and they stood at the nether part of the Mount; "and Mount Sinai was altogether in a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire;" and they heard the voice of the trumpet (out of the Mount) so exceeding loud, “that all the people that was in the camp trembled, and they said, Let not God speak to us lest we die." They saw Moses go up to the top of the Mount, and they knew that he had gone up to meet their God; but when the people saw that he de'layed to come down, they caused Aaron to make them a golden calf, and they worshipped it!

The Israelites, it is true, were at that time in a state of gross ignorance. Having just emerged 'from slavery, their intellectual powers would be darkened and depressed. But is this truth to account for the proneness of man, at all times, to seek for a material deity, to close his eyes and his ears to the miraculous testimony of a living God, and to fall down and worship a graven image? Five centuries after, during the reign of Solomon, the mind of the people had been much cultivated. The monarch himself was famed far and wide for knowledge and wisdom. Nor could he stand a solitary instance of his own glory. The learning of a king may tower above the age, but it must be founded upon the acquirements of his subjects; and as it has been beautifully remarked of the ocean, that she repays the tribute of the streams, so will the learning of the

throne be reflected upon the court and the people. But, perhaps, the architecture of a nation is the best evidence of its civil progress. Solomon built three magnificent palaces; and the Deity was known among the people, by the immediate display of His supernatural power, in moving the king to form that wonderful structure the Temple, in which the Lord promised to dwell among his children. At this time also, the sacred name of Jehovah was hallowed with profound respect, and sincere reverence; and the spiritualized appellation, I AM THAT I AM, was understood of the Divine existence to all generations. Jerusalem was at peace; happy, prosperous, powerful, and magnificent. And yet the wealth, power, and magnificence of the empire seemed to receive a lustre from the wisdom, rather than to bestow a greatness upon the glory, of its sovereign. With the name of that sovereign we also associate our earliest notions of the power of human intellect. He built the temple, he sacrificed upon the altar, he saw the priest enter behind the vail, into the awful presence of Deity: and yet Solomon himself became an idolater! We may cease, therefore, to wonder, that at his death, ten of the twelve tribes seceded from the worship of the true God, and bowed down before an image in Bethel or in Dan. Here was no barbarism of the mind, but such as was

natural both to the Egyptians who preceded, and to the Greeks who followed them. The former worshipped an animal, the latter had a god for every occasion. From the bondage in Egypt to the captivity in Babylon, the Jews showed the same propensity for a material god: and from the law to the gospel prostrated their bodies, instead of adoring with their hearts, and mistook the ceremonious shadows of religion, for its pure and essential realities. It appears to have required a gradual and progressive discipline of the human mind, from Moses to John Baptist, to prepare it for the reception of that glory which was revealing.

The same inefficient mind which the Israelites thus showed in their natural inability to receive the revelation of God, is also evident in the natural disinclination of man to retain the knowledge of the Lord when revealed to him. The cause of this inefficiency must be noticed hereafter the operation of it is shown to this hour, in the pride of the human heart, which leads it to reject the word of God, and to seek for wisdom in the imaginations of men. The scribes and pharisees afford a decided support to this argument. They were obliged to read, and hear read the sacred books; but they interpreted them by their own personal feelings and desires. One important case will show this curious truth. The duty of a child to its parent, by the law of Moses,

is positive and unalienable, and was blessed with a promise of life and prosperity; and yet the Israelites sought to abrogate that duty by a pecuniary compensation. In the same manner, although the meekness, and gentleness, and forbearance, and spiritual mindedness of their Messiah were clearly foretold, they looked for a bloody and successful warrior, and a temporal kingdom: and although they expected a "Lord of glory," yet, through the same blindness of heart, they crucified him when he appeared amongst them.

The history of all mankind declares, that God was neither received nor retained by the natural capacity of the heart.

One rite of most if not of all religions in the world was sacrifice. Blood was shed, by some as an offering, by others as a propitiation; and yet if we overlook the divine institution of this rite, we can neither trace its origin, nor discover any rational conception of its efficacy. It must, however, have been known to those nations which lived in contact with the descendants of Noah, that blood-shedding was an appointed* and acceptable offering to the only true God. How then did it happen that the observance of this

* See this subject most ably discussed in Faber's Treatise on the genius and object of the patriarchal, the levitical, and Christian dispensations.

rite survived the knowledge of its institution and design; but from the natural disability of man to receive and retain a knowledge of this nature? Now that we know by revelation, at what time, and for what purpose, the rite of bloodshedding was established, we derive from it one of the firmest positions which can be adduced by extraneous evidence of the truth of the scriptures; whilst the abuse into which it fell, yields also as strong an argument of the natural ignorance of man respecting the relation which he holds with the Deity.`

Nor was the display of this natural perversity of the heart, confined to the people antecedent to the advent of Christ. It is remarkably exhibited in the conduct of the early Christians, of those of the middle ages, and in every congregation which professes now to meet for the worship of God.

The Corinthian converts mistook the design and power of the sacrifice of their Redeemer. In consequence of similar errors, the "candlestick" was also removed from the seven Asiatic Churches. In the following centuries, the piety of the Greek and Latin fathers seemed to exhaust itself, and the people, as if dazzled by the splendour of that light which shone upon them, reposed in utter debility of mental perception. As if wearied and weakened by the weight of divine truth, their powers seemed to collapse,