Ifraelites worshiped was fuperior to their baffled idol and brute deities. But bigotry, and the force of education, are hardly to be conquered by any means whatever.

We have an account in Scripture of Mofes's conducting the Ifraelites through the vaft defart of Arabia, for forty years together, with a continued series of miraculous interpofitions (their march itself one of the greatest of miracles) in order to their establishment in the country appointed them. The design of their not being fooner put in poffeffion of the promised country, was, as we are informed by Mofes himfelf, to break and punish their perverfe and rebellious temper; for which reafon alfo, only two of thofe, who came out of Egypt, reached the promised country; all the reft dying in the wilderness. Nor did even Mofes himself attain the happiness of enjoying the promised land; which he alfo forefaw he should not, and therefore could have no selfish views for himself, in putting himself at the head of this unruly people, to wander all his life, and at laft perish in a howling wilderness; when he might have lived in ease and luxury in the Egyptian court. And that he had no scheme for aggrandizing his family, is evident from his leaving them in the ftation of common Levites.

The people of Ifrael, arriving at the promised country, proceed, by Divine command, to extirpate the whole people, who then inhabited it,

and

and to take poffeffion of it for themselves and their pofterity. And there is no doubt, but any other people may, at any time, do the fame, upon the fame authority. For, He, who made the earth, may give the kingdoms of it to whom he will. And it is fit, that they who are not worthy to inherit a good land, fhould be driven out of it. Which was the cafe with the people, who inhabited the land of Canaan, upon the arrival of the Ifraelites there. For at that time, we are told, the measure of their iniquity was full. The fraelites therefore were authorifed utterly to destroy them, for their enormous wickedness; and to take poffeffion of their country, not on account of their own goodness; but, as expressly and frequently declared, in remembrance of Abraham, the pious founder of the nation. If the antient Pagan inhabitants of Canaan were driven out before the Ifraelites, as a proof of God's difpleasure against their idolatry, and other crimes, nothing could be a more proper warning to the people of Ifrael, to avoid falling into the fame vices, which they faw bring utter extirpation upon the natives of the country. Nor could any furer proof be given the nations around, of the fuperiority of the God of the Ifraelites, to the idols they worshiped, than his giving victory to his votaries (a feemingly fugitive, unarmed, mixed multitude of men, women and children) over powerful and warlike nations, under regular difcipline, and in their own country.

Here is again another pregnant inftance of the different confequences of virtue, and of vice. Several great and powerful kingdoms overturned for national wickedness.

It is evident from the strain of Scripture, that the people of Ifrael were set up as an example to all nations, of God's goodness to the obedient, and severity to disobedience. It was from the beginning, before their entrance upon the promised land, foretold them by Mofes, that, if they continued attached to the worship of the true God, and obedient to his laws, they should be great and happy above all nations; the peculiar care of heaven, and the repofitary of the true religion: But if they revolted from their God, and degenerated into idolatry and vice, they were, as a punishment, to be driven out of their country, and scattered into all nations under heaven. Which punishment was alfo to turn to the general advantage of mankind: as the more pious among them would naturally carry the knowledge of the true God into all the countries where they were scattered; which happened accordingly.

In order to the fettlement of this remarkable people in the land appointed them, as a theocracy, or government immediately under God, a body of civil laws is given them directly from heaven by the hand of Mofes; a visible fupernatural glory, called, the Shekinah, abiding conftantly among them, as an emblem of the Divine

presence,

prefence, and an oracle to have recourse to in all difficulties. A civil polity established for them, calculated in the best manner poffible for preventing avarice, ambition, corruption, exorbitant riches, oppreffion, or fedition among themselves, and attacks from the furrounding nations upon them, or temptations to draw them into a defire of conqueft; in which laft particulars the Jewish conftitution exceeded the Spartan, the moft perfect of all human schemes of government, and the beft calculated to fecure univerfal happiness.

In a theocracy, or Divine government, it was to be expected that religion fhould be the foundation of the civil conftitution. And had that people been able to bear a purely fpiritual scheme of religion, there is no doubt, but fuch a one had been given them. As it is, we plainly trace their laws up to their Divine original. In the decalogue, the foundation of their whole legiflation, we find the very first law fets forth the Divine fcheme in feparating them from the other nations of the world, viz. To keep up, in one country at least, the knowledge and worship of the true God, against the universal idolatry and fuperftition, which prevailed in the reft of the world. The foundation of all their laws, civil and religious, is therefore laid in the first commandment; in which they are expressly forbid to hold any other deity, but that of the Supreme. As their whole law is fummed up in the two great precepts

precepts of Loving God, and Loving their fellow-creatures.

In this compend of the original law given to the Jews, it is extremely remarkable, that these two grand precepts are directly obligatory upon the mind. Which proves either, that this body of laws was given by Him who knows the inward motions of the mind, as well as the outward actions, and can punish the irregularities of the one, as well as the other, or that the author of it, fuppofing it a mere human invention, was a man of no manner of thought or confideration. For what mere human lawgiver, who was in his fenfes, could think of making a prohibition, which he never could punish, nor fo much as know, whether his laws were kept, or violated? But the whole character of Mofes, the wisdom of the laws he framed for the people of Ifrael, his plan of government, preferable to the best human fchemes, and which accordingly continued longer than any of them ever did, without the addition, or repeal of one law; thefe fhew this most antient and venerable legiflator to have been above any fuch grofs abfurdity, as would have appeared in making laws obligatory on the mind, which is naturally free, and whofe motions are cognizable by no judge, but the Searcher of hearts; and all this without any authority above human. And, that intentions, as well as actions, were accordingly commonly punished in

VOL. II.

Aa

that