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thy God hath divided unto all nations. "under the whole heaven. But the Lord "hath taken you, and brought you forth "out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day."

The reafon of this prohibition feems to be, that, in confequence of making use of images, though only as fymbols, or tokens of the divine prefence, divine powers will at length, by the natural affociation of ideas, be transferred to them, and will be fuppofed to refide in them, and to belong to them. This, indeed, has always been, in fact, the progrefs of human fentiments. Otherwife different images of the fame god in the heathen world, or of the fame faint in popith countries, could never have been imagined to be poffeffed of different powers, which is well known to be the cafe; fo that whatever may have been the origin of this mode of worship, and in whatever light it may be viewed by the more intelligent of thofe who practife and apologize for it, with the common people, at leaft,

it

for

it is, in reality, nothing but the worship of wood, and ftone, and metal; and in this light it is juftly confidered by the facred writers. With a view to exclude this kind of worship, God is likewife faid to be invisible, Heb. xi. 27, and to " dwell in "light which no man can approach unto, "whom no man hath feen, nor can fee." 1 Tim. vi. 16.

"In

The works of creation are in a peculiar manner afcribed to the one true God, and efpecially the creation of the heavenly bodies, which were the first objects of idolatrous worship in the Gentile world. The first book of Mofes begins with reciting all the visible parts of the univerfe, as the work and appointment of God, Gen. i. 1. "the beginning God created the heaven, "and the earth." Ver. 16. "And God "made two great lights, the greater light "to rule the day; and the leffer light to "rule the night: he made the ftars alfo.” The eafe with which all thefe magnificent works were produced is moft happily expreffed by reprefenting them as the imme

diate effect of a fimple command, Gen. i. 3. "And God faid, Let there be light: and "there was light." In the fame manner alfo the Pfalmift expreffes it, Pf. xxxiii. 6. &c. 66 By the word of the Lord were the "heavens made, and all the hoft of them by the breath of his mouth. He fpake, "and it was done; he commanded, and it "ftood faft."

The vain pretences of the heathen gods are expofed on this very account, viz. their not having made the world. Jer. x. 10. &c. "The Lord is the true God, and an "everlafting king. The gods that have not "made the heavens, and the earth, even they "shall perish from the earth, and from "under these heavens. He hath made the "earth by his power, he hath established "the world by his wifdom, and hath "ftretched out the heavens by his difcre❝tion."

When the people of Lyftra would have paid divine honours to Barnabas and Paul, fuppofing the former of them to have been Jupiter,

Jupiter, and the latter Mercury; Paul, with peculiar propriety, fays to them, Acts xiv. 15, Sirs, why do ye thefe things? We "alfo are men of like paffions with you, "and preach unto you that ye fhould turn "from thefe vanities, unto the living God, "who made the heaven and earth, and "the fea, and all things that are therein." For neither the people of Lyftra, nor any of the idolatrous Greeks or Romans, had the leaft idea of even Jupiter, the chief of their gods, having been at all concerned in the creation of the heavens or the earth. To the fame purpofe, alfo, the apostle Paul addreffes himself to the people of Athens, Acts xvii. 24. &c. "God that made the "world, and all things thercin, feeing that "he is lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth "not in temples made with hands, nei"ther is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing; feeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all "nations of men, for to dwell on all the face "of the earth; and hath determined the, "times before appointed, and the bounds

"of their habitation." All this excellent doctrine would be quite new to his Athenian audience, who had never been used to ascribe such extraordinary powers to any of the gods which were the objects of their worship.

The abfolute property which the only true God has in the works of which he is the author, is often finely expreffed in the books of fcripture. Abraham, addreffing himself to the fupreme being, calls him "the moft high God, the poffeffor of hea"ven and earth," Gen. xiv. 22. in his last speech, delivered in the prefence of all the congregation of Ifrael, addreffing himfelf to God, fays, 1 Chron. xxix. 10, &c. "Bleffed be thou, Lord God of If

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David,

rael, our Father, for ever and ever. Thine, "O Lord, is the greatnefs, and the power, "and the glory, and the victory, and the

majefty for all that is in the heaven "and in the earth, is thine. Thine is the kingom, O Lord, and thou art exalted, "as head over all." Pf. xxiv. 1. &c. "The "earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof,

." the