and our lives anfwerable to them, we can never please God, though we perform the externals of religion with ever fo much exactness. We may err in our notions about the facraments: the world has long been divided on these fubjects; and a gracious God, it may be hoped, will pardon our errors. But in matters of practice we have no apology for error. The great lines of our duty are drawn fo ftrong, that a deviation here is not error, but guilt. by God, containing a true hiftory of facts, in which we are deeply concerned--a true recital of the laws given by God to Mofes, and of the precepts of our bleffed Lord and Saviour, delivered from his own mouth to his difciples, and repeated and enlarged upon in the edifying epiftles of his apoftles--who were men chofen from amongst those who had the advantage of converfing with our Lord, to bear witnefs of his miracles and refurrection-and who, afer his afcenfion, were affifted and infpired by the Holy Ghoft. This facred volume must be the rule of your life. In it you will find all truths neceffary to be believed; and plain and eafy directions for the practice of every duty. Your Bible, then, muft be your chief ftudy and delight: but, as it contains many various kinds of writing--fome parts obfcure and difficult of interpretation, others plain and intelligible to the meanest capacity-I would chiefly recommend to your frequent perufal fuch parts of the facred writ Let us then, to conclude from the whole, make it our principal care to purify our hearts in the fight of God. Let us befeech him to increase the influence of his Holy Spirit within us, that our faith may be of that kind which worketh by love;" that all our affections, and from them our actions, may flow in a steady courfe of obedience; that each day may correct the laft by a fincere repentance of our mistakes in life; and that we may continue gradually to approach nearer the idea of christian perfection. Let us do this, dif-ings as are moft adapted to your underftandclaiming after all, any merits of our own; and not trufting in outward obfervances; but trufting in the merits of Chrift to make up our deficiencies; and we need not fear our acceptance with God. Gilpin. 61. Of the Scriptures, as the Rule of Life. As you advance in years and understanding, I hope you will be able to examine for yourself the evidences of the Christian religion; and that you will be convinced, on ranonal grounds, of its divine authority. At prefent, fuch enquiries would demand more tudy, and greater powers of reasoning, than your age admits of. It is your part, thercfore, till you are capable of understanding the proofs, to believe your parents and teachers, that the holy Scriptures are writings inspired ing, and moft neceffary for your inftruction. Our Saviour's precepts were spoken to the common people amongst the Jews; and were therefore given in a manner easy to be underftood, and equally ftriking and inftructive to the learned and unlearned; for the most ignorant may comprehend them, whilft the wifeft must be charmed and awed by the beautiful and majestic fimplicity with which they are expreffed.. Of the fame kind are the Ten Commandments, delivered by God to Mofes; which, as they were defigned for univerfal laws; are worded in the most concife and fimple manner, yet with a majefty which commands our utmost reverence. I think you will receive great pleasure, as well as improvement, from the hiftorical books of the Old Teftament-provided you read them as an hiftory, in a regular course, and keep the thread of it in your mind as you go on. I know of none, true or fictitious, that is equally wonderful, interefting, and affecting; or that is told in fo fhort and fimple a manner as this, which is, of all hiftories, the most authentic. If the feelings of your heart, whilft you read, correfpond with those of mine, whilft I write, I thall not be without the advantage of your partial affection, to give weight to my advice; for, believe me, my heart and eyes overflow with tendernefs, when I tell you how warm and carneft my prayers are for your Mrs. Chapone. § 62. Of Genefis. I now proceed to give you fome short fketches of the matter contained in the different books of the Bible, and of the course in which they ought to be read. I fhall give you fome brief directions, con-happiness here and hereafter. cerning the method and course I wish you to purfue, in reading the Holy Scriptures. May you be enabled to make the beft ufe of this most precious gift of God-this facred treafure of knowledge!-May you read the Bible, not as a task, nor as the dull employment of that day only, in which you are forbidden more lively entertainments-but with a fin- The first book, Genefis, contains the most cere and ardent defire of inftruction: with grand, and, to us, the most interesting events, that love and delight in God's word, which that ever happened in the univerfe:The the holy Pfalmift fo pathetically felt and de- creation of the world, and of man:--The defcribed, and which is the natural confequence plorable fall of man, from his first state of of loving God and virtue! Though I speak excellence and blifs, to the distressed condition this of the Bible in general, I would not be in which we fee all his defcendants continue: understood to mean, that every part of the vo--The fentence of death pronounced on Adam, lume is equally interefting. I have already faid that it confifts of various matter, and various kinds of books, which must be read with different views and fentiments. The having fome general notion of what you are to expect from each book, may poffibly help you to understand them, and will heighten your relish of them. I fhall treat you as if you were perfectly new to the whole; for fo I wish you to confider yourself; because the time and manner in which children ufually read the Bible, are very ill calculated to make them really acquainted with it; and too many people who have read it thus, without undertanding it, in their youth, fatisfy themselves that they know enough of it, and never afterwards ftudy it with attention, when they come to a maturer age. and on all his race with the reviving promife of that deliverance which has fince been wrought for us by our bleffed Saviour:-The account of the early state of the world:-Of the univerfal deluge:-The divifion of mankind into different nations and languages:The ftory of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish people; whofe unfhaken faith and obedience, under the feverest trial human nature could fuftain, obtained fuch favour in the fight of God, that he vouchfafed to ftyle him his friend, and promised to make of his pofterity a great nation, and that in his feedthat is, in one of his defcendants-all the kingdoms of the earth fhould be bleffed. This, you will eafily fee refers to the Meffiah, who was to be the bleffing and deliver ance of all nations.It is amazing that the Jews, which pronounced the command, and not a delufion, might be made certain to Abraham's mind, by means we do not comprehend, but which we know to be within the power of hir who made our fouls as well as bodies, and who can controul and direct every faculty of the human mind: and we may be affured, that if he was pleafed to reveal himself fo miraculously, he would not leave a poffibility of doubting whether it was a real or an imaginary revelation. Thus the facrifice of Abraham appears to be clear of all fuperftition: and remains the nobleft inftance of religious faithr and fubmiffion that was ever given by a mere man: we cannot wonder that the bleffings beftowed on him for it should have been extended to his pofterity.-This book proceeds with the hiftory of Ifaac, which becomes very interefting to us, from the touching scene I have mentioned--and still more fo, if we confider him as the type of our Saviour. It recounts his marriage with Rebecca-the birth and history of his two fons, Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes, and Efau, the father of the Edomites, or Idoumeans the exquifitely affecting ftory of Jofeph and his brethrenand of his tranfplanting the Ifraelites into Egypt, who there multiplied to a great nation. Mrs. Chapone. Jews, poffeffing this prophecy, among many others, fhould have been fo blinded by prejudice, as to have expected, from this great perfonage, only a temporal deliverance of their own nation from the subjection to which they were reduced under the Romans: It is equally amazing, that fome Chriftians fhould, even now, confine the bieffed effects of his appearance upon earth, to this or that particular fect or profeffion, when he is fo clearly and emphatically defcribed as the Saviour of the whole world. The ftory of Abraham's proceeding to facrifice his only fon, at the command of God, is affecting in the highest degree; and fets forth a pattern of unlimited refignation, that every one ought to imitate, in thofe trials of obedience under temptation, or of acquiefcence under afflicting difpenfations, which fall to their lot. Of this we may be affured, that our trials will be always proportioned to the powers afforded us if we have not Abraham's ftrength of mind, neither that we be talled upon to lift the bloody knife against the bofom of an only child; but if the almighty arm fhould be lifted up against him, we must be ready to refign him, and all we hold dear, to the divine will. This action of Abraham has been cenfured by fome, who do not attend to the diftinction between obedience to a fpecial command, and the deteftably cruel facrifices of the Heathens, who fometimes voluntarily, and without any divine injunctions, In Exodus, you read of a series of wonders, offered up their own children, under the no-wrought by the Almighty to refcue the option of appeafing the anger of their gods. An preffed Ifraelites from the cruel tyranny of abfolute command from God himfelf-as in the Egyptians, who, having first received them the cafe of Abraham-entirely alters the mo- as guests, by degrees reduced them to a state ral nature of the action; fince he, and he only, of flavery. By the most peculiar mercies and has a perfect right over the lives of his crea- exertions in their favour, God prepared his tures, and may appoint whom he will, either chofen people to receive, with reverent and angel or men, to be his inftrument of deftruc- obedient hearts, the folemn reftitution of thofe primitive laws, which probably he had re That it was really the voice of God $63. Of Exodus. Thus did Mofes, by the excellency of his faith, obtain a glorious pre-eminence among the faints and prophets in heaven; while on earth, he will be ever revered as the first of thofe benefactors to mankind, whose labours for the public good have endeared their memory to all ages. Mrs. Chapone. revealed to Adam and his immediate defcend- [ far greater than himself, whom God would. ants, or which, at least, he had made known one day raise up to his people. by the dictates of confcience; but which time, and the degeneracy of mankind, had much obfcured. This important revelation was made to them in the Wildernefs of Sinah; there, affembled before the burning mountain, furrounded "with blackness, and darkness, and tempeft," they heard the awful voice of God pronounce the eternal law, impreffing it on their hearts with circumftances of terror, but without those encouragements, and those excellent promises, which were afterwards offered to mankind by Jefus Chrift. Thus were the great laws of morality restored to the Jews, and through them tranfmitted to other nations; and by that means a great restraint was opposed to the torrent of vice and impiety, which began to prevail over the world. § 64. Of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteremony. The next book is Leviticus, which contains little befides the laws for the peculiar ritual obfervance of the Jews, and therefore affords no great inftruction to us now: you may pafs it over entirely and, for the fame reason, you may omit the first eight chapters of Numbers. The rest of Numbers is chiefly a continuation of the hiftory, with some ritual laws. In Deuteronomy, Mofes makes a recapitulation of the foregoing hiftory, with zealous exhortations to the people, faithfully to worship and obey that God, who had worked fuch amazing wonders for them: he promises them the nobleft temporal bleffings, if they prove obedient; and adds the most awful and strik To thofe moral precepts, which are of perpetual and univerfal obligation, were fuperadded, by the miniftration of Mofes, many peculiar inftitutions, wifely adopted to different ends-either to fix the memory of those past deliverances, which were figurative of a future and far greater falvation-to place inviolable barriers between the Jews and the idolatrous nations by whom they were fur-ing denunciations against them, if they rebel, rounded-or, to be the civil law by which the community was to be governed. To conduct this series of events, and to eftablish these laws with his people, God raised up that great prophet Mofes, whofe faith and piety enabled him to undertake and execute the moft arduous enterprizes; and to purfue, with unabated zeal, the welfare of his countrymen. Even in the hour of death, this generous ardour ftill prevailed; his laft moments were employed in fervent prayers for their profperity, and in rapturous gratitude for the glimple vouchsafed him of a Saviour, or forfake the true God. I have before observed, that the fanctions of the Mofaic law were temporal rewards and punishments: those of the New Teftament are eternal; these last, as they are fo infinitely more forcible than the first, were referved for the laft, beft gift to mankind-and were revealed by the Meffiah, in the fulleft and clearest manner. Mofes, in this book, directs the method in which the Ifraelites were to deal with the seven nations, whom they were appointed to punish for their profligacy and idolatry, and whofe land they were to poffefs, when they had driven out the old ald inhabitants. He gives them excellent 63. Of Joshua. racter was by no means amiable, and we are repeatedly told, that they were not chofen for their fuperior righteoufnefs-" for they were a ftiff-necked people, and provoked the Lord with their rebellions from the day they left Egypt."- "You have been rebellious against the Lord," fays Mofes, "from the day that I knew you."-And he vehemently exhorts them, not to flatter themselves that their fuccefs was, in any degree, owing to their own merits. They were appointed to be the fcourge of other nations, whofe crimes rendered them fit objects of divine chaftifement. For the fake of righteous Abraham, their founder, and perhaps for many other wife reasons, undiscovered to us, they were selected from a world over-run with idolatry, to preferve upon and to be honoured with the birth of the Meffiah amongst them. For this end they were precluded, by divine command, from mixing with any other people, and defended by a great number of peculiar rites and obfervances, from falling into the corrupt worship practifed by their neighbours. Ibid. The book of Joshua contains the conquefts of the Ifraelites over the feven nations, and their eftablishment in the promised land.Their treatment to thefe conquered nations muft appear to you very cruel and unjuft, if you confider it as their own act, unauthorifed by a pofitive command: but they had the moft obfolute injunctions, not to fpare thefe corrupt people to make no covenant with them, nor thew mercy to them, but utterly to defroy them:"-and the reafon is given,-earth the pure worship of the one only God, "left they fhould turn away the Ifraelites from following the Lord, that they might ferve other gods." The children of Ifrael are to be confidered as inftruments, in the hands of the Lord, to punish thofe, whofe idolatry and wickedness had defervedly brought deftruction on them: this example, therefore, cannot be pleaded in behalf of cruelty, or bring any imputation on the character of the Jews. With regard to other cities, which did not belong to thefe feven nations, they were directed to deal with them according to the common law of arms at that time. If the city fubmitted, it became tributary, and the people were pared; if it refifted, the men were to be flain, but the women and children faved. Yet, though the crime of cruelty cannot be juftly laid to their charge on this occafion, you will obferve, in the courfe of their hiftory, many things recorded of them, very different from The hiftory then proceeds regularly through what you would expect from the chofen people the two books of Samuel and thofe of Kings; of God, if you fuppofed them felected on ac- nothing can be more interesting and entertainwount of their own merit: their national cha-ing than the reigns of Saul, David, and So § 66. Of Fudges, Samuel, and Kings. The book of Judges, in which you will find the affecting ftories of Samplon and Jephtha, carries on the history from the death of Jofhua, about two hundred and fifty years; but the facts are not told in the times in which they happened, which makes fome confufion, and it will be neceffary to confult the marginal dates and notes, as well as the index in order to get any clear idea of the fucceffion of events during that period. F lomon |