that, at no one period of human existence, have such steady permanent efforts been made in any other nation, for a series of ages, to maintain the principles of rational theology in their extent and sublimity; or to enforce the practice of morality with such purity, and so correspondent with the universal claims of men, as are eminently displayed through the whole of this dispensation. These singularities are alone to be discovered in the legislation of Moses, and in the pious zeal of his successors.*

One grand object of this dispensation was, to render the principles of true religion, among a distinct people, finally triumphant over the ignorance and darkness which were prevalent in the world. Without such a provision, there is reason to suppose that the whole world would have lost the knowledge of the true God. That universal darkness and error cannot correct themselves is most evident; and the extreme difficulty with which the Jewish people were preserved from idolatry, notwithstanding the superior light and knowledge they enjoyed, manifests the extreme difficulty which attends this process under circumstances the most advantageous.

* See Note O.

The happy consequences of religious knowledge, were not confined to this nation. They were introductory to blessings of which the Gentiles were to become partakers. The repeated annunciation of these facts, in conjunction with the moral history of the Pagan world, represents the Deity as universally benevolent, by a conduct which, upon a superficial view, may appear to have been arbitrary and partial.

The diffusion of religious knowledge, in a manner perfectly adapted to the laws of human nature, and the respected freedom of the human will, are objects worthy of the Deity, and of the relative character he sustains with all his intelligent offspring; and they forcibly teach human beings to respect themselves.

These truths have been rendered so conspicuous in the preceding epitome of the Jewish history, that further enlargement will be unne

cessary.

II. As the plan was worthy of God, thus was his superintendence, both ordinary and extraordinary, requisite for its accomplishment. No one can deny the utility, or even the absolute necessity, of those occasional appearances to the patriarchs, at the commencement of this impor

tant process, in order to call them forth from the general mass of mankind, to direct their steps, confirm their faith, and ensure their obedience. If it be admitted that the removal of the Hebrews from a state of bondage in Egypt, and placing them in the land of Canaan, was an important part of the divine plan, the credibility, nay, the necessity of an extraordinary and miraculous interference, must also be admitted. For we cannot suppose that any means simply natural, would have been influential to remove them from a country, where they and their ancestors had sojourned for the space of four hundred years; and where they had been accustomed to long and debasing habits of subjection. Their inspectors, and task masters, their native ignorance, and the extreme servility of their state, precluded the possibility of any united and personal exertion. They could not conspire, much less could they act. Their impor tant services, and their being employed in the most laborious and degrading offices, rendered it highly interesting, both to the Egyptians and their sovereign, to detain them in the land of their bondage. No voluntary concessions or courtesies could be expected from these quarters; and by what strong chain of natural events could upwards of two millions of people thus

situated, be at once wrested from the grasp of tyranny? What could possibly induce the people themselves to consent, with one voice, to follow a leader who must have been unknown to a very large majority of them; and whose absence of forty years must have rendered him a stranger to them all? The dangers, difficulties, and wants to which they were exposed on their journey, and during their residence in the wilderness, required a miraculous interposition. Their organization as a nation that was to be distinct and independent; the wisdom that pervaded their political institutions; the purity of all their religious ordinances, without a single model for imitation, manifest the importance and necessity of a divine superintendence.

A people themselves grossly ignorant, surrounded by nations ignorant, depraved, and superstitious in the extreme, must have required a power superior to their own, to preserve them from the influence of the examples they were so prone to imitate. In what could this power consist, but in juster conceptions of a Deity, of duties, and of obligations, enforced by promises and threats adapted to their situation? Whence could these be derived but from the grand source of all knowledge and instruction? Moses, it is true, was educated in all the wis

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dom of the Egyptians, but this wisdom would not have made him a Monotheist. It would not inform him that the only living God, the creator and sole governor of the universe, possessed every perfection natural and relative; that he indispensably required the strict observance of every moral virtue; and that he would invariably punish and reward, according to the moral deserts of his people. The Egyptian superstitions would not have inspired those sublimities of devotion which christians themselves have never equalled; with those rules of religious discipline, and maxims of political jus tice, which christians admire more than they imitate.

Upon the death of this leader, it was necessary that the same principles should be perpetually inculcated by precept and example, and be rendered efficient by the influence of encouragements or of terror. If this be admitted, a succession of holy men, and of prophets, in the manner which has been amply stated, must have been essential to the grand plan of their preservation. Such perpetual requisites could not be expected from natural sources, during these ages of deep ignorance and depravity, but it is easy to advert to a source whence they could be copiously supplied.