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the most confpicuous, and in the eye of reafon and religion, the most respectable, nation on the face of the earth.

It has been by means of prophets of this nation, and especially Jefus Christ, that the world has been recovered, as far as this recovery has taken place, from the deplorable state of fuperftition and idolatry into which it was univerfally funk. This nation had originally as much to learn concerning God, a Providence, and a future ftate, as any other, and they had not naturally any better fources of information; but having been taught of God, they, or their difciples, are the inftructors of all the world; and the leffons they give us are equally inftructive, whether they themfelves have fuffered for their difobedience, or flourished in confequence of their obedience. And the most important and convincing of all the leffons they are destined to give the world, what we have reafon to believe will put an end to all infidelity, will be the refult of their promised restoration to their prefent defolated country, from their prefent miferable, despised, and

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difperfed condition. For who but he, who alone can fee into futurity, could foresee an event so distant and fo complicated? And as their difperfion and prefervation correfpond, as I fhall fhew in a future Discourse, with fuch wonderful exactnefs to antient prophecies, there is no reasonable cause of doubt but that their restoration and future flourishing state will correfpond to the many predictions concerning it with equal exactness. With thofe who, for want of attention (for it cannot be owing to any thing elfe) are unbelievers at present, the iffue of the whole must reft on this future event, which cannot fail to arrest, and most forcibly engage, the attention of all mankind.

DEUT.

DEUT. i. I.

THESE be the words which Mofes fpake unto all Israel on this fide Jordan, in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red Sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab.

DEUT. iv. I-40.

Now therefore hearken, O Ifrael, unto the ftatutes, and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and poffefs the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither fhall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you. Your eyes have feen what the Lord did becaufe of Baal-peor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the Lord thy God hath deftroyed them from among you. But ус that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day. Behold, I have taught you ftatutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye fhould do fo in the land whither ye go to poffefs it. Keep therefore, and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the fight of the nations, which fhall hear all these ftatutes, and fay, Surely this great nation is a wife and understanding people. For what nation is there fo great, who hath God fo nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there fo great, that hath ftatutes and judgments

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fo righteous, as all this law which I fet before you this day? Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy foul diligently, left thou forget the things which thine eyes have feen, and left they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life; but teach them thy fons, and thy fons' fons: Specially the day that thou ftoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord faid unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children. And ye came near, and stood under the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darknefs. And the Lord fpake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but faw no fimilitude; only ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.

And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you ftatutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to poffefs it. Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves, (for ye faw no manner of fimilitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire,) Left ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the fimilitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female; The likeness of any beaft that is on the earth, the likenefs of any winged fowl that flieth in the air; The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likenefs of any fifh that is in the waters beneath the earth: And left thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when

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thou feeft the fun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the hoft of heaven, fhouldest be driven to worship them, and ferve them, which the Lord 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. Furthermore the Lord was angry with me for your fakes, and fware that I fhould not go over Jordan, and that I fhould not go in unto that good land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. But I muft die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but ye fhall go over, and poffefs that good land. Take heed unto yourselves, left ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee. For the Lord thy God is a confuming fire, even a jealous God.

When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and fhalt have remained long in the land, and fhall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and fhall do evil in the fight of the Lord thy God, to provoke him to anger; I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perifh from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to poffefs it; ye fhall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed. And the Lord fhall scatter you among the nations, and ye fhall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord fhall lead you. And there ye fhall ferve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and ftone, which neither fee, nor hear, nor eat, nor fmell. But if from thence thou

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