Divine retaliation, employed to pronounce that all nature will be visited by the curse of God that ample seed would yield scanty produce, and the trees bear no fruit, sinco the locust, the cricket, and the vermin, blast and mildew would destroy the vintage and the harvest; that the sky would be like brass, and the earth like iron; that sand and dust would descend instead of rain and dew; that man and beast would be afflicted with barrenness; that pestilence would rage with every fearful and incurable disease, and the minds of men be overwhelmed by confusion, anguish and madness; but it was distinctly declared, that the land of the Hebrews would be deluged by foreign hosts whom "God should bring from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, and whose tongue they would not understand"; that they would suffer the most terrible sieges, when, in helplessness and despair, they would "eat of the fruit of their own bodies, the flesh of their sons and their daughtors", and refuse to grant a share of the horrid food even to their noarest and most beloved kinsmen; that their corpses would lie unburied and unheeded; and that then the land would be occupied by the relentless onemy, who would seize their houses and vineyards, their flocks and hords, carry away their wives, their sons, and daughters, their kings and chiefs into a strange country, there to suffer distress and want and ignominy, and to be scattered among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other, yea to be sold again into Egypt as bondmen, though despised and rejected even for the meanest services, till their name became a horror and a byword among all nations: all this was sure to befall them if they swerved from Johoval and His precepts; and all transgressors were warned not to indulge in the delusion of being exempted from the awful chastisements of idolatry. So faithfully did the authors of the Pentateuch describe, as eye-witnesses, the fearful misfortunes that crushed Israel and Judah in the Assyrian and Babylonian periods.

3

But it is not enough to acknowledge Jehovah as the only God;' He must be adored under no visible form whatever, not by any image, figure, or likeness, whether of man or woman, of beast or bird, of fish or reptile;" because, according to the writer's account, the people, when communing with God at mount Horeb, had only

1 Deut. XXVIII. 15-68; Levit. XXVI. 14-43.

2 Comp. vers. 15, 20, 45, 47, 48; comp. also Deut. IV. 25–27; VI. 14, 15; VIII. 19, 20; XI. 16, 17; XXX. 17, 18; 1 Ki. IX. 6---9.

3 Deut. XIX. 16-21.

4 Exod. XX. 3; Deul. V. 7; comp. Isai. XLII. 8; ele.

Deut. IV. 16-18; comp. ver. 25; V. 28; Exod. XX. 4; Isai. XI. 18; XI.VI. 5.

7

14

6

9

heard a voice, but seen no figure. Moreover, nearly all the manifold forms of idolatry which prevailed among the Hebrows in the author's times, or had been practised by them in formor periods, were individually interdicted the worship of the heavenly bodies, of sun, moon and stars, of Ashtarte with her licentious service, and of the animals hold sacred by the Egyptians, 10 the worship on "high places", and the erection of altars and images, statues and memorial stonos for idolatrous purposes, 12 while their absolute destruction, wherever they should be found, 13 was commanded with such uncompromising severity that not even the gold or silver with which they wore mado or adornod, was allowed to be used, but was to be detested like a curse and an abomination; nay the Canaanito tribes themselves were to be extirpated, and all alliances with them scrupulously shunned, lest they should seduce the Hebrews to adopt their gods and their superstitions. 15 The Pentatouch forbids incisions and other mutilations of the body customary among heathens; 10 it brands divination and enchantment, witchcraft and magic, incantation and necromancy, 17 which arts, if practiced secretly, are menaced with excision, if publicly, are to be punished with death by stoning, 18 since they belong to those abominations, on account of which the tribos of Canaan had been doomed to perdition, 19 and which would preclude the Israelite from being "perfect with his God."20 But if donouncos the hoinousness of human sacrifices with a vohemenco of indignation which proves at once how deeply they wore dotested by the onlightened, and how invetoratoly they were uphold by the mass of tho Israelites. It ordains that any man, whother a stranger or a Hobrow, who offers up his child to Moloch, shall be stoned to death, for "he has defiled the Sanctuary of the Lord and His holy name"; it adds that, if anyone encourages, were it only by his silence, such deeds of horror, God threatens, "I will set My face against that man, and against his

Deut. IV. 12, 15; comp. Exod. XX. 18-21.

7 Deut. IV. 19; XVII. 3; Lev. XXVI. 30; see also Jer. X. 2. 8 Deut. XVI. 21.

9 Lev. XIX. 29; Deut. XXIII. 18, 19; comp. 1 Ki. XXII. 47; 2 Ki. XXIII. 7. 10 Lev. XVII. 7; XVIII. 3; Dent. XXXII. 17.

11 Lev. XXVI. 30; comp. Ezek. VI. 3; XX. 29.

12 Exod. XX. 23; Lev. XIX. 4; XXVI. 1; Deut. XVI. 22.

13 Exod. XXIII. 24; XXXIV. 13; Num. XXXIII. 52; Deut. VII. 5; XII. 2, 3;

comp. Isai. XXVII. 9; 2 Ki. XVIII. 4; XXIII. 24.

14 Deut. VII. 25, 26; comp. Isai. XXX. 22.

15 Exod. XXIII. 32, 33; Deuter. VII. 2-4, 24; XX. 16-18; comp. Exod. XVII. 14; 1 Sam. XV. 2, 3.

16 Lev. XIX. 28; XXI. 5; Deut. XIV. 1. 17 Exod. XXII. 17; Lev. XIX. 31; Num. XXIII. 23; Deut. XVIII. 10, 11.

19 Lev. XX. 6, 27; 1 Sam. XXVIII. 3, 9; 2 Ki. XXIII. 21.

19 Deut. XVIII. 10, 11; comp. 2 Ki. XXIII. 24. 20 Deut. XVIII. 13.

4

family, and will cut him off and all that go astray after him, from among their people" 1 an addition which renders it evident that, on the part of the peoplo, an indulgont connivance at the ritos of Moloch was to be apprehended; and it repeats the same injunction with sustained omphasis; while the prophets invoigh against the revolting practice with implacable bitterness, and predict, as an inevitable punishment, death and pestilence, affliction and mourning, and general desolation,3 famine in sieges and disaster in battles, subjection and ignominy." Thus, in spite of the perpetual and decided prevalence of idolatry, there always existed among the Hebrews a small band of clear-sighted men, who by a fine intuition were capable of forming purer notions, and often proclaimed them at the peril of their lives; they were the "holy seed" that was to grow into a towering tree; they were the spark that was to light the torch of progress; for long epochs their voice was heard in isolated accents only, in prophetic speech, such as the requiremonts of the moment called forth; till at last thoir doctrines wore laid down in a collectod codo, if not systomatically, at least comprehensively, enjoined with earnestness and authority, and, if necessary, shiolded by the arm of worldly power. Therefore, while other nations romainod sunk in suporstition and disappeared tracelessly as soon as they had lost their national independouce, the Iebrows, from the beginning endowed with the germ of intellectual advancement, flourished and developed their true strength in exile and persecution. By adopting. the canon of the Scriptures, compiled and sanctioned by their spiritual leaders, they were familiarised with the ideas that had so long been preached in vain, and which found a welcome support in the influence of the almost Puritanical spirit of the Persian religion suffering no image or representation of its deities. Then the task could be undertaken, so consistently accomplished in the Books of Chronicles three or four generations after Zerubbabel, of composing the anterior history of the Israelitos from a Lovitical point of view, of treating it in accordance with the principles set forth in the Pentateuch, and of colouring, nay of modifying the narrative of the events by a constant regard to the observance or neglect of the "Mosaic Law." A lator work, the Book of Daniol, writton in the second century before the prosont ora, and carrying the throad down to the last years of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, represents the complete triumph of the worship of Jehovah over that of all idols, and describes how even heathen kings,

4 Jer. XIX. 1-13; XXXII. 35.

5 Ezek. XVI. 36 sqq.

See 1 Chr. III. 19—24.

lost in the grossest superstitions, are forced to acknowledge the grandeur and the supremacy of the God of Israel, and to command His service within their dominions.' And this glorious and fondly cherished hope is finally realised in the Books of the Maccabees, especially the first, which record the exploits of the champions of Israel's faith, and the persecution and partial annihilation of idolatry, and which disclose the firm hold which the Pontatouch, hallowed by the authority of the name of Moses, had then already gained upon the thoughts and the lives of the Jews. 8

XXV. CONCLUSIONS AND GENERAL REMARKS ON THE THEOLOGY OF THE PAST AND THE FUTURE.

Ir would be a matter of regret to us if the proceding observations, misleading attentive and impartial readers, wore understood by them to imply an unqualified vindication of the doctrines of the Hebrow prophots and the Pentateuch. Such an inferenco would be oqually opposed to the tenour of our deductions and to truth. It has been our object fairly to contrast the purer views and procepts of a more enlightened class among the Hebrews with the idolatrous habits preserved by the bulk of the nation from the earliest to the latest time. But though we could not but represent the former as immeasurably superior, we have as yet found no occasion for pronouncing an opinion on thoir absolute truth. We now propose to ontor upon this enquiry, which wo rogard as the chiof object of this treatise, and to which all antorior sections wore meant to be preparatory. We shall, at present, not enlargo upon the question of the date and age of the Pentateuch, though it might be almost conclusively settled from the facts already adduced; but leaving this momentous point for future and special discussion, we shall confine ourselves to an examination of the theology of the Pentatouch and of those historians and prophets, whose writings ombody the conceptions of the most advanced of the nation. It has too long been customary, oven for liboral and acuto critics, merely to comment on the facts contained in the Bible, and to weigh the degree of reliability they merit, while the ideas and the teaching have either been declared final for all times, or have at least been tacitly assumed as unimpeachable. The time, however, has arrived for abandoning this questionable course, for determining by a searching and calm enquiry the positive value of the notions curront in the Scriptures, and for

7 Compare, among other passages, Dan. II. 47; III. 28–30; IV. 31—34; V. 23; VI. 11, 26-28.

8 Comp. 1 Mace. II. 17----25; IV.43; V. 68; X. 83, 81; XIII. 47, 48.

Comp. Sectl. III, XV, XXIII.

ascertaining by a candid estimate, how far they satisfy the modern mind and correspond with the philosophical and scientific results of the last centurios. This task will either show the entire sufficiency of the Bible for all our spiritual needs; or, if it lead to a different conclusion, it will prove an essential preliminary to constructing a system of theology that shall be in harmony with our general modes and habits of thought, accord with the achievements of science and with the ordinary tonour of modern life, and which shall thus beneficently influence our conduct and progress.

In our age, we are accustomed to look upon every occurrence as the natural and inevitable consequence of human action, or of some other circumstance with which it is connected. We attempt to trace effects to adequate causes. Unchangeable laws regulate the life of individuals and nations, and proscribe the course to universal history. The gradual dovolopment of mankind is the necessary result of the abilitios, energies, and passions inherent in mon. The happiness of the individual doponds, in a great monsuro, on his mental and physical organisation; it is the ordinary concomitant of healthful vigour of body and mind, as wretchedness is the usual fate of weakness and morbidness. Prosperity is the combined product of personal exertion and favourable opportunity. Man is, therefore, in some respects, a free agent, but in a much higher degree, he is a croature of necessity. The works which he produces result from the talents he possesses, and from the activity he is able or willing to display. They are prompted by that internal impulse which is inseparable from his idiosyncrasy. He is capable of improvement and advancement, as he is liable to retrogression and decline. He labours as his powers bid him; he succeeds according to the measure of his gifts or of his usefulness; and he finds his chief reward in the consciousness of having zealously cultivated and honestly employed . his faculties.

If, with these notions which underlie our whole life, we turn to the Scriptures, we are at onco struck by a differont sphere of thought, a strange and unfamiliar spirit. Forced away from the circle of ideas which guide us in our daily pursuits and roflections, we are abruptly transferred to conceptions and views, which indeed occasionally touch a sympathetic chord, whether from their poetical and imaginative beauty or from the ineffaceable impressions of childhood, but which our maturer manhood finds it impossible to acknowledge and to adopt. The affection for a venerable tradition that may linger in our hearts, at last yields to the severor truths dictated by our intellects.