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, lan guages, 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 insist ed 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 sanc tions are constantly annexed to their religious ordinances. This mode of proceeding is so repugnant to the best

ideas of modern statesman, moralists, and christians, that a close attention to the peculiar reasons of it is necessary to a full conviction of its propriety. We instantly perceive that no human magistrate can rightfully dictate or punish the religious creed and worship of his subjects, because he is equally fallible with them, and was appointed to superintend the body politic, not the spiritual state of individuals; and because the Deity alone is Lord and Judge of men's consciences. But these reasons do not apply to the antient Hebrew government, which was erected and administered by GOD HIMSELF, who is an infallible judge of religious truth and falsehood, who has a right to enjoin the belief and observance of those doctrines and institutions, which are evidently stamped with his authority, and who precisely knows the degree of criminality implied in every deviation from his requirements. Besides these general considerations, there were many special circumstances, which rendered temporal rewards and punishments the most proper sanctions of the Hebrew ritual.

It is to be remembered that this ritual was chiefly intended as a remedy against idolatry, to which the Israelites, as well as neighbouring nations, were extremely addicted. Now the assurance of worldly blessings or ca-. lamities annexed to the divine law was the most effectual ground against this evil. For it best suited' the genius and taste of a gross and ignorant people. As the long servitude of the Hebrews in Egypt, and intercourse with its sottish inhabitants, had rendered their minds very abject and carnal; the Deity wisely accommodated his dis-. cipline to their low apprehensions and desires; he allured them to duty, and deterred them from transgression by such motives as they could understand and feel; that

M

is, by the promise of a pleasant and fertile country, of a numerous offspring, of a long and tranquil life, of splendid victory and honor, and by the threatening of famine, want, pestilence, defeat, and slaughter. Thus the divine Legislator condescended to reconcile them to his preseriptions, just as prudent parents and teachers stimulate young children to their appointed task by incitements fitted to their puerile state.

2. These temporal sanctions directly struck at the root of idolatry, and destroyed its principal support. For it was the leading sentiment of those early times that worldly prosperity was inseparably connected with a strict observance of their idolatrous rites, with a devout worship of the stars, of demons, of tutelar deities, and that a contempt of these gods, or a violation of their institutions would be punished with terrible calamities. Even the Israelites, as appears from their history, were deeply infected with this vain and pernicious idea; and this was the main source of their frequent relapses into idolatry. To eradicate this fatal error, it was necessary that their divine Lawgiver should denounce and inflict the same penalties on those, who deserted his worship, which were supposed to follow the neglect of the pagan deities; and that he should promise and conspicuously grant the opposite blessings to those, who, abjuring their former idolatry, acknowledged and obeyed him as their only Sovereign; in short, that he should hold up full evidence, that he was the sole Dispenser both of good and evil. This was to destroy idolatry with its own weapons; it was to tear away the grand props, on which it rested, and to transfer them to a directly opposite use, viz, to the support of that allegiance, which is exclusively due to Jehovah.