It was necessary that the people designed to exemplify the existence of a moral government should be uncultivated; that is, should have made but little progress under the general system of education. The special process could not be so complete as to enable the subjects of it to become the preceptors of others, unless they themselves had gone through every stage. Instead, therefore, of selecting the most enlightened of nations, and causing it to start from an advanced point, Providence called out from the most abject slavery, and the most debasing ignorance, a people who were destined soon to outstrip the more civilized nations by whom they were oppressed.

What was the nature of the religion of the Jews during their Egyptian bondage, we have no means of ascertaining; but their history affords internal evidence that they had no firm trust in God, and that they inclined to the superstitions of their task-masters. Moses was far more enlightened than the generality of his nation; yet he had no notion of a ready obedience; and when charged with a message to the people, requested to know by what name the Deliverer should be announced. The people had no expectation of a deliverance, and only submitted to the necessary means while signs and wonders were wrought before their eyes. During each interval of these miraculous acts, their faith declined, their courage failed; they relapsed into superstition, and into abject content with their enslaved condition. Their cry was still, “Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians." No further evidence is needed to prove that they were a rude and ignorant people; that their Theism was impure; and that the conception of a divine moral government was not yet generated.

A provision had, however, been made for a favorable beginning, by the acts which had distinguished Abraham as the founder of a great nation. By his peculiar dispensations among the patriarchs, God had established a claim on the

remembrance and the affections of the Israelites, which kept. "the God of their fathers" from total oblivion, even in an idolatrous land. The history of Abraham was preserved in remembrance, not only on account of the promises connected with his covenant, but from the singularity of its events and consequences. The manifestation of Deity in these events was never doubted; and communications announced from the same Deity could not but be listened to more readily than messages from a strange God. It is plain, however, that the title by which he was endeared to them confined them to the narrow conception of a national God. They were not prepared for a more enlarged idea of Deity; but while retaining this, they were prone to idolatry, and ready to offer homage to any god who might at the moment appear the most powerful, or the most indulgent to their prevailing desires. It appears to have been long before they were willing to relinquish the liberty of choosing their God; and that they were brought to this point at last by a sense of helplessness in the grasp of irresistible power. They were at length convinced that their God was the Mightiest, and therefore, and not because they believed there was no other, they became his servants. Their deliverance from bondage proved that the Egyptian deities were inferior to Jehovah; and the conquest of Canaan cast contempt on the gods of the neighbouring nations. But there was no proof yet admitted of the non-existence of these gods; and for a great length of time the Jews seem to have prided themselves, not on having attained to the knowledge of the One God, but on having a more illustrious Deity than any other nation.

At what period the Jewish people arrived at the recognition of the unity of God we can only conjecture. Lessing believes that this grand advance in their theology took place during the captivity, and in consequence of an acquaintance with the religious worship of the enlightened Persians. The

Hebrew Scriptures, however, bear witness abundantly to the erroneousness of this conjecture. They prove, not perhaps that the strict unity of Jehovah was recognised by the bulk of the people, but that their prophets and wise men acknowledged him as the Creator of the whole world, the Father of all the families of the earth; not only as the mightiest among the gods, but as God, in distinction from idols of metal or stone. It seems impossible, for instance, to read in connexion the 104th, 139th, and 115th Psalms, that is, to bring together declarations of his universal creative power, his omnipresence, and the utter helplessness of the idols of the heathen, without being convinced that the unity of the God of the Hebrews was the fundamental truth of the Psalmist's religion.

Reason and revelation were both employed in the discovery and acknowledgment of this important truth, and, as in every other instance, were adapted to yield mutual aid. The power of Jehovah was displayed by miraculous revelations; but it was the province of reason to compare this power with that which was attributed to the heathen gods, and to ascertain, first, its magnitude, and afterwards its illimitable nature. Revelation having been employed in accelerating the progress of reason, was now, in its turn, enlightened by reason, while it was still used as a means of further improvement. We nowhere learn that the strict unity of Jehovah was made an express object of revelation previous to the appointment of the law; but materials were, from the first, offered to the reasoning power from which this great truth might be and was inferred. This reciprocal influence, characteristic of the entire scheme of Providence, and of each individual dispensation, was productive of the most important consequences in the present instance. The conceptions of the worshippers of Jehovah were enlarged, corrected, and ennobled. A new light was cast on the records of their history, and on the purpose of their separation from the rest of mankind. The

existence of a divine moral government, which had been perceived long before, was now more justly apprehended, and understood in a larger sense.

The unity of the Moral Governor is clearly essential to the perfection of his government. If he be not supreme governor, his administration must be weak in some point or another; if he be not sole governor, it must be inconsistent. While his power is supposed to be limited or divided, the confidence of his subjects will be partial and wavering. While, therefore, it is generally and justly supposed that the Jews were rendered a peculiar people for the purpose of preserving and spreading in the world the knowledge of the Divine unity, it should be remembered that this great truth is itself made subservient to an ulterior object, the exhibition of a divine moral government. A fundamental doctrine is useless till something is built upon it, and the conviction of the unity of the Godhead derives its sole value from the inferences which may be deduced from it. It is because these inferences are all-important, that the truth is of surpassing value.

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The exhibition of a moral government had immediately followed, as a necessary consequence, the revelation of the attributes of Deity; or rather it accompanied that revelation; for the two objects are so closely connected that it is almost impossible to separate them. Those attributes were displayed in the administration of the government, and the provisions of the government were explained by a reference to the Divine attributes. The one attribute of Deity which led to the conviction of his strict unity was power and this belief in his unity, the perception that good and evil, threats and promises, wrath and mercy, proceeded from the same ruler of human affairs -generated that union of love and fear which renders men the subjects of a moral government. Thus the knowledge of God's nature and providence were acquired together.

In the first stages of moral discipline, before the faculties of comparison and inference are developed, the mind must be governed by absolute and direct precepts, and not by general principles. We give a particular command to a child, where we should propose a general principle to an adult. Therefore, as the subjects of the Mosaic administration were infants in mind, a precise ritual was ordained as the object and test of their obedience. Such moral instructions as could not be embodied in an external ritual were yet connected with it by the penalties to which the disobedient were sentenced. Reason had not yet advanced so far as to be capable of forming a rule, or even a clear conception of duty, and it was therefore assisted by the imposition of a law which could not be essentially misunderstood or perverted. The law was made efficient for this purpose by sanctions peculiarly adapted to the condition of the Jewish people. As they had not attained sufficient comprehension of mind to discern remote, invisible, or intangible consequences of present actions, they were made subject to sensible and immediate rewards and punishments.

These rewards and punishments were invariably administered as promised or threatened; but they were usually national, and not individual. This was a wise provision. Their efficiency, as a mode of discipline, was secured by their regularity, while the minds of the people were enlarged, by the extension of their hopes and fears to national objects. -Besides, if reward and punishment had been accurately measured to every individual, no way would have been left open for the conception of a future state. Though it was not the Divine purpose to reveal this truth under the first dispensation, it was manifestly unfit that the system should contain any provision which must retard its subjects in their discovery of any truth at which they must at length arrive. No notice of a future life is to be found under the Mosaic dispensation;