Mosaic laws which otherwise might appear strange, if not frivolous. Thus, in the twentythird chapter of Exodus, it is enacted, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." This may be designed to teach the beauty of mercy, in opposition to cruelty; but when we learn that it was the custom of the surrounding heathen to boil a kid in the milk of the dam, and then with magical incantation to go around the garden or farm, and sprinkle the trees or plants, to make them more fruitful, we can but imagine that this law was aimed against that foolish superstition.

There is also a law, in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, as follows: “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads; neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.” This also is aimed against a superstitious observance of some idolaters, one of the peculiar marks of whom, according to Herodotus, was this custom, forbidden by this special law.

Another instance of a special enactment, in this case indirectly designed to prevent idolatry, is found in the law requiring a person who bound himself to be a slave for life, to have his ears bored through with an awl. Now, all the idolaters around the Jews were accustomed to

wear in their ears amulets, or charmed rings, as they considered them, by which, consecrated to their gods, they expected to be preserved from evil. How effectively did Moses aim a deathblow at this folly, by making the ear bored a mark of a slave !*

We might specify other instances; but these must suffice. A complete examination of the Mosaic law would require a volume,-its great plan we wish only to present. The more it is studied, the more evident will its wisdom appear. All its minute requirements harmonize with and are necessary to its great purpose, and are worthy of the source whence they sprung,—the wisdom and mercy of Jehovah, our God, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Those laws still exist. The enactments which expressed the abstract duty of man to God, and of man to man, are still in force. The ceremonial law has been fulfilled in Christ, and is no longer obligatory. It was a schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ; but now we have the great Teacher. The civil law has passed away with the nation, and will never be revived; but the moral law was observed before it was here enacted; it is a transcript of God's will, and must be binding as long as the earth shall stand, or even man exist.

Our argument upon the Mosaic law may be summed up briefly as follows :

1. Its civil requirements are just, comprehensive, and admirable, such as no mere man like Moses could have devised at once, and, if of human origin, would have required years for their composition, like other human laws, enacted successively, as circumstances should have required them. But, given in the infancy of a nation, by a man occupied with the care of government, they demand our belief in his supernatural direction.

2. The ceremonial law of Moses, in all its minute requirements, exhibits to us one prevailing purpose, namely, to communicate just and exalted conceptions of God; and also to repel and render ridiculous all heathen superstitions and worship.

3. The Mosaic law, as a whole, is an admirable composition; in every respect perfect, and worthy of its avowed author, the God of Israel and the Creator of the world. We have pronounced it perfect, because it was perfectly adapted to its holy object; and yet we believe that as the human race has advanced, the former dispensation has been superseded by a broader and higher manifestation of God's will, in the Christian dispensation.

CHAPTER XII.

THE GREAT COMMISSION AND HISTORY OF THE

ISRAELITES.

We have examined, to some extent, the laws of Moses, and also his prophecies; we propose now to consider his great commission, and, more particularly, the narrative of the early history of the Israelites.

It is certain that the Israelites were commanded by Jehovah to exterminate, by fire and sword, the Canaanites. They were commanded to wage against them an offensive and a destructive war. They were not to spare, but utterly

. to remove the population from the face of the earth. Such was the exact tenor of their commission; yet it must be acknowledged that it was known to Jehovah from the beginning that these commands, in all their rigorousness, would not be speedily and fully executed. A portion only of the Canaanites were destroyed; and this, we may infer, was the original design of Je. hovah.