-$^ ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



whom very many animals were facrificed upon different occafions ; 

 for this rite of worfhip was fo univerfally pradifed among all the 

 nations in their neighbourhood, and they had been fo much accuf- 

 tomed to it while they were in Egypt, that, if Mofes had prohibit- 

 ed it, they would not have received his laws, but would have con- 

 formed to the general practice, and have offered facritlces to the 

 idols of the nations. And Mofes, in this as well as in many other 

 articles, appears only to have changed the obje£l of the worfhip, 

 not the rites and ceremonies of it, as, I think, Spencer has very clear- 

 ly fhown in his work above quoted; and, indeed, I think, that, with- 

 out changing the courfe of nature, and the general rules of the fyf- 

 tem of the human fpecies, by which they muft make a regular pro- 

 grefs in religion, as well as in other things, God could not have 

 adted otherwife with refped to the Jews. 



But our Saviour having come in the fulnefs of t'line^ when the 

 minds of men, by the progrefs they had made in arts and fciences, 

 were prepared to receive a better religion, facrifices, as well as many 

 other rites and ceremonies, were laid afide altogether, and a pure 

 religion was eftablifhed, by which the true God was to be worftiip- 

 ped in fpirit and in truth, not by the works of mens hands ^ as the apof- 

 tle fays *. At the fame time, I am not of opinion, that all the rites 

 and ceremonies of the Pagan worfhip were ordained by the gof- 

 pel to be laid afide. And particularly one part of their worfhip, I 

 mean mufic, is very properly continued in the Chriflian church ; 

 not becaufe we are to fuppofe that God is pleafed or entertained 

 with our mufic, but becaufe mufic, if it be proper church mufic, 

 muft have a great effedl upon the minds of men, (who muft be go- 

 verned more or lefs by their fenfes), in exciting them to devotion. 

 And, accordingly, as I have elfewhere obfervedf, it was chiefly by 



mufic, 



• Ai^s of the Apoftles, chap. 17. v. 24. and 29. 



f Page 95. and lOi. of this vol. 



