ments of their chastisement, and involving the animals, whom they adored as gods, in one common punishment with their deluded votaries: *"Executing judgment," (as the sacred historian declares) upon the gods "of Egypt." Thus chastising superstition in the very country that was its source, and magnifying the majesty of God, on the most conspicuous stage then in the world, in the country the most famed for arts and learning, and most frequented by men of genius and curiosity.

It is further admitted, that the system of the Jewish ritual, in various respects, was calculated

ment destroyed by Jehovah. Vide Hutchinson, Vol. I. p. 126, and sequel.

Mr. Bryant, without adopting the particular system of Hutchinson, or even (I am persuaded) knowing that he had thus supported it, was led on by his own reflections and researches to form the same opinion, and has established it, as it appears to me, irrefutably, by a variety of facts and illustrations; proving his principle, by shewing its application to every one of the plagues inflicted on the Egyptians for instance, in the circumstance recorded, that the "fish in the river died," see his proofs of the idolatrous veneration in which the fish of the Nile were held, p. 27 to 35; and on the plague of flies, which he also proves were objects of worship, from p. 65 to 84. But for full coviction, I refer my reader to the work itself.

* Exod. xii. 12.

calculated to proscribe and counteract * the idolatries and superstitions of Egypt. That all these judgments and all these precautions did not produce, upon the dull and carnal-minded Jews, such decisive effects, as to root out all propensity to imitate or adopt the superstitions of Egypt, which they had seen admired and practised by this the most celebrated nation in the world, is not wonderful. But surely no human wisdom can presume to assert, that any other scheme of settlement or discipline could have been better calculated to prevent amongst the Jews, the growth of idolatry and its attendant crimes.

The defeat of the warlike Canaanites, who were "great and tall, and their cities walled

up to heaven," by the unwarlike Jews, and this by means proving a supernatural interference, had a similar tendency to establish the superiority of Jehovah over all

the

* Some instances of this are adduced in Vol. I. p. 336, in the Note. Consult also Witsii Egyptiaca, Lib. III. cap. xiv. from sect. iv. to x.; Lowman on the Hebrew Ritual, Part I. ch. ii. and iii. and Part II. ch. v. ; and Grotius on Exod. xx. and Lev. xviii.; but especially Maimonides More Nevochim, Pars III. cap. xlvi. to xlix.

+ Deut. ii. 28.

the celebrated idols of Canaan: nor can we conceive any mode of Providence better calculated to preserve, among the chosen people, the observance of the divine institutions.

As to the trials the Jews were exposed to, from the example of the neighbouring countries, and particularly from the corruptions of the Canaanites, many of whom they permitted to remain amongst them; it is evident, that wherever they were settled, in an idolatrous world, they would have been exposed to similar danger, from the depraved examples of the surrounding nations; but it seems impossible to conceive any system more wisely calculated to check such contagion, than that which was adopted in the settlement of the Jews in the promised land. They were previously disciplined forty years, until the generation, who had from their birth been infected by the contagion of Egyptian idolatry, and debased by the degradation of Egyptian slavery, had completely perished, and made way for a more pure, free-born and nobleminded race, who might be trained under

VOL. II.

the immediate miraculous controul of God, in the wilderness, to submit implicitly to the divine direction, and aspire after the divine favour. They were defeated by the Canaanites, when they attacked them without divine permission; to make them feel experimentally, that they must ascribe all their future success against them, to the protection of Jehovah. The conquest of the promised land was effected by the miraculous assistance of God, who declared, that the Canaanites were to be exterminated in consequence of their idolatries and crimes, and commanded the Israelites to execute the divine sentence. They were punished by certain defeat when they violated, and crowned with certain victory when they obeyed, this direction of their God; until their settlement in the promised land was so far completed, that the few remaining Canaanites were totally in their power, and all necessity for supernatural assistance to their arms, in the execution of the divine command, had plainly ceased.

Thus far Providence had, as it were, compelled them to proceed; still however observing

serving in this, as in every other supernatural dispensation, a due analogy to the regular course of nature, and the moral

*

agency of man. "The Lord thy God (says their legislator) "will put out these "nations before thee by little and little; "thou mayest not consume them at once, "least the beasts of the field increase before "thee; but the Lord thy God shall deli"ver them unto thee, and destroy them "with a mighty destruction, until they be

destroyed." And in another place we perceive an effect of leaving some remnants of the Canaanites, perfectly analogous to the course of nature, assigned as a reason why God permitted it. ↑ "That the ge† "nerations of the Children of Israel might "know to teach them war, as many as "had not known all the wars of Canaan.'

Thus the Canaanites were expelled as rapidly as the nature of things could admit. The Jews were strictly commanded to compleat their expulsion, fully empowered to do so, and warned of the guilt of neglecting it; the temptation it would expose them to, and the certain punishment

*Deut. vii. 22.

K 2

† Judges, iii. 2.

that