Another remarkable fact is, that the character of the reigning prince always gave a leading complexion to that of the nation. When a good king ascended the throne, he never failed to reform and exalt the public manners and condition; and when a wicked king assumed the government, he never failed to draw the community after him into deep depravity and suffering. What a sol, emn lesson does this hold out to all, who either possess or expect stations of honor and influence in society! Many of you doubtless anticipate some degree of future eminence. You will remember that your power, and consequently your obligation to reform and bless mankind will keep pace with this eminence. If one sinner, possessing genius and science, influence and fame, may and will destroy much good, and produce incalculable mischief; then one virtuous person, clothed with the same advantages, may and ought to produce great public benefit. It is a serious truth, that every man of influence is as much accountable for the effects of his principles and conduct on mankind, as a monarch is for the extensive good or ill, which flows from his example and administration. If in your future spheres of operation you steadily feel and practically comport with this truth, you may, in the language of the poet, look down and pity kings; for in true honor, satisfaction, and usefulness you will excel a great majority of them, and will finally inherit thrones of glory LECTURE VIII. An examination of Jewish Antiquities recommended from the novelty of the subject, the pleasure it affords, and the advantages to be derived from it. Religious peculiarities of the Hebrew nation. Idolatry considered a capital offence against the state. Temporal rewards and punishments annexed to the observance or violation of the Hebrew ritual; and the general tendency of God's conduct toward his antient people, to the final establishment of the christian system. As S this private lecture will now be addressed to an audience consisting partly of new members, it will be proper for their sakes briefly to explain the nature and importance of the subjects, which here invite their attention. The legislature of this university have wisely judged that a series of discourses on Jewish and Christian Antiquities might be rendered both entertaining and profitable to every lover of useful knowledge; especially to those, who mean to be religious instructors. With respect to Jewish Antiquities, the study of these recommends itself to curious and liberal minds by many weighty considerations. In the first place it is recommended to us by the charm of novelty. It leads us into a field for the most part new and untrodden. I grant that a number of writers, both Jewish and Christian, have employed much labor in unfolding the peculiar laws and customs of the antient Hebrews. Yet very few have ever attempted to explore the true causes or ascertain the rationale of these laws; and most, who have attempted it, have left the subject at least as dark and perplexed, as they found it. While a crowd of authors have exhausted their learned industry in traq ing out the origin of pagan rites and customs amid the obscure recesses of antiquity; in bringing to light the peculiar laws and ceremonies of the antient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; they have suffered the venerable peculiarities of the Hebrew nation, though emanated from the Deity, either to sleep in unworthy oblivion, to be ridiculed by petulant but ignorant adversaries, or disgraced by fanatical and superstitious friends. In such a situation ought not both the rarity and the dignity of the subject to rouse our honest and thorough investigation? Especially when we add Secondly, that the inquiry before us is as pleasing, as it is novel. If the study of the Attic and Roman laws, and other monuments of antient wisdom, afford a delicious entertainment to intellectual curiosity; if we enjoy with transport every new discovery respecting nations, languages, and arts, which can boast of high antiquity; if we should survey with delight a piece of coin fashioned in the reign, and bearing the image of Cesar or Alexander; must not the far more antient monuments of divine. wisdom, erected in the Hebrew church and commonwealth, be still more delightful? How solid and noble the pleasure of tracing back the present meridian splendor of religious, moral, and political knowledge to the early dawn of each upon the Jewish world; of contemplating the church of God in the cradle of infancy, and following her through the several stages, by which she gradually rose to maturity! Thirdly, the utility of such researches is equal to their entertainment. For an accurate knowledge of the civil and religious peculiarities of the antient Hebrews will at once disperse the witty sneers and serious reproaches, with which they have been loaded. It will show us that such sneers and reproaches are founded wholly in ignorance and misrepresentation. It will also clearly instruct us in the superstitious folly of those modern Jews and Christians, who fondly cling to a part or the whole of that pompous and burdensome system of rites, which was intended for the Hebrews only during their more gross and puerile state, and which has long since given place to the more perfect dispensation of the gospel. In short, it will add much light and beauty to many parts of the scripture, which cannot be properly understood and appreciated without knowing the antiquities of that people, and the reasons of those laws to which they refer. Finally, what object of inquiry can be more worthy of a christian student, than those antient laws which have God for their author, his chosen people for their subjects, and the divine Savior for their final scope and consummation; laws which were nicely suited by unerring wisdom to the genius of the age, people, and dispensation, for which they were intended, and which of course, if correctly understood must reflect great light on the general history and state of the antient world? Influenced by those considerations, we have employed a number of lectures upon the civil polity of the Hebrews. This, as we have shown, was originally a Theocracy, that is, a government, of which God was not only the framer, but the immediate sovereign; a govnerment, whose primary intention was to preserve in that nation, and consequently in the world, the principles of true religion, and of course the interests of genuine virtue, in the midst of surrounding idolatry and vice. It had likewise for its secondary object the protection of that people in the enjoyment of high temporal freedom and prosperity, on condition of their approved fidelity to their divine King. We have largely shown that their political constitution and laws were admirably adapted to both these designs. We have particularly noted that their general or national government was that of a complex or confederate republic, combining the best features of the most perfect constitutions which were afterwards established in Greece and Rome, and at present in United America, that is, comprising a popular or representative assembly, an advising senate, and a presiding judge or executive magistrate. At the head of all these was Jehovah himself, directing and controling the whole by a standing oracle, which on great occasions publicly notified his royal pleasure. This happy form of government continued, till the people wantonly insisted on having a king; from which period to the Babylonish captivity they were ruled and for the most part severely scourged by a long succession of monarchs. After this, until the final extinction of their civil polity, their government was that of a tributary commonwealth. Having thus displayed the leading political antiquity of the Jewish nation, we proceed to the second great branch of our subject, viz. the religious peculiarities of this antient and remarkable people. These form the most distinguished trait in their history. Their civil polity, as we have seen, was chiefly intended as a handmaid to religion, and was principally exerted in establishing and enforcing its doctrines and institutions. Agreeably we find that idolatry, or an open departure from the belief and worship of the one true God, was made a capital offence against the state; and political or temporal sanctions are constantly annexed to their religious ordinances. This mode of proceeding is so repugnant to the best |