* and their God; and so gross is the misrepresentation of Mr. Gribbon, when he asserts, that "the cotemporaries of Moses "and Joshua beheld with indifference the most amazing mira"cles." The very reverse of this assertion is evidently the truth. SECT. II.-The conduct of the Jews, subsequent to the death of Joshua, is not inconsistent with the divine original of the Mosaic Law-Situation of the Jews under their judges, adapted to the purposes of the divine economy-Expediency of placing them in this situation-Severity of the punishment inflicted by Providence for their offences, no valid objectionEstablishment of the kingly government a confirmation of the authenticity of the Pentateuch-Why desired by the people- Why permitted by GodTheocracy preserved under their kings-Illustrates the nature of the divine control over the Jews-And of the Jewish character-Both show the credibility of the Jewish idolatries, notwithstanding the divine original of the Mosaic Law-Separation of the ten tribes an apparent objection -Its origin-Idolatry of Solomon-Inference from it as to the idolatries of the Jews-Separation of the two kingdoms, why expedient-How effected-Its natural tendency-Abused by Jeroboam-Even his conduct confirms the divine original of the Mosaic Law-Schism he introduces consistent with that belief—Gave occasion to manifest the divine providence, in the history of the ten tribes-Effects of this separation on the two tribes-Instanced in the history of Abijah—Of Rehoboam— Of Asa-Of Hezekiah-General reflection on the providential government of the Jews-On the caution to be exercised in estimating the characters described in the Old Testament-And the effects of the Jewish scheme. In the former section we noticed the strong impression which the divine interpositions had made on those who were witnesses of them; insomuch, "That the people served the Lord all the "days of Joshua, and of the Elders who outlived Joshua, who "had seen the great works of the Lord." That this impression however, should not be permanent enough to preserve the Jews from corrupting their religion and their morals, by imitating the idolatries and vices of the Canaanites, their neighbours, will not seem wonderful, if we consider that the Jews were, at this period, mere children in moral and religious conduct, as is most evident from the whole tenor of the Scripture narrative. They were very inattentive to the history of past transactions, so that many of the very next generation after Joshua, "knew *Vol. I. ch. xv. p. 457. not," that is, they considered not, and therefore acted as if they had not known, the wonders which God had wrought for Israel. The temptations to intermarry with their neighbours, and adopt their manners and worship, were too powerful for their unsteady and carnal minds: the beauty of the women of Canaan; the pomp and gaiety of their festivals; the voluptuousness of their impure rites: the hope of gratifying their curiosity for prying into futurity, by idolatrous divinations; the overpowering fears impressed on their souls by idolatrous superstition; their anxiety to conciliate the favour of those divinities, who were represented to them as the peculiar guardian gods of the country which they were newly settled in; these and other similar motives, adapted, if I may so apeak, to childish understandings, childish feelings, and childish appetites, demanded an immediate and strict discipline to counteract their influence, and preserve, amidst this backsliding and unstable people, the main principles of religion and morality, notwithstanding their continual propensity to corrupt the purity of both. And we evidently perceive, that the system of divine government exercised over the Jews, under their judges, was exactly adapted to their situation and their moral character; for the sacred history relates,* that "the children of Israel dwelt "amongst the Canaanites, and took their daughters to be their "wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served "their gods, and did evil in the sight of the Lord. And the 66 66 anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he sold "them into the hands of their enemies, as the Lord had said, "and as he had sworn unto them: and they were greatly dis"tressed. And when they cried unto the Lord, he raised up "judges; and then the Lord was with the judge, and delivered "them out of the hands of their enemies all the days of the "judge. And it came to pass when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their "fathers; and ceased not from their own doings, nor from "their stubborn way." That the government of the Israelites required this occasional interposition of God, in appointing the supreme magistrate, appears, as well from the tenor of the sacred history, as the testimony of Josephus,+ who remarks, "That as they got large tributes from the Canaanites, and were "indisposed for taking pains, by their luxury, they suffered their * Judges, ii, iii. Joseph. Antiq. Book V. sect. vii. "aristocracy to be corrupted also; and did not ordain them"selves a senate, nor any other such magistrates as their laws "had formerly required." Here then either the Divinity must have incessantly interposed, never suffering a moment to pass without placing at the head of the Jews a vicegerent supported by all the terrors of the divine power, to restrain them forcibly from yielding to their idolatrous and vicious propensities, thus counteracting their whole moral character; a mode of procedure altogether unexampled in God's government, and indeed it should seem inconsistent with the very idea of a moral governor; or, he must altogether have abandoned them to the influ. ence of those propensities, which would have speedily plunged them irretrievably in idolatry and vice with the rest of the world, and defeated the entire purpose of the divine economy; or, lastly, he must have taken that course which the sacred history declares he did, appointing occasionally vicegerents, as circumstances called for their interposition; and supporting the authority of his law, by thus visibly controlling the nation, and proportioning their prosperity and adversity to the degree of obedience which they voluntarily yielded to that law; and habituating them to look up immediately to his protection, without interposing any permanent human authority on which they might be too apt exclusively to depend, and thus forget their God. Such was the system of divine administration over the Jews under their judges. Thus the chosen people, who were, as it should seem (like all the nations of that period) mere children in religion and morality, were treated as children, kept in a state of tutelage under the constant guardianship and occasional correction of their heavenly Father;. taught to feel experimentally their total dependence upon his protection; taught to feel that none of their chiefs or elders possessed power or wisdom to govern and defend them, except as they were raised to the supreme authority, and maintained in it by God himself. That this system was as effectual in securing the obedience of the Jews to the divine law, as from their situation and character we could reasonably expect, may appear,, when we recollect, that of four hundred and fifty years which * It is not easy to be accurate in the statement of these periods of prosperity and good conduct, or adversity and punishment; because that some Q elapsed from the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan by Joshua, to the first election of a king in the person of Saul, when taken together, distinct from the intervals of occasional relapses into idolatry, above three hundred and fifty seem to have passed under the government of the various judges, whom God raised up at different periods, to recall his people from their errors, and retain them in the observance of his Law; and 66 times part of the children of Israel transgressed the divine Law, and were punished distinct from the rest. Thus it is recorded, Judges, x. 7, 8. "That "the Lord delivered Israel into the hands of the children of Ammon, and they oppressed them eighteen years, all the children of Israel which were "on the other side Jordan, in the land of the Amorites." Something similar to this appears to have been the case in the deliverance wrought by Shamgar, Judges iii. 31; and even the servitude to Jabin, king of Canaan, Judges, iv. 2, does not appear to have been universal, though it is said he mightily oppressed the children of Israel; for it is said, "Deborah judged "Israel at that time." But the following periods appear to have been clearly periods of tranquillity, during which the Israelites lived under their own law. From the time when Joshua took the whole land, and the land rested from war, Joshua, ch. xi. 23, about 1445 years before Christ, to the time when God delivered them into the hands of the king of Mesopotamia, about the year A. C. 1410 Judges, iii. 11-the land had peace under Othniel iii. 30-under Ehud and his successors v. 31-under Deborah and Barak, and their suc 35 years. 40 ditto. 80 ditto. 40 ditto. 40 ditto. 23 ditto. 22 ditto. 7 ditto. 7 ditto. 10 ditto. 8 ditto. 25 ditto. 337 Without taking into the amount the forty years during which Eli had judged Israel, 1 Sam. iv, 18, during which the worship of the true God, and the observance of the law, had been in a great measure preserved, though not perfectly; this would make the period during which the law of Moses was the regular established religion of Israel, 377 years out of the 450 under the Judges; and it must be recollected, that it was always the religion of probably a great multitude of the people, though the public idolatry of others brought down the judgments of God: and above all, let it not be forgotten, that those idolaters did not renounce the worship of Jehovah, but only added to it the worship of idols. They corrupted, but never entirely forsook, their national religion; and such corruption never implied any doubt of its divine original, or any positive disbelief of the Mosaic miracles. If, with Usher in his Chronology, and others, we suppose the periods of tranquillity above to have been only partial, we must also admit the idolatries through the entire period of the Judges to have been also partial, and the argument will be unaffected. that during the lives of each of these judges, there was no material apostacy from the national religion, and no material interruption of the public tranquillity and prosperity by these punishments, which always attended such apostacy. It is peculiarly necessary to notice this circumstance, because, by a superficial reader of the sacred history, the whole period under the judges may be easily mistaken as one uninterrupted series of idolatries and crimes; from his not observing that the lapses which incurred punishment, and the divine deliverances which attended repentance, are related so fully and distinctly as to occupy almost the entire narrative; while very long periods, when, under the government of their judges, "the people "followed God, and the land enjoyed peace," are passed over in a single verse, as productive of no occurrence which required a particular detail. The situation of the Jewish nation, during the government of its judges seems calculated to promote the efficacy of that system of discipline under which it was placed, by the very circumstance which at first view appears most repugnant to it, the want of a close union and common interest between the different tribes. If, on the one side, this prevented them from regularly uniting under a common leader, except when such a one was pointed out by some clear manifestation of the divine will in his appointment, and divine aid in his support, and thus left them both as tribes and individuals, to do what was "right in their own eyes," ,"* without any immediate visible and regular control; this very circumstance on the other hand, enabled the Deity to exhibit more conspicuously the operation of that particular providence, which he had declared should distribute temporal prosperity and calamity according to the degree of obedience or disobedience to the Mosaic Law, which not only the people collectively, but each distinct tribe and family should manifest; and thus gradually imprint more deeply on the whole nation the necessity of obedience to the divine will, by examples within their immediate observance, and the full force of which they could distinctly comprehend. Now the exercise of such a particular providence over a numerous and widely-extended nation, where one supreme government from the very first had uniformly controuled the entire, and rendered each tribe and family less obviously the masters of their own conduct, must * Judges, xvii. 6. |