whole nation, and even the old men who had seen that prophet, that they had always expected the miraculous deliverance he bad announced to them in his writings f But all this shall be supposed: Ezra and Nehemiah shall not have the history of their own time; some other shall have done it in their name, and those who have coined all the other books of the Old Testament shall have been so favoured by posterity, that other counterfeits shall have made them the real authors, in order to give credit to their ira« posture.

Men will doubtless be ashamed of so many wild absurdities; and instead of saying that Ezra produced all at once so many books, so distinct from one anoth* er by the characters of style and time, they will pep* bapB szj they may into them those acles and predictions that gain tbem the reputation of divine: an error still more palpable than the former, as those predictions and miracles are so interspersed through all the books, are so forcibly inculcated, and so often repeated, with so many different turns, and so vast a variety of empbatical figures; in a word, do so constitute the whole body of them, that one must never have so much as opened those sacred books, not to see that it were easier to new-mould them entirely, than to insert the things which unbelievers are so sorry to find in them. But should we even grant them all they ask, the miraculous and divine are so much the substance of those books, that some strains of that kind would still be found, in spite of their endeavours to the contrary. Let £zra, if they will, have added afterwards predictions of things that bad already come to pass in his time: Who shall have added those since accomplished, which you have seen in so great numbers? God may have perhaps bestowed the gift of prophecy upon Ezra, that Ezra's imposture might be the more probable; and we will rather have a counterfeit to be a prophet, than Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Daniel: Or else every age shall have brought forth a successful counterfeit, whom the whole people shall have believed; and new impostors, out of a wonderful steal for religion, shall have been continually adding to the divine books, even after the canon hath been closed, after they have been dispersed with the Jews all oyer the earth, and translated into so many foreign languages. Would not this way of establishing religion have been most effectually to sap its foundation? Does then a whole people so easily allow to be altered what it believes divine, whether that belief is founded on reason or error? Can any one hope to persuade the christians, or even the Turks, to add a single chapter to the Gospel or Alcoran? But the Jews perhaps were more tractable than other people, or less religious in preserving their sacred books! What monstrous opinions must come into the miild, when vre vtlll yoke of divine authority, and square oujr sentimeols, as well as manners only by erring reason?

Let it not be said that the discussion of these points is troublesome: For though it were so, we ought either to submit to the authority of the church and tradition of so many ages, or push the inquiry to the utmost, and not to think to get rid of it by saying, that it requires more than we are willing to bestow upon our salvation. But indeed, without taking the labour to turn over all the books of the two testaments, we need only look into the book of Psalms, where are collected so many ancient songs of the people of God, to sec, in the divinest poetry that ever was, immortal monu* ments of the history of Moses, of that of the Judges, and of that of the kings, imprinted by tune and measure upon the memory of men. And for the New* Testament, Saint Paul s epistles alone, so lively, so original, so expressive of the time, affairs, and tfons that then were, and in fine, of so peculiar a style; those epistles, I say, received by the churches, to whom they were addressed, and from thence communicated to the other churches, might suffice to convince well disposed minds, that every thing is genuine and original in the scriptures which the apostles have left us.

So likewise do they support each other with an in-

ActsUi-vincible power. The Acts of the Apostles do but

continue the gospel, their epistles necessarily presup-

pose it. But that all may be agreed, the Acts, episdes and gospels do every where appeal to the ancient books of the Jews. Samt Paul and the other apostles are continually urging what Moses what he

Xiike the prophets said and wrote after Moses. Jesus

Chri«t summons the law the Prophets and the

Psalms, as witnesses, who all depose to the same truth.

Ibid. If he means to expound his mysteries, he begins at

John Moses and the prophets, and when be tells the Jews

that Moses wrote of be lays as a foundation what was most undoubted among them, and carries them back to the very source of their tradition.

Let us see however what is opposed to so confessed an authority, and to the consent of so many ages: for since in our days men have been so daring as to pub* lisb in ail sort of languages books against the scripture, we must not dissemble what they say to decry its antiquities. What then do they say to authorize the spuriousness of the Pentateuch, and what can they object - to a tradition of three thousand years standing, supported by its own strength and by constant course of Nothing coherent, nothing positive, nothing important: some cavails about numbers, places, or names, and such observations as in any other matter would at most be deemed vain curiosities, incapable of striking at the root of things, are here urged decisive of the most serious afiair that ever was in question. iThere are, say they, diflSculties in the story of MTjpture. There are doubtless, which would not be there, were the book less ancient, or had it been trumped up, as some are bold enough to affirm, by a cunning artful man; and had people been less religious in giving it such as they got it, and taken the liberty to correct what caused them any trouble. There are difficulties arising from a length of tirae> when places have changed their names or state; when dates are forgot; when genealogies are no longer known; when there is no remedy for faults that the smallest negligence in a copy so easily introduces into such things, or when facts, have escaped men's memo-ries, leave darkness on some part of the history. But after all, is this obscurity in the thread itself, or in the essential parts f by no means: every thing there is coherent; and what remains obscure serves only to show in the holy books a more venerable antiquity.

But there are alterations in the text; the ancient versions do not agree; the Hebrew in several places is different from itself; and the text of the Samaritans besides the word they are accused of having changed Mvi 4.expressly in favour of their temple of Gerizim, differs also in other places from that of the Jews. And what shall we conclude from thence? That the Jews or Ezra, have forged the Penfateuch at their return from captivity? It is just the contrary ive should conclude* The differences of the Samaritans serve only to confirm what ive have already established, that their text is independent of that of the Jews. It cannot be imagined that those schismatics took any thing from the Jews, or from Ezra; so far from that we have seen on the contrary, that it was purely out of spite to the Jews and to Ezra, and out of spite to both first and second temple, that thry hatched their chimera of Gerizim. Who does not see then that they would sooner bave accused the impostures of the Jews, than followed tbem f Tbose rebels, who despised Ezra and all the prophets of the Jews, with their temple, and Solomon who had built it, as well as David who bad signed its place; what did they regard in their Pentateuch, if not an antiquity superior not only to that of Ezra and the prophets, but even to that of Solomon and David; in a word, the antiquity of Moses, in which the two nations agree f How indisputable therefore is the authority of Moses and the Pentateuch, whicb all objections do but corroborate.

But after all, whence comes that variety of Texts and Versions? Whence comes it indeed, but from the antiquity of the book itself, which bas past through the hands of so many transcribers, for so many ages, that the language in which it is written bath ceased to be common? But laying aside vain disputes, let us pluck up the difiSculiy by the roots. Tell me if it is not allowed, that from all the versions, and from any text whatever, there will still result the same laws, the same miracles, the same predictions, the same course of history, the same body of doctrine, and in short the same substance. What harm after this do the diversities of texls? needed ne more than this unalterable stock of sacred books, and what further could we require of divine Providence? And as for the versions, is it a mark of spuriousness or innovation, that the language of Scripture is so ancient that we have lost its delicacies, and that we find ourselves unable to render all its elegance or strength with the utmost strictness f Is not this rather a proof of the greatest antiquity? And if people will insist upon trifles, I would gladly ask, whether of so many places where there may be some difficulty, any one has ever been settled by reasoning or conjecture? The world hath adhered to the faith of the and as tradition bath never suffered a possibility of sound doctrine's being altered, it bath judged, that other faults, if any such remained, would serve only to prove, that none have ever innovated any thing out of their own head.

But lastly, and here lies the stress of the objection; are there not some things added in the text of Moses, and bow comes it to pass that we find his death at the end of the book which is ascribed to him? What wonder is it, that those who have continued bis history have added his happy end to the rest of his actions, in order to make one body of the whole? for other additions, let us see what they are. Is there any new law or ceremony, any doctrine, miracle, orxa. iv prediction? None are so much as dreamed of; there is not the smallest surmise, nor the smallest sign of any; this had been to add to the work of God: the law had forbid it, and horrid had been the scandal it would have occasioned. What then? men have perhaps continued a genealogy begun; they have perhaps explained the name of a town changed by time; on occasion of the manna with which the people were fed forty years, they may have marked the time when that heavenly food ceased, and this fact, written afterward in another book, may have remained, by way of remark, in that of Moses, as an allowed and Public fact, whereof all the people were witnesses: four or a04 e such remarks made by Joshua, Samuel, or some other prophet of like antiquity, because they related only to notorious facts, and facts wherein there was evidently no manner of difficulty, may naturally have passed into the text, and the same tradition may have brought them to us with the rest; and therefore all shall immediately be lost? Ezra, shall be accused as a falsilier, though (he Samaritan text, where those remarks are found, shows us, that they have an antiquity, not only beyond Ezra, but beyond the schism of the ten tribes: No matter, all must fall upon Ezra. If those remarks were of an older date, the Pentateuch would be also more ancient than it ought; and we could not sufficiently revere the antiquity of a book, the very notes of which should be of so long a standing. Therefore Ezra shall have done every thing: Ezra shall have forgot that he was making Moses speak, and shall have caused him to write so grossly, as already come to pass, what happened not till after bis death. A whole work shall be convicted of spuriousness from this single passage; the authority of so many ages, and the public testimony, shall tio longer avail him any thing; as if. on the contrary, it were not evident, that those remarks, which the cavilers lay hold of, are a fresh proof of the sincerity and fidelity, not only of those who made them, but also of those who transcribed them. Was ever the authority, not to say, of a divine book, but of any book whatever, judged of from so slight arguments? But the matter is, the Scripture is a book offensive to mankind, it would oblige men to submit their ing to God, and to curb their unruly passions: it therefore must needs perish, and must at any rate fall a sacrifice to libertinism.

Moreover, do not imagine that impiety runs unne* cessarily into all the absurdities you have seen. If, contrary to the testimony of mankind, and contrary to til the rules of right reason, it exerts itself to deprive the Pentateuch aud of their ever acknow-

6 ledged authors, and (o controvert their dates; it is because the dates are eveiy thing in the affair, for two reasons: first, because books full of so many miracu* lous facts, which are there seen clothed with their most particular circumstances, and advanced not only as public, but even as present, could they have been confuted, would have carried their condemnation along with them, and instead of supporting themselves by their own weight, they would have fallen of themselves long ago: secondly, because their dates being once fixed, we can no longer efface the infallible mark of divine inspiration which they bear stamped upon them, in the great number and long series of memorable predictions, with which we find them replete.

'Tis in order to evade these miracles and predictions, that the profane have fallen into all the absurdities that have surprized you. But let them not think to escape from God; He hath reserved for his Scripture a mark of divinity that is proof to all attacks; and this IS the affinity of the two Testaments. 'Tis undisputed, at least, that all the Old Testament was written before the New. There is here no new Ezra to have persuaded the Jews to contrive or falsify theit Scripture in favour of the Christians whom they persecuted. There needs no more. The affinity of the two Testamentis proves each of them divine. They bave bott) the same design, and both the same consequence r the one prepares the way to perfection, which the other plaiaty exhibits: the one lays the foundation, and the other finishes the structure: in a word, the one ioretels what the other shows accomplished.

Thus all times are united, and an eternal scheme of divine providence is revealed to us. The tradition of the Jews, and that of the Christians, make together but one and the same course of religion, and the Scriptures of the two Testaments make therefore but one and the same body, and one and the same book.

And because the discussion of the particular predictions, though in itself full of light, depends greatly on fatsts that every body cannot equally follow, God hath made choice oi some, which be halo rendered sensible to the most isnorant. Those eminent, those shining facts, whereof the whole world is witness, are, Sir, the facts which J. have hitherto endeavoured to trace with you; namely, the desolation of the Jews, and the conversion of the Gentiles, which happened together, and both precisely at the time that the Gospel was preached, and Jesus Christ appeared.

These three particulars united in the order of time, were still much more so in the order of God's counsels. Tou have seen them go on together in the ancient prophecies; but Jesus Christ, the faithful interEreter of the prophecies, and of the will of his Father, ath better expounded that connexion in bis Gospel. He doth it in the parable of the vineyard, so familiar to the prophets. The householder bad planted that vineyard, that is, true religion, founded upon his covenant; and let it out to husbandmen, that isj to the Jews. In order to receive the fruits of it, be sends at sundry times his servants, who are the iprophets. Those wicked husbandmen put them to 'death. His goodness prompts him to send to them at iast bis own son. Him they handle still worse than the servants. At last he takes his vineyard from them, and gives it to other husbandmen: he takes from them the grace of his covenant, in order to give it to the Gentiles.

These three particulars were therefore to concur, the sending of the Son of God. the reprobation of the Jews, and the calling of the There needeth no more comment on the parable, than the event hath

Tou have seen that the Jews confess, that the kingdom of Judab, and the state of their republic, began to decline in the days of and when Jesus Cbmt came into XVie But if the alterations

(hey made in the law of God, drew upon them so viaible a decay of their power, their utter desolation, which endures' to this day, must have been the punishment of a greater crime.

That crime is visibly their ingratitude to their who came to instruct and deliver them. So likewise ever since that time bath a yoke of iron been upon their necks; and they doubtless would sink un* der it, did not God preserve them to turn one day to the Messiah whom they have crucified.

Behold then one positive and public fact, the total overthrow of the Jewish state in the time of Jesus Christ. The conversion of the Gentiles, which was to happen in the same period, is no less ascertained. At the same time that the ancient worship is destroyed in Jerusalem with the temple, idolatry is attacked on all sides; and nations, which for so many thousand years had forgot their Creator, rouse themselves from so long a lethargy.

And that every thing may agree, the spiritual promises are unfolded by the preaching of the gospel, at the time that the Jewish people, who had received only temporal ones, manifestly reprobated for their incredulity, and captive all over the earth, have no more human greatness to expect. Then heaven is promised to those who suffer for righteousness' sake, the mysteries of a future state are preached, and true happiness is exhibited far from that abode, where death reigns, where sin and all evils abound.

If we discover not here a plan ever consistent, and ever continued, if we see not one and the same order of the counsels of God, who prepares from the beginning of the world, what he finishes in the fulness of time, and who, under various states, but with an ever constant succession, perpetuates, in the sight of the whole world, the holy society by whom he will be served; we deserve to see nothing, but to be delivered up to our own hardness of heart, as the justest and most rigorous of all punishments,

And that this continual progress of the people of God might be evideut to the most God renders it sensible, nay palpable, by facts whereof no man can be ignorant, if be does not wilfully shut his eyes to the truth. The Messiah is expected by the Hebrews; he comes and cal/s the Gentiles, as bad been foretold of him. The people who acknowledge him as come, is incorporated with the people who ckfiected him, without there being between them the east moment's interniption: this people is spread abroad over all the iearth: the Gentiles are continually coming; and that church, which Jesus Christ built upon a rock, maugre all the efforts of hell, hath never been prevailed against.

What consolation to the children of God! but what conviction of the truth, when we see, that from him who so worthily fills at this day the first see of the church, we ascend, without interruption, to St. Peter, appointed by Jesus Christ the chief of the apostles: from whence, by resuming the high priests that served under the law, we go up to Aaron and Moses: thence to the patriarchs; and to the origin of the world? what progression, what tradition, what wonderful concatenation! if our mind, naturally uncertain, and become by its uncertainties the sport of its own reasonings, hath need in points that regard salvation, to be fixed and determined by some certain authority; what greater authority can there be than that of the Catholic church, which centres in itself all the authority of past ages, and the ancient traditions of mankind up to their first original?

Thus the society which Jesus Christ, expected through all former ages, at last founded upon the rock, and wherein the apostles and their successors are, by his orders, to preside, justifies itself by its own series, and bears in its eternal duration the mark of the hand of God.

It is therefore this succession, that no heresy, no sect, no other society Wx alone hath

erer been able to pretend to. False religions have made shiH: to imitate the church in a great many things, and especially by saying, like her, that it was God who founded them; but this assertion in their mouth is but an empty boast. For if God created mankind, if creating them in his ovin image, he never disdained to teach them the means of serving and pleasing him; whatever sect doth not show its succession from the beginning of the world, is not of God.

Here fall down at the feet of the church, all the societies and sects, which men have establishe'l within or without Christianity. For instance, the false prophet of the Arabians might well call himself the Sent of God; and affer deceiving nations most supremrly ignorant, be might take advantage of the divisions in his neighbourhood, to extend, by force of arms, a religion wholly sensual. But he neither dared to pretend that he had been expected, nor indeed could he claim, either to his person, or to his religion, any real or apparent connexion with past ages. The expedient he fell upon to evade this, was new. Lest people should incline to search the scriptures of the Chris* ttans for vouchers of his mission, like those which Jesus Christ found in the scriptures of the Jeivs, he gave it out, that both Christians and Jews had falsified all their books. His ignorant followers took his word for it, six hundred years after Jesus Christ; and be proclaimed himself, not only without any previous testimony, but even without either himself or his adherents daring to pretend, or to promise, any sensible miracle that might have authorized his mission. In like manner the Heresiarchs, who founded new sects among the Christians, might well render faith easierj by denying the mysteries that surpass the senses. They might well dazzle men by their eloquence, and by a show of move them by their passions, eo* them by their interests, allure them by novelty and libertinism} whether of the mindi or even of the senses;

in a word, they might easily either deceive themselres or others, for nothing is more natural to man: but besides that, they could not even boast of having wrought any one miracle in public, nor reduce their religion to positive facts whereof their followers were eye-witnesses; there is also one unlucky circumstance for them, that they have never been abJe to palliate; namely that of their newness. It wifl ever be visible to the eyes of the whole world, that they and the sect they have established have broke off from that great body and ancient church which Jesus Christ founded, where the apostles and their successors held the first places in which all sects have found them established. The very moment of the separation will always be so noted, that the heretics themselves shall not be able to disown it, and shall not dare so much as to attempt to derive themselves from the source, by a series that never hath known interruption. This is the inevitable weakness of all the sects that men have set up. None can change past ages, nor give themselves predecessors, or make themselves to have found them in possession. The Catholic church alone fills all preceding ages with a series that cannot be disputed her. The law is the forerunner of the gospel; the succession of Moses and the patriarchs makes but one and the same series with that of Jesus Christ: to be expected, to come, to be acknowledged by a posterity as lasting as the world; this is the character of the Messiah in XUL8. whom we believe: " Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-dav, and for ever."

Thus, besides the advantage the church of Christ bath, of being alone founded upon miraculous and divine facts, that were written openly, and without fear of being controverted, at the very time they happened; there is also, in favour of such as did not live in those times, an everlasting miracle, which confirms the truth of all the rest; and that is, the progress of religion ever victorious over the errors that have cn» deavoured to destroy it. To this you may likewise add another progress; Damelj, the visible progress of a continual chastisement on the Jews, who have not received the Christ promised to their fathers.

They continue nevertheless to expect him, and their ever disappointed expectation makes a part of their punishment. They look for him, and show by so doing that he hath been ever looked for. Condemned by their own books, they ascertain the truth of religion; they bear, so to speak, its whole progress written upon their forehead: at one view we see what they ha?e been, why they are as we see them, and for what they are reserved.

Thus four or five authentic facts, and clearer than the light of the sun, do manifest our religion as an>* cient as the world. They consequently demonstrate that it hath no other author than Him who laid the foundations of the universe, who holding all things in the hollow of bis hand, was alone able to commence and carry on a design that takes in all ages.

We must therefore no longer wonder, as we usually do, that God proposeth to our belief so many things so worthy of him, and at the same time impenetrable to human undei*standing. But we should rather wonder, that, the faith being built upon so sure and so manifest an authority, there should still remain any blind and incredulous persons in the world.

Our disorderly passions, our attachment to our senses, and our unconquerable pride, are the cause of it: we choose rather to run all hazards, than to put a constraint upon ourselves; we choose rather to continue in our ignorance, than to confess it; we choose rather to gratify a vain curiosity, and to indulge in our untoward minds the liberty of thinking what we please, than to bend under the yoke of divine authority.

Hence comes it to pass that there are so many unbelievers, and God permits it to be so for the instruction of his children: without the blind, without the sav- age, without the infidels, that remain in the very bosom of Christianity, we should not be sible of the deep corruption of our nature, nor of the abjss of misery wbence Jesus Christ hath delivered us. If bis sacred truth were not gainsayed, we should not see the miracle that makes it stand fast amidst so much contradiction, and we should at length forget that by grace we are saved. Now the incredulity of some humbietb others; and the rebels, who oppose the designs of God, makes the power conspicuous, whereby mdependently of any thing else, he accomplishetb the promises he hath made to his church.

Why then do we delay our submission? Do we wait till God shall work new miracles; till be render them of none effect by continuing them; till he accustom our eyes to them, as they are to the course of the sun and all the other wonders of nature? or do we wait till the profane and the perverse be silent; till good men and libei tines bear equal testimony to the truth; till every body with one accord prefer it to bis passion, and till false learning, which novelty alone makes admired, cease to delude mankind f Is it not enough that we see none can combat religion without betraying by prodigious extravagances, the disorder of their reason, and that they no longer hold out but through presumption or ignorance f shall not the church, victorious over ages and errors, be able to vanquish in our minds the pitiful arguments brought against her; and shall not the divine promise, which we daily see accomplished in her, have power to exalt us above the senses?

And let none pretend to tell us that those promises still remain in suspense, and that as they extend to the end of the world, it shall only be at the end of the world that we shall be able to boast of having seen their accomplishment. For on the contrary, what is past assures us of what is to come. So many ancient predictions, so visibly accomplished, evince to us that there is nothing that shall not be accomplished; and that the church, against which the gates of hell, according to the promise of the Son of God, t r prevail, shall stand fast till the consummation of aH things, since; Jesus Christ, who is true in every thing, hath set no other limits to her duration.

The same promises secure to us the future God, who hath shown himself so faithful in accomplishing what concerns this world, will be rib less so in accomplishing what concerns the next, for which all we see is but a preparation; and the church shall be ever immoveable and invincible upon earth, until, her children being gathered in, she be transported entire into heaven, which is her true dwelling-place.

As for those who shall be excluded from that heavenly city, an eternal vengeance is reserved for them; and after having lost through their own fault a blissful eternity, nothing siiall remain to them bat an eternity of wo.

Thus the counsels of God terminate in an immutable state; his promises and threatenings are equally certain and what he executes in time, assures what he commands us to hope or to fear in eternity.

This is what you learn from the progression of religion compendiously laid before you. By time it conducts you to eternity. You see a constant order in all the designs of God, and a visible mark of his power in the perpetual duration of his people. You find that the church hath an everlasting stock from which none can separate without being lost; and that those who being united to this root, bring forth works worthy lof their faith, secure to themselves eternal life.

Study then, Sir, but with attention study this progress of the church, which so clearly ascertains to you all the promises of God. Whatever breaks this chain, whatever goes out of this progression, whatever starts up of itself, and comes not in virtue of the promises saade to the church from the beginning of the world, ought to excite your horror. Employ all your powers to recal into this unity whatever hath deviated from jt, and to cause men to hearken to the church whereby the Holy Ghost pronounceth its oracks.

K

AN UNIVERSAL

The glory of jour ancestors is not only never to btewe forsaken her, but to have ever supported her, and to 4iave thereby merited to be called her eldest

which is doubtless the most glorious of all their •Vnitles.

I neied not speak to* you of CJovis, Charlemagne, or Sunt Lewis. Consider only the time in which jou live, and of what father, God hath caused you to be bom. A kins so great in every thing, dMHinguishes himself more l)y his faith than by his other admirable qualities. He protects religion, both at home and abroad, and to the uttermost ends of the world. His laws are one of the strongest bulwarks of the church. His authority reverted as much for his personal merit, as for the majesty of his sceptre, never better' supports itself, than when it defends the cause of God* Blasphemy is no more to be heard; impiety trembles before him: He is the king pointed at by Solomon, Proj. away all evil with his eyes." If he attacks btresy by so many ways, and even more than did ever bis predecessors, it is not that he fears for bis throne; every thing is quiet under his feet, and bis arms are dreaded over the whole earth: but it is that loves his people, and that being exalted by the hand of God to a power that nothing in the universe can equal, he knows no mere glorious use of it than to make it subservient to the healing of the wounds of the church.

Imitate, then, Sir, so noble a pattern, and band it down to your descendants. Recommend to their the church even more than that great empire, which your ancestors have governed for so many ages. Let;; your august house, the first in dignity that is in th6- world, be the first in maintainiog the rights of God, and extending through the universe the reign of Jesus Christ, who makes il to reign with so much glory.