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*

"Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out." Or, as their historian Josephus more fully explains it," Con"tenting themselves with the tributes which were paid them, they grew effeminate as to fighting any more against their "enemies; but applied themselves to the cultivation of their “lands, which producing them great plenty and riches, they "neglected the regular disposition of their settlement, and indulged themselves in luxuries and pleasures." And now the Lord sent an angel unto them, who reminded them of the divine command: "I said, ye shall make no league with the in"habitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars; but

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ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this? "Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods "shall be a snare to you;" or, as it is more fully expressed in another passage where the sacred historian relates, that on account of their evil ways, "the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and he said, Because this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and "have not hearkened unto my voice; I also will not henceforth "drive out from before them, of the nations which Joshua left, "when he died that through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord, to walk therein as their "fathers did keep it, or not. Therefore the Lord left those "nations without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he "them into the hand of Joshua."

Thus God continued his miraculous agency only so long as was indispensably necessary to introduce and settle the Jewish nation in the land of their inheritance, and establish this dispensation, so as to answer the purposes of the divine economy. After this, he gradually withdrew his supernatural assistance; he left the nation, collectively and individually, to act according to their own choice, not unnaturally and violently counteracting their moral character, and destroying their free agency. The people, at the rebuke of the Lord, mentioned above, "lifted up "their voices and wept, and they sacrificed there unto the "Lord." 66 But," says Josephus, "though they were in heaviness at these admonitions from God, they were still very * Vide Josephus's Antiquities, Book V. sect. vii.

"unwilling to go to war." Yet though thus left to themselves, the effect of the wonders they had already seen, and the discipline they had been trained under, produced on that generation a decisive and permanent effect; “For the people served the Lord "all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that out"lived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that " he did for Israel."

Indeed we cannot desire a stronger proof of the zeal of the whole nation for the observance of the divine Law, than the transaction between the two tribes and a half who were settled beyond Jordan, and the remaining tribes; on the termination of the general war against the Canaanites, and the dismissal of the several tribes to their respective inheritance. Here we see the two tribes and a half building an altar at the passage of Jordan, a pattern (or after the pattern) of the altar of the Lord.* The remaining congregation, alarmed at the idea of this being a rebellion against God who had commanded that there should be only one altar for all his people, prepared to punish it by instant war, but first send ambassadors to expostulate; "Thus saith "the whole congregation of the Lord, What trespass is this that ye have committed against the God of Israel, to turn away "this day from following the Lord, in that you have builded you "an altar, that ye might rebel this day against the Lord? Is "the iniquity of Baal Peor too little for us, from which we are "not cleansed to this day, although there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord? and it will be, seeing that ye rebel "against the Lord, that to-morrow he will be wroth with all "the congregation of Israel." And the two tribes and a half answered: "The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods "knoweth, and Israel he shall know, if it be in rebellion, or if "in transgression against the Lord (save us not this day) that

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we have built us an altar; but that it may be a witness "between us and you, and our generations after us, that we "might do the service of the Lord, before him; that your "children may not say to our children, Ye have no part in the "Lord. God forbid that we should rebel against the Lord, and "turn this day from following the Lord, to build an altar for "burnt-offerings, for meat-offerings, or for sacrifices, besides the "altar of the Lord our God before his tabernacle." So deep * Joshua, xxii.

was the impression which the judgments of God had made on the whole nation; so watchful their anxiety to fulfil the Law, and avoid the wrath of Jehovah, at once their Sovereign and their God; and so gross is the misrepresentation of Mr Gibbon,* when he asserts, that "the cotemporaries of Moses and Joshua “beheld with indifference the most amazing miracles." 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 incon sistent 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 objection. Establishment of the kingly government a confirmation of the authenticity of the Pentateuch-Why desired by the people-Why permitted by God Theocracy preserved under the 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-From his conduct confirms the divine original of the Mosaic Law-Schism he introduces consistent with that beliefGave 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 interposition 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 speak, 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 "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 ;t 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 influence 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 habitua ting them to look up immediately to his protection, without terposing 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 elapsed from the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan by

It is not easy to be accurate in the statement of these periods of prosperity and good conduct, adversity and punishment; because that sometimes part of the

VOL. II.