*

which could outrage humanity, so it encouraged and sanctioned the basest pollutions. The Jewish Legislator enumerates in the black catalogue, the crime against nature, bestiality, incest, adultery, in a word, every crime of this kind which can disgrace and degrade human nature; and adds, "Defile "not yourselves in any of those things, for " in all these the nations are defiled which I "cast out before you, and the land is "defiled; therefore I do visit the iniquity "thereof upon it, and the land itself vo"miteth out her inhabitants: therefore shall

ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit. not any of those abominable customs which "were committed before you, and that ye de"file not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God." The means by which the Midianitish women, at the instigation of a wicked king and a false prophet, † seduced the Jews first to indulge in impurity, and then to apostatize to idolatry; the influence of his foreign

*Lev. xviii.

+ Vide Numbers, xxv. compared with xxxi. particularly 16.

Vide 1 Kings, 11.

*

foreign wives on Solomon, and of Jezabel

on Ahab, afford striking proofs of the necessity of rooting this depraved and impious race, from the land in which the Jews were to settle, as a preparation necessary to preserve the chosen people of God from the contagion of their crimes and their idolatry; and explain the necessity of the command so solemnly proclaimed by the Jewish Legislator, so far as it respects the Canaanites: "When the Lord thy God † "shall deliver these nations before thee, "saith the Lord, thou shalt smite them and "utterly destroy them; thou shalt make "no covenant with them, nor shew mercy "unto them, neither shalt thou make marriages with them, for they will turn away thy sons from following me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of "the Lord be kindled against thee, and destroy thee suddenly."

166

Such were the idolatry, and such the crimes of the Canaanites, which no examples of previous judgments had been able to corThe terror of the deluge had been

rect.

1

long

* 1 Kings, xvi. 31.

† Deut. vii.

long forgotten: the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the very midst of the land of Canaan, had been disregarded the instruction and example of Abraham and the patriarchs had produced no effect. These crimes and apostacies grew with their growth, and strengthened with their strength, till at the time of the invasion of the Jews, *" their "iniquities were full," and their obstinacy incorrigible. In vain did they hear of the divine terrors, exhibited in the plagues of Egypt, the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, the miraculous passage over Jordan, and the overthrow of Jericho. A single nation, (the Gibeonites,) submitted to renounce idolatry, and court the protection of the Jews. Far from feeling any disposition to imitate their example, this submission roused the rage, and accelerated the confederacy, of the remaining Canaanites. against the Jews: "For the king of Jeru↑ "salem sent unto all the surrounding kings, saying, come up unto me and help me, that we may smite Gibeon, for it hath "made

VOL. II.

* Joshua, x. 3.

E

+ Compare Genesis, xv. 16, with Lev. xviii. 25.

"made peace with Joshua and with the "Children of Israel."

The idolatry, the depravity, and the incorrigibleness of the nations of Canaan, being such as we have now seen, can we make it a question, whether the moral Governor of the universe acted consistently with his justice and mercy, in exterminating this people, and planting in their stead a nation, in which the worship of the one supreme God and the principles of moral virtue were to be preserved, and from whence the light of true religion, and the mercies of the Christian scheme, were in due time to be diffused over the whole civilized world?

If the Deist objects to the believer in revelation, because he conceives it inconsistent with the divine attributes, that such should be the declared scheme and manifest interposition of Providence in the Scriptures; on the very same ground may the Atheist object, that in the natural course of things, which the Deist contends is regulated by the secret providence of God, whole nations are frequently cut off, and succeeded by those who have destroyed them; and that to

suffer

suffer such destruction to take place, or allow the conqueror to reap any advantage. from it, disproves the justice and mercy of the supposed Ruler of the universe; or rather proves, that no such Ruler exists, but that. blind chance, or mere human agency, determines the fates of nations and the course of events. Undoubtedly the Deist will truly reply, that we generally perceive impiety and depravity prepare the way for the destruction of states; and that, though the conquerors sometimes appear little superior in religion or morals to the conquered, yet in the progress of time, we frequently discern *moral good arising from this troubled scene; and, that the various revolutions of nations have contributed in what seems to

*

My readers will probably be as much gratified as Į have been, at seeing the principle here stated, advanced in the most attractive form, and adorned with all the charms of numbers, by the late Rev. J. D. Carlyle, in his beautiful poem written on the banks of the Bosphorus; a scene, as he observes, celebrated " for transactions which embraces the "most interesting parts of human history," and from which the author satisfactorily illustrates the moral deduction here maintained; teaching men to

"Hail that Power, whose gracious will
"Wakes the tempest, pours the flood;
Taught by him, each germ of ill

"Blossoms in expansive good."