dom of that prohibition, "neither shall a garment of linen and woolen come upon thee," when we know that such mixed garments were the appropriate habits of idolatrous priests, and were supposed to possess some great magical virtue. We also understand the propriety of that law, which forbids each sex to wear any garment peculiar to the other, when we find that it was a standing injunction among the antient heathers, that men must stand before the star of Venus in the flowered garments of women, and women were to put on the armour of men before the star of Mars. Agreeably, Macrobius tells us, that men worshipped Venus in women's habits, and women in the habits of men.-How wise and benevolent was it in the divine Legislator, by such minute and strict precepts, to guard a gross and superstitious people from the dangerous customs, which every where surrounded them, and which, without such checks, must have operated to destroy every distinction between Jews and pagans.

Let us then steadily keep in mind the noble and complex design of the Hebrew government. Let us view it as intended to preserve in our world rational piety and virtue, and in connexion with this to dispense liberty, order, and happiness to the Jewish commonwealth. Their constitution, thus viewed, resembles the pillar of cloud and of fire, which attended their camp through the wil derness. While it guided, protected, and cheered the obedient Jews, it held up to the surrounding world a public and impressive monument of the supremacy of Jehovah, of the blessings, which attend his faithful servants, and of the detestable and destructive evils, which accompany idolatry, superstition, and vice.

answered.

LECTURE III.

Objection of partiality in Jehovah toward the Jewish nation, Objection to the Hebrew constitution as a system of intolerance and war, of conquest or extermination, answered. System of Hebrew policy contrasted with that of the antient beathens.

tant.

IN our last Lecture we showed that the great

design of the civil constitution of the Jewish nation was the preservation of the true religion among them, and in connexion with this, their temporal freedom and prosperity. I presume you will all grant, that such a design was truly benevolent and noble, and that every regulation necessary to its accomplishment was highly imporWe have already remarked, that many statutes in the Jewish code, which, at first view, seem puerile, were needful barriers to that people against the enticing, but dangerous customs of their idolatrous neighbours. Yet still many features of the Hebrew government differ so widely from the best sentiments and usages of modern times, that it requires a candid and attentive survey to make us fully see their propriety and beauty. As I trust that both you and myself are honest inquirers after truth, I hope you will cheerfully accompany me in the disquisition before us; and the rather, as the question concerning the merits of the Jewish polity and laws affects the reputation both of the Old Testament and the New; and it has accordingly been the practice of many enemies to Christianity to attempt its subversion, not by direct assault, but by casting reproach or ridicule on the institutions of the antient Jews. We are willing to meet them on this ground. If these institutions cannot

be fairly vindicated, we stand ready to give up all revealed religion as indefensible.

We have represented the civil government of the Hebrews as founded on a peculiar compact or relation between God and them, by which he became their political Sovereign and Protector, and they engaged themselves to worship and obey him, in opposition to all pretended or rival deities. But some may object that there is a great absurdity in supposing God, the universal Parent and Ruler, thus to connect himself with one particular nation, and tobecomea partial and tutelar Deity to them, while he seemed to exclude from his favor a great majority of his human family. This plausible objection is capable of two satisfactory answers. First, God's peculiar relation to the Jews did not in the least diminish or hinder his paternal and beneficent care of all his rational offspring. Will any person say, that the supreme Governor, by giving one portion of mankind greater privileges than the rest, excludes the latter from his notice, or conducts in a partial and injurious manner? Would it be wise to infer that, because the constitution and laws of the United States appropriate the city of Washington, and a small district around it, to the special residence and jurisdiction of our national rulers, therefore the rest of the Union is shut out from their patriotic inspection and influence? Yet this conclusion would be far less absurd than the objection before us ;-especially when we add Secondly, that God's design in thus selecting and covenanting with a particular nation was not so much their peculiar benefit, as the general good of mankind; for this constitution was a light set up in the midst of a dark world; a light, which preserved and in some measure diffused the knowledge and practice of pure religion and virtue, and thus

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kept alive in the human mind those principles, which are the basis of liberty and order, of improvement and happiness both to individual and social man. That we may

distinctly see how far this constitution promoted these excellent purposes, I would observe that the very existence of this frame of government led up the minds of the Jews to that One true God, by whose wisdom it was formed, by whose authority it was enjoyed, and by whose extraordinary providence it was visibly carried into effect. The tenure, by which they claimed and enjoyed the benefits of this constitution, was their firm and exclusive loyalty to Jehovah. On this condition he promises and actually gives them a pleasant and fertile country, which they hold by his conditional grant. By their instrumentality he expels the former inhabitants for their abominable crimes, the fruits of their idolatry. He blesses the new tenants of this country with freedom and plenty, with peace and prosperity, while they retain their religious and virtuous character; but when they apostatize he permits their enemies to afflict and oppress them. Thus a weak and little nation, surrounded on all sides, and frequently invaded by great and powerful empires, is visibly protected against them all by the superior power of Jehovah, and subsists much longer than any known kingdom in the world. What an august and impressive spectacle! How forcibly did it teach beholding nations the vanity of idols, and the supremacy of the God of Israel! How pathetically did it call them off from the fatal service of the former, to the worship and protection of the latter !-Let it be further noted, that the central situation, which the Jews occupied with respect to the then inhabited globe, and the stupendous works of divine power, by which their government

and laws were introduced, supported, and executed, by which they themselves were often chastised, defended, or delivered, and their mighty adversaries defeated or ruined, were admirably calculated to spread the glory of God, and the knowledge and obedience of his laws, into the surrounding world. Even the captivities and dispersions, which this people suffered for their transgressions, were made subservient to the extension and triumph of their religion. The eminent virtues and extraordinary gifts displayed by some of these captives, and the won derful interpositions of Jehovah in their favor, impressed on the minds of heathen princes and nations a high reverence for the religion and the God of Israel. The celebrated learning of the antient Eastern world, especially on civil, moral, and religious subjects, was doubtless in great measure derived from the laws and writings of this favored people. The nearer we come down to gospel times, the more extensive is the beneficent influence of their system on neighbouring countries. As the Jews were gradually diffused over the Roman empire, as well as over the Asiatic regions, so they every where converted great numbers from idolatry to the faith and worship of the true God. While the greatest pagan philosophers, instead of turning any of the people from superstition to rational piety, conformed themselves to the reigning idolatry, and recommended the same conformity to others; the Jews propagated their own religion far and wide, and thus contributed to prepare mankind for the perfect dispensation of the gospel. In a word, the erection of this people into a peculiar and separate polity rendered them the safe depositaries of those promises, predictions, and types, which excited in mankind the cheering hope of a future Redeemer, which gradually

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