bringing streams of water from the flinty rock-in affording them shelter and refreshment during their wandering pilgrimage in the parched and sandy desert. All this preparatory training and trial-all these proofs of goodness and protection, were of divine interference, and of a miraculous nature; and, with their unquestionable authentications, come in under a former branch of the evidence for the divinity of the system with which they are connected. But they are, in a different sense, also applicable here, and perfectly appropriate illustrations of the truth of our proposition; because they were designed to inculcate the thorough conviction of the immediate presence of God, his direct superintendence of their government, and the nature of that system under which they were henceforth to be placed of immediate rewards and punishments, of prosperity and adversity. All these, we say, were wisely and necessarily made palpable to their senses, during this first period of training the mind of the people to the habitual sense and belief of their being directly under the eye of an Omniscient and Almighty Sovereign, who ruled them, not with the worldly design of rendering them a nation renowned in war, nor of covering their arms with the vain boast of destructive conquest or earthly glory, or crowning them with the blood-stained laurels of tyrant victory; but of rendering them submissive to his laws, dependent upon his protection, and to induce them gratefully to put all the affiance of their souls in his experienced goodness.

Now, in perfect accordance with what we have seen to be the previous system of God's doings upon earth, after this lesson of high and important truth-a lesson, however, which men are so averse to receive had been fully taught, this visible manifestation of his miraculous power was to a great extent withdrawn, as a regular instrument of government; and it was carried on more according to the established order of nature, and the fixed course of the world's events. We say, in general as a regular means of government; for we would not be stating the whole truth and strength of this argument, did we not bring into prominent view the fact, that there were throughout the whole of their history standing symbols and proofs of the divine presence among them, in the oracle of the Urim and Thummim-in the regular certainty of a double productiveness of their land before the Sabbatical year-in the unfailing security of their country and of their undefended homes, when all their males resorted to the tabernacle or temple to

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observe the great national festivals. During the whole course of that history, indeed, there were occasional supernatural displays of miraculous agency, both in the way of favour and displeasure; but these were only at distant intervals, intended, age after age, to remind them that the power of which their fathers and their ancient history spoke was no unmeaning figure of speech, or a traditionary legend; and that the system of government, though changed in the outward form of administration, was still the same in principle and efficiency.

We proceed, therefore, now to consider some of the great leading features and points of the theocracy when it became the regular form of government among the Israelites, noticing such facts in their history, whether we have remarked upon them before for other purposes or not, as may more fully substantiate the leading proposition of this chapter. For the above reason, we pass over all the history of Joshua, because it was the completion of that train of miraculous agency, which, in might and glory to the Israelites, and in terror and destruction to all who encountered them, accompanied them from the iron prison-house of bondage. We cannot, however, dismiss it without the added remark of the historian, whoever he was, who closes the book of Joshua in these striking words:" Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and who had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel." It is necessary also to add the parting words of warning and advice of that patriot warrior and experienced saint, when he called the elders, and judges, and people around him to listen to his dying charge: "I am going the way of all the earth; and ye know in your hearts and in your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things that the Lord your God spoke concerning you; all are come to pass, and not one thing hath failed thereof. Therefore," says he-if they should forget all this, and neglect the laws and strict commands which he had particularly enumerated regarding their conduct—“ therefore it shall come to pass, that as all the good things are come upon you, which the Lord your God hath promised you, so shall the Lord bring upon you all the evil things, until he have destroyed you from off the good land which the Lord your God hath given you." In the whole of this charge, there is the deep solemnity of one who felt that he was on the line that separates time from eternity-of one who knew that he was soon to give an account of his own high and honourable service-of one who was tho

roughly acquainted, by a long experience, with the character of God, and could read, with the certainty of the decrees of heaven, the future conduct of God towards the people.

Pledges, solemn and apparently sincere, were given by the whole people to stand faithfully in their obedience to that covenant into which God had entered with them, and in which they had often promised him true and stedfast obedience. What, then, does their history testify of their adherence to, or renunciation of, that true and promised loyalty? We shall see, by taking a brief review of it in periods; the first of which is that under the judges, and comprises about three hundred years. We find that, from the very first generation after they were settled in the land of Canaan, the condemned and apparently renounced idolatry of Mesopotamia, and Canaan, and Egypt, revived among them. Notwithstanding all their solemn pledges of obedience to Jehovah, their deliverer and only king, and the permanent monuments of these pledges, they still held intercourse with the doomed and degraded nations around them, or at least introduced their worship. The Teraphim of the East, the Baalim and Ashtaroth of Canaan, and "the lowing gods of the Nile," had altars, and priests, and votaries among them. From the instance of the teraph idol of Micah, they seem to have thought that they were not transgressing the spirit of the law of Moses, though acting in direct contravention of the letter. An easy and wide door was thus opened for all the abominations of idolatry. Its impure and demoralizing rites soon followed, as a natural and necessary accompaniment; and what was the consequence? They were warned by the angel or divine messenger at Bochim of the danger or certainty of coming judgments, and were for the time plunged into a remorseful bitterness of tearful repentance, and gave to the scene of their sorrowful acknowledgments of sin the name of Bochim-a place of tears; as if that would be a meritorious monument of their amendment. It proved, however, merely an evanescent feeling of remorse. There is not the slightest hint given that any measures were taken to remove the crying evil, or banish idolatry from among them. Now, this was direct renouncing of allegiance-open revolt and rebellion against that God who was their present and chosen sovereign; and the faithfulness of his word was pledged to avenge his insulted authority, and maintain the real existence of his government. "His anger was now kindled against them," therefore; and now that same people, before whom the combined hosts of the Canaanites and the neighbouring nations had been driven like chaff before the whirlwind, or melt

ed like snow in the summer's sun, "were given into the hands of the spoiler:" they were defeated and reduced into slavish subjection by the weakest of them all. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, and they were greatly distressed."

It is of importance to the elucidation of the view we are taking of the working of the government of the theocracy to remark, that during all that period of three hundred years, the different tribes were left separate republics, to be governed by their own elders or judges were left to their own interpretation and application of the law, whose spirit and nature had been so fully made known to them, and so powerfully inculcated upon them. Every one of the people was commanded, with most particular injunction, to learn it himself, and teach it to his children; and the judges and elders of the tribes, the priests and Levites, had surely motive and duty sufficient and strong to see to its universal observance. Even had they been without warning and internal judgment for neglect and transgression, still the separate existence of the tribes, and the nature of the repeated chastisements by the nations around, of almost the whole of the twelve, one after another, was a standing testimony to the rest of the displeasure of God, and of their own certainty of suffering, in case of defection or transgression. The tribes of the East and North and West, those that afterwards formed the separate kingdom of Israel, seem to have been most determinedly prone to idolatry, and to have practically forgot all the great truths they had been taught; and it was these that suffered most severely, and for the longest time. The tribe of Judah were more mindful of their dependence upon God, and allegiance to him; and they, with the exception of a partial and almost nominal subjection to the Philistines, in the days of Samson, escaped nearly the whole of that discipline of judgment that passed over all the rest. Now let us merely glance at the circumstances of that judicial chastisement. The people of Mesopotamia, of Moab, of northern Canaan, of Midian, of Ammon, and the Philistines, in the order we have named them, received commission and power to conquer and enslave whatever part of the country they invaded. In every one of these invasions, a judicial terror, an unresisting impotence, seem to have seized upon the tribes that suffered, as well as all the rest; nor do we read of the slightest effectual resistance being made by the invaded, or any attempt used by the rest to assist their brethren. But again, on the other hand, we have also to remark, that always in their humility, and repentance, when they saw and became sensible of

their sin, and cried to God, he raised up and commissioned a deliverer; and as if by marked and decided contrast, to show the return of the favour and the power of God, when they in sincerity returned to him, often a mere handful of men, and sometimes without sword or spear, as in the case of Gideon with the Midianites, defeated victorious and mightiest hosts. Sometimes, as in the case of Samson, one individual, of more than mortal strength, put to rout or slaughtered whole armies; sometimes a weak female, as Deborah, triumphed over the exulting and contemptuous pride of the experienced warrior. In short, during the whole three hundred years' probation of the chosen people as separate tribes, it was evidently God that commissioned the judgment, and more evident that it was he who sent the deliverance.

The period of Eli and Samuel we would call intermediate. The lesson of truth seems, by bitter and lengthened experience, to have been inculcated upon the mind of the whole tribes, that their only safety their only prosperity and happiness, consisted in serving God. During this time, therefore, they resisted with ease any attempt made to conquer or subject them. As in the days of old, the Lord of hosts was at the head of their armies, and the pride and power of the nations around in vain rose against them. Once alone, for the punishment of the sons of Eli, the Philistines gained a victory and took the ark, but suffered more themselves from that apparent triumph than if they had been defeated. During this time, too, there commenced a more habitual intercourse between all the tribes than had been carried on since their first settlement under Joshua. From Dan to Beersheba, as we learn, the voice and influence of Samuel traversed the whole land; and all Israel unanimously acknowledged that he was a prophet, and willingly received instruction and judgment from his lips. They put away the Baalim and Ashtaroth of Syrian idolatry, and, for the first time, seem to have formed a national resolution to devote themselves sincerely to the service of God, who had now in such a multitude of diversified ways instructed them, and made his truth known to them. They again acknowledged that they had received the most ample and indubitable evidence, that the God who gave them their law and religion was the only true God, and for the time at least the belief of that truth sunk into their minds as a principle of power and practical efficiency; and, as a nation, they seemed resolved to fulfil all that was demanded and expected of them.