Dispensation, Jehovah was pleased to reveal himself to a devout person since known as the patriarch Abraham, who was required in the first instance, as relying upon the promise of God to take care of him, that he should abandon his paternal connections and go to a land which God would give him. Though Abraham knew not whither he was to go, he did not hesitate, but left his father's house and kindred and went forth a pastoral wanderer until he came into the land of Canaan, which Jehovah then announced to him was the land he had promised to give him.

At this time both Abraham and his wife were far advanced in years and without any child, yet when Jehovah promised that an innumerable posterity should descend from him, Abraham relied with such implicit confidence upon the ability of Jehovah to do what he had promised, that in everlasting memorial of the fact, that intellectual reliance upon the promises of Jehovah is the most acceptable service that man can render before God, the Scriptures state, (Gen. xv. 6,) "Abraham believed in Jehovah, and he counted it to him for righteousness." Thus recognizing that great principle of faith in Jehovah's promises, by which mankind as intellectual creatures may ever avail themselves of any grace or mercy that he may see fit to offer to their acceptance.

In consequence of the great faith manifested on various occasions by Abraham, Jehovah made a covenant with him and his future posterity, of which the seal was circumcision, and among other rewards and privileges it was announced to him that "in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed." In this prediction was revived that promise concerning the Messiah that had been originally made to Adam and Eve three thousand years before. It was however now made known to Abraham not only with a distinct annunciation of its object, as being to the blessedness of the whole human race, but I apprehend also with an express intimation as to the principle through which it should be accomplished. This has been urged with great plausibility by Tillotson, Serm. iv. 394, and Warburton, Div. Leg. lib. vi. sec. 5, as a strong inference from the proposed sacrifice of Isaac, (Gen. xxii. 1-19,) at which time they suppose Jehovah communicated to him that the Messiah would suffer death, as prefigured in the case of Isaac.

What may have been the peculiar religious or moral observances of the covenant established with Abraham, we know not, as the Scriptures are wholly silent on the subject, but that certain particulars were appointed for the observance of Abraham and his

family is evident from what Jehovah said to Isaac. (Gen. xxvi. 5.) "Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, my laws." See also Gen. xviii. 19. The inference is also sustained by Gen. xvi. 1, where Jehovah says to Abraham, "walk thou before me and be thou perfect."

To this covenant with Abraham the right of circumcision was appointed, which as it constituted a very important subject in the peculiarities of the Jewish Dispensation at a later day, we deem it advisable to make some observations on it at the present time when the rite was first instituted; for the Jews practiced circumcision not as an appointment of Moses, but as being the children. of Abraham, with whom Jehovah had made a covenant and his seed after him. Gen. xvii. 9-14.

Concerning the rite of circumcision, as in all other ceremonial appointments of God's laws, the Scripture give us no information whatever as to its rationale or significance. All we learn from Scripture is that it was the seal or outward mark of the covenant that Jehovah made with Abraham, by which he and his posterity became entitled to the privileges that the Creator of all things condescended to offer to all such as would comply with the requirements that he proposed to their free agency. That circumcision was unattended by any sacramental grace, may be very distinctly inferred: first, from the absolute silence of the Old Testament as to any such influence, and secondly, from the rite itself, which as being restricted to males, would under such a notion imply the withholding of grace from the female sex. As we cannot believe the spiritual welfare of these last to be of less importance in the sight of God than the former, we cannot under the total silence of the Old Testament ascribe any spiritual influence to accompany the rite of circumcision. This view is still more confirmed in the fact, that all male slaves belonging to a Jew were required to be circumcised. (Gen. xvii. 13.) It would be wholly unreasonable to suppose that the grace of God was to be extended to male slaves, or captives made in war, which at the same time was withheld from Jewish females, the undoubted descendants of Abraham.

Abraham is the first person recognized in Scripture as a prophet of Jehovah, for in that character he was expressly announced to Abimelech.-Gen. xx. 7.

It is unnecessary to enlarge upon any of the after particulars of Abraham's history. A son was born to him when a hundred years old, and the promise of Jehovah was gradually fulfilled in

the numerical increase of his posterity. Jacob, grandson of Abraham, descended into Egypt with a family of seventy persons of all ages, where they greatly multiplied under the protection of the Pharaoh who first received them. A change of dynasty among the Egyptians seems to have taken place afterwards, under which the descendants of Abraham endured a most grievous bondage. Ultimately Jehovah delivered them from this cruel servitude by the ministry of Moses, who led them on to the possession of the land of Canaan, which Jehovah four hundred years previously had promised Abraham should be the inheritance of his posterity.

CHAPTER NINTH.

INVESTIGATIONS CONCERNING THE JEWISH DISPENSATION AND HOW

THE JEWS ACTED UNDER ITS REQUIREMENTS.

IN consequence of the extreme brevity with which the Scripture has related the events of human history previous to the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt, we have only had a few prominent particulars from the Paradisiacal and Patriarchal Dispensations, for illustrating the condition of mankind as involving in its developments the contingencies of human free agencies.

In the Scripture account of the Jewish Dispensation which wer are now about to investigate, the probationary condition of mankind has been illustrated by such a variety of details, so specific as to their object and so manifest as to their results, that we can perceive with the utmost distinctness every important principle pertaining to a satisfactory comprehension of the scheme of God's purposes with mankind, however much it has been perplexed by speculations of theologians concerning his omnipotence, omniscience and other abstract perfections.

The intellectual and moral phenomena of human nature as developed under the Jewish Dispensation, has been so little appreciated by the Christian world, that the ordinary belief is, that the Jewish people were the most perverse and intractable race of men that have ever lived. This erroneous conclusion has arisen partly from the gross oversight of Christians as to the true character of the covenant institutions of the Jewish people as addressed by God to them in their intellectual and moral capacities as free agents, and partly because we can fully appreciate the perverseness and folly of their conduct, in the fact of having their history and its results whether for good or for evil, exhibited in the Scriptures during the lapse of several thousand years. But whatever may have been the misconduct of the Jewish people, it ought to have occurred to the least reflection, that since they were men precisely like ourselves in every particular, with the same aversions, desires, hopes and fears, so the phenomena of their misconduct can only be referred to the peculiar conditions of things under

which as men they had exhibited their free agency on the common standard of human nature.

To rightly appreciate the phenomena that characterized the intellectual and moral developments of the Jewish people under the covenant that God made with them, we must, in the first place, comprehend their intellectual and moral condition' from the time when Jehovah commenced to deliver them from their bondage in Egypt until their permanent establishment in the land of

Canaan.

As already stated at page 215, we have no special information as to the particulars of the requirements of the covenant that God made with Abraham. Neither have we any information as to the religious belief or its practical obligations which Jacob and his immediate descendants brought with them into Egypt. That the God of Abraham was their God, was undoubtedly recognized by the continual administration of the rite of circumcision, and we must also presume that prayer and sacrifices were made to him as such by all devout Israelites. We have, however, a very unfavorable view as to any restraining influences which their belief exercised over them through the history of various particulars stated in Scripture concerning the conduct of Jacob's own children.

During the time that the Jews sojourned in Egypt, we have no information concerning their religious or moral conduct. But we can safely infer they were there exposed to various influences that operated injuriously on them to a greater or less degree, and which should be distinctly appreciated.

In the first place, as Egypt was at these times the most prosperous and powerful kingdom in the world, the Jews were exposed to all the seductive influences of an imposing idolatrous system, abounding in sensuous exhibitions, expressly devised to make the deepest impressions on the imaginations of the spectators as to the power and greatness of the gods thus worshipped.*

Secondly. We have no reason to suppose the Jews paid any particular attention to the preservation of the purity of their descent. As Joseph and Moses had no objection to marry foreign women, we may presume that other Jews, whether male or female, intermarried with Egyptians of the lower castes, or with other heathens around them according to their inclinations or interests.

That the Jews had worshipped the gods of Egypt before they came into the land of Canaan is evident from Joshua xxiv. 14. See also Amos v. 25, 26; Ezek. xxiii. 8, 27, who seemingly charge them with practising idolatry even in the wilderness as they came out of Egypt.