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princi p les of their religious polity to offer sacrifice to Baal or Moloch , but they did not imagine it could be wrong to serve the true God by setting up calves to represent the Divine Nature , or by forming images to decorate their high places and consecrated groves . " In the reformation effected by the good kings , the calves , the images , the high places , were not removed till the accession of Josiah . The device of
Jeroboam was but a schism , it did not involve his kingdom in apostacy , and even Jehu in his zeal for Jehovah did not destroy the golden calves which were in Bethel and in Dan . Ahab was the first who openly countenanced the worship of foreign divinities . Baal in the singular , according to the Sabaists , was the Sun , and the plural of the term was applied to the Host of Heaven ; but the word , both in the singular and the plural , was not unfrequently used in the Hebrew in reference to the true God , which our author
considers as another proof that the Deity was often worshiped by the Israelites under the name and figure of an idol . Our limits will not permit us to follow Dr . Russell through all his details on this subject . He accords with the most eminent mythologists in concluding that the foundation of mythology rests on the two great principles which secure the perpetuity of nature . To these must be traced the origin of Baal , Baal-peor , Baalzebub , Chemosh , Moloch , Astarte , &c , &c , all of which , however , may also be
considered as personifications of the sun , the moon , and the stars , as well as of the productive and prolific powers of nature , in the worship of which cruelty , profligacy and absurdity were combined . And the Israelites , having brought some idolatrous practices from Egypt , " adopted some of the most offensive of those which they found among the tribes whom they were
commanded to extirpate . " And in defiance of the power of their more enlightened judges and pious kings , " they persisted in their idolatry , with a degree of steadiness which they manifested in no other pursuit , till at length , towards the close of their monarchy , we find them combining in one scheme of false worship , the superstitions of the Nile , with the Sabaism of Chaldea , and the carnal ceremonies of the seven nations . "
The third chapter contains the General History of the Hebrews , from the Death of Joshua to the Reign of Saul . The policy adopted by the Israelites on taking possession of Canaan was injurious to their safety as well as to the purity of their reli g ion . They allowed the idolaters to dwell with them in the land , and to mix with them in the same cities ; in consequence of which they became luxurious and effeminate , and the federal union of their
tribes was virtually dissolved . The Israelites had been settled in the land twenty years before they were deprived of their victorious leader . While he lived , his example and authority restrained them ; and the remembrance of the miraculous interpositions which they had witnessed , could not be effaced from their recollection , nor suffer them to be generally infected by the surrounding idolatry . Joshua , and the generation which had lived with him , had doubtless passed away before the people apostatized , and were
first reduced to servitude under Chushan Rishathaim . Placing events in chronological order , according to the system laid down in the preliminary dissertation , a longer interval must have taken place between the death of Joshua and the authority of Qthniel , than is Usually allowed . This seems necessary to account for the people having arrived at such a pitch of practical idolatry as to bring upon them so severe a chastisement as was inflicted by means of the Mesopotamian monarch . The deliverance under Othniel was the time at which the government under Judges took its
Untitled Article
Review . —Russell * 8 Sacred and Profane History . 615
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1828, page 615, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2564/page/31/
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