PART III.

LECT. V.

SECT. I.

EXODUS, ix, 16.

"And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for "to shew in thee my power, and that my name may be "declared throughout all the earth.”

IT

T yet remains to observe, that the Jewish system has been objected to, on grounds distinct from its immediate doctrines, or its direct effects upon the Jews themselves. First, as being partial, wholly confined to one obscure and insignificant nation, and therefore unworthy of a divine interposition, and inadequate to that stupendous apparatus of miracles, by which it is supposed to. have been introduced,

Secondly, as indicating a capricious mutability on the part of God, who (as those, objectors affirm) first promulgated the Mo

saic

saic Law as of eternal obligation; and yet afterwards is supposed to have abrogated it, and introduced the different and even opposite system of Christianity.

To these objections it is answered, first, that the Jewish scheme was never intended merely for the benefit of the Jews alone, but by their instrumentality for the benefit of all mankind, whose instruction and reformation it had the clearest tendency to promote, by exhibiting the most striking proofs of the existence and power of the true God, not only to the Jews themselves, but to all the nations placed in their vicinity or affected by their fortunes; amongst whom were the Egyptians the wisest, the Canaanites the most warlike, and the Phoenicians the most commercial nations of remote antiquity; and afterwards the four great empires of Assyria and Persia, Greece and Rome, which successively swayed the sceptre of the civilized world. So that. whatever knowledge of true religion was preserved amongst mankind, was in all probability principally derived from this source,

or

or at least was from thence materially extended and improved.

A still more decided proof, that the Jewish scheme was designed for and subservient to the general benefit of mankind, is derived from that great feature of it which supplies. the answer to the second objection; even this: That there has been no change in the divine purposes, and no inconsistency between the Jewish and Christian dispensations; but that the Mosaic Law was from the first intended not to be of eternal obligation, but declared to be subservient to, and introductory of the Gospel.

In order to establish the statement advanced in answer to the first objection, by evincing the tendency of the Jewish economy to promote amongst other nations the knowledge of the true God; it is important to remark, that to produce such a tendency is expressly pointed out as part of the divine plan, and as a motive frequently influencing the measures of the divine dispensations. Thus the Jewish legislator represents God as declaring concerning Pharaoh, "In very deed for this cause have "I raised

* Exod. ix. 14.

"I raised thee up, to shew in thee my

power, and that my name may be de"clared throughout all the earth." And when on the impious rebellion of the Jews, after the return of the twelve spies, God proposes to destroy this ungovernable race, and raise from his faithful servant Moses, a nation greater and mighter than they; the Patriotic Legislator in deprecating the execution of the divine menace, employs this topic as the most powerful dissuasive. * "Now if "thou shalt kill this people as one man, "then the nations which have heard the "fame of thee, will speak saying: because "the Lord was not able to bring this people "unto the land which he sware unto them; "therefore he hath slain them in the wil"derness." He then proceeds to entreat, †

* Numbers, xiv. from 11 to 26.

that

↑ The same motive is represented as constantly operating to prevail upon Jehovah, to withhold the full punishment in justice due to the crimes of this wayward people. Thus in his last solemn hymn, in which the Lawgiver exhibits a prophetic sketch of the entire dealing of God with his people; after enumerating the signal punishments which would follow their apostacies, he adds, Deut. xxxii. 26. « I would "scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance " of them to cease from among men; were it not that I "feared

that the long suffering mercy of God may now be exercised. * "And the Lord, said, "behold I have pardoned according to thy "word; but as truly as I live, all the earth "shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." The awful sentence is then pronounced, that the nation shall continue forty years in that wilderness, until "all the men of that evil "generation should perish there" a sentence the miraculous execution of which undoubtedly did, and still does exhibit in the strongest light, the power and justice of Jehovah to all the nations of the earth.

Thus again, when the legislator labours to impress upon his countrymen the observance of the divine laws, he urges a similar motive; "Keep therefore and do them, "for this is your wisdom and your under

standing, in the sight of the nations which "shall hear all these statutes, and say, surely

66

66

this great nation is a wise and understand

g people. For what nation is there so

66 great, "feared the wrath of the enemy, lest the adversaries should "behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, our “hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this."

* Numbers, xiv. 21.

+ Vide this Work, Vol. I. from p. 185 to 193. Deut. iv. from 6 to 9.