fynagogues they had an opportunity of preaching both to the Jews, and also to the Gentile inhabitants.

It was, alfo, a circumftance of great moment to the evidence of christianity, that it was promulgated in the moft learned and inquifitive age in all antiquity; fo that great numbers of perfons would have both the inclination, and ability to inquire into it, and fatisfy themselves concerning it.

All these circumstances put together, certainly give us the idea of a wife and kind parent, interposing in favour of his offspring, at a time when they ftood in most need of it, adapting his relief to their real occafions, and applying it in the most seasonable and judicious manner.

SEC

SECTION II.

Arguments from flanding Cuftoms, &c. in favour of the Jewish and chriftian religions.

HERE are feveral religious cuf

TH

toms which have been conftantly obferved by Jews and Chriftians, concerning which no probable conjecture can be formed, except that which is alledged in the hiftory of thofe revelations, as the obfervance of one day in feven for the purpofe of reft from labour, in commemora tion of God's having refted or ceafed from his work after the fix days of creation; the Pafver, in commemoration of the miraculous deliverance of the Ifraelites when all the first born of the Egyptius were destroyed; the fext of enteroff, which was daigned to perpet mis the memory of the giving of the law from mount anal, and

the

the feaft of Tabernacles, to remind them of their having lived in tents in their paffage through the wilderness. Of this kind, alfo, is the celebration of the Lord's Supper anong chriftians, in order to commemorate the death of Chrift, which it cannot be fuppofed that they would have done, if he had not likewife rifen from the dead, as he himself had foretold.

Now folemn customs are univerfally acknowledged to be, in many cafes, the best memorials of important events; because they fuppofe a whole people repeating their. teftimony to them as often as the rite is celebrated; and this being continued from. generation to generation, the original evidence has all the ftrength that it could poffibly have, when tranfmitted to us by fucceffion.

It will be faid that we find in the heathen world religious cuftoms, which are faid to have been inftituted in commemoration of such remarkable events as fuppofe the truth of their religions, as the Eleufinian myf

i

1

teries,

teries, in which were reprefented the rape of Proferpine, and the introduction of corn among the Athenians by her mother Ceres. But there is this effential difference between the religious cuftoms of the Jews or chriftians, and fuch as thefe among the heathens. The Jews and chriftians have written hiftories of all their religious inftitutions, of equal antiquity with the inflitutions themselves; and in thefe hiftories both the origin of the cuftom is recorded, and the manner in which every thing relating to it is to be performed, is particularly described. On the contrary, the Greek and Roman writers of later ages, finding a practice in ufe, before the invention of letters, might eafily add to the traditional account of it, and fo embellish the narration, that, in time, the ufe of the cuftom, which had fome foundation in hiftory, might be effentially changed.

Thus I make no doubt but that, with. refpect to the Elcufinian myfteries, there was a woman called Ceres, who, or her fon Triptolemus,

Triptolemus, taught the Athenians the use of corn, that he had a daughter, called Proferpine, who was ftolen from her by fome perfon whofe name was Pluto. But that this Pluto was God of the infernal regions, and carried his wife thither, and that Ceres lighted a torch at mount Etna, and went in queft of her all over the world, was, moft probably, an embellishment of the poets, and no neceffary inference from the cuftom.

Customs with merely traditional explanations are very apt to vary in different places, fo that, in a courfe of many years, there being no written hiftory to rectify any mistake, both the practice itself, and the account of it, may eafily become, by means of fucceffive innovations, quite unlike what they were originally. If we had not hiftories of England to have recourse to, how differently might our cuftoms of wearing oak on the twenty-ninth of May, and making bon-fires on the fifth of November have been reprefented? Nay, we have many cuf

toms