66 tural supply at hand, immediately they exclaim; "Ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assein"bly with hunger." Although that terror was removed by a regular supply of food from heaven, yet this continued miracle did not prevent them from feeling an exactly similar terror, when a short time after, they found themselves without water to drink. Again they exclaim ;+ " Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children, and "our cattle, with thirst?" And afterwards, when they found the people whom God commanded them to invade, were great and powerful, and their cities strongly fortified, their past experience of the divine protection did not yet convince them that God was able in this new difficulty to secure them conquest and success. On the contrary, they were filled with total despair, and determined to rebel against their Lawgiver, and return into Egypt. Now, with such a people, how little influence would the remote and invisible, and therefore to them uncertain or incredible, sanctions of a future state possess? How little would they avail, in opposition to the temptations of vice and the allurements of idolatry? Indeed the only mode of promulgating that important doctrine of a future retribution, with effect, seems to have been that (which the Jewish history, assures us was adopted;) even preparing the way for it, by a continued system of extraordinary Providence, fully proving to both Jews and Gentiles, that the Supreme Jehovah possessed the will and the power to punish vice and reward virtue with the strictest justice. This conviction once confirmed by long experience and unquestionable facts, they would be prepared to believe that the same immutable Divinity would display the same justice in a future state, when that extraordinary Providence should be withdrawn, which had been hitherto employed as best suited to the infancy of mankind, and the peculiar circumstances of the chosen race. But formally to annex the sanctions of a future life to a system of laws, which declared that it was to be supported in every part by an extraordinary Providence, distributing immediate rewards and punishments, appears not only unnecessary, but inconsistent. It would have seemed as if the Legislator who appealed to the sanction of an extraordinary Providence, was yet secretly conscious that his pretended expectations would not be verified by fact; and therefore craftily provided a supplementary sanction, to com Exod. xvi. 3. † Exod. xvii. 3. Numbers xiv. pensate for this deficiency, by denouncing future rewards and punishments; as to which, no human being could certainly discover whether this denunciation was really fulfilled or not. Thus the nature of the Jewish theocracy, and the character of the Jewish people compared with the purposes that theocracy was intended to effect, and the temptations against which that people was to be guarded, seem sufficiently to account for the sanction of an immediate and extraordinary Providence being employed to support the Mosaic Law, rather than the rewards and punishments of a future state. To support such a theocracy an extraordinary Providence was indispensably necessary. The Deity would be degraded, if supposed to command as an immediate sovereign, without enforcing immediate submission. Add to this, that all national obedience and national transgression could, as such, be recompensed only by national prosperity or national punishment. These therefore God their sovereign undertook to dispense with exact justice ;-a wonderful and awful sanction, altogether wanting in every other state. Inferior magistrates were empowered to inflict punishments for such offences against morals, and such violations of the religious constitution, as they could take cognizance of; in the same manner as similar magistrates in other states. But here, and here only, the Supreme Sovereign, even God himself, undertook to supply every defect in all inferior administrations, and reward every man according to his works, as immediately and conspicuously as any civil magistrate could possibly do; employing therefore for this purpose immediate and temporal sanctions. In a word, in this polity, offences against the state, and against individuals, were also offences against religion; because the entire Jewish Law was in every part equally the law of God. As, therefore, offences against the state, and against individuals, in this as in every other community, must be restrained by immediate punishments, not merely by the terrors of a future state; so, in order to preserve consistency, and prove that God was really equally the author of the entire system, he undertook to support every part alike, by an exact distribution of temporal sanctions. The sanctions of a future life were therefore in such a system, not only unnecessary, but were foreign from its design, and therefore omitted by its inspired author. But surely the promulgation of a system of Laws thus circumstanced, could not originate from any source but a divine authority. For it manifestly could not be maintained for any length of time by any but a divine power-controlling when necessary the course of nature, and the conduct of man, to accomplish its purposes and execute its will. The confirmation which the evidence of Revelation derives from the extraordinary Providence exercised over the Jews, is not the only good effect resulting from it. In this dispensation, mankind are enabled to discern the principles and the process of that moral government, which God exercises over nations, even in the course of his ordinary providence: which undoubtedly dispenses public prosperity and public calamity, and regulates the rise and decay of empires, on the very same principles which are so strikingly displayed in the history of the chosen people. The divine interposition in the general government of the world is indeed conducted by the regular operation of secondary causes, and therefore more silent and unseen than the course of that extraordinary providence then exhibited; but it is not therefore less certain, or less effective. In this part of sacred history the judgments of God are distinctly and solemnly exhibited for the instruction of man. Here we are convinced by experimental and decisive proofs, that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of "men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will;"*"that wisdom " and might are his ;"+ "that the race is not to the swift, nor "the battle to the strong;" for it is the Lord of Hosts who governs the hearts of kings, and subdueth the strength of the "mighty;""He hath purposed, who shall disannul it? his "hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?" "Who "hath hardened himself against him, and prospered?" In a word, in the history of the Jewish state this great truth is clearly and powerfully impressed-That as "righteousness exalteth a "nation," so "sin is the reproach of any people :"** a lesson which, but for the immediate and extraordinary providence displayed in this awful dispensation, could never have been so forcibly inculcated, or so clearly understood. 66 Dan. iv. 17. § Job, xii. + Ibid. ii. 20. ** Proverbs xiv. 3 Eccles. ix. ll. ¶ Ib. ix. 4. SECT. II.-Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children.—In what sense to be understood-Not unjust-Necessary in a theocracy, as far as relates to temporal and national punishments—Chiefly denounced against idolatry—In this case not only just but merciful-Human tribunals not permitted by the Mosaic Law to act upon this prin ciple-Why-Analogous to God's general providence—A dispensation of mercy rather than severity-Limited in its extent and application, EXODUS, XX. 5, 6. "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation of "them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my "commandments." : THE consistency and necessity of temporal sanctions in the Jewish Law, we have endeavoured to establish, in the last Section if with success, we derive from this a clear and easy answer to the objection which at first appears to arise from the denunciation, "That God would visit the sins of the fathers "upon the children, to the third and fourth generations of them "that hate him; and show mercy unto thousands of them who "should love him, and keep his commandments." The only circumstance that makes this denunciation appear severe or unjust and this promise unreasonable, is the supposition, that the sanctions of a future state are understood; which it would certainly be repugnant to the divine justice to suppose should be distributed according to such a rule as this. But this objection altogether vanishes, the moment we are convinced that the reward and punishment here meant, relate only to outward circumstances of prosperity and distress in the present life. Because, if such a sanction was necessary in the particular system of providential administration by which God thought fit to govern the Jewish race, it is evident any equality as to individuals would be certainly and easily remedied in a future life;* *We cannot but believe this to be the case, in many instances of divine judg ment recorded in the sacred history as in the children of Achan involved in the punishment of his violation of the divine anathema, Joshua, vii. 24, (though it is possible they may have seen his conduct, and by concealing it, been parJakers of his guilt ;) and in the punishment denounced in consequence of the so that each should receive his final reward exactly according to his true merit in the sight of God, and "thus the Judge of all "the earth do right." Now it seems undeniable that such a sanction was a necessary part of the Jewish polity, so far as this required a providential distribution of national rewards and punishments. These affecting the great mass of the people, and extending through such portions of time as were necessary to give them their full efficacy in forming the national character, could not be confined within the limits of a single generation; or exclude from their operation each private family in succession, as the heads of that family might drop off, whose conduct had originally contributed to swell the mass of national guilt, or contribute to the progress of national improvement. Thus when it became necessary to chastise the Jewish idolatry by a captivity of such a length as might permanently reform it, (which was the result of the captivity in Babylon,) a period of seventy years was found scarcely adequate to this effect. Thus the sins of the parents were necessarily visited on the children to the third generation, so far as related to national suffering. Yet surely we cannot derive any impeachment against divine justice or mercy, from a dispensation which placed the children of the guilty in a situation so favourable for their moral and religious improvement, by checking the crimes of their parents; while those individuals, who, though exempt from the national guilt, might yet be swept away in the overwhelming torrent of national calamity, would meet abundant compensation for their unmerited sufferings, by the favour of their God in another and better world. olatries of Jeroboam, Baasha, and Ahab, involving their entire posterity. At least in the instance of Abijah, the son of Jeroboam, this recompense seems to be more than obscurely hinted at. On his falling sick, Jeroboam's queen disguises herself, and repairs to Ahijah the prophet; who though blind with age, is enabled by God immediately to discover her, and to announce to her that God would destroy the whole house of Jeroboam; and in particular, that the moment she entered into the city to her own door, her son should die; and it is added, 1 Kings xiv. 13. "And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him; for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave," (i. e. obtain regular burial) "because him there is found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel, in the pouse of Jeroboam." On this fact can we believe the reflecting Jews even Lea understood that the only recompere to this child's goodness was his dying of |