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    sure ; the acquisitions permanent . There was such an impartiality in the distribution of the treasures of truth , that malice and jealousy were never originated on this account in the family of Abraham , Every accession of knowledge was a family treasure ; every advance was a national blessing . By natural reason , numerous errors were linked with a single truth , an apparently straight path often proved a deviation , and acquisitions eagerly sought were often found to be false or worthless . Where they were not so , the possessors might find the richest gifts the most fatal . The wisest of the heathens were frequently the least safe and happy in their external circumstances . They were not only compelled to live in loneliness of spirit , but to die the gazing-stock and mockery of their nation . Their meditations in the wilderness were disturbed by the growlings of distant thunder ; and while worshiping the luminary of truth , they were too often overtaken by the

    tempest of popular fury . While Socrates lived the object of calumny , and died by violence for having discerned the unity of the Divine nature , the probability of a future state , the desirableness of a more ample revelation than had yet been granted , —the Jewish people were , to a man , informed respecting the moral attributes and providence of Jehovah , and awaiting with calm confidence and full expectation the opening of a grander dispensation , the showering down of higher influences , the appearance of a nobler guide than those by whose instrumentality their discipline had been hitherto conducted .

    From the sublimity of the ascriptions to Jehovah in the earliest homage of his people , from the grandeur of the earliest prophetic intimations , from the moral beauty of the requisitions of the law , we are apt to conclude , as is natural , that the Israelites were , from the first , enlightened worshipers of the only true God , and that their institutions appeared to them in the same light that they are presented to us . We compare their ritual with that of Pagan temples , the pillar of cloud and of fire with the mighty descent of Belus , the voice from Sinai with the Delphic oracle , the Mosaic law with the twelve tables , the Hebrew j udges with the Heathen legislators , the inspired prophets

    of the chosen people with the juggling priests of all others , and find it inexplicable how that favoured nation should have been so long prone to idolatry , so ready to relinquish its privileges , so hard oi heart to believe what its prophets spoke . It seems inconceivable that , however seductive the worship of Baal might be , however indulgent to licentiousness , however gratifying to the passions , the people could in reality halt between two opinions , or need the opposition of an Elijah to the idolatrous priests , or that the descent of visible fire from heaven could be required to melt iheir hearts towards the God of their fathers . But it should be borne in mind that the

    Israelites had little opportunity , previous to the captivity , of drawing such a comparison as is obvious to us , and were destitute of the means of making it complete . They beheld the signs and experienced the wonders which attended their own dispensation , but they knew not that other schemes of national worship were not as wonderful . It is clear , indeed , that they attributed the power of prophesying and miraculous agency to the tutelary deities

    of the neighbouring nations . Baal and Ashtaroth were readily allowed to be inferior ( o Jehovah , while their worship was yet conjoined with , his , or occasionally allowed to supersede it . The full meaning of the Divine revelations was not therefore appreciated . They read their law with darkened eyes , and the clouds of their idolatrous ignorance not only intercepted the future , but overshadowed the past . While the Divine denunciations were those of a reputed national deity , they might be superseded ; and even tlie

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    The Education of the Human Race . 369

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1830, page 369, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2585/page/9/