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Untitled Article
The fame of Abraham spread through all the East , where , as the declarations o £ modern travellers attest , it prevails to this day . The wonder and curiosity which had thus been excited were kept up by the extraordinary fortunes of his posterity . The eye of the world was fixed upon them as the descendants of Abraham , and also as the subjects of peculiar dispensations- The cause of their settlement in Egypt , their
degradation there , the wonders which wrought their deliverance and subsequent preservation , could not pass unobserved * or having been observed , be forgotten . When , at length , they issued from the wilderness , a mighty family , armed with a more irresistible power than had been conferred on any other people , and established , in opposition to the will of the neighbouring nations , a religious and political constitution , in all respects different from any other constitution , a spectacle was afforded which could not but be regarded
with astonishment ; an excitement of hope and fear was caused which awakened the passions and fixed the attention of all who heard and beheld . Comparisons were necessarily made between the gods of the nations and the tutelary Deity of the Jews . Their institutions afforded a subject of speculation ; their privileges , of awe ; their chastisements , of a short-lived triumph . When protracted observation had shewn that these institutions had permanent objects , and some inferences could be drawn as to the nature of these objects ; when it was perceived that the national prosperity and degradation
could be not only anticipated , but hastened or averted with infallible precision by certain modes of conduct , some faint conception of a moral government was formed in minds wholly ignorant of the particulars of the Jewish ritual , and of the constitution of the Mosaic law . The less aware they were of being themselves the objects of a moral government , the greater would be their curiosity about the peculiar people who were so ; and whether they regarded subjection to such discipline as a privilege or a hardship , they would naturally watch its operation with an unfailing interest .
To them it was not perhaps so evident as it is to us , that even in the earlier stages of their national education , the Jews had made a greater spiritual and intellectuaLprogrcss than any other people . Among nations which had followed the guidance of reason alone , a few individuals had arisen ( as if to shew the might of this natural faculty ) who had attained to the conception of the Divine Unity , and even of a future life ; who had , in fact ^ equalled the wisest of the Jews in spiritual discernment . But such instances were few , and afford no ground of argument against the power , or of disputation
concerning the objects , of revelation . B y revelation , a whole people were led on , step by step , without pause or leap , to the acquisition of new truths , and the formation of larger views of virtue and peace . By unassisted reason a few , a very few , a proportion of one , perhaps , in many millions , rose to an astonishing height of speculation , elicited some stupendous truth , too new to be communicated to the uninitiated , and strove to establish some degree of conformity between the convictions and the conduct , to proportion the manifestation of light to the abundance of its hidden source . But in the
mean time , the millions were wandering in darkness , stumbling ~ occasionally on some valuable fact , but putting it aside if it happened to be irreconcileable with some rooted superstition ; startled by fitful gleams of truth , which left no permanent impression of the objects they illuminated ; or unconscious of the dawn , whose hrightening was almost imperceptible to the most anxious gaze . By revelation , the attainments made were solid ; the progress
Untitled Article
368 The Education of the Human Race .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1830, page 368, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2585/page/8/
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