bridegroom's friends, and of the virgins who went forth to meet the bride and bridegroom. He wore a crown in token of joy, and the too, according to the Jewifh tradition, They were conducted with inftruments of mufic, and their company carried branches of myrtle and palm-tree in • their hands.

As for any thing farther, we do not find that their marriages were attended with any religious ceremony, except the prayers of the father of the family, and the ftanders by, to beg the bleffing of God. We have examples of it in the marriage of Rebecca with Ifaac, of Ruth with Boaz, and of Sara with Tobias. We do not fee that there were any facrifices offered upon the occafion, that they went to the • Temple, or fent for the priests; all was tranfacted between the relations and friends. So that it was no more than a • civil contract.'

The Abbé now comes to treat of the education of their children, their exercifes and ftudies; and here he tells us, that the education of children feems to have been very nearly the fame amongst the Ifraelites, as that of the Egyptians, and moft antient Greeks. They formed their bodies by labour and exercife, and their minds by letters and mufic. Strength of body was greatly esteemed amongst them, but they did not make the exercife of the body their main bufinefs, like the Greeks, who reduced it to a profeffion, and fludied the greatest improvements in it. They contented themfelves with labouring in the field, and fome military exercifes, as the Romans did. Nor had they occafion for hard ftudies to improve their minds, if by ftudy be meant, the reading of many books, and the knowlege of feveral languages; for they defpifed learning foreign languages, because that was as much in the power of flaves, as thofe of higher rank.

It is not at all probable, our Author fays, that the Ifraelites ftudied the books of foreigners, from whom they were fo careful to feparate themselves. This ftudy might have been dangerous; fince it would have taught them the impious and extravagant fables, of which the theology of idolators was com pofed.

The Ifraelites,' continues he, were the only people that related truths to their children, capable of infpiring them with the fear and love of God, and exciting them to virtue. All their traditions were noble and ufeful. Not but they made use of parables, and riddles, befides fimple narrations, to teach truths of great importance, efpecially to morality. "It was a practice among the ingenious, to propound riddles

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to one another, as we fee by the inftances of Samfon and the Queen of Sheba. The Greeks tell us the fame things. of their firft fages. They made ufe too of these fables, as

fop did, the fiction of which is fo plain, that it can impofe upon no body. We have two of them in fcripture, Jotham's, the fon of Gideon, and that of Joafh, King of Ifrael. But the chief ufe of allegories, and a figurative way of fpeaking, was to comprehend the maxims of morality in few words, and under agreeable images, that children might learn them more eafily; and fuch are the parables or proverbs, of which the fapiential books of Scripture are a • collection.

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Thefe parables are commonly expreffed in verfe, and the verfes were made to be fung; for which reafon, I believe, the Ifraelites learned mufic too. I judge of them by the Greeks, who had all their learning and politeness from the eaftern people. Now it is certain, that the Greeks taught their children both to fing and play upon inftruments. This study is the most antient of all others. Before the use of letters, the memory of great actions was preferved by fongs. The Gauls and Germans retained the fame cuftom in the times of the Romans, and it is well preferved amongst the people of America.

Tho' the Hebrews had letters, they knew that words in measure, and fet to a tune, were always beft remembered; and from thence proceeded that great care which they always took to compofe fongs upon any important event that had happened to them; fuch are thole two fongs of Mofes, one at paffing through the Red Sea, the other when he died, to recommend the obfervation of the law. Such likewife is that of Deborah, that of Samuel's mother, and many others; but, above all, the pfalms of David. Thefe poems are wonderfully inftructive, full of the praifes of God, the remembrance of his loving kindnefs, befides moral precepts, and fuch fentiments as a good man ought to have in every ftation of life. Thus the most important truths, and exalted notions were agreeably inftilled into the minds of children, by poetry fet to mufic.

After confidering briefly the politeness of the Ifraclites, their pleafures, mournings, funerals; our Author proceeds to treat of their religion. He obferves, that fome religious truths were revealed to them clearly, whilft others were ftill obscure, tho' they were already revealed. What they knew diftinctly, he fays, was this: that there is but one God; that he governs all things by his providence; that there is no truft to be pyt

in any but him, nor good to be expected from any one else; that he fees every thing, even the fecrets of the heart; that he influences the will by his inward operation, and turns it as he pleases; that all men are born in fin, and naturally inclined to evil; that, however, they may do good by God's affiftance; they are free, and have the choice of doing good or evil; that God is ftrictly juft, and punishes or rewards according to merit; that he is full of mercy and compaffion, for those that fincerely repent of their fins; that he judges the actions of all men after their death; that the foul is immortal, and that there is another life.

They knew befides, we are told, that God, out of his mere love and kindnefs, had chofen them from among all mankind, to be his faithful people; that from them, of the tribe of Judah, and the family of David, would be born a Saviour, that fhould deliver them from all their hardships, and bring them to the knowlege of the true God. The truths they were taught more obfcurely, were, it is faid, that in God there are three perfons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft; that the Saviour they expected fhould be God, and the Son of God; that he fhould be God and man at the fame time; that God would not give men his grace, and the affiftance neceffary to perform his law, but through this Saviour, and upon account of his merits; that he fhould fuffer death, to expiate the fins of mankind; that his kingdom should be altogether fpiritual; that all men fhall rife again; that in another life, there fhall be a juft reward for the good, and punishment for the wicked.

Whether the creed of the Ifraelites was fo extenfive as our Author makes it, or not, we fhall not ftop here to enquire; but proceed to give fome account of what the Abbé fays of their idolatry, Their propenfity to idolatry, he obferves, appears to us very ftrange and abfurd, and has given occafion to many perfons to look upon them as a brutifh and unpolished people. The existence of one intelligent and independent Being is now almoft univerfally acknowleged, and thence we conclude, that fuch as believed more Gods than one, and worshipped pieces of wood and ftone, ought to be accounted the moft ignorant of mankind, and indeed perfect Barbarians. But, as the Abbé obferves, we cannot call the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, and other nations of antiquity, ignorant and barbarian, from whom all the polite arts have been handed down to us; and yet idolatry prevailed amongst them in the most abfolute manner, at the very time when they had carried the polite arts to the highest degree of perfection.

This leads him to enquire a little into the fource of this evil : part of what he fays is as follows:

The mind of man is fo overcaft fince the fall, that while •he continues in the ftate of corrupted nature, he has no ⚫ notion of fpiritual things; he thinks of nothing but matter ⚫ and corporeal fubjects, and makes light of whatsoever does • not fall within the compafs of his fenfes; nor does any thing • appear even fubftantial to him, but what ftrikes the groffeft of them, the taste and touch: we fee it too plainly in children and men that are guided by their paffions, they make ⚫ no account of any thing but what they can see and feel; every thing else they look upon as cafties in the air. Yet these men are brought up in the true religion, in the knowlege of God, the immortality of the foul, and a future ⚫ftate. What fentiments had the ancient Gentiles, who ne⚫ver heard these things mentioned, and had only objects of • sense and matter laid before them by their wifeft men? We may read Homer, the great divine and prophet of the Greeks, as long as we pleafe; we fhall not find there the • leaft hint that can induce us to imagine he had any notion of things spiritual and incorporeal.

All mankind had preferved a conftant tradition, that there ⚫ was a nature more excellent than the human, capable of doing them good or harm; and being acquainted with none ⚫ but corporeal Beings, they would perfuade themselves, that this nature, that is, the Divinity, was fo too: and confequently, that there were many Gods, that every part of the * creation might have fome, and that each nation, city, and family, had Deities peculiar to themselves. They fancied they were immortal, and to make them happy; attributed ⚫ to them all forts of pleafures, (without which they thought * there could be no true felicity) and even the most shameful debauches: which afterwards again ferved to countenance their own paffions, by the example of their Gods. They were not content with imagining them either in heaven or upon earth; they muft fee them and touch them: for which reafon, they honoured idols as much as the Gods themselves, conceiving that they were united and incorporated with them: and they honoured these ftatues fo much the more for their beauty, or antiquity, or any other fingularity they • had to recommend them.

Their worship was of a piece with their belief. It was wholly founded upon two paffions, the love of pleasure, and the fear of coming to any outward harm.-Their religion then was not a doctrine of morality, like the true religion;

they reckoned him a faint, that was neither murderer, trai tor, nor guilty of perjury; who avoided the company of thofe who had committed fuch crimes, who kept up the rights of hofpitality, and places of refuge; who faithfully 'performed his vows, and gave liberally towards facrifices and public fhews. Religion was looked upon as a trade; they made offerings to the Gods, that they might obtain what they defired in their prayers. Debauchery was fo far from ⚫ being condemned by religion, that it was fometimes enjoined; there was no celebrating the Bachanal feafts in a proper manner without getting drunk, and there were women who ⚫ prostituted themselves in honour of Venus, particularly at Corinth. It is well known what the God of gardens, and the myfteries of Ceres and Cybele, were.

Thus they honoured the Gods whom they thought kind and beneficent. But for the infernal deities, Hecate, the Eumenides, the Parcæ, and others, with the ftories of whom they were terrified, they were to be appeafed with nocturnal facrifices, and frightful inhuman ceremonies. Some buried men alive, ⚫ others facrificed children, and fometimes their own: as the worshippers of Moloch, mentioned with fo much deteftation in Scripture, who ftill kept up this abominable cuftom in Africa in Tertullian's time.

To this fear and dread were owing all the reft of their • cruel and troublefome fuperftitions. All their luftrations or expiations for crimes, confifted in purifying the body by wa ter or fire, and performing certain facrifices: but there was no mention of either repentance or converfion.-It will • feem ftrange, perhaps, that people fo wife as the Grecians, fhould give into fuch grofs fuperftitions, and fo easily suffer themselves to be impofed upon by Aftrologers, Diviners, Soothsayers, and many other forts of Conjurers. But it must be confidered, that, till Alexander's time, and the > reign of the Macedonians, they had made no great progrefs in fuch learning as might cure them of fuperftition. They excelled in arts; their laws were wife; in a word, they had brought every thing to perfection, that makes life eafy and agreeable: but they took little pains in the speculative fciences, Geometry, Aftronomy, and Phyfics. The anatomy of plants and animals, the knowlege of minerals and meteors, the fhape of the earth, the courfe of the ftars, and the whole fyftem of the world, were still mysteries to them. The Chaldeans and Egyptians, who already knew fomething of them, kept it a great fecret, and never spoke

of