and confidence, no more admits of comparison, than the conjectural reasoning of Galileo resembles the demonstrative conclusions of Newton. But a far more remarkable difference occurs as we descend in the scale of learning and civilization. The sublime opinions respecting the Deity which originate in the Mosaic account of the creation, and which are enforced and preserved by the law established to commemorate that fact, were not confined to any superior sect or philosophical part of the nation, but were alike familiar to the highest and lowest of the people. All worshipped the same God, according to the same form, in the same temple. No Peripatetic disputed, no Academic doubted, no Epicurean denied the truth of the national faith. It was justly pointed out by their learned countryman, that all held the same opinion, and agreed with the law in affirming that one God overruled the world: and it might be heard as the sentiment even of the vulgar and illiterate, that all should propose to themselves piety towards

Him, as their principal object in the various pursuits of life.*

Few readers require to be reminded how different a picture from this the other nations of the ancient world present. Detached passages indeed may be produced, particularly from the writings of Plato and Xenophon, which contain very sublime conceptions of some supreme artificer of the universe; but these doctrines were not only heard with no general effect, and converted few proselytes even among the instructed orders of society, but from the vulgar they were altogether withheld, as unsuited to their comprehensions. The difference between the esoteric and exoteric philosophy is universally acknowledged: and appears to be founded in a notion like that which made Plato declare, in a passage which has been often brought forward, that it was difficult to discover the father of the universe, and that,

*Joseph. contra Apion. "Of servants and women," in the original. The low rank which they held in ancient times, is notorious.

when discovered, it was impossible to make him generally known.*

Superstitious polytheism had struck its roots so deeply before Plato lived, that he probably had reason to apprehend all endeavours to eradicate it would be vain. But the consequence was, as might be expected, that the popular faith of the heathen vulgar was equally repugnant to reason and inapplicable to devotion. Instead of the unanimous confession and adoration of the same supreme Governor, which the Hebrews avowed, the people who set out to the festival of one Deity, returned home to celebrate another; every element had its appropriate guardian, and every profession its peculiar patron. Perhaps no error is more natural to ignorance, than to suppose that particular deities preside over the various elements, or influencing the powers both of body and mind, direct the several arts which exercise the in

*Tim. p. 28. Tom. iii. Tóv pèv ovν тоητην kaì Tатéρа τοῦδε τοῦ πάντὸς, ἑυρεῖν τε ἔργον, καὶ ἑυρόντα, εις πάντας ἀδύνατον λέγειν.

genuity of man; but nevertheless it is error, however natural; it is the error of ignorance; and flies from the test of reason as well as revelation.

No such inconsistency is to be found in the belief of the Hebrews. Instead of a general consciousness of some unseen powers, superior to themselves, united to a vague idea of some one particular power, superior to the rest, which may be considered as a loose outline of the popular faith of the heathen world; God was honoured among the Hebrews, under one consistent character: as a Being so spiritual, that he cannot be either represented, or properly worshipped, under any sensible image; and yet at the same time as constituting the fit object, and the only fit object, of human worship, inasmuch as he is the independent Creator and sole Governor of the universe.

It results from this sublime idea of the Divine unity and attributes, established by the writings of Moses, that we find an equal supe

riority over the rest of the ancient world, in the abstract conceptions on the subject of the -Divine essence* which exist in the Hebrew Scriptures, and in the public devotional wor

* This superiority is strongly exemplified by the Nomen Tetragrammaton rendered Jehovah; and derived from a root signifying essence, or existence, τὸ ἔιναι, οι ὑπάρχειν. It is well known that the Jews commonly applied, and still apply, other titles to the Deity, as Shaddai, the rock, or powerful one, Adonai, or dominion, and Elohim, lords, i. e. sovereignty. The name Jehovah they hold in veneration, which makes them deem it ineffable, as not expressing the attributes only, but the essence of the Deity. It was well understood and preserved by the Septuagint translators, who render it kúpios à κúpw, sum, a word not classically used to signify God, as appears from Julius Pollux, who gives the words θεοὶ and δαίμονες, but not Κύριος. It appears, from various sources, that this was understood to be the title under which the Hebrews worshipped their Supreme (see Parkhurst Hebr. Lex. Pearson on the Creed, p. 147); and St. Hilary says, that meeting with the words (before his conversion to Christianity) which express the same idea, in Exodus, chap. iii. he was struck with admiration, there being nothing so proper to God, as to be. It was well suitable to the Divine dignity, when the Hebrews were the depositaries of his being and attributes, and were surrounded on all sides by gods worshipped under various appellations, that the Creator should distinguish himself by a name signifying his independent essence, from which all other things derive theirs.