had seen the great works of Mofes, and which followed foon after, they fell into all the idolatry of the neighbouring nations, and neglected the pure worship of their Great Deliverer; for which, according to their chronicles, they were much oppreffed and plundered by their enemies on every fide; but as often as they repented of their wickedness, and returned from their idolatry, judges and generals were raised up from among themselves to deliver them; although they ftill continued in a very distressed situation, fometimes following the idolatry of their neighbours, and at other times calling upon the name of the Lord their God, till the days of David, when they became a great and a powerful people, and were the terror of all the neighbouring nations. David is faid to have destroyed all kinds of idolatry among this people; to have cut off all the inhabitants of the neighbouring cities, who were the greatest idolaters, and to have left the kingdom to his fon Solomon, in the pure worship of the great God of Heaven. Solomon, in his youthful days, fhewed fuch an example of piety, morality, and wisdom, that he was the admiration of all that part of the world. Indeed his works, which are still exifting, fhew him to have been fuch. But this fame Solomon, although he built the great temple at Jerufalem for the worship of the Supreme Being, in the latter part of his life, by giving too much into the love of women, by trufting too much to his own ftrength ftrength and riches, and to the flattery of deceitful perfons, not only fuffered himself to be drawn into the groffeft fcenes of idolatry, and built feveral temples and high places for the idols of the neighbouring nations near to Jerufalem, but he likewise drew the people into the fame abominable practices, even to offer up their own children as burnt facrifices to Moloch, and to the idols of the Ammonites. Here is fuch a striking example of the depravity of human nature, when unaffifted by our Great Creator and Protector, as perhaps fuch another is not to be found in the history of the world. Solomon, in his youthful days, was more esteemed for his wisdom and morality than any of the great philofophers of antiquity; but when he fuffered himself to be led away by the violence of his paffions, and when he checked that innate voice of nature and of reason, which is the fure guide and director of every rational creature, as it is the ordinary means which the Supreme Being has established to protect and fupport us, the degeneracy and bad conduct of this once fhining example of wisdom and morality, made him a real object of contempt, and the moft miferable of all wretches. From the time of Solomon 'till the captivity of Ifrael and of Judah, the former into Syria, and the latter into Babylon, this people were, for the most part, in a constant scene of the groffeft idolatry. Indeed feveral good kings and prophets rofe up during this period, and endeavoured to check - check this torrent of abomination: but it was only for a moment; the people, who were naturally disposed to fall into the idolatry of the ancient inhabitants of Canaan, were now fo corrupted and habituated therein, that although the prophet Elijah called down fire from heaven to confume his burnt facrifice, and to convince them of his being fent from God, to draw them out of their abominable practices, and of the wickedness of Baal's prophets, they attempted to kill him the next day. When they were oppreffed by their enemies, and threatened with immédiate deftruction, they cried to the God of Heaven to deliver them; but as foon as they faw that their enemies were fubdued, they fell again into their former fcenes of idolatry. Besides worshipping the idol gods of the Canaanites, and offering up their children as burnt facrifices to Moloch, they worshipped the fun, the moon, and all the host of heaven, 'till the governments of Ifrael and of Judah were destroyed, and the people carried away captive into Syria, and into Babylon. All the exhortations and remonftrances of the prophets Elijah, Elisha, Ifaiah, Jeremiah, and others, appeared to them as idle tales. The mighty works which were done by the two former of these prophets, had no effect upon this ftubborn and degenerate people; and the prophecies and exhortations of lfaiah and of the other prophets, made no impreffion upon this hardened race; who, although they have been called the chofen people of God, have conftantly fhewn tion has afforded, to form the moral character of mankind, yet by the fyftems of morality which they respectively taught their followers, not only by precept, but by example, they drew great numbers of people out of that grofs ignorance, fuperftition, and idolatry, which then prevailed in the world, and which were a difgrace to human nature. Those great ancients made a noble entry upon the theatre of the world; as their opinions were corroborated by their examples. They did not, like Des Cartes, Hobbes, and fome other modern philofophers, endeavour to propagate fyftems which they did not believe themselves. Des Cartes, in particular, when among his friends, always called his philofophy his romance; and both he and many of the materialists published their fchemes of philofophy, as Noftradamus did his prophecies, only for their amusement, and without either of them believing any part of what they published themselves. Many of our pretended modern philofophers have endeavoured to difcredit Pythagoras; and affert that he was a lawgiver, but by no means a philosopher. It is certain that Pythagoras was defired to form the civil conftitution of a state in which he lived in Italy, and had the misfortune to perish by a fedition in the government he had formed; fo that there remain no records or traces of any of his civil institutions: but, on the other hand, his philofophi cal and moral precepts, the principal of which have been already obferved, have been efteemed in God of Heaven to deliver them out of their bondage: whereupon, as their hiftory obferves, in the first year of the reign of Cyrus the Perfian, who had now conquered Babylon, and who was a worshipper of one God, this prince published a proclamation throughout all his empire, that the Ifraelites fhould return again into Judea, and rebuild the temple of Solomon, and the walls of Jerufalem, which had been broken down and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzer king of Babylon; and, in confequence thereof, great numbers of the descendants of those who had been made captive by Nebuchadnezzer, returned again to Jerufalem, and re-built the walls of that city, and the temple of Solomon; and for fome time followed the law of Mofes, and worshipped the God of Heaven. But afterwards their priests, who had learnt the language, and who were inftructed in the myfteries of the Chaldeans, finding the law of Mofes, as they imagined, in many respects too rigid for a people who were much difpofed to follow the torrent of their lufts and paffions, and who had feen all the Babylonifh and Chaldean luxury; and with all that, who were naturally difpofed to be turbulent and rebellious, gave fuch explanations thereto as they thought proper; so that, although they kept up the form of the Mofaical inftitution, the spirit of it was foon loft among them. Happily for this people, they were kept in fome order by the perfecutions which they suffered from the credit of their enemies at the court of |