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Hence, the whole matter seems to have been a necessary part of the Divine economy, to preserve the exclusive worship of Jehovah, and prevent the total abolition of true religion; which could not otherwise have been done, except by such continued interpositions and interruptions, as would be inconsistent1 with the purposes of the Divine dispensation2.

Neither does the objection avail, that by their severe treatment of the Canaanites, the Jews would be encou

1 See Part I. "BUTLER'S ANALOGY," Book I. Chap. VII.

2 The treatment of the Amalekites has afforded ground for strong objection. They formed no part of the "seven nations" that were to be cut off; but yet there was a divine command to exterminate them. This severity, however, seems to be justified. 1st. On the ground that they had exhibited a spirit of unprovoked, cruel, treacherous, and aggravated hostility against the Jews; in that they laid wait and attacked them in the rear, when they had no hostile intentions against them, cutting off the hindmost, and slaying the feeble, weary, and faint. And 2nd, More especially, because they feared not God; but, in spite of the signs and wonders which they must have heard of, and known, as being wrought by Him, for the rescue of His people, they presumptuously exhibited a contemptuous defiance of His power, in cruelly smiting His people:-this, too, at a time when it was particularly repugnant to His purposes; for it was when the Israelites were "recently come forth out of Egypt," and were more susceptible of discouragement. Their punishment was, indeed, deferred; yet present delay was to be no warrant of final impunity. Moreover, it was a sort of prophetical denunciation also. Their deep inveterate hostility to the people of God, and their malignant readiness to act on all occasions in conjunction with the enemies thereof, had been foreseen; and when "ripe for that vengeance" with which they had been threatened four hundred years before, then were "those sinners" cut off by the hand of Saul; cut off for their own sins, be it observed, though mention is made, also, of the evil conduct of their ancestors.

raged in a system of invasion and pillage and conquest. For the same Divine authority which gave them the land of Canaan fixed limits to their conquests, and positively restrained them, as well before, as after their settlement therein, from attacking any neighbouring nations, or taking possession of any territories, but those which Jehovah expressly commanded them. And as their whole constitution was calculated to check a spirit of conquest, so their whole history shows that this was actually the case.

Neither, again, was their treatment of the Canaanites, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, calculated to generate a blood-thirsty spirit. It has been already shown, that there was no room for the imputation of avarice, licentiousness, or cruelty: that the "Jews acted with reluctance, and only by a sort of compulsion; and even treated the idolaters themselves eventually with culpable lenity. And the Jewish law1 inculcated, above all other codes, ancient or modern, a spirit of universal benevolence, even to enemies, as far as it was consistent with God's purposes; its tendency was to soften and humanize the soul; and it extended its compassionate provisions even to the

brute creation.

The legitimate answer, indeed, to all objections on

1 See Part II. "GRAVES," Book II. Chaps. II. III. IV.

this subject is what has already been stated; viz. "That when an action is performed in obedience to a Divine command, it may change the whole moral character thereof; rendering that not only innocent, but an actual instance of obedience and piety, which otherwise would have been deeply criminal.” But the foregoing considerations may serve somewhat to explain and vindicate the severities exercised against the Canaanites; and for any one to pass by all fair and dispassionate inquiry, and to reject the whole of Revelation, merely because of the difficulties that such severities present to his mind, amounts to an incredulity and presumption, equally irrational and irreligious.

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CHAPTER II.

The Objections considered, which have been raised against the reality of the Mosaic Miracles, as derived from the frequent Idolatries of the Jews; and those also against the Divine Economy, from the Temptations to which they were exposed.

SECTION I.-FROM MOSES TO THE DEATH OF JOSHUA.

THE repeated relapses of the Jews into idolatry have been alleged as weakening the credibility of the Mosaic miracles; inasmuch as the exhibition of such stupendous wonders must have left so indelible an impression, as to prevent all apostasy from a religion so enforced.

But these relapses never implied a rejection of Jehovah as their God; or of the Mosaic law as the truth.

The Jewish idolatry consisted, first, in worshipping the true God by images and symbols. The golden calf of Aaron; those, afterwards of Jeroboam; the ephod of Gideon; the teraphim of Micah; will all, when we examine into the details, be found instances of this. There was no rejection of God on the part of the Jews, but only the setting up of a symbolic representation of Him; imitated, it is true, from their idolatrous neighbours, but no more implying a rejection of the Mosaic law, than the idolatry of the Papists implies a rejection of the Gospel.

The next species of idolatry was that of worshipping God in forbidden places,-as, "on high hills and in groves ;" and of imitating heathen rites, in "shaving their beards and cutting themselves." But still, it was Jehovah that was the object of their worship. Their more criminal practice of associating God with idols, did not exclude the acknowledgement of Him. And in the most flagrant instance of all, when they fell into the worshipping idols, without God, it would seem that they only considered them as intermediate and subordinate deities, from whom they expected to receive temporal blessings; and not even then did they absolutely reject Jehovah.

Indeed, surrounded with the votaries of idolatry, and habituated as they had been, to see it practised by the Egyptians, then the wisest people in the world—the

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