that he was the great I Am; yet that this abstract and philosophic description of the Supreme Being was not sufficiently calculated to arrest the attention, conciliate the confidence, and command the obedience, of a people entirely unaccustomed to scientific speculations, and incapable of being influenced by any other than temporal motives; and that it was therefore necessary to represent to them the Supreme Governor of the universe in a more circumscribed and attractive form, as the God of their fathers, who had conferred the most distinguished favours on Abrahamı, Isaac, and Jacob, and to whom their posterity might, from the full assurance which fact and experience supply, look up with confidence, as their peculiar guardian God; and in the religion framed for them, recognize a system clearly and certainly exalting them above all idolatrous nations who hoped to derive prosperity from the protection of their peculiar tutelary gods. This necessity of accommodating the religious instructions communicated to the Jews to their capacity and feelings, should never be forgotten, when we consider the meaning and objects of these instructions. If they are really of divine original, it may be required, that they should certainly be in no instance inconsistent with the more complete discoveries of religious truth, which subsequent researches and subsequent revelations supply; and perhaps it might be expected that they should (as in this instance is evident) contain such intimations of these truths, as would to future ages prove the divine wisdom, which so far develope them. But we are not, surely, to wonder that doctrines of more immediate necessity, and more powerful influence, should be more frequently insisted on: we are not to wonder that the self-existence of the Deity should be rarely dwelt on; his character as God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, perpetually brought forward; we are not to wonder that the attributes and the conduct of the Divinity should be described in language, and illustrated by metaphors, derived from the human character, and even from human passions: we are not to wonder that immediate and temporal sanctions should be preferred to spiritual and remote; and in general we may expect that the language and manner in which religious truths are inculcated, should be adapted to the gross imaginations and short-sighted views of the people, for whom they were designed. But though the SELF-EXISTENCE of the Deity was a fact too abstract to require its being frequently inculcated: his ESSENTIAL UNITY was a practical principle, the sure foundation on which to erect the structure of true religion, and form a barrier against the encroachments of idolatry. For this commenced not so frequently in denying the existence, or even the supremacy of the one true God, as in associating with him for objects of adoration, inferior intermediate beings, who are supposed to be more directly employed in the administration of human affairs. To confute and resist this false principle was, therefore, one great object of the Jewish scheme. Hence the unity of God is inculcated with perpetual solicitude; it stands at the head of the system of moral Law promulgated to the Jews from Sinai by the divine voice, heard by the assembled nation, and issuing from the divine glory, with every circumstance which could impress the deepest awe upon even the dullest minds. "I am the "Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; thou shalt have no other "gods beside me."* And in the recapitulation of the divine Laws in Deuteronomy, it is repeatedly enforced with the most solemn earnestness: "Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one "Lord;" and again, "Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else "beside him. Know, therefore, this day, and consider it in thine "heart that the Lord he is God in Heaven above, and upon the "earth beneath there is none else."+ 66 This SELF-EXISTENT, SUPREME, and ONLY GOD is, moreover, described as possessed of EVERY PERFECTION which can be ascribed to the Divinity. "Ye shall be holy," (says the Lord to the people of the Jews;) "for I the Lord your God am holy. "Ascribe ye," says the Legislator, "greatness unto our God; "he is the Rock, his work is perfect; a God of truth and "without iniquity, just and right is he."‡ And in the hymn of joy and thanksgiving on the miraculous escape of the Israelites at the Red Sea, this is its burthen: "Who is like unto thee "O Lord, amongst the gods? who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?"§ And when the Lord delivered to Moses the two tables of the moral Law, he * Exod. xx. 2 and 3. Lev. xix. 2. Deut. xxxii. 3. Deut. iv. 35 and 39. and vi. 4. 66 is described as descending in the cloud, and proclaiming the name of the Lord. "And the Lord passed by before him, and "proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness, keeping mercy for “thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and that "will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the "fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, "unto the third and to the fourth generation."* Thus while one character is ascribed to the Deity, which is peculiarly connected with the particular scheme of moral government exercised by Divine Providence over the Jews, that of visiting the iniquities and the virtues of the parents upon the children; at the same time every virtue is ascribed to Him, which the most exalted benevolence can desire, or the most refined philosophy conceive. But to teach the self-existence, the unity, the wisdom and the power of the Deity; nay, even his moral perfections of mercy, justice, and truth, would have been insufficient to arrest the attention and command the obedience of a nation, the majority of which looked no farther than mere present objects, and at that early period cherished scarcely any hopes higher than those of a temporal kind—if, in addition to all this, care had not been taken to represent the PROVIDENCE of God as not only directing the government of the universe by general laws, but also perpetually superintending the conduct and determining the fortune of every nation, of every family, nay, of every individual. It was the disbelief or the neglect of this great truth, which gave spirit and energy, plausibility and attraction, to the whole system of idolatry. While men believed that the supreme God and Lord of all was too exalted in his dignity, too remote from this sublunary scene, to regard its vicissitudes with an attentive eye; and too constantly engaged in the contemplation of his own perfections, and the enjoyment of his own independent and all-perfect happiness, to interfere in the regulation of human affairs; they regarded with indifference that supreme Divinity, who seemed to take no concern in their conduct, and to interfere not as to their happiness. However exalted and perfect such a Being might appear to abstract speculation, he was to the gene *Exod. xxxiv. 6 and 7. + Vide Cicero de Nat. Deorum, Lib. I. cap. lxi. to the end. rality of mankind, as if he did not exist as their happiness or misery were not supposed to be influenced by his power, they referred not their conduct to his direction. If he delegated to * inferior beings the regulation of this inferior world; if all its concerns were conducted by their immediate agency, and all its blessings or calamities distributed by their immediate determination; it seemed rational, and even necessary, to supplicate their favour, and submit to their authority; and neither unwise nor unsafe to neglect that Being, who, though all-perfect and supreme, would on this supposition appear, with respect to mankind, altogether inoperative. There are abundant proofs, how deeply these feelings and opinions were imbibed by the whole Jewish race; and how indispensably necessary it was to counteract their influence. Some examples are necessary, and a few will be sufficient. When the Patriarch Jacob, after being solemnly invested by Isaac, acting under the divine authority, with the blessing of Abraham, was honoured by a celestial vision,† to renew the same covenant with him personally, and repeat to him the divine promise, not only "that his seed should multiply as the dust of the earth, "and should inherit the land in which he slept, but that in him "and his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed;" the Patriarch awakes impressed with the deepest awe and reverence; he rears an altar, pours upon it a libation, and vows a vow: but such a vow, as proves that even here his imagination was occupied, not so much with the character of God as supreme governor of the world, not so much with any anxiety to secure the temporal but remote part of the promise which regarded his posterity, or the spiritual part which announced that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, as with that which promised immediate protection and prosperity to himself."Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and “will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to "eat and raiment to put on; so that I come again to my father's "house in peace; then shall Jehovah the Lord be my God. "And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's "house and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give "the tenth unto thee."+ * Vide supra, p. 108, the note. 66 Further, as the expectation of temporal blessings was the most powerful motive to attach man to the worship of the true God; so was it the source of all idolatry to false divinities, through every period of the Jewish history. Hence, on the defeat of the Syrians by the Jews, "the servants of the king of Syria "said unto him, Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore they were stronger than we: but let us fight against them in "the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they."* This then was the radical error on which idolatry was founded. To counteract it, the Jewish legislator uniformly represents the supreme Jehovah, as the sole distributor of every present good and evil, as perpetually watching the conduct of mankind, and regulating the whole series of their fortunes according to their merit or demerit; and states the Jewish people to be selected, that, by the plan of their religion, the constitution of their government, and the constant adjustment of their prosperity or adversity, to their fidelity towards Jehovah, and their obedience to his will, they might exhibit a decisive proof of his overruling providence in all human affairs.t * 1 Kings xx. 23. I have been much gratified at finding the idea here adduced, of one leading object of the Jewish scheme, confirmed, and very ingeniously illustrated by the late Rev. Newcome Cappe, a writer of considerable learning and talent, in his "Critical Remarks on Scripture," Vol. II. p. 195; in his Idea of Judaism and its peculiar End and Object;-viz. "to exhibit a sensible specimen, by way of "God's moral Government." On this he observes, that "the essential principle " of the Jewish economy was-that this people as a nation, should be secure and 66 prosperous, while they obeyed the civil and religious institutions of their country— "endangered and distressed, when they departed from them, or neglected them." And he proceeds to remark, that "the Jews, in their character and fate, and the "correspondence of them to one another, might be an exhibition of the moral "government of God, it was necessary that their Law, and their circumstances "should appear to be the work of God; that their obedience to God should be in such "things as are obvious and sensible, in respect of which all men might judge of their "character, whether it were correspondent to the Law or not; and that their circum"stances, in like manner, and their correspondence, to the respect they paid to the "Law, should be obvious and observable." In order that such a sensible specimen, by way of proof, should be given of God's moral government, he observes, very truly, that "it was necessary." "1st, That it should not be in individuals merely, who could not be conspicuous "or interesting enough to engage the attention of mankind at large, or would, if "extending to any great number, be too obscure, and require as great attention "and discernment to perceive it, as are necessary to collect the moral governments "of God from the general laws of creation and providence. |