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nation was so busied in agriculture, as to have neither time nor inclination for war. Prohibited from multiplying horses, and obliged to assemble three times a year at the place which the Lord should choose, distant conquests and tedious wars were utterly impossible. So that there was no danger the Jews should conceive they had the smallest right to inflict on other nations punishments for idolatry, similar to those which they were made the instruments of inflicting on the Canaanites; and the entire tenor of their history proves that such an idea never entered their thoughts. This objection therefore is refuted by the direct letter of the Mosaic Law, and the whole history of the Jewish dispensation.

still it may be suspected, that to employ the chosen people of God to be the instruments of divine vengeance on a whole nation, however atrocious their guilt, had a tendency to train the people thus employed to deeds of blood, to harden their hearts, and deprave their character. It may be admitted, this objection would have considerable weight, if no care had been taken to guard against this effect: but nothing is more conspicuous than the wise and effectual precautions of the Jewish Lawgiver for this purpose. It has been shown, that the tenor of the command given to punish the Canaanites, taught the Jews to regard with abhorrence, not so much the persons of idolaters, as the crime of idolatry; while every thing connected with such false worship, animate and inanimate alike, was devoted to destruction. It has been shown that the thirst of plunder, and the indulgence of licentious desires, were completely checked and defeated in the Jewish soldiery by the very conditions on which alone they were enabled to subdue the condemned nations; and that the feelings of national hostility and personal animosity, were controlled and mitigated, by solemnly enjoining the exercise of as great severity in punishing idolatry among the Jews themselves, as they were compelled to exercise against the condemned nations of Canaan. And it is evident from the event, that it was with reluctance, and only by compulsion, they exercised these severities, because, as soon as the impulse of divine control was withdrawn, they ceased to exercise any such severity; and, on the contrary, treated with culpable lenity, and regarded with a

* Vide supra.

dangerous complacency, the remnants of these impious nations, whose total extermination they had been warned was necessary to guard against the contagion of their vices and idolatries. It has also appeared,* from an examination into the established principles and direct precepts of the Jewish Law, that it was calculated to inspire a spirit of universal and active benevolence even to enemies, as far as the peculiar situation of the chosen people would allow; and that it tended to soften and humanize the soul, by cherishing sentiments of sympathy and tenderness, even to the brute creation.

The laws of wart of the Jews towards all nations (the Canaanites and Amalekites excepted) were, for that period of the world, peculiarly humane. No enemy was to be attacked till peace had been offered. On conquest, only the males who had borne arms, were permitted to be put to death, and even of these they might make prisoners: women and children were protected female captives were guarded from abuse and treated with tenderness and respect: all unnecessary waste and havoc were strictly forbidden. Strangers and slaves were objects of peculiar attention in the Mosaic Law, and their interests and rights guarded with the most tender humanity. "Thou shalt "not oppress a stranger," says the Law, "for ye know the "heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. "If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me.

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* Vide Vol. I. Part II. Lect. II. III. and IV.

Concerning these laws of war, consult Josephus's Antiq. Book IV. sect. xlii. and contra Apion, Book II. sect. xxx. In concurrence with the most respectable rabbies, and the general tradition of the Jews, he interprets Deut. xx. 13. only to imply a permission, not a command, "Thou mayest kill (not thou shalt kill) the "males, that is, the adult males;" or as Josephus interprets it, "those who had 'borne arms against them," which at that time included all the adult males. Compare 2 Kings, vi. 22. which, however interpreted, shows an instance of mercy to prisoners by express divine authority. Selden, de Jure Gentium apud Hebræos, Lib. VI. cap. xvi. Vol. I. p. 673, quotes various authorities to show the Jews were authorized to spare all prisoners who would become proselytes (even of the seven nations,) as there would then be no danger of learning abominations from them; Deut. xx. 18; and he proves it was an ancient tradition among the Jews, that in besieging a city, an interval was to be left, to give the besieged an opportunity of escaping. For the treatment of female captives, consult Philo de Charitate, p. 547. And on the Laws of War, vide Jew's Letters to Voltaire, Vol. II. Letter III.; and Leland's Answer to Morgan, ch. iv.

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"saith the Lord, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath "shall wax hot, and I will smite you with the sword; and your "wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. If thou "meet thine enemy's ox, or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him "that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear "to help him, thou shalt surely help with him." Thus also the most sacred ordinances of religion, were stated to have a reference to the comforts of the poor, and the ease even of inferior animals. When the land was to rest each Sabbatic year, the Lawgiver assigns as a reason, "Ye shall let it rest; that the "poor of thy people may eat and what they leave, the beasts "of the field shall eat." Thus also as to the Sabbath day: "Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou "shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son "of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed,”‡ "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.§ If a bird's nest chance to be before thee, and the dam sitting upon "her young, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: thou "shalt in any wise let the dam go, that it may be well with thee, "and that thou mayest prolong thy days." || These were precepts inculcating humanity to the most helpless of inferior animals, with an anxiety and solemnity unparalleled, I do not hesitate to say, in any code of laws ancient or modern. And shall we notwithstanding all this, stigmatise the Jewish system as sanguinary and cruel: because under an express divine command, and for the important purposes of establishing in one chosen people the worship of the true God, and the principles of pure morality, and above all, for the purpose of preparing for the gospel scheme, it commanded the extermination of one impious, polluted, and cruel nation; thus inculcating the horror of idolatry on the Jews who were to be treated with similar severity for similar crimes; thus also proving the superiority of Jehovah over the idols of Canaan, and the terrors of the divine wrath against the vices pursued with such signal vengeance, in the only way at once intelligible and impressive, amidst a people dull and worldly minded, seldom extending their views beyond

Exul. xxiii. 9. xxii. 22-24. xxiii. 4, 5.
Exod. xxiii. 12.

+ Exod. xxiii. 11

Deut. xxv. 4.

|| Ib. xxii. 6

temporal rewards and punishments, and who by these means only could be disciplined and controlled, so as afterwards to be governed in a mode coincident with the general course of divine administration? Surely to neglect the various circumstances which thus explain and vindicate the severity exercised against the Canaanites by the divine command, and on account of these reject the whole scheme of revelation, would be a degree of incredulity and presumption, equally irrational and irreligious. Far be this from us, my brethren: be it ours to weigh the dispensations of Providence with more humility, and derive, from the severity, as well as the mercy, of the divine administration, new motives to persevering watchfulness and holy obedience.

LECTURE II.

CONDUCT OF THE JEWS.

SECT. I.-Objections against the reality of the Mosaic miracles, derived from the frequent idolatries of the Jews, invalid—These idolatries did not prove any doubt of the divine original of the Mosaic Law. First species of idolatry by forbidden symbols, &c.— Whence so frequent-Implied acknowledgment of Jehovah. Second species of idolatrous worship, in forbidden places, and with idolatrous rites, implied the same. Third species, worship of idols with Jehovah-Whence. Fourth, worship of idols without God-Yet not an absolute denial of God, or rejection of his worship. Defects and apostasies of the Jews confirm the certainty of a divine interposition, rather than weaken it. Objection against the divine economy, from the temptations they were exposed to, unreasonable. Residence of Jews in Egypt considered—And the temptations from the surrounding Canaanites. Degree and duration of the divine interposition suited to the analogy of nature. Mr Gibbon accuses the Jews, falsely, of being indifferent spectators of the most amazing miracles.

JOSHUA, XXIV. 31.

"And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that over-lived "Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel."

Ir has frequently been asserted by infidels, that the repeated relapses of the Jews into idolatry, at various periods of their history, render the reality of the Mosaic miracles suspicious. For, as these writers conceive, it is not credible that the witnesses of such stupendous miracles, or their immediate posterity, could have so soon forgotten the divine power thus plainly manifested, or apostatized from a religion thus awfully enforced. But these reasoners entirely mistake the nature of this apostasy, and forget the character of the people among whom, and the period when, it took place.* These relapses into idolatry never implied a rejection of Jehovah as their God, or of the Mosaic Law, as if they doubted of its truth. The Jewish idolatry consisted, first, in worshipping the true God by images and symbols; such were the golden calf of Aaron, those afterwards set up by Jeroboam in Israel, the ephod of Gideon, and the ephod, the teraphim, and the images

* Vide Warburton's Divine Legation, Book V. sect. ii. v. vi. 197 to 201.

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