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Untitled Article
of these miraculous acts , their faith declined , their courage failed ; they relapsed into superstition , and into abject content with their enslaved condition . Their cry was still , " Let us alone , that we may serve the Egyptians . " No further evidence is needed to prove that they were a rude and ignorant people ; that their Theism was impure ; and that the conception of a divine moral government was not yet generated .
A provision had , however , been made for a favourable beginning , by the acts which had distinguished Abraham as the founder of a great nation . By his peculiar dispensations among the patriarchs , God had established a claim on the remembrance and the affections of the Israelites , which kept " the God of their fathers" from total oblivion even in an idolatrous land . The history of Abraham , was preserved in remembrance , not only on account of the promises connected with his covenant , but from the singularity of its
events and consequences . The manifestation of Deity in these events was never doubted ; and communications announced from the same Deity could not but be listened to more readily than messages from a strange God . It is plain , however , that the title by which he was endeared to them confined them to the narrow conception of a national God . They were not prepared for a more enlarged idea of Deity ; but while retaining this , they were prone to idolatry , and ready to offer homage to any god who might at the
moment appear the most powerful or the most indulgent to their prevailing desires . It appears to have been long before they were willing to relinquish the liberty of choosing their God ; and that they were brought to this point at last by a sense of helplessness in the grasp of irresistible power . They were at length convinced that their God was the Mightiest , and therefore , and not because they believed there was no other , they became his servants .
Their deliverance from bondage proved that the Egyptian deities were inferior to Jehovah ; and the conquest of Canaan cast contempt on the gods of the neighbouring nations . But there was no proof yet admitted of the nonexistence of these gods ; and for a great length of time the Jews seem to have prided themselves , —not on having attained to the knowledge of the One God , —but on having a more illustrious Deity than any other nation .
At what period the Jewish people arrived at the recognition of the unity of God we can only conjecture . Lessing believes that this grand advance in their theology took place during the captivity , and in consequence of an acquaintance with the religious worship of the enlightened Persians . The Hebrew Scriptures , however , bear witness abundantly to the erroneousness of this conjecture . They prove , not perhaps that the strict unity of Jehovah was recognized by the bulk of the people , but that their prophets and wise
men acknowledged him as the Creator of the whole world , the Father of all the families of the earth ; not only as the mightiest among the gods , but as God in distinction from idols of metal or stone . It seems impossible , for instance , to read in connexion the 104 th , 139 th , and 115 th Psalms , i . e . to bring together declarations of his universal creative power , his omnipresence , and the utter helplessness of the idols of the heathen , without being convinced that the unity of the God of the Hebrews was the fundamental truth of the Psalmist's religion .
Reason and revelation were both employed in the discovery and acknowledgment of this important truth , and , as in every other instance , were adapted to yield mutual aid . The power of Jehovah was displayed by miraculous revelations ; but it was the province of reason to compare this power with that which was attributed to the heathen gods , and to ascertain ,
Untitled Article
Education of the Human Race . 303
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1830, page 303, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2584/page/15/
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