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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 Himseif 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. 
