these ties of union, the more strength they will possess to resist opposing interests and opinions from without; while, at the same time, everything national, or peculiar to them as a people, will be cherished with warmer and more tenacious attach ment.

From the operation of this principle originates the maxim "Union is strength;" and whether the conflict be mental or physical, the people who are united together by the most numerous and powerful sympathies, will oppose the strongest and the longest resistance to the innovations of external forces. On the contrary, if the bonds of moral union are few, and easily sundered, the strength of the nation is soon broken, and the fragments easily repelled from each other.

According to this principle, in all cases in which a whole nation is to be instructed, or prepared for offence and defence, or in any wise fitted to be acted upon, or to act as a nation, it would be necessary that the bonds of national union should be numerous and strong; and that, as far as possible, a perfect oneness of interest and feeling should pervade the nation.

So long as the human mind and human circum stances continue what they are, no power in heaven or on earth could unite a people together, except by the same or similar means as have been stated. If, therefore, God designed to form a nation. either to be acted upon or to act as a nation, he would put in operation those agencies which would bind them firmly and permanently into one mass.

Now, mark the application of these deductions to the case of the Israelites. About the period when the corruptions of idolatry were becoming generally prevalent, Abraham, the Bible record states, was extricated by Divine interposition He

was assured that his descendants should suffer a long bondage, and afterwards become a numerous nation. Abraham was their common ancestor, one whom they remembered with reverence and pride; and each individual felt himself honoured by the fact that the blood of the "father of the faithful" circled in his veins. The tie of consanguinity in their case was bound in the strongest manner, and encircled the whole nation. In Egypt, their circumstances and employments were the same; and, in the endurance of a protracted and most galling bondage, they had a common lot. Their liberation was likewise a national deliverance, which affected alike the whole people; the anniversary of which was celebrated by distant posterity with strong and peculiar national enthusiasm.

Now, it has been said, that the events of our colonial servitude, and the achievement of American independence, are points in our history which will ever operate upon our national character, impress ing clear views of the great principles of republicanism, and uniting all hearts in support of those principles: how much more affecting and indelible, then, was the impress made upon the national heart of the Israelites by their bondage and deliverance! They were bound by blood, by interest, feeling, hopes, fears, by bondage, and by faith.

And how firmly did these providences weave into one web the sympathies and views of the Jewish people! It is a fact which is the miracle of history, and the wonder of the world, that the ties which unite this people seem to be indissoluble. While other nations have risen and reigned and fallen ; while the ties which united them have been sun dered, and their fragments lost amid earth's teem ing population, the stock of Abraham endures, like an incorruptible monument of gold, undestroyed by

the attrition of the waves of time, which have dashed in pieces and washed away other nations, whose origin was but yesterday, compared with this ancient and wonderful people.

In this manner was this nation prepared for pe culiar duties, and to discharge those duties under peculiar circumstances. Many of the nations by which they were surrounded were more powerful than themselves; all were warlike, and each had its peculiar system of idolatry, which corrupted all hearts that came within its influence. Hence the necessity that this people should be so united as to resist the power and contagious example of surrounding nations, while they were fitted to receive and preserve a peculiar national character, civil polity, and religious doctrines; of all which they were to be the conservators, amid surrounding and opposing heathenism, for many ages.

Other facts might be added to the induction, which would make the design, if possible, more apparent. If the Jews were to be the recipients of new instruction-to obey new laws, and to sustain new institutions, it would be desirable that their minds, so far as possible, should be in the condition of new material, occupied by little previous knowledge, and by no national prejudices against or in favour of governmental forms and systems. Now, in the case of the Jews, the habit of obedience had been acquired. They had no national predilections or prejudices arising from past experience. In relation to knowledge of any kind, their mind was almost a tabula rasa. They were as new material prepared to receive the moulding of a master hand, and the impress of a governing mind.

Now, as this discipline of the descendants of Abraham was the result of a long concatenation

20

PHILOSOPHY OF THE PLAN OF SALVATION.

of events, and could not have been designed by themselves to accomplish the necessary end; and as the whole chain of events was connected together and perfectly adapted, in accordance with the nature of things to produce the specific purpose which was accomplished by them, it follows as the only rational conclusion, first, that the overruling intelligence of God was employed in thus preparing material for a purer religious worship than the world then enjoyed; and, second, that a nation could have been so prepared by no other agent, and in no other way.

CHAPTER III.

CONCERNING MIRACLES-PARTICULARLY THE MIRACLES WHICH ACCOMPANIED THE DELIVERANCE OF THE ISRAELITES FROM BONDAGE IN EGYPT.

THERE has been so much false philosophy written concerning the subject of miracles, that it is difficult for those conversant with the speculations of writers upon this subject, to divest their minds sufficiently of pre-formed biases, to examine candidly the simple and natural principles upon which are based the evidence and necessity of miraculous interposition

The following statement is true beyond controversy-Man cannot, in the present constitution of his mind, believe that religion has a Divine origin, unless it be accompanied with miracles. The necessary inference of the mind is, that if an Infinite Being act, his acts will be superhuman in their character; because the effect. reason dictates, will be characterised by the nature of its cause. Man has the same reason to expect that God will perform acts above human power and knowledge, that he has to suppose the inferior orders of animals will, in their actions, sink below the power and wisdom which characterise human nature. For, as it is natural for man to perform acts superior to the power and knowledge of the animals beneath him, so, reason affirms, that it is natural for God to develop his power by means, and in ways, above