meffenger fay to them in the name of the Lord," "I have given all your lands into the hand of

days, and forty days on his right fide, to fhow that the Jews fhould want bread, and as a type of the number of years they were to remain in captivity. He loads himself with chains, as a figure of thofe which they are to wear; and he cuts off the hair of his head and of his beard, and divides them into three parts; the firft of thefe portions is a type of those who are to perifh in the city of Jerufalem; the fecond, of fuch who are to be flain without the walls; and the third, of those who are to be carried away to Babylon

The prophet Hofea takes to himself a woman who is an adulterefs, and whom he purchases for fifteen pieces of filver, and for an homer and a half "Thou shalt abide of barley, and fays unto her,. "for me many days, thou shalt not play the harlot, " and thou shalt not be for another man, for fo

fhall the children of Ifrael abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without "Teraphim §." In a word, the feers or prophets scarcely ever foretel any thing without ufing a.type or fign of the thing foretold.

Ezekiel, chap. iv, feq.

Hofea, chap. iii.

Jere

"Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my fer

vant

Jeremiah therefore only conformed to the ufual. cuftom, when he bound himself with cords, and put bonds and yokes upon his neck, as figures of the approaching flavery of thofe to whom he fent them, and, if we attend properly to these things, we shall find the times here fpoken of to be like thofe of an old world, differing in every thing from. the new fociety. The laws, the manner of making. war, were all abfolutely different; and if we only open Homer and the first book of Herodotus, we need nothing more to convince us that there is not the least resemblance between the people of early antiquity and us; hence we ought to distrust. our own judgment, when we attempt to compare their manners with ours. Even nature herself is not now the same she was then; magicians and forcerers had at that time a power over her which they no longer poffefs; they enchanted ferpents, they raifed the dead out of their tombs, &c. God fent dreams, and men interpreted them. The gift of prophecy was common. And we read of feveral metamorphofes, such as of Nebuchadnezzar into an ox, of Lot's wife into a pillar of falt, and of five whole cities changed in an inftant into a burning lake.

There

"vant +." Here then we have God declaring an idolatrous prince his fervant and favourite.

The fame prophet having been caft into the dungeon by order of the Jewish king Zedekiah, and afterwards releafed by him, advifes him in

There were likewife feveral fpecies of men that no longer exift. The race of giants, Rephaim, Emim, Nephilim, and Enacim, have totally dif appeared. St. Auguftin, in his fifth book de civitate Dei, fays, that he faw a tooth of one of those ancient giants, that was at least an hundred times as large as one of our grinders. Ezekiel fpeaks of pigmies (Gamadim) not above a cubit high, who fought at the fiege of Tyre; and almost all writers, facred and profane, have agreed in the truth of thefe relations.

In fine, the antient world was fo different from ours, that there is no drawing any rule for our conduct from it; and if in the earliest ages of antiquity we find mankind mutually perfecuting and deftroying each other on account of their different faiths, far be it from us, who live under the enlightened law of grace, to copy after fuch originals.

Jer. xxvii. xxviii.

the

the name of God, to submit himself to the king of Babylon, faying, If thou wilt affuredly go "forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, thy "foul fhall live." God therefore takes part with an idolatrous king, and delivers into his hands his holy ark, the looking upon which only, had coft the lives of fifty thousand and feventy Jews; and not only fo, but alfo delivers up to him the Holy of Holies, together with the rest of the temple, the building of which had coft a hundred and eight thoufand talents of gold, one million seventeen thousand talents of filver, and ten thousand drachmas of gold, that had been left by David and his great officers, for building the houfe of the Lord; which, exclufive of the fums expended for that purpofe by king Solomon, amounts to the fum of nineteen milliards, fixty-two millions, or thereabouts of the prefent currency. Never fure, was idolatry fo nobly rewarded. I am fenfible that this account is exaggerated, and that it feems to be an error of the copyist. But if we reduce the fum to one half, to a fourth, or even to an eighth part, it will fill be amazing. But Herodotus's account of the treafures which he himself faw in the temple of Ephefus, is not less surpris

ing

1

ing. In fine, all the riches of the earth are as nothing in the fight of God; and the title of my fervant, with which he dignified Nebuchadnezzar, is the true and invaluable treasure.

1

Nor does God fhow lefs favour to Kyr, or Cofroes, whom we call Cyrus, and whom he calls his Christ, his anointed, though he never was anointed according to the general acceptation of that word, and was moreover a follower of the religion of Zoroafter, and an ufurper in the opinion of the reft of mankind; yet him he calleth his hepherd; and we have not in the whole Sacred Writings, so great an instance of divine predilection.

We are told by the prophet Malachi, that "From the rifing of the fun even unto the

"going down of the fame, the name of God

fhall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place a pure offering fhall be offered "unto his name t." God takes as much care of the idolatrous Ninevites, as of his chofen

+ Ifai. ch. xliv. and xlv.

ver. I.

Malach. chap. i.

Jews.