ily, from whence the Messiah was to spring; and his pos terity chosen of God for a peculiar people, the keepers of the Divine oracles, and the only witnesses for the true God, against an idolatrous world. He himself is called from his own country, and directed by Divine authority to remove to a distant land; he is tried and improved by difficulties; for hardships are often marks of the Divine favour, rather than the contrary. That the honours shown him in consequence of his singular piety might be conspicuous to the whole world, they do not drop with him; but are continued to his posterity, who have been, and are likely to be, the most remarkable people on earth, and distinguished from all others, as long as the world lasts.

It is very remarkable, that there is hardly a great character in scripture, in which we have not an express account of some blemish. A very strong presumption, that the narration is taken from truth; not fancy. Of this illustrious pattern of heroic and singular virtue, some instances of shameful timidity, and diffidence in the Divine providence, are related. Of Moses some marks of peevishness are by himself confessed. The character of the divine psalmist is shaded with some gross faults. Solomon, the wisest of men, is recorded to have been guilty of the greatest folly. Several of the prophets are censured for their misbehaviour. The weakness and timidity of the apostles in general, in forsaking their Master in his extremity, are faithfully represented by themselves, and even the aggravated crime of denying him with oaths (to say nothing of Judas' treachery) not concealed. This is not the strain of a romance. The inventors of a plausible story would not have purposely disparaged the characters of their heroes in such a manner, to gain no rational end whatever.

One useful and noble instruction from this remarkable mixture in the characters of the scripture-worthies, is, That human nature, in its present state, is at best greatly defective, and liable to fatal errors, which at the same time, if not persisted in, but reformed, do not hinder a character from being predominately good, or disqualify a person from the Divine merey; which, it is to be hoped, has been the case of many in all ages, nations, and religions, though none perfect. Which teaches us the proper course we ought to take, when we discover in ourselves any wicked

tendency, or have fallen into any gross error; to wit, Not to give ourselves up to despair; but to resolve bravely to reform it, and recover our virtue.

We are told in scripture, that the descendants of Abraham were, by a peculiar providence, carried into Egypt. The design of this was, probably, to communicate to that people, the parents of learning in those early times, some knowledge of the God of Abraham which might remain after they were gone from thence, and from them might spread to the other nations around. The signal miracles wrought by Moses; the ten immediate judgments inflicted upon the people of Egypt; the deliverance of the Israelites from their bondage, with a high hand, in open defiance of the Egyptian power, under the conduct of a shepherd; and the destruction of the whole Egyptian army in their endeavour to stop their flight; these conspicuous interpositions ought to have convinced that people, that the God whom the Israelites worshipped, was superior 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 Moses' conducting the Israelites through the vast desart of Arabia, for forty years together, with a continued series of miraculous interpositions, (their march itself one of the greatest mira. cles) in order to their establishment in the country appointed them. The design of their not being sooner put in possession of the promised country, was, as we are informed by Moses himself, to break and punish their perverse and rebellious temper, for which reason also, only two of those, who came out of Egypt, reached the promised country all the rest dying in the wilderness. Nor did even Moses himself attain the happiness of enjoying the promised land; which he also foresaw he should not, and therefore could have no selfish views for himself, in putting himself at the head of this unruly people, to wan der all his life, and at last perish in a howling wilderness; when he might have lived in ease and luxury in the Egyp tian court. And that he had no scheme for aggrandizing his family is evident from his leaving them in the station of common Levites.

The people of Israel, arriving at the promised country,

proceed by Divine command, to extirpate the whole people, who then inhabited it, and to take possession of it for themselves and their posterity. And there is no doubt, but any other people may, at any time, do the same, upon the same 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, should be driven out of it. Which was the case with the people, who inhabited the land of Canaan, upon the arrival of the Israelites there. For at that time, we are told, the measure of their iniquity was full. The Israelites therefore were authorised utterly to destroy them, for their enormous wickedness; and to take possession 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 ancient Pagan inhabitants of Canaan were driven out before the Israelites, as a proof of God's displeasure against their idolatry, and other crimes, nothing could be a more proper warn. ing to the people of Israel to avoid falling into the same vices, which they saw bring utter extirpation upon the natives of the country. Nor could any surer proof be given the nations around, of the superiority of the God of the Israelites, to the idols they worshipped, than his giving victory to his votaries (a seemingly fugitive, unarm ed, mixed multitude of men, women, and children) over powerful and warlike nations, under regular discipline, and in their own country.

Here is again, another pregnant instance of the differ. ent consequences of virtue, and of vice. Several great and powerful kingdoms overturned for national wickedness.

It is evident from the strain of scripture, that the peo. ple of Israel 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 Moses, 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 repository 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 pun ishment was also 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 settlement 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 Moses; a visible supernatural glory, called, the Shekinah, abiding constantly among them, as an emblem of the Divine Presence, and an oracle to have recourse to in all difficulties. A civil polity established for them, calculated in the best manner possible for preventing avarice, ambition, corruption, exorbitant riches, oppression, or sedition among themselves, and attacks from the surrounding nations upon them, or temptations to draw them into a desire of conquest : 'in which last particulars, the Jewish constitution exceeded the Spartan, the most perfect of all human schemes of government, and the best calculated to secure universal happiness.

In a theocracy, or Divine government, it was to be expected, that religion should be the foundation of the civil constitution. And had that people been able to bear a purely spiritual scheme of religion, there is no doubt, but such 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 legislation, we find the very first law sets forth the Divine scheme in separating 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 superstition, which prevailed in the rest 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 summed up in the two great precepts of lov ing 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, supposing it a mere human invention, was a man of no manner of thought or consideration. For what mere human lawgiver, who was in his senses, could think of making a prohibition, which he never could punish, nor so much as know, whether his laws were kept or violated? But the whole character of Moses, the wisdom of the laws he framed for the people of Israel, his plan of government, preferable to the best human schemes and which accordingly continued longer than any of them ever did, without the addition, or repeal of one law; these show this most ancient and venerable legislator to have been above any such gross absurdity, as would have appeared in making laws obligatory on the mind, which is naturally free, and whose 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 that people, is plain from their history. But to pro

ceed.

In the second commandment, the worship even of the true God, by images or representations, is prohibited, as leading naturally to unworthy ideas of a pure, uncorporeal, infinitely perfect mind; and as symbolizing with the idolatry of the nations round. In the third, the due reverence for the name, and consequently the attributes, and honours of the Divine Majesty, is secured by a most awful threatening against those, who should be guilty of any irreverent manner of treating the tremendous name of God. And the fourth sets apart one day in seven, as sacred to God and religion,

The remaining six laws secure the observance of duty with respect to the life, chastity, property, and reputation of others; which set of laws are very properly founded in due reverence to parents, from whom all relative and social obligations take their rise. And in the tenth commandment, there is again another instance suitable to the Divine authority, which enacted those laws; this precept being obligatory on the mind only, and having no regard to any outward action.

The people of Israel, as observed above, were of a tem