The happy consequences of religious knowledge, were not confined to this nation. They were introductory to blessings of which the Gentiles were to become partakers. The repeated annunciation of these facts, in conjunction with the moral history of the Pagan -world, represents the Deity as universally benewolent, by a conduct which, upon a superficial view, may appear to have been arbitrary and partial.

The diffusion of religious knowledge, in a manner perfectly adapted to the laws of human nature, and the respected freedom of the human will, are objects worthy of the Deity, and of the relative character he sustains with all his intelligent offspring; and they forcibly teach human beings to respect themselves.

These truths have been rendered so conspicuous in the preceding epitome of the Jewish history, that further enlargement will be unnecessary.

II. As the plan was worthy of God, thus was his superintendence, both ordinary and extraordinary, requisite for its accomplishment. No one can deny the utility, or even, the absolute necessity, of those occasional appearances to the patriarchs, at the commencement of this impor

tant process, in order to call them forth from the general mass of mankind, to direct their steps, confirm their faith, and ensure their obedience. If it be admitted that the removal of the Hebrews from a state of bondage in Egypt, and placing them in the land of Canaan, was an important part of the divine plan, the credibility, nay, the necessity of an extraordinary and miraculous interference, must also be admitted. For we cannot suppose that any means simply natural, would have been influential to remove them from a country, where they and their ancestors had sojourned for the space of four hundred years; and where they had been accustomed to long and debasing habits of subjection. Their inspectors, and task masters, their native ignorance, and the extreme servility of their state, precluded the possibility of any united. and personal exertion. They could not conspire, much less could they act. Their important services, and their being employed in the most laborious and degrading offices, rendered it highly interesting, both to the Egyptians and their sovereign, to detain them in the land of their bondage. No voluntary concessions or courtesies could be expected from these quarters; and by what strong chain of natural events could upwards of two millions of people thus

situated, be at once wrested from the grasp of tyranny? What could possibly induce the people themselves to consent, with one voice, to follow a leader who must have been unknown to a very large majority of them; and whose absence of forty years must have rendered him a stranger to them all? The dangers, difficulties, and wants to which they were exposed on their journey, and during their residence in the wilderness, required a miraculous interposition. Their organization as a nation that was to be distinct and independent; the wisdom that pervaded their political institutions; the purity of all their religious ordinances, without a single model for imitation, manifest the importance and necessity of a divine superintendence.

A people themselves grossly ignorant, surrounded by nations ignorant, depraved, and superstitious in the extreme, must have required a power superior to their own, to preserve them from the influence of the examples they were so prone to imitate. In what could this power consist, but in juster conceptions of a Deity, of duties, and of obligations, enforced by promises and threats adapted to their situation? Whence could these be derived but from the grand source of all knowledge and instruction? Moses, it is true, was educated in all the wisFf

dom of the Egyptians, but this wisdom would not have made him a Monotheist. It would not inform him that the only living God, the creator and sole governor of the universe, possessed every perfection natural and relative; that he indispensably required the strict observance of every moral virtue; and that he would invariably punish and reward, according to the moral deserts of his people. The Egyptian superstitions would not have inspired those sublimities of devotion whích christians themselves have never equalled; with those rules of religious discipline, and maxims of political justice, which christians admire more than they imitate.

Upon the death of this leader, it was necessary that the same principles should be perpetually inculcated by precept and example, and be rendered efficient by the influence of encouragements or of terror. If this be admitted, a succession of holy men, and of prophets, in the manner which has been amply stated, must have been essential to the grand plan of their preservation. Such perpetual requisites could not be expected from natural sources, during these ages of deep ignorance and depravity, but it is easy to advert to a source whence they could be copiously supplied.

The various miracles wrought during the Babylonish captivity, strange as they may ap pear to have been, vindicate their authenticity by the circumstances which called them forth; and by the beneficial purposes to which they were subservient. It was through their operation that the divine plan received its final accomplishment.

Notwithstanding the miracles recorded in the old Testament appear, in their collected state, to have been numerous, yet when we reflect that not less than fifteen centuries elapsed, from the commencement to the final accomplishment of the divine plan, respecting the Jewish nation, we have reason to be surprised at the comparative paucity of their number. After those occasional appearances to the patriarchs, natural causes were permitted to operate for a series of years, without any ostensible intervention of the Almighty. In the cruel treatment received by Joseph from his brethren; his being sold for a slave; being stationed in the house of Potiphar; his exciting the impure desires of a lascivious woman by his personal attractions; and his subsequent imprisonment from a spirit of revenge, we perceive the subserviency of human passions to the purposes of God. When Joseph rfo