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Untitled Article
records and genealogies , entrusted to the care of a single but very numerous tribe , and by it preserved with superstitious reverence . There necessarily arose with the lapse of ages , out of this antiquated letter , a kind of liner sense , with which the Jews became familiar during their frequent dispersions among other nations . In the canon of their Holy Scriptures were found songs , moral sayings , and elevated discourses , which , though written at different times , on the most different occasions , were gradually incorporated into one collection , which was soon looked upon as making up one progressive system , and from which one predominant sense was drawn . The prophets , as the constituted guardians of the national law , each in his own peculiar sphere of thought and conception , now instructing and encouraging , now warning or comforting , but always with a strong expression of patriotic hope , set before the people a description of what they were destined to become , but as yet were not ; and , in these fruits of the mind and heart , conveyed to posterity many seeds for new ideas , which each individual might rear in his own way . From all this had gradually sprung the hope of a king , who should restore his fallen race , and commence a new and better era . In the language of the prophets , these views were adapted to their notions of a theocracy , and the united characteristics of a Messiah were wrought up into a glowing ideal . In Judaea the increasing misery of the people strengthened their hold on these consolatory visions ;
in other countries , as for example , in Egypt , where , since the foundation of Alexandria , many Jews resided , these ideas developed themselves more after the Grecian manner ; apocryphal books , which gave a new representation to the prophecies , were also in circulation ; and now the crisis was at hand which was destined to put an end to these dreamings , when they were at their height . There appeared a man from among the people , whose spirit , raised far above the capacity of an earthly brain , combined all the hopes , wishes , and predictions of the prophets in the scheme of an ideal kingdom , which was far from realizing the Jewish notion of heaven . In the comprehensive range of his lofty vision , he foresaw the approaching downfall of his country , and predicted a speedy and melancholy termination to its splendid temple , and to the whole of the national worship , which had degenerated into an unworthy superstition . He declared , that the kingdom of God ^ hould come upon all nations , and the people who thought themselves exclusively possessed of it , were treated by him as a corpse —as a body , in which life was utterly extinct and gone . * This exclusion of Judaism was the first great obstacle to the propagation of the new religion , but it was in a great measure removed by the final dispersion of the Jewish people . Amidst the general toleration of the Romans , and the wide prevalence of the eclectic philosophy , Christianity stepped forth as a popular faith , to unite all nations as brethren in the worshi p of one God
Untitled Article
224 The Philosophy of the History of Mankind .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1832, page 224, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1810/page/8/
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