SECTION II. IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, WHICH IS THE BASIS OF ALL TRUE RELIGION, THE JEWISH PEOPLE, WHEN THEY WERE OBEDIENT, WERE A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS, AND CHRISTIAN PEOPLE ARE A HOLY PRIESTHOOD. It will be remembered, that at the period when God delivered the Jews from the bondage of Egypt, the knowledge of himself as the one living and true God, was nearly obliterated from the earth. How little men are to be trusted with the oral perpetuation of any thing which relates to God and his service, appears from the fact, that this first element of religious truth, though it was entitled, in antiquity and authority, to hold the highest place, having been communicated clear and full, from each successive fountain of human existence-Adam and Noah; though it was professed and taught, in their respective generations, by patriarchs of high renown; though it was declared from day to day by the heavenly bodies, in the regularity and harmony of their movements, and the unity of design apparent in the one great system Ꭱ which they compose; was yet,-by those who, in time and place, were contiguous to the patriarchs, who made the heavens their study, and who boasted of their wisdom,-either altogether unknown, or, what is worse, practically denied, and systematically excluded from the attention of the people. To none more fully than to the Egyptians, amongst whom the arts and sciences were cradled, and, as recent investigations demonstrate, were reared nearer to maturity than had once been supposed, do the statements of the Apostle, when writing to the Romans, apply: "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."* That generation of the Israelites which God delivered from Egypt, carried with them, together with many of the vices which slavery generates, the infection of the idolatries by which, in the land of their bondage, they had been encompassed. This circumstance formed * Rom. i. 21-23. one reason why they were not immediately conducted by the direct and trodden route to the land of promise. It was necessary that they should be purified from the contagion of idolatry themselves, and be fully instructed in the knowledge of God, before they were led onward to dispossess the guilty nations which defiled the land, in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had once built their altars to the Lord. In the process of purification, nearly the whole of those who had grown to maturity in Egypt passed away; and it was the generation which had been trained in the wilderness, cut off from all other nations, whether barbarous or refined, enjoying the institutions of God's appointment, and beholding daily the displays of his power and goodness in their miraculous supply, which was made meet to enter the land which had been promised, and enjoy it as their settled possession. And if obedience to God is the best proof of being enlightened in the knowledge of him, they gave practical demonstration of their intelligence and illumination. "And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel."* The period of the Jewish history * Josh. xxiv. 31. which they filled up, is therefore subsequently referred to in language peculiarly bold and expressive: "Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the first-fruits of his increase.”* The whole people, then, at this period, whether compared with the Egyptians whom they had left behind, or with the Canaanites whom they were about to dispossess, resembled, being enlightened in the knowledge of God, "a kingdom of priests." And means were taken to perpetuate this national religious superiority; to render the Jews, occupying, as they did, a central situation among the rising empires of the earth, the light of the world, the people enjoying, and diffusing around them, the knowledge of the true God. Oral communication had been corrupted. The stream of tradition, clear as crystal in its origin, had, by the successive influx to its channel of every species of earthly admixture, entirely lost its original character; and as it rolled on through the regions of the earth increasing in population, instead of discharging its feculence, became the common receptacle of every thing which was impure. Science had lent its power to arrange and systematize the rude and shapeless materials of the popular idolatry; to commend it to the patronage of sovereigns and statesmen; to enthrone it in gorgeous temples; to invest it with the mantle of venerable sages, the fascinations of genius, and the blandishments of sensual delight. What tradition had failed to preserve, and recreant science had proved itself rather unwilling than unable to restore, was now embodied in a written revelation, in pages which were invested with the attribute of immortality; in oracles which might be dis regarded, but which could never be bribed, nor corrupted, nor silenced. To the Jews were committed these oracles of God; and, at whatever period of their history they listened and were obedient to them, they became, in comparison with their neighbours around them, "a kingdom of priests." They had amongst them the light which could never be totally extinguished, and which occasionally shone with a radiance which penetrated the surrounding regions of darkness, and produced the cheerful anticipation of the dawn of an universal day. quiwond has boa hos:beautibod There were, however, two circumstances, each |