covenant. The captive people saw, in the humiliation of their country, only the accomplishment of prophecy and the punishment of their transgressions, and looked forward for their restoration to repentance alone. Such is the confession of Ezra; "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift

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up my face to thee, my God: since the

days of our fathers have we been in a "great trespass unto this day; and for our "iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests been delivered into the hand of "the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day*." Such also is the solemn humiliation of the people after their return to Jerusalem, exhibiting as strong a conviction as language can express of the cause of their national misfortunes, and showing that their faith in the Author of their law had been violated, but not destroyed. "Thou, even thou, art "Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the "heaven of heavens, with all their host, "the earth, and all things that are therein, "the seas and all that is therein, and thou

* Ezra, ix. 6.

"preservest them all; and the host of "heaven worshippeth thee*." This sublime declaration, to which it would be vain to look for a parallel beyond the pale of revelation, is followed by a circumstantial review of the selection, the transgressions, and the punishment of the Hebrew nation; and whoever can read this confession, and still believe that the faith it expresses, which remained unimpaired through so many centuries and survived such heavy calamities, was originally grounded on a false assumption of legislative power, must have, to say the least, a very inadequate idea of the nature of moral evidence.

SECT. VII.

On the Principles of Hebrew Morality.

I HAVE hitherto traced the superiority of the Mosaic law, in the principles it inculcated, and the practical worship it enjoined towards the Supreme Being. There is another light in which it remains to be viewed, viz. as a system of relative duties. It is probable, that from a consideration of this point also we may obtain some assistance to our inquiries. For, although it is true that the great rules of morals, being necessary to the existence of human society, can be in no communities wholly unknown, and in civilized states have been generally well understood; yet it is likewise to be acknowledged, that a nation professing, like the Israelites, to live under the immediate direction of divine Intelligence, would be expected to enforce a purer morality, to practise duties unknown to others, and to avoid errors admitted elsewhere. That this was the exact case among the Jews, many authors have made

and it

it their peculiar object to prove would require a discussion evidently inap plicable to the business of the present Treatise, to elucidate the subject at large. It will be more to my purpose to point out an instance or two, in which there is not only a difference between the Jewish and other institutions, but precisely that difference which a sense of the immediate superintendence of the Deity would occasion *.

First, the authority which Moses exercises, and exercises to all appearance unconsciously, is of a sweeping and extensive nature unattempted by other legislators: In all other civilized communities the moralist and the lawgiver have had a separate character and province. The lawgiver for bids the overt act, and says, Thou shalt not steal; the moralist lays a restraint on the secret intention, and his language is, Thou shalt not covet. The lawgiver issues his decrees against such open vice as is inju

* The punishment of idolatry as a capital crime, is conformable to the general tenour of the Hebrew law, as a theocracy: in any other view, unaccountable. This has been treated at large by Warburton.

·

rious to society; the moralist does not stop there, but inculcates virtue. The lawgiver threatens punishment; the moralist goes farther, and holds out such rewards as are within his view; whether the approbation of conscience, or of good men, or of an all-seeing God; whether the elevation of the noblest faculties of the soul, or the certainty of future retribution. The laws of Solon and of the twelve tables established the rights of individuals, and provided against their open infringement; but it remained for Socrates and Cicero to prescribe personal duties; and to point out the many cases in which the morality of an action might be eminently defective, even whilst the letter of the law was precisely obeyed. Our modern statutes issue such enactments as the rights of persons and of property require; but they leave it to the divine to enforce charity, and to repress covetousness or avarice, on other and widely different considerations.

If we analyze the matter, the reason will appear no less evident than the fact is notorious. The legislator is himself essentially the subject of the community; and