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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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plete : he will not merely make them independent and free , but happy and enlightened . He will base his work upon eternity .
He mnst not tlien found it on a cheat , but on truth . But how reconcile this contradiction ? The real God he dares not reveal to the Hebrews , because they are incapable of comprehending him ; a fabulous one he will not , for he despises the base part . Nothing then remains but to announce
to them his true God in a fabling manner . Now then he puts to the test his rational religion , and examines into the additions and erasures necessary to its favourable reception with his Hebrews . He places himself in their restricted situation , descends into their very soul , and discerns the hidden threads by which they may be bound to truth .
He attributes to his God those qualities which the intellect of the Hebrews and their present need demand . He adapts his Jao to the people to whom he is to be declared , and to the circumstances under which he is to be announced ; and thus arises his Jehovah .
In the minds of his people he finds a belief indeed in divine things , but one that lias degenerated into the rudest superstition . The former must be eradicated , but the latter maintained . He must disengage them from their present unworthy situation , and turn them to his new divinity . Superstition herself offers him the means .
According * to the universal delusion of the time , each nation stood under the peculiar protection of their national god , and their patriotic pride was flattered by assigning him supremacy over the deities of all other countries . To
these , divinity was by no means refused ; it was even recognized ; but they must not dare to elevate themselves above the national god . With this error did Moses connect the truth . He made the Demiurgos of the mysteries , the peculiar god of the Hebrews , but he advanced yet one step
farther . He did not content himself with barely making this being the mightiest of all , but lie made him the only one , and cast all others into their original nothingness . He granted him indeed to the Hebrews as a property , in order to accommodate himself to tbclr mode
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of representation , but at th « same time subjected to him all other people and all the powers of nature . Thus he preserved in the model exhibited to the Hebrews , the two most important properties of the real God , unity and omnipotence ; and made them more effective in this human covering .
The vain and childish vanity of possessing an exclusive deity must be rendered actively subservient to the interests of truth and procure an entrance for the doctrine of the one Supreme . It is , indeed , only a fresh
error by which he overturns the old one , but an error far nearer to the truth than that which it supersedes , and this little alloy of delusion is precisely that which makes the reality welcomed ; and all the progress he makes must be attributed to this
looked-for misconception of his doctrine . What could the Hebrews have done with a philosophical god ? With a tutelar deity he may achieve miracles . Place yourself once in the situation of the Israelites . Ignorant as they are , they measure the strength
of the God by the fortune of the people who range themselves beneath his protection . Abandoned and oppressed by men , they believed themselves forgotten by all Heaven ; the same relation they bear to the Egyptians , must their respective gods maintain ; the one can be but a twinkling
light by the side of the other ; perhaps they even doubt whether they really possess any . At once it is declared to them that they too have a protector in the starry circle , that he has awaked out of his rest , that he has girt himself and made ready to achieve wondrous deeds against his enemy .
This proclamation of a god is like the call of a general to enroll beneath his victorious banners . If this general give proofs of his strength , or if he be known of old times , the vestige of inspiration carries forward the most timorous , and this also Moses turned to the account of his enterprise .
The conversation which he held with the vision in the burning bush , presents us with the doubts that suggested themselves to his mind , and the manner in which he replied to them .
Will my unhappy nation place confidence in a god who has so long abandoned them ; who now on a sudden
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202 The Mosaic Mission .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1825, page 202, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2535/page/10/
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