of temporal punishments as affecting the posterity of the persons signified: "Let the iniquity of his father be remembered: and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out." And in the same manner is to be understood the passage in the Litany of the Church: "Remember not our sins, nor the sins of our forefathers."

SECTION XI.

EXOD. XXV. xxvi. &c.

LEVIT. i. ii. &c.

NUMB. Xviii. xix.

THE great minuteness in these laws and ceremonies relative to the temple, and to the tribes and priests and meats of the Jews, has been thought trifling and unworthy of the Divine Being.

We will endeavour, presently, to give a particular reason for these laws and ceremonies: but at present we are concerned in stating generally, that the divine economy has manifested equal minuteness in the ordinary operations of nature. We have not indeed the details of the latter written down by the finger of God, but we have them explicitly marked in His works. It will be anticipated that I speak of the wonderful divisions and subdivisions of the bodies of animals; not only of the general sections of them into head, stomach, liver, intestines, arms and legs, but of the various ramifications of these: fibres, veins, joints, arteries, muscles, &c.

Let us

carry this again into the various genera of animals, as men, beasts, birds, fishes, insects, reptiles, and then into the many subdivisions of these. Let us go to the trees, shrubs, and flowers, and observe their nice and complicated texture. And when we have gone over all these things, let us ask, whether there be not a multitude of details in all these works in this one globe corresponding to that of the minutia in the laws of the Jews. Nay, let us take the laws of man in general, as also manifesting the order of nature: and let us observe how copious and multitudinous these are: so much so, that, according to Paley,* "the laws of this country, including the acts of the legislature, and the decisions of our supreme courts of justice, are not contained in less than fifty folio volumes." Let us

see also the divisions and subdivisions of the arts and the sciences, and mark how numerous are all these. In general, let us observe how these things together bear out the maxim that art is long, and life too short to be acquainted with it: how those most know their ignorance, who have studied to subdue it most; and then let us refuse, if we are able, to see

* Pal. Mor. Phil. book i. ch. iv.

the analogy of the proceedings of the Divine Being in all this copiousness and minutiæ in His works and in His word. If He has thought fit in the natural world to adopt such complex structures, and to allow human laws and human knowledge to receive such extensive ramifications, it might be expected that He would do so in a more immediate revelation of His will, and especially if there were sufficient grounds for it.

And there seem to have been special reasons why the Almighty should introduce so cumbrous a ritual, and impose it on the Jews. We think it was absolutely necessary for keeping up a distinct people on the earth, as maintainers of the doctrine of one true God, apart from the idolatries of the Gentiles, and as treasurers of the prophecies, which were at length to receive their verification in the appearance of the Saviour of the world. And, indeed, so admirably has this purpose been secured, this distinction been sustained, that, in the first place, whereas the Jews worshipped one God, all the rest of mankind embraced polytheism; and that, in the second, the Jew even at this day preserves his distinguishing characteristics.

SECTION XII.

DEUT. v. 29.-" O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them !"

Ps. xxxi. 13.—“ Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!"

MATT. xiii. 37.-" O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered (Greek, have I wished to gather) thy children together, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."

THESE pathetic expressions have been considered as marking weakness. It is asked why God, instead of wishing and lamenting, did not prevent the evils which were impending.

The passages from the Old Testament are to be classed under those mentioned in Sect. 4. The Divine Being is represented with human affections, as pitying the unhappy con