the Jews. We may add to this, also, that great numbers of the Jews preserving their scriptures, and publicly worshipping the true God, never returned from the Babylonish captivity, but remained in various parts of that extensive empire after it was conquered by the Persians. The Chaldean philosophic schools, to which many of the Greek sages resorted for instruction, were therefore never without the means of achowever degenerate in process of time their wise men became, by addicting themselves to judicial astrology; and to the same sacred source the conquest of Babylon conducted the Persians.

Upon the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan, they found | learned and curious people, to the religious tenets of a few persons in that perhaps primitive seat of idolatry who acknowledged "Jehovah to be God in heaven above and in the earth beneath." Through the branch of Esau, the knowledge of the true religion would pass from the family of Isaac, with its farther illustrations in the covenants made with Abraham to his descendants. Job and his friends, who probably lived between Abraham and Moses, were professors of the patriarchal religion; and their discourses show, that it was both aquaintance with the theological system of the Jews, sublime and a comprehensive system. The plagues of Egypt, and the miraculous escape of the Israelites, and the destruction of the Canaanitish nations, were all parts of an awful controversy between the true God and the idolatry spreading in the world; and could not Cyrus, the celebrated subverter of the Babylonian fail of being largely noised abroad among the neigh- monarchy, was of the Magian religion, whose votaries bouring nations, and of making the religion of the worshipped God under the emblem of fire, but held an Israelites known.(4) Balaam, a Gentile prophet, in-independent and eternal principle of darkness and evil. termixes with his predictions many brief but eloquent He was, however, somewhat prepared by his hostility assertions of the first principles of religion, the omni- to idols, to listen to the tenets of the Jews; and his potence of Deity, his universal providence, and the favour to them sufficiently shows, that the influence immutability of his counsels; and the names and epi- which Daniel's character, the remarkable facts which thets which he applies to the Supreme Being are, as had occurred respecting him at the courts of NebuchadBishop Horsley observes, the very same which are nezzar and Belshazzar, and the predictions of his own used by Moses, Job, and the inspired writers of the success by Isaiah, had exerted on his mind was very Jews; namely, God, the Almighty, the Most High, and great. In his decree for the rebuilding of the temple, Jehovah; which is a proof, that, gross as the corrup-recorded in Ezra, chap. i. and 2 Chron. xxxvi 23, he tions of idolatry were now become, the patriarchal acknowledges "Jehovah to be the God of heaven," who religion was not forgotten, nor its language become had given him his kingdom, and had charged him to obsolete. rebuild the temple. Nor could this testimony in favour of the God of the Jews be without effect upon his subjects; one proof of which, and of the influence of Judaism upon the Persians, is, that in a short time after his reign, a considerable improvement in some particulars, and alteration in others, took place in the Magian religion by an evident admixture with it of the tenets and ceremonies of the Jews. (6) And whatever improvements the theology of the Persians thus received, and they were not few nor unimportant; whatever information they acquired as to the origin of the world, the events of the first ages, and questions of morals and religion, subjects after which the ancient philosophers made keen and eager inquiries; they could not but be known to the learned Greeks, whose intercourse with the Persians was continued for so long a period, and be transmitted also into that part of India into which the Persian monarchs pushed their conquests.

The frequent and public restorations of the Israelites to the principles of the patriarchal religion, after they had lapsed into idolatry and fallen under the power of other nations, could not fail to make their peculiar opinions known among those with whom they were so often in relations of amity or war, of slavery or dominion. We have evidence collateral to that of the Scriptures, that the building of the celebrated temple of Solomon, and the fame of the wisdom of that monarch, produced not only a wide-spread rumour, but, as it was intended by Divine wisdom and goodness, moral effects upon the people of distant nations; and that the Abyssinians received the Jewish religion after the visit of the queen of Sheba, the principles of that religion being probably found to accord with those ancient traditions of the patriarchs which remained among them.(5) The intercourse between the Jews and the states of Syria and Babylon on the one hand, and It is indeed unquestionable, that the credit in which Egypt on the other, powers which rose to great emi- the Jews stood, in the Persian empire; the singular nence and influence in the ancient world, was main-events which brought them into notice with the Persian tained for many ages. Their frequent captivities and monarchs; the favour they afterward experienced from dispersions would tend to preserve in part, and in part Alexander the Great and his successors, who reigned to revive, the knowledge of the once common and uni-in Egypt, where they became so numerous, and so versal faith; for we have instances, that in the worst periods of their history, there were among the captive İsraelites those who adhered with heroic steadfastness to their own religion. We have the instance of the female captive in the house of Naaman, the Syrian; and at a later period, the sublime example of the three Hebrew youths and of Daniel, in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The decree of this prince, after the deliverance of Shadrach and his companions, ought not to be slightly passed over. It contained a public proclamation of the supremacy of Jehovah, in opposition to the gods of his country; and that monarch, after his recovery from a singular disease, became himself a worshipper of the true God; both of which are circumstances which could not but excite attention, among a

(4) Jenkin's Reasonableness of Christianity, vol.1, c.2. (5) The princes of Abyssinia claim descent from Menilek, the son of Solomon by the queen of Sheba. The Abyssinians say, she was converted to the Jewish religion. The succession is hereditary in the line of Solomon, and the device of their kings is a lion passant, proper upon a field gules, and their motto, "The lion of the race of Solomon and tribe of Judah hath overcome." The Abyssinian eunuch, who was met by Philip, was not properly a Jewish proselyte, but an Abyssinian believer in Moses and the Prophets. Christianity spread in this country at an early period; but many of the inhabitants to this day are of the Jewish religion. Tyre also must have derived an accession of religious information from its intercourse with the Israelites in the time of Solomon; and we find Hiram, the king, blessing the Lord God of Israel, "as the Maker of heaven and earth."

generally spoke the Greek, that a translation of the Scriptures into that language was rendered necessary; and their having in most of the principal cities of the Roman empire, even when most extended, indeed in all the cities which were celebrated for refinement and philosophy, their synagogues and public worship, in Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, at Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, &c., as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, and that for a long time before the Christian era,-rendered their tenets very widely known: and as these events took place after their final reformation from idolatry, the opinions by which they were distinguished were those substantially which are taught in the Scriptures. The above statements, to say nothing of the fact that the character, oflice, opinions, and writings of Moses were known to many of the ancient philosophers and historians, who mention him by name, and describe the religion of the Jews, are sufficient to account for those opinions and traditions we occasionally meet with in the writings of the Greek and Roman sages which have the greatest correspondence with truth, and agree best with the Holy Scriptures. They flowed in upon them from many channels, branching out at different times from the fountain of truth; but they were received by them generally as mere traditions or philosophic notions, which they thought themselves at liberty to adopt, reject, modify, or pervert, as the principles of their schools or their own fancy led them.

Let then every question which respects inspiration, miracles, prophecies, be for the present omitted, the following conclusions may properly close these observations:

(6) See note B, at the end of this chapter.

1. That as a history of early opinions and events, the Scriptures have at least as much authority as any history of ancient times whatever; nay, the very idea of their sacredness, whether well founded or not, renders their historical details more worthy of credit, because that idea led to their more careful preservation.

2. That their history is often confirmed by ancient pagan traditions and histories; and in no material point, or on any good evidence, contradicted.

3. That those fundamental principles of what is called natural religion, which are held by sober Theists, and by them denominated rational, the discovery of which they attribute to the unassisted understanding of man, are to be found in the earliest of these sacred writings, and are there supposed to have existed in the world previous to the date of those writings themselves.

4. That a religion founded on common notions and common traditions, comprehensive both in doctrines and morals, existed in very early periods of the world; and that from the agreement of almost all mythological systems, in certain doctrines, rites, and traditions, it is reasonable to believe, that this primitive theology passed in some degree into all nations.

5. That it was retained most perfectly among those of the descendants of Abraham who formed the Israelitish state and subsisted as a nation collaterally with the successive great empires of antiquity for many ages. 6. That the frequent dispersions of great numbers of that people, either by war or from choice, and their residence in or near the seats of ancient learning with their sacred books, and in the habit of observing their public worship, as in Chaldea, Egypt, Persia, and other parts of the ancient world, and the signal notice into which they and their opinions were occasionally brought, could not but make their cosmogony, theology, laws, and history very extensively known.

7. That the spirit of inquiry in many of the ancient philosophers of different countries led them to travel for information on these very subjects, and often into those countries where the patriarchal religion had formerly existed in great purity, and where the tenets of the Jews which tended to revive or restore it were well known.

8. That there is sufficient evidence that these tenets were in fact known to many of the sages of the greatest name, and to schools of the greatest influence, who, however, regarding them only as traditions or philosophical opinions, interwove such of them as best agreed with their views into their own systems, and rejected or refined upon others, so that no permanent and convincing system of morals and religion was, after all, wrought out among themselves, while they left the populace generally to the gross ignorance and idolatry in which they were involved.(7)

9. Finally, that so far from there being any evidence, that any of those fundamental truths of religion or morals which may occasionally appear in their writings, were discovered by their unassisted reason, we can trace them to an earlier age, and can show that they had the means of access to higher sources of information; while on the other hand it may be exhibited as a proof of the weakness of the human mind, and the corruptness of the human heart, that they generally involved in doubt the great principles which they thus received; built upon them fanciful systems destructive of their moral efficacy; and mixed them with errors of the most deteriorating character.(8)

The last observation will be more fully illustrated in the ensuing chapter.

of the Stoics; nor is it to be imagined that Marcus Antoninus, Maximus Tyrius, and others were ignorant of the Christian doctrine.

Rousseau admits, that the modern philosopher derives his better notions on many subjects from those very Scriptures which he reviles; from the early impres sions of education; from living and conversing in a Christian country, where those doctrines are publicly taught, and where, in spite of himself, he imbibes some portion of that religious knowledge which the sacred writings have every where diffused.-Works, vol. 9, p. 71; 1764. (8) See note C, at the end of this chapter.

Note A.-Page 17.

The illustration of the particulars mentioned in the paragraph from which reference is made to this note, may be given under different heads.

THE FORMATION OF THE WORLD FROM CHAOTIC MATTER.- Some remains of the sentiments of the ancient Chaldeans are preserved in the pages of Syncellus from Berosus and Alexander Polyhistor; and when the tradition is divested of its fabulous dress, we may trace in the account a primordial watery chaos, a separation of the darkness from light, and of earth from heaven, the production of man from the dust of the earth, and an infusion of Divine reason into the man so formed. The cosmogony of the Phoenicians as detailed by Sanchoniatho, makes the principle of the universe a dark air, and a turbulent chaos. The ancient Persians taught that God created the world, at six different times, in manifest allusion to the six days' work as described by Moses. In the Institutes of Menu, a Hindoo Tract, supposed by Sir William Jones to have been composed 1280 years before the Christian era, the universe is represented as involved in darkness, when the sole selfexisting power, himself undiscerned, made the world discernible. With a thought he first created the waters, which are called Nara, or the Spirit of God; and since they were his first ayana, or place of motion, he is thence named Narayana, or moving on the waters. The order of the creation in the ancient traditions of the Chinese is,-the heavens were first formed; the foundations of the earth were next laid; the atmosphere was then diffused round the habitable globe, and last of all man was created. The formation of the world from chaos may be discovered in the traditions of our Gothic ancestors.-See the Edda, and Faber's Hora Mosaice, vol. 1, page 3.

(7) The readiness of the philosophers of antiquity to seize upon every notion which could aid them in their speculations, is manifest by the use which those of them who lived when Christianity began to be known and to acquire credit, made of its discoveries to give greater splendour to their own systems. The thirst of knowledge carried the ancient sages to the most distant persons and places in search of wisdom, nor did the later philosophers any more than modern infidels neglect the superior light of Christianity, when brought to their own doors, but they were equally backward to acknowledge the obligation. "As the ancients," says Justin In the ancient Greek philosophy, we trace the same Martyr," had borrowed from the prophets, so did the tradition, and Plato clearly borrowed the materials of moderns from the Gospel." Tertullian observes in his his account of the origin of things, either from Moses, Apology, "Which of your poets, which of your sophists, or from traditions which had proceeded from the same have not drunk from the fountains of the prophets? It source. Moses speaks of God in the plural form: "In is from these sacred sources likewise that your philoso- the beginning Gods created the heaven and the earth ;" phers have refreshed their thirsty spirits; and if they and Plato has a kind of Trinity in his To ayatov, "the found any thing in the Holy Scriptures to please their good," vss, or "intellect," who was properly the demifancy or to serve their hypotheses, they turned it to their urgus, or former of the world, and his Psyche, or uniown purpose and made it serve their curiosity; not versal mundane soul, the cause of all the motion which considering these writings to be sacred and unalterable, is in the world. He also represents the first matter nor understanding their sense; every one taking or out of which the universe was formed as a rude chaos. leaving, adopting or remodelling, as his imagination In the Greek and Latin poets we have frequent alluled him. Nor do I wonder that the philosophers played sions to the same fact, and in some of thern highly posuch foul tricks with the Old Testament, when I find etic descriptions of the chaotic state of the world, and its some of the same generation among ourselves who have reduction to order. When America was discovered, made as bold with the New, and composed a deadly mix-traditions bearing a very remarkable resemblance to ture of gospel and opinion, led by a philosophizing vanity."

It was from conversing with a Christian that Epictetus learned to reform the doctrine and abase the pride

the History of Moses on various subjects, were found among the semi-civilized nations of that continent. Gomara states in his history, that the Peruvians be lieved, that at the beginning of the world, there came

from the north a being named Con, who levelled mountains and raised hills solely by the word of his mouth; that he filled the earth with men and women whom he had created, giving them fruits, and bread, and ali things necessary for their subsistence; but that, being offended with their transgressions, he deprived them of the blessings which they had originally enjoyed, and afflicted their lands with sterility.

"The number of days employed in the work of creation," says Mr. Faber, "and the Divine rest on the seventh day, produced that peculiar measure of time, the weeks, which is purely arbitrary, and which does not spring, like a day, or a month, or a year, from the natural motions of the heavenly bodies. Hence the general adoption of the hebdomadal period is itself a proof how widely a knowledge of the true cosmogonical system was diffused among the posterity of Noah." Thus, in almost every part of the globe, from Europe to the shores of India, and anciently among the Greeks, Romans, and Goths, as well as among the Jews, we find the week used as a familiar measure of time, and some traces of the Sabbath.

Hindoo bas-relief, and carries with it its own interpretation.

In the Edda, Fab. 16, "the great serpent is said to be an emanation from Loke, the evil principle; and Hela, or hell, or death, in a poetical vein of allegory not unworthy of our own Milton, is celebrated as the daughter of that personage, and as the sister of the dragon. Indignant at the pertinacious rebellion of the evil principle, the universal Father despatched certain of the gods to bring those children to him. When they were come, he threw the serpent down to the bottom of the ocean. But there the monster grew so large, that he wound himself round the whole globe of the earth. Death meanwhile was precipitated into hell, where she possesses vast apartments, strongly built, and fenced with grates of iron. Her hall is Grief; her table, Famine; Hunger, her knife; Delay, her servant; Faintness, her porch; Sickness and Pain, her bed; and her tent, Cursing and Howling. THE FLOOD OF NOAH.-Josephus, in his first book against Apion, states, that Berosus, the Chaldean historian, relates in a similar manner to Moses, the history of the flood and the preservation of Noah in an ark or chest. In Abydemis's History of Assyria, in passages quoted by Eusebius, mention is made of an ancient prince of the name of Sisithrus, who was forewarned by Saturn of a deluge. In this account, the ship, the sending forth and returning of the birds, the abating of the waters, and the resting of the ship on a mountain, are all mentioned.-(Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. 9, c. 12.Grotius on the Christian Religion, lib. 1, sec. 16.) Lucian, in his book concerning the goddess of Syria, mentions the Syrian traditions as to this event. Here Noah is called Deucalion, and that he was the person intended under this name is rendered indubitable by the mention of the wickedness of the antediluvians, the piety of Dencalion, the ark, and the bringing into it of the beasts of the earth by pairs. The ancient Persian traditions, as Dr. Hyde has shown, though mixed with fable, have a substantial agreement with the Mo

THE FALL OF MAN.-That the human race were once innocent and happy is an opinion of high antiquity and great extent among the Gentile nations. The passages to this effect in the classical poets are well known. It is asserted in the Edda, the record of the opinions of our Scythian forefathers. "There can be little doubt," says Maurice in his History of Hindostan, "but that by the Satya-age, or age of perfection, the Brachmins obscurely allude to the state of perfection and happiness enjoyed by man in Paradise. Then justice, truth, philanthropy, were practised among all the orders and classes of mankind." That man is a fallen creature is now the universal belief of this class of pagans; and the degeneracy of the human soul, its native and hereditary degeneracy, runs through much of the Greek philosophy. The immediate occasion of the fall, the frailty of the woman, we find also alluded to equally in classical fable, in ancient Gothic traditions, and among various barbarous tribes. A curious pas-saic account. In Hindostan, the ancient poem of Bhasage to this effect occurs in Campbell's Travels among the Boschuana Hottentots.

THE SERPENT.-The agency of an evil and malignant spirit is found also in these widely extended ancient traditions. Little doubt can be entertained but that the generally received notion of good and evil demons grounded itself upon the Scripture account of good and evil angels. Serpent-worship was exceedingly general, especially in Egypt, and the East, and this is not to be accounted for but as it originated from a superstitious fear of the malignant demon, who, under that animal form, brought death into the world, and obtained a destructive dominion over men. That in ancient sculptures and paintings, the serpent symbol is sometimes emblematical of wisdom, eternity, and other moral ideas, may be allowed; but it often appears connected with representations, which prove that under this form the evil principle was worshipped, and that human sacrifices were offered to gratify the cruelty of him, who was a "murderer from the beginning." In the model of the tomb of Psammis, made by. Mr. Belzoni, and recently exhibited in London, and in the plates which accompany his work on Egypt, are seen various representations of monstrous serpents, with the tribute of human heads which had been offered to them. This is still more strikingly exemplified in a copy of part of the interior of an Egyptian tomb, at Biban al Melook in Richardson's Travels in Egypt. Before an enormous serpent, three men are represented on their knees, with their heads just struck off by the executioner, "while the serpent erects his crest to a level with their throats, ready to drink the stream of life as it gurgles from their veins." This was probably the serpent Typhon of the ancient Egyptians; the same as the Python of the Greeks; and, as observed by Mr. Faber, "the notion that the Python was oracular, may have sprung from a recollection of the vocal responses which the tempter gave to Eve, under the borrowed figure of that reptile." By consulting Moore's Hindoo Pantheon, it will be seen that the serpent Caliya is represented as the decided enemy of the mediatorial God, Krishna, whom he persecutes, and on whom he inflicts various sufferings, though he is at length vanquished. Krishna, pressed within the folds of the serpent and then triumphing over him, and bruising his bead beneath his feet, is the subject of a very ancient

gavot treats of a flood which destroyed all mankind, except a pious prince, with seven of his attendants and their wives. The Chinese writers, in like manner, make mention of a universal flood. In the legends of the ancient Egyptians, Goths, and Druids, striking references are made to the saine event (Edda, Fab. 4; Davies's Mythology of the British Druids, p. 226); and it was found represented in the historical paintings of the Mexicans, and among the American nations. The natives of Otaheite believed that the world was torn in pieces formerly by the anger of their gods; the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands have a tradition, that the Etooa, who created the world, afterward destroyed it by an inundation; and recollections of the same event are preserved among the New-Zealanders, as the author had the opportunity of ascertaining lately in a conversation with two of their chiefs, through an interpreter. For large illustrations of this point, see Bryant's Heathen Mythology and Faber's Horde Mo

saicæ.

SACRIFICE. The great principle of the three dispensations of religion in the Scriptures,-the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christian,-that without shedding of blood, there is no remission, has fixed itself in every pagan religion of ancient and modern times. For though the followers of Budhu are forbidden to offer sanguinary sacrifices to him, they offer them to demons in order to avert various evils; and their presentation of flowers and fruits to Budhu himself' shows that one part of the original rite of sacrifice has been retained, though the other, through a philosophic refinement, is given up. Sacrifices are however offered in China, where the most ancient form of Budhuism generally prevails; a presumption that the Budhuism of Ceylon and some parts of India is a refinement upon a more ancient system. "That the practice of devoting piacular victims has at one period or another prevailed in every quarter of the globe, and that it has been alike adopted by the most barbarous and by the most civilized nations, can scarcely be said to need regular and formal proof."

EXPECTATION OF A DELIVERER.-Amid the miseries of succeeding ages, the ancient pagan world was always looking forward to the appearance of a great Deliverer and Restorer; and this expectation was so general, that it is impossible to account for it but from "the promises made unto the fathers," beginning with the pro

Rememb'ring in the fates a time when fire
Should to the battlements of heaven aspire,
When all his blazing worlds above should burn,
And all th' inferior globe to cinders turn.

DRYDEN. Seneca, speaking of the same event, and Murciam c. ult., says, "Tempus adveniret quo sidera sideribus incurrent, &c. The time will come when the whole world will be consumed, that it may be again renewed; when the powers of nature will be turned against herself; when stars will rush on stars, and the whole material world, which now appears so resplendent with beauty and harmony, will be destroyed in one general conflagration. In this grand catastrophe of nature all animated beings (excepting the universal intelligence), men, heroes, demons, and gods, shall perish together." The same tradition presents itself in different forms in all leading systems of modern paganism.

Note B.-Page 18.

mise of conquest to the seed of the woman over the power of the serpent. It is a singular fact and still worthy of remark, though so often stated, that, a little before our Lord's advent, an expectation of the speedy appearance of this Deliverer was general among the nations of antiquity. "The fact," says Bishop Horsley, "is so notorious to all who have any knowledge of antiquity, that if any one would deny it, I would decline all dispute with such an adversary as too ignorant to receive conviction, or too disingenuous to acknowledge what he must secretly admit." It is another singular fact, that Virgil, in his Pollio, by an application of the Sybilline verses, which are almost literally in the high and glowing strains in which Isaiah prophesies of Christ, to a child of his friend, one of the Roman consuls, whose birth was just expected, and that out of an extravagant flattery should call the attention of the world to those singular and mysterious books, so shortly before the birth of him who alone could fulfil the prophecies they contain. For a farther account of the Sybilline verses, the reader is referred to Prideaux's Of the controversy as to Zoroaster, Zeratusht, or Connexion, to Bishop Lowth's Dissertations, and to Zertushta, and the sacred books said to have been Bishop Horsley's Dissertation on the Prophecies of the written by him, called Zend or Zendavesta, which have Messiah dispersed among the Heathen. It is enough divided critics so eminent, it would answer no importhere to say, that it is an historical fact that the Sybil- ant end to give an abstract. Those who wish for inline books existed among the Romans from an early formation on the subject are referred to HYDE's Religio period; that these oracles of the Cumaan Sybil were Veterum Persarum; PRIDEAUX's Connexion; WARheld in such veneration, that the book which contained BURTON'S Divine Legation; BRYANT'S Mythology; the them was deposited in a stone chest, in the temple of Universal History; Sir W. JONES's Works, vol. 3, p. Jupiter, in the Capitol, and committed to the care of two 115; M. Du PERRON, and RICHARDSON's Dissertation persons appointed to that office expressly; that about a prefixed to his Persian and Arabic Dictionary. But century before our Saviour's birth, the book was de- whatever may become of the authority of the whole or stroyed in the fire which consumed the temple in which part of the Zendavesta, and with whatever fables the it was deposited; that the Roman Senate knew that History of the Reformer of the Magian religion may be similar oracles existed among other nations, for, to re- mixed, the learned are generally agreed that such a pair that loss, they sent persons to make a new collec- reformation took place by his instrumentality. "Zeration of these oracles in different parts of Asia, in the tusht," says Sir W. Jones, "reformed the old religion islands of the Archipelago, in Africa, and in Sicily, who by the addition of genii, or angels, of new ceremonies returned with about a thousand verses, which were in the veneration shown to fire, of a new work which deposited in the place of the originals, and kept with he pretended to have received from heaven, and, above the same care; and that the predictions which Virgil all, by establishing the actual adoration of the Supreme weaves into his fourth Eclogue, of the appearance of a Being," and he farther adds, "The reformed religion of king, whose monarchy was to be universal, and who Persia continued in force till that country was conwas to bestow upon mankind the blessings he de-quered by the Mussulmans; and without studying the scribes, were contained in them. It follows, therefore, Zend, we have ample information concerning it in the that such predictions existed anciently among the modern Persian writings of several who profess it. Romans; that they were found in many other parts of Bahman always named Zeratusht with reverence; he Europe, and Asia, and Africa; and that they had so was in truth a pure Theist, and strongly disclaimed any marvellous an agreement with the predictions of the adoration of the fire or other elements, and he denied Jewish prophets, that, either they were in part copies that the doctrine of two coeval principles, supremely from them, or predictions of an inspiration equally sa- good and supremely bad, formed any part of his faith." cred-the fragments of very ancient prophecy inter- "The Zeratusht of Persia, or the Zoroaster of the woven probably with the fables of later times. "If," Greeks," says Richardson, "was highly celebrated by as Bishop Horsley justly observes, "any illiterate the most discerning people of ancient times; and his persons were to hear Virgil's poem read, with the tenets, we are told, were most eagerly and rapidly emomission of a few allusions to the heathen mythology, braced by the highest in rank, and the wisest men in which would not affect the general sense of it, they the Persian empire."-Dissertation prefixed to his Perwould without hesitation pronounce it to be a pro- sian Dictionary. He distinguished himself by denying phecy of the Messiah." It might seem, indeed, that the that good and evil, represented by light and darkness, poet had only in many passages translated Isaiah, did were coeval, independent principles, and asserted the he not expressly attribute the predictions he has intro- supremacy of the true God, in exact conformity with duced into his poem to the Cumæan Sybil; which he the doctrine contained in a part of that celebrated prowould not have done if such passages had not been phecy of Isaiah in which CYRUS is mentioned by name. found in the oracles, because they were then in exist-"I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God ence, and their contents were known to many. The subsequent forgeries of these oracles in the first ages of the Church, also prove at least this, that the true Sybilline verses contained prophetic passages, capable of a strong application to the true universal Deliverer, which those pious frauds aimed at making more particular and more convincing. Those who do not read Latin, may consult "tue Messiah" of Pope, with the principal passages from Virgil in the notes, translated and collated with prophecies from Isaiah, which will put them in possession of the substance of this singular and most interesting production.

beside me" (no coeval power). "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace, or good, and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things." Fire, by Zerdushta, appears to have been used emblematically only, and the ceremonies for preserving and transmitting it, introduced by him, were manifestly taken from the Jews, and the sacred fire of their tabernacle and temple.

The old religion of the Persians was corrupted by Sabianism, or the worship of the host of heaven, with its accompanying superstition. The Magian doctrine, whatever it might be at first, had degenerated, and two eternal principles, good and evil, had been introduced. Nor is it only on the above points that we perceive It was therefore necessarily idolatrous, also, and like the ancient traditions and opinions preserved in their all other false systems, flattering to the vicious habits grand outline among different heathen nations, but also of the people. So great an improvement in the moral in the Scriptural doctrine of the destruction of the pre-character and influence of the religion of a whole nasent system of material nature. The Pythagoreans, Platonists, Epicureans, Stoics, all had notions of a general conflagration. After the doctrine of the Stoics, Ovid thus speaks, Metam. lib. 1.

"Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur affore tempus Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regio cœli Ardeat, et mundi moles operosa laboret."

tion as was effected by Zoroaster, a change which is not certainly paralleled in the history of the religion of mankind, can scarcely therefore be thought possible, except we suppose a Divine interposition either directly, or by the occurrence of some very impressive events. Now, as there are so many authorities for fixing the time of Zoroaster or Zeratusht not many years subse.

talked of. Besides, in the prophecy respecting Cyrus,
the intention of Almighty God in recording the name
of that monarch in an inspired book, and showing
beforehand that he had chosen him to overturn the
Babylonian empire, is expressly mentioned as having
respect to two great objects-First, The deliverance of
Israel; and, Second, The making known his Supreme
Divinity among the nations of the earth. I again quote
Lowth's Translation.

"For the sake of my servant Jacob
And of Israel my chosen,

I have even called thee by thy name,

I have surnamed thee though thou knewest me not.
I am Jehovah, and none else,
Beside me there is no God;

I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me,
That they may know, from the rising of the sun,
And from the West, that there is NONE BESIDE

ME," &c.

It was therefore intended by this proceeding on the part of Providence, to teach not only CYRUS, but the people of his vast empire, and surrounding nations, FIRST, that HE was Jehovah, the self-subsistent, the eternal God; SECOND, That he was GOD ALONE, there being no Deity besides himself; and, THIRD, That good and evil, represented by light and darkness, were neither independent nor eternal subsistences; but his great instruments and under his control.

quent to the death of the great Cyrus, the events to which we have referred in the text are those, and indeed the only ones, which will account for his success in that reformation of religion of which he was the author; for had not the minds of men been prepared for this change by something extraordinary, it is not supposable that they would have adopted a purer faith from him. That he gave them a better doctrine, is clear from the admissions of even Dean Prideaux, who has very unjustly branded him as an impostor. Let it then be remembered, that as "the Most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men," he often overrules great political events for moral purposes. The Jews were sent into captivity to Babylon to be reformed from their idolatrous propensities, and their reformation commenced with their calamity. A miracle was there wrought in favour of the three Hebrews, confessors of one only God, and that under circumstances to put shame upon a popular idol in the presence of the King "and all the rulers of the provinces," that the issue of this controversy between Jehovah and idolatry might be made known throughout that vast empire.-Worship was refused to the idol by a few Hebrew captives, and the idol had no power to punish the public affront: --the servants of Jehovah were cast into a furnace, and he delivered them unhurt; and a royal decree declared "that there was no God who could deliver after this sort." The proud monarch himself is smitten with a singular disease; he remains subject to it until he acknowledges the true God; and, upon his recovery, he publicly ascribes to HIM both the justice and the mercy of the punishment. This event takes place also in the accomplishment of a dream which none of the wise men of Babylon could interpret: it was interpreted by Daniel, who made the fulfilment to redound to the honour of the true God, by ascribing to him the perfection of knowing the future, which none of the false gods appealed to by the Chaldean sages possessed; as the inability of their servants to interpret the dream sufficiently proyed. After these singular events, Cyrus takes Babylon, and he finds there the sage and the statesman, Daniel the worshipper of the God "who creates both good and evil," "who makes the light and forms the darkness," There is moral certainty, that he and the principal Persians throughout the empire would have the prophecy of Isaiah respecting Cyrus, delivered more than a hundred years before he was born, and in which his name stood recorded, along with the pre-them. I cannot but look upon this as one instance of dicted circumstances of the capture of Babylon, pointed out to them; as every reason, religious and political, urged the Jews to make the prediction a matter of notoriety; and from Cyrus's decree in Ezra it is certain that he was acquainted with it, because there is in the decree an obvious reference to the prophecy. This prophecy so strangely fulfilled would give mighty force to the doctrine connected with it, and which it proclaims with so much majesty.

"I am JEHOVAH, and none else,

Forming LIGHT, and creating DARKNESS,
Making PEACE, and creating EVIL,

The Persians, who had so vastly extended their empire by the conquest of the countries formerly held by the monarchs of Babylon, were thus prepared for such a reformation of their religion as Zoroaster cffected. The principles he advocated had been previously adopted by several of the Persian monarchs, and probably by many of the principal persons of that nation. Zoroaster himself thus became acquainted with the great truths contained in this famous prophecy, which attacked the very foundations of every idolatrous and Manichean system. From the other sacred books of the Jews who mixed with the Persians in every part of the empire, he evidently learned more. This is sufficiently proved from the many points of similarity between his religion and Judaism, though he should not be allowed to speak so much in the style of the Holy Scriptures, as some passages in the Zendavesta would indicate. He found the people, however, "prepared of the Lord" to admit his reformations, and he carried several merciful dispensations of God to the Gentile world, through his own peculiar people the Jews, by which the idolatries of the heathen were often checked, and the light of truth rekindled among them. In this view the ancient Jews evidently considered the Jewish Church as appointed not to preserve only but to extend true religion." "God be merciful to us and bless us, that thy ways may be known upon earth, thy saving health unto all nations." This renders pagan nations more evidently" without excuse." That this dispensation of mercy was afterward neglected among the Persians is certain. How long the effect continued we know not, nor how widely it spread; perhaps longer and wider than may now distinctly appear. If the Magi who came from the East to seek Christ were Persians, some true worshippers of God would appear to have remained in Persia to that day; and if, as is probable, the prophe

they might be among those who "waited for redemption" not at Jerusalem, but in a distant part of the world. The Parsees, who were nearly extirpated by Mahometan fanaticism, were charged by their oppressors with the idolatry of fire, and this was probably true of the multitude. Some of their writers, however, warmly defended themselves against the charge. A considerable number of them remain in India to this day, and profess to have the books of Zoroaster.

I JEHOVAH am the author of all these things." Lowth's Translation. Here the great principle of corrupted Magianism was directly attacked; and in proportion as the fulfilment of the prophecy was felt to be singular and striking, the doctrine blended with it would attract no-cies of Isaiah and Daniel were retained among them, tice. Its force was both felt and acknowledged, as we have seen in the decree of Cyrus for the rebuilding of the temple. In that, CYRUS acknowledged the true God to be supreme, and thus renounced his former faith; and the example, the public example of a prince so beloved, and whose reign was so extended, could not fail to influence the religious opinions of his people. That the effect did not terminate in Cyrus, we know; for from the book of EZRA, it appears that both DARIUS and ARTAXERXES made decrees in favour of the Jews, This note contains a considerable digression, but its in which Jehovah has the emphatic appellation repeat- connexion with the argument in the text is obvious. edly given to him, "the God of heaven;" the very He who rejects the authority of the Scriptures will not terms used by Cyrus himself. Nor are we to suppose be influenced by what has been said of the prophecies the impression confined to the court; for the history of Isaiah, or the events of the life of Daniel; but still of the Hebrew youths; of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, it is not to be denied that while the Persian empire sickness, and reformation from idolatry; of the inter- remained, a Persian moral philosopher who taught pretation of the handwriting on the wall by Daniel the sublime doctrines flourished, and that his opinions had servant of the living God; of his deliverance from the great influence. The connexion of the Jews and Perlions; and the publicity of the prophecy of Isaiah re-sians is an undeniable matter of historic fact. The specting Cyrus, were too recent, too public, and too tenets ascribed to Zoroaster bear the marks of Jewish striking in their nature, not to be often and largely origin, because they are mingled with some of the