ly the same. of the people is undoubted-| scribe, are suspicious; as the books of the Sybils, of Hermes Trismegistus, and many others, which gained credit in the world, and have since been detected as forgeries. But this is not the case with contempo These writings, moreover, were composed by authors contemporary to the facts which they record. All histories compiled by persons of a period different from that of the actions they de-rary authors. CHAPTER IX. THE UNRIGHTEOUSNESS AND DEPRAVITY OF MAN. contemptible, and yet it has such that nothing can be more ridiculous. How great is it by its nature! how despicable by its defects! MAN is evidently made, digious defects to become for thinking: this is the whole of his dignity, and the whole of his merit. To think as he ought is the whole of his duty; and the true order of thinking, is to begin with himself, his author, and his end. And yet what is it that is thought of in the world? Not one of these objects; but how to take pleasure, how to grow rich, how to gain reputation, how to make ourselves kings; without ever reflecting what it is to be a king, or even to be a man. Human thought is a thing wonderful in its nature. It must have pro If there be a God, it is our duty to love Him, and not creatures. The reasoning of the wicked, described in the book of Wisdom, (chap. ii.,) is founded on the persuasion that there is no God. And this being taken for granted, now say they, we will have our fill of the creatures. But if they had known that there really is a God, they would have concluded directly the contrary. And this is the conclusion of the wise There is a God; let us not, therefore, seek happiness in creatures. Every thing which incites us to confine ourselves to creatures is evil, because it either hinders us from serving God, if we already know Him, or from seeking Him, if we know Him not. We are full of concupiscence; therefore we are full of evil; and if so, we ought to detest ourselves, and all that attaches us to any thing else but to God alone. When we endeavour to think of God, how many things do we feel diverting us from Him, and tempting us to think of somewhat else? All this is evil, and evil that we bring with us into the world. It is not true that we deserve that others should love us; nor is it just that we should so eagerly covet it. If we were born thoroughly reasonable, and with any proper knowledge of ourselves, we should not entertain such a desire. And yet this attends us from our birth. We are there fore unrighteous from our birth; for every man's object is himself. This is contrary to order. Our object should be the general good; and this bias towards our selves, is the first spring of all disorder, in war, in government, and in domestic affairs. If the members of all communities, both natural and civil, should each seek the good of their respective bodies; so every community ought to aim at the welfare of the general body, of which it is only a part. Whosoever does not detest in his own heart, that self-love, that instinct which prompts him to set himself above every thing else, is most wretchedly blind; for nothing is more opposite to justice and truth. For we do not deserve such a preference, and it is unjust and impossible to obtain it, because all seek the very same thing. It is therefore a manifest injustice, in which we are born, which we cannot shake off, and yet ought to get rid of. Nevertheless, no religion but the Christian has informed us that this is a sin, or that we are born under its power, or that we are bound to strive against it; nor has any one thought of a method for its cure. There is an internal war in man, between his reason and his passions. He might enjoy some sort of repose, if he had reason without passions, or passions without reason. But, since he is actuated by both, he lives in continual disquiet, and can never be at peace with the one, without being at war with the other. Hence he is always divided, and always at variance with himself. [There are two kinds of fear; there is that ungodly fear which emanates not from a belief in God, but from a doubt whether there is a God or not. A godly fear is the effect of faith; the other proceeds from doubt: godly fear is united to hope, because it springs from faith, we hope from the God we believe in: ungodly fear is allied to despair, because we fear that God in whom we do not believe. Some dread losing Him, others fear to find Him.] If it be an unnatural degree of blindness to live utterly unconcerned about what we are, it is a far more terrible thing to live wickedly, when we believe there is a God; and yet the greater part of mankind are under one or other of these infatuations. CHAPTER X. THE JEWS. GOD having determined to make it appear that He was able to form a people, spiritually holy, and to fill them with eternal glory, represented in the economy of nature, what He intended, miracles, that it was not for to accomplish in that of grace, that men might conclude He could produce that which is invisible, from their observation of that which is visible. want of power to bestow them. This people were immersed in these earthly conceits-that God loved their father Abraham, his person, and all who descended from him: that, for this reason, He had multiplied them and distinguished them from all other people, not even suffering them to mix with other nations; had deliver He therefore saved His people from the deluge, in the person of Noah: He caused them to spring from Abraham He redeemed them from their enemies, and brought them into the rest which He had promiseded them out of Egypt, with them. The design of God was not to save them from the deluge, and to produce a whole nation from Abraham, merely for the sake of conducting them into a land of plenty. But as nature is an image of grace, so these visible miracles were symbols of the invisible, which He intended to perform. Another reason for which He formed the Jewish people was, that as He intended to abridge His servants of carnal and perishable enjoyments, He determined to evince, by such a series of all those wonderful signs which He performed in their favour; had fed them with manna in the wilderness : had brought them into a fruitful and happy country; had given them kings, and a magnificent temple, for the offering up of beasts and the purification of themselves by their blood, and that He would at length send them the Messiah, who was to render them masters of the whole world. The Jews were accustomed to great and splendid miracles; and, hence, looking on those performed at the Red sea, and in the land of Canaan, as only an | signed to foretel them, in abridgment of the mighty things their Messiah was to effect, they expected from him actions still more illustrious, of which all that Moses had done was only a pattern. When they were now grown old in these carnal errors, Jesus Christ actually came at the time foretold, but not with that outward splendour they expected and hence they did not believe it was Him. After His death St. Paul was sent to instruct men, that all these things happened in figure; that the kingdom of God was not in the flesh, but in the spirit; that the enemies of men were not the Babylonians, but their own passions; that God delighted not in a temple made with hands, but in a pure and humble mind; that bodily circumcision was unprofitable, and that of the heart indispensable, &c. order that they might be believed, predicted clearly the time of their accomplishment, and sometimes declared them plainly, but generally under figures, to fix the attention of those who loved figurative representations; and yet so that those who loved the things figured, might be able to discern them. Hence the people were divided at the time of the Messiah: those who were spiritual received Him; and those who were carnal, and rejected Him, remain to this day as witnesses for Him. The carnal Jews understood neither the greatness, nor the humiliation of the Messiah, which were foretold by the prophets. They mistook His true greatness, when they were assured that He should be David's Lord, although He was his Son; that He was before Abraham, and had seen God not having thought him. They did not confit to disclose these things ceive He was so great, as to so unworthy a people, to have existed from all and nevertheless having de- eternity. And they no less D |