fently after the Magicians could difcern the Finger of God was fuperior to their Gods. Among the neighbouring Nations; when the Philistines had got Sampson, they made a great Feaft to Dagon their God, and praised him for it. When they were afflicted by the Prefence of the Ark, their Cry went up to their God Heaven; but having no Help, they doubted, made an Offering to God, and put it upon Trial, that if the Ark went up by its own Coafts, or the Coasts of Ifrael, to Bethshemesh, (which elsewhere is interpreted to be the City of the Sun,) and was one of the Cities of Worship of that Name the Ifraelites left ftanding, and in the Poffeffion of the Natives, then the Lord was too ftrong for what they worshiped ; which the Ark did, where God fmote fifty thousand and feventy Men for looking into it. No doubt but thofe of Damafcus thought as Abaz did, that their Gods could help them in War. Job fays, paying Obeyfance to the Light was denying the God which is above. The feduced Jews afcribed to the Frame, or Workmanship, or Operation of the Air's Power of giving Plenty of Victuals, keeping them well, and from Evil, preferving them from Sword, Famine, &c. and of punishing them with the opposite

Evils, upon a Suppofition that the Lord had forfaken the Earth; or that he will not do Good, neither will he do Evil: So that having any other God before the Lord, must be understood to be, their believing that there was fome active Power in fome other Agent, which God did not create, or form; or which he could not, or did not controul; and now that there is fome fuch Power, that he has not revealed: And from this Doubt or Belief, as aforefaid, Service to that Power, and Adoration to its Representatives, or Images, enfued. And the Reason why we fhould not imagine them to be Gods, or pay them Service, was, that God had created, formed and appointed them to be Servants in common to all Men. In the Place where the Form of proceeding againft, and the Manner of Punishment is directed, the Objects of Adoration are named, and the Images not mentioned: But whether they, as Reprefentatives of the Powers only, or the Images, or Reprefentatives of them alfo, be understood or included, I fhall not determine; but no others are expreffed.

We are, fecondly, to obferve, what it was to make to ones felf an Image, or Likeness, or Sign, or Reprefentative of any Thing, and to bow down to it or them, or worship it or them. We find the AuVOL. I.

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thor of Wifdem attributes the Rife of this Custom to a Father who had loft a favourite Son, or to obfequious Subjects, who lived diftant from their Prince or Tyrant: But though they paid Refpect or Homage to these Reprefentatives of Son or Prince, by Compulfion or Flattery, yet this was not taking either Son or Prince to be a God; none had ever taken another, either dead or living, for a God in this Senfe; nor could any of thefe continue, nor have we any Mention of it in facred Writings. The firft or oldeft Accounts of Images, are of thofe of Laban's, which were but small: But the cleareft Account of fetting up the largeft, richest, and with the greatest Solemnity, perhaps, that ever was, (because the Kingdom of Babel was then at the Height) was much later; And People think that Nebuchadnezzar fet up this golden Image for a God: No, it was but to be dedicated, Dan. iii. 3. And at Verse 12, (the Words of the Chaldeans,) They ferve not thy Gods, nor worship the golden Image that thou haft fet up. And Verfe 18. (the Words of the Jews,) We will not ferve thy Gods, nor worship the golden Image that thou baft fet up. The Babylonians, &c. bowed to this Image; but serving a God was another thing. Indeed Holofernes had got a

Whim of deftroying all the Places of Worfhip, Altars and Images, and fetting up his Mafter in their ftead; of making him to the falfe God and the Heathens, what Mofes was to the true God and the Ifraelites, or rather more, Judith iii. 8. Yet he caft down their Frontiers, and cut down their Groves; for he had decreed to destroy all the Gods of the Land, that all Nations should torfhip Nebuchadnezzar only, and that all Tongues and Tribes fhould call upon him as a God.

But thefe Words come far fhort of the Description of a God. This Prohibition is general, against making any Reprefentation of the true God, or of falfe Gods: The latter of which, it feems, the Heathens, before they had Writing to reprefent Things or Actions by Words, had fallen into, and had reprefented their God according to the Appearance, or their Sentiments, of the feveral Operations or Attributes; as the Operation of Fire or Light by the Rays of the Sun, or by the curled Hair of a red Bull, or, &c. or Swiftnefs by a Dove, or, in later Times, Towering by an Eagle, as Jacob in his Bleffing reprefents one of his Sons by a Lion, another by an Ass, another by a Serpent, another by a Hind, another by a fruitful Bough, &c. And as this was a Proof that there was

no Writing, when they reprefented Gods or Men by Creatures; fo Writing was revealed to remedy this, among other Things. And the Prohibition of bowing down to, or worshiping those Images, Creatures, &c. implies, that the Heathens had performed their Worship before thofe Images, &c. or to them, in lieu of the Gods or Powers they represented; fo Part of the Crime forbidden, is reprefenting the true God by any material Figure or Creature, which is called Idolatry; and paying or fending Homage to God, by a Hand that he had not appointed to accept or bring it, was a Species of falfe Worship, and both now forbidden: The Reafon affigned is, For ye faw no manner of Similitude, on the Day that the Lord fpoke unto you on Horeb, out of the midst of the Fire. This must be defered till we come to that Part. The other Part of this Prohibition is levelled against making Signs or Representatives of the falfe Gods or Powers the Heathens worshiped, and of bowing down before thofe Signs: The Reafon against this Part is, And left thou lift up thine Eyes to Heaven, and when thou feeft the Sun, and the Moon, and the Stars, EVEN all the Hoft of Heaven, fhouldeft be driven to worship them, and ferve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided (or IMPARTED)