I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly inticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge:  for I should have denied the God that is above:  and there being no dispute between Job and his friends about these matters, it may be presumed that they also with their countrymen were of the same religion. Melchizedek was a Priest of the most high God, and Abraham voluntarily paid tythes to him; which he would scarce have done had they not been of one and the same religion.  The first inhabitants of the land of Canaan seem also to have been originally of the same religion, and to have continued in it ’till the death of Noah, and the days of Abraham; for Jerusalem was anciently [234] called Jebus, and its people Jebusites, and Melchizedek was their Priest and King:  these nations revolted therefore after the days of Melchizedek to the worship of false Gods; as did also the posterity of Ismael, Esau, Moab, Ammon, and that of Abraham by Keturah:  and the Israelites themselves were very apt to revolt:  and one reason why Terah went from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran in his way to the land of Canaan; and why Abraham afterward left Haran, and went into the land of Canaan, might be to avoid the worship of false Gods, which in their days began in Chaldea, and spread every way from thence; but did not yet reach into the land of Canaan.  Several of the laws and precepts in which this primitive religion consisted are mentioned in the book of Job, chap. i. ver. 5, and chap, xxxi, viz. not to blaspheme God, nor to worship the Sun or Moon, nor to kill, nor steal, nor to commit adultery, nor trust in riches, nor oppress the poor or fatherless, nor curse your enemies, nor rejoyce at their misfortunes:  but to be friendly, and hospitable and merciful, and to relieve the poor and needy, and to set up Judges.  This was the morality and religion of the first ages, still called by the Jews, The precepts of the sons of Noah__:  this was the religion of Moses and the Prophets, comprehended in the two great commandments, of loving the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind, and our neighbour as our selves:  this was the religion enjoyned by Moses to the uncircumcised stranger within the gates of Israel, as well as to the Israelites:  and this is the primitive religion of both Jews and Christians, and ought to be the standing religion of all nations, it being for the honour of God, and good of mankind:  and Moses adds the precept of being merciful even to brute beasts, so as not to suck out their blood, nor to cut off their flesh alive with the blood in it, nor to kill them for the