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Egyptians, were employed in recalling men to a spiritual 

 worship and a pure and righteous practice ; but they were 

 members of nations already in existence, and hence were not 

 able to perpetuate through the whole nation a reformation 

 which they could not extend to all of their own time ; there- 

 fore it was that the Lord chose Abraham, and of him made 

 a nation, because the Lord " knew him, that he would com- 

 mand his children and his household after him that they 

 should keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and 

 judgment." 



In this nation, therefore, trained from the time of its great 

 father in fellowship with God, the Creator determined to 

 perpetuate the remembrance of Himself by His continual 

 operation, to chastise and to bless, until He should complete 

 His revelation in the incarnation of His Son. Thus, through 

 fifteen centuries of idolatry, with its consequent pollution, 

 injustice, oppression, and debasement, He preserved among 

 His own people the knowledge of Himself as the living God, 

 the God of the spirits of all flesh, and the practice of 

 righteousness and truth to men, which however defective 

 through their unfaithfulness, was far in advance of the rest 

 of the world. There was also established an outward and 

 visible embodiment of divine rule, which has expounded the 

 nature of that rule for all time as no didactic explanation could. 

 Indeed, everything we know of God we know from facts, 

 and we see how hopeless every other method is in the barren 

 results of philosophical speculation, which, after 2,350 years 

 since the birth of its Grecian branch, has not produced 

 a single proposition concerning the divine nature and 

 government which men generally are able to accept; and, 

 however correct the conclusions arrived at may be, coming 

 only from the cogitations of an individual mind, and that 

 generally abnormal, they entirely lack authority, and therefore 

 are never universally received. The history of philosophy is 

 a history of alternations, and from Thales to the present time 

 the propounding of any philosophic doctrine in one age 

 has been the guarantee of a contradictory doctrine as its 

 chronological successor. At this time no system of philosophy 

 commands universal assent ; so that it is evident philosophy 

 can never be the source of practical principles, can never be 

 the instructress of humanity in the every-day business of 

 life. .But the clear and explicit law of our Maker, illustrated 

 by the examples of his continued rule, meets our entire need, 

 and is capable of immediate and intelligent application. 

 Thus it is, that by the records of divine government a child 

 may become an expert in salvation. 



