DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4641#0010
2 ISRAEL.
prosperity declared to depend on the public reverence for its principles, the national ruin involved in
its desertion. Its conception was lofty, pure, and spiritual in the highest degree, while its ceremonial
exceeded in strictness and splendour all that mankind has ever seen of worship — a whole tribe was
devoted to the attendance of the temple — the whole people stood among nations as a general priesthood;
religion, the unrivalled, perpetual, and inspired impulse of the dominion of Israel.
The contrast is not less distinct in the polity of paganism. The codes of the most civilised
nations were the result of time, accident, and the common necessities of public and personal life.
Beginning in a few maxims, they grew with the exigencies of growing society, until they accumulated
into substance, and were shaped into form. But the defects of their birth adhered to them still; and
their purest legislation exhibits barbarian cruelties, violent transgressions of right, and a general rude
inadequacy to meet the claims of man in his intercourse with man.
The political history of the pagan world is an exclusive display of human agency. Man is always
in front. States rise by his virtues, and perish by his crimes; human energy, genius, and passion, are
the universal instruments of national change. The hand of Heaven is seen only when it comes to write
the sentence of empire, and then seen only in clouds.
To the eye of the pagan, the vicissitudes of nations formed scarcely more than a vast game of chance.
Beyond a few principles all was conjecture. The clearest foresight was circumscribed by the events of
the day. No intelligence, however vigorous, could securely penetrate into the future fates of empires.
In all those essential features, the distinction of the Jewish people was entire, and was divine.
Their law was no tardy, obscure, and jarring compilation; it was a System; at once authoritative,
adequate, and complete ; transmitted with a grandeur of circumstance which pronounced it the work of
Heaven; and fixed in the national mind by every motive which can bind men or nations; by the
promise of prosperity and the dread of suffering; by the awe of the senses, the homage of the heart,
and the conviction of the understanding.
In the career of the nation, Divine Providence is the guide, the sustainer, and the sovereign. The
popular fortunes are openly moulded by its will. Man looks on, while the mightiest events make their
progress before him, scarcely more governed by his influence than the tides or the thunderstorm. Heaven
holds the scale, man is but the dust of the balance. Battles are lost and won, conquests are achieved,
and national punishments of the deepest kind, amounting to revolutions which extinguish the hope of
Israel, are the work of Providence, openly proclaiming its resolves, in total contradiction to human
expectancy, and as openly fulfilling them in total independence of human power.
Two great agents t wholly unknown, but by name, to pagan antiquity, Miracle and Prophecy, are
the especial instruments of the Divine government among this extraordinary people. From the beginning
of their existence, in the person of Abraham, the faculties of nature and man are placed under palpable
control. The patriarch and the people are protected, tried, and delivered, by miraculous interposition.
From the earliest period, their future existence is displayed with the clearness of history; and yet, with
that sublime consistency, which in its broadest displays of power and wisdom wastes nothing, each
successive illumination is distinctly adapted to the necessities of the time. To Abraham, the founder of
the race, the prediction gives an outline of the fortunes of his descendants, until their liberation from
Egypt. To Jacob, with whom another era of the national existence began, as the father of the twelve
tribes, the prediction is renewed, but further extending over their possession of the promised land. To
prosperity declared to depend on the public reverence for its principles, the national ruin involved in
its desertion. Its conception was lofty, pure, and spiritual in the highest degree, while its ceremonial
exceeded in strictness and splendour all that mankind has ever seen of worship — a whole tribe was
devoted to the attendance of the temple — the whole people stood among nations as a general priesthood;
religion, the unrivalled, perpetual, and inspired impulse of the dominion of Israel.
The contrast is not less distinct in the polity of paganism. The codes of the most civilised
nations were the result of time, accident, and the common necessities of public and personal life.
Beginning in a few maxims, they grew with the exigencies of growing society, until they accumulated
into substance, and were shaped into form. But the defects of their birth adhered to them still; and
their purest legislation exhibits barbarian cruelties, violent transgressions of right, and a general rude
inadequacy to meet the claims of man in his intercourse with man.
The political history of the pagan world is an exclusive display of human agency. Man is always
in front. States rise by his virtues, and perish by his crimes; human energy, genius, and passion, are
the universal instruments of national change. The hand of Heaven is seen only when it comes to write
the sentence of empire, and then seen only in clouds.
To the eye of the pagan, the vicissitudes of nations formed scarcely more than a vast game of chance.
Beyond a few principles all was conjecture. The clearest foresight was circumscribed by the events of
the day. No intelligence, however vigorous, could securely penetrate into the future fates of empires.
In all those essential features, the distinction of the Jewish people was entire, and was divine.
Their law was no tardy, obscure, and jarring compilation; it was a System; at once authoritative,
adequate, and complete ; transmitted with a grandeur of circumstance which pronounced it the work of
Heaven; and fixed in the national mind by every motive which can bind men or nations; by the
promise of prosperity and the dread of suffering; by the awe of the senses, the homage of the heart,
and the conviction of the understanding.
In the career of the nation, Divine Providence is the guide, the sustainer, and the sovereign. The
popular fortunes are openly moulded by its will. Man looks on, while the mightiest events make their
progress before him, scarcely more governed by his influence than the tides or the thunderstorm. Heaven
holds the scale, man is but the dust of the balance. Battles are lost and won, conquests are achieved,
and national punishments of the deepest kind, amounting to revolutions which extinguish the hope of
Israel, are the work of Providence, openly proclaiming its resolves, in total contradiction to human
expectancy, and as openly fulfilling them in total independence of human power.
Two great agents t wholly unknown, but by name, to pagan antiquity, Miracle and Prophecy, are
the especial instruments of the Divine government among this extraordinary people. From the beginning
of their existence, in the person of Abraham, the faculties of nature and man are placed under palpable
control. The patriarch and the people are protected, tried, and delivered, by miraculous interposition.
From the earliest period, their future existence is displayed with the clearness of history; and yet, with
that sublime consistency, which in its broadest displays of power and wisdom wastes nothing, each
successive illumination is distinctly adapted to the necessities of the time. To Abraham, the founder of
the race, the prediction gives an outline of the fortunes of his descendants, until their liberation from
Egypt. To Jacob, with whom another era of the national existence began, as the father of the twelve
tribes, the prediction is renewed, but further extending over their possession of the promised land. To