make a decree, that all people, nations, and languages, which Speak any thing amiss of, (or againft) the God of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, fhall be cut in pieces, and their boufe fhall be made a dunghill, because there is no other god that can deliver after this fort. Thus were thefe idolators brought to confess the superiority of the true God; and though these miracles did not induce them to abandon the worship of their own gods, they must have made a ftrong impreffion in favour of the Jews and their religion. The impreffion which thefe miracles made on the Babylonians, and other foreign nations, does not appear for want of fufficiently ample hiftories of thofe times. But the probability is that many individuals, though not any whole nation, became converts to the fundamental principles of the Jewish religion, as great numbers did in after times without becoming proper profelytes to Judaifm. This was remarkably the cafe in our Saviour's time. Many of the Gentiles, especially fuch as refided in Judea, or the neighbourhood of it, as Cornelius 、 Cornelius of Cæfarea and the centurion of Capernaum, rejected the abfurdities of polytheifm, and privately worshipped the one true God. This we alfo find had the happieft effect on their conduct, as in thofe two perfons, who were eminent for their piety and benevolence, and of whom by accident we have a particular account. And this, it is to be observed, was antecedent to, and independently of, any thing that was done by Christ, or Chriftianity. It is also obfervable that we meet with no miracles, or pretenfion to miracles, from the time of the Babylonish captivity to the time of Chrift; fo that whatever good impreffions had been made on the minds of any in favour of the Jewish religion, it must have been produced by the miracles of preceding ages, and therefore their credibility muft have been well established. Whatever was the effect of these miraculous events on the neighbouring nations, the impreffion was never effaced from the minds of the Jews. For, from having been, in a remarkable degree, prone to idolatry, (which is a circumftance highly favour able to the credibility of the miracles calculated to counteract that tendency) it is from this æra that we date their peculiarly unfhaken attachment to their religion, and their inexpreffible averfion to idolatry, and to every thing approaching to it. The Two circumftances, befides the direct impreffion of the miracles above mentioned, may have contributed to this. firft was the complete fulfilment of the prophecies of Mofes concerning their being driven from their own country, on account of their addictednefs to idolatry, and the vices accompanying it, together with the equally literal fulfilment of the prophecy of Jeremiah refpecting their return, and the fall of the Babylonifh empire. Their fufferings before this had been flight, and of fhort continuance compared with these. The fecond circumftance was the clear conviction that the idols of Babylon had not been able to defend that city from the arms of the Medes and Perfians, who had no idols, and whofe conqueft had been foretold by Daniel. And it must not be forgotten, that in thofe days, and long after, after, the great teft of the goodness of any religion was the temporal profperity with which the obfervance of its rites was accompanied; on which account, as I have obferved before, temporal profperity might have been annexed by the Divine Being to the obfervance of the Jewish religion. Whereas, however, the hiftory of other nations, examined by this teft, is far from furnishing any proof of the truth of their religions, that of the Jews, from their taking poffeffion of the land of Canaan to their captivity in Babylon (in which, being of confiderable extent, they had fufficient leifure to reflect on the fubject) supplies an abundant proof of the truth of theirs. Nothing, however, but this full conviction can account for the remarkable fact, of the total change in the difpofition and hearts of the whole Jewish nation after this time, and which has continued to this day, without the leaft prospect of a change; though in all this time they do not pretend that any miracles have been wrought in atteftation of it. For though they had prophets after their return from Babylon, viz. Haggai, Zechariah, |