it possible for a man selfishly to contemn others on account of a privilege or distinction which he holds on the express condition of imparting it, by every means of persuasion, to all around him? No one surely can, at the same moment, be diligently scattering a benefit and exulting in his exclusive possession of it.

The scheme of religious sentiment contained in the Scriptures, wants then only to be received, such as it is, without deduction-without addition; and to be received as the object of personal feeling, and it becomes altogether benign in its influence. Experience may be appealed to in proof of this assertion; but our present purpose demands that we turn to the Inspired Writings, and examine, in a number of instances, the character and tendency of the sentiments they recommend. We have also to ascertain, if it can be done, what were the personal dispositions of the writers; and to see whether those who promulgated this religion were themselves free from the malign temper of the Fanatic.

The

Peculiar considerations enhance the importance of the inquiry we have in hand. fact (already adverted to) is not to be denied, that the Jewish people, from the period when their affairs find a place on the page of general history, exhibit an extraordinary instance of national religious rancour, and stand forth almost as THE FANATICS by eminence of the ancient world.

It becomes then a question by

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means frivolous-When did this malign temper first make its appearance; and whence did it derive its special motives, and its aggravations ? Now fairly to deal with such a question, we should of course look to the religious institutes of the people, as contained in their sacred writings, as well as examine the facts and circumstances of their subsequent history. The latter we have already briefly considered; the former is now our business.

Nothing is at any time to be gained in the behalf of religion by attempting to screen the Inspired Books from the fair scrutiny to which as historical documents merely, they may be liable. If the pious frauds and forgeries that once were accounted lawful and praiseworthy, are to be shunned and spoken of with detestation; so, doubtless, should we avoid and renounce all those indirect procedures in matters of argument, which partake of the same spirit. Whoever is so happy as to possess an intelligent conviction of the divine origin of the Bible, feels himself free from the anxiety which has its source in ignorance and infirmity of judgment.

We have before remarked that the influence of a system is not to be judged of by the single elements it may contain; but by that balance of motives for which it provides. Let then this Pages 273-280.

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equitable principle be borne in mind while we take a survey of the Jewish institutions (so far as they relate to our subject) and of the revelations that were, in the course of ages, grafted upon the Mosaic economy.

The first grand peculiarity of the Hebrew polity, civil and sacred, was (it need hardly be said) the seclusion of the race from the great community of mankind.-Now it is certain that a privileged seclusion, and especially a sacred one, tends, on the ordinary principles of human nature, to beget unsocial and fanatical sentiments. This general truth might be admitted, even in the fullest extent, and room would yet be left to allege, that an incidental or possible evil of this sort was well compensated by the momentous purpose of which that separation was the necessary means;-the purpose being nothing less than the preservation in the world of the doctrine of the Divine Unity, and the maintenance of a pure moral code as the law of an entire people. But we leave untouched any such ground of apology, and prefer to askIn what style or terms was the seclusion of the Hebrew race effected? The answer must be, that it was brought about in a mode so mortifying to the common emotions of national pride, that the endurance of it on the part of a rude and factious people is no slender proof that the Legislator, in the first instance, and

after him the Prophets, were sustained in the exercise of their authority by miraculous powers. Nothing can be imagined more vehemently at variance with the usual practice and policy of founders of nations, or more unlike the tones of patriotic bards, than is the language incessantly repeated by Moses, and by the inspired teachers, as they succeed each other through the course of ages. One is actually tempted to suppose that he and they aimed at nothing so much as to feel and ascertain the extreme limit of their power over the popular mind, by outraging to the utmost its self-love and vanity.

Whatever momentary objurgations might have had place between the Hebrew leader and the refractory tribes that followed him into the desert, or whatever terms of reproach might have been used by him on particular occasions, it did not seem necessary that such expressions of indignation- almost of scorn, which the provocation of the time called forth, should be recorded and should be mingled inseparably with the national code and history, and so be handed down to posterity. Unless a definite and very peculiar object had been in view, what Legislator, guided by common sense, would have so enhanced the probability that his code should soon be consigned to oblivion as is done by inserting, almost on every page throughout his Institutes, the most

obnoxious and disparaging epithets, and the most humiliating narrations?-Surely a higher wisdom than that of the human legislator is here apparent; or else there is less wisdom than the most simple of mankind are gifted with. Are we not compelled to confess, if the case be attentively considered, that a special provision is made in the Pentateuch for counteracting that national arrogance which the favoured seclusion of the people was of itself likely to engender? This same code of sacred privilege, and of separation from the bulk of mankind, which the priests were enjoined perpetually to rehearse in the ears of the peoplethis Law, which was not only to be cherished in the heart, but to be "taught diligently unto children-to be talked of in the house and in the way-in lying -in lying down, and in rising up; which was to be bound as a sign upon the hand, and as frontlets between the eyes, which was to be inscribed upon the door-posts and upon the gates of the city :"+-this same law, so reiterated, and so forced upon the memory, carried with it incessant and pointed rebukes of the national vanity. It was one thing for Moses to have pungently upbraided a contumacious populace in moments of sedition; and quite another for him to consign these same reproaches to perpetuity, by weaving them into his history, and by wedging them between his Deut. vi. 6, 7, 8; and xi. 18.