cles, and for executing his judgments on those impenitent nations, whose enormous wickedness was then ripe for vengeance. The moral goodness therefore of the Jews being no peculiar object of God's choice, we are not on that account merely to expect from them any uncommon degrees of virtue, or any exemption from the reigning vices of their age.

Nay, so little reason have we to expect any extraordinary instances of humanity from the peculiarity of their circumstances, that this very peculiarity might, without great care and circumspection, have been apt to give an unfavourable turn to their disposition. The distinction bestowed upon them, though not in reality for their own merit, yet in preference to the rest of the world, was not unlikely to inspire them with too high an opinion of themselves, and too contemptible a one of others. Their exclusion from a free and general intercourse with the surrounding nations, (though ab solutely necessary for the most important purposes) might, however, tend to contract their notions and confine their benevolence.

That extreme abhorrence in which they very justly held the vices of their neighbours, might sometimes exceed the bounds of virtuous indignation; and that unhappy, though necessary, task imposed upon them, of destroying the sinful nations of Canaan, might too easily lead them to transgress the laws of humanity on less justifiable occasions. If, under these circumstances, the Jews were not more inhuman than their neighbours, they certainly deserve some praise; if they were, there are, you see, many mitigating pleas in their favour; and the blame will not rest, either on the temper of the people, or the temper of their religion.

It has, I know, been frequently asserted, that the cruelty of the Jews exceeded that of

any other people, not only of their own times, but in any age of the world. This, however, has been much more confidently advanced than clearly proved. From what little we can learn of the nations contemporary with the Jews, in the early periods of their history, there is not the least reason to imagine, that they were of a more merciful disposition; and if we hear less of their

cruelty, it is because we know less of their history.* What renders this extremely probable is, that in much later ages, when the minds of men were greatly softened and subdued by the improvements of civil life, we meet with much less real, though more ostentatious, humanity than amongst the Jews; and I believe there are very few here, whose recollection will not readily supply them with repeated instances of cruelty, in the most flourishing periods of the most civilized Heathens, which far surpass any that can be produced from the most sanguinary transactions of the Jewish people.†

*From the horrid custom which we know prevailed amongst the Canaanites of sacrificing their children to their idols, we may rationally presume, that the Jews were much outdone in acts of barbarity by their neighbours.

+ Several acts of cruelty which have been ascribed to King David and the Jewish people, appear, on a more accurate examination, to have been grounded on an incorrect translation of particular passages of the Old Testament. Thus it is said, 2 Sam. xii. 31. that when Rabbah (the capital city of the Ammonites) was taken, "David brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws and "under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made "them pass through the brick-kilns." Hence it is inferred, that he put them to death with the most exquisite and unheard of torments. But it has been shown by several learned critics, that our version of this place would have been more accurate, and more strictly conformable to the original, if

Whatever were the inhumanities of the Israelites, they had not, however, that aggravation, with which those of the Pagans were frequently attended, that of being exercised on their own countrymen, their most faithful dependents, their nearest relations, and dearest friends. The proofs of their cruelty are principally, if not wholly, taken from their treatment of the idolatrous nations around them. But when we reflect, that the laws of nature, and the rights of nations, were not then so clearly ascertained as they have since been; that wars were then waged on savage, unrelenting, exterminating principles; and that those nations which felt the weight of their heaviest vengeance, were not only their avowed and inveterate enemies, but so incorrigibly and abominably flagitious as to call aloud for punishment, of which the Jews were only instruments in the hand of the Almighty; it will be easily

*

it had rendered the passage thus: He put them to saws and to harrows of iron, and to axes of iron, and made them pass by or to the brick-kilns: that is, he put them to hard labour, with the tools and in the places here specified. See Mr. Ormerod's Remarks on Dr. Priestley's Disquisitions, &c. 2d ed. p. 72.

* See

detail of heir execrable vices, Lev. xviii.

seen, that such proofs are by no means pertinent and satisfactory. The truth is, these transient and casual instances of cruelty, though they are such as at first sight must necessarily strike and offend us most, yet are not so proper to determine a national character, and denominate a people constitutionally barbarous, as those established and permanent maxims of internal and domestic cruelty, which never existed in the Jewish government, but were universally received and practised, were encouraged by the laws, and applauded by the historians, of those very nations, who esteemed and called all others in respect of themselves barbarians. It is these, which, though less insisted on by writers, and less attended to by readers, are yet more repugnant to humanity, more destructive to the species, and more characteristic and decisive evidences of a malevolent spirit, than those accidental outrages and excesses, on which historians generally lavish all the horrors of description. *

* There is scarce any author, ancient or modern, who has inveighed with such indiscriminate and unmeasured rancour against the whole Jewish nation, as M. Voltaire. There are few of his latter prose publications in which he has not in