ISRAEL. 
15 
But may not this sacred model indicate the future as well as the past ? May it 
not shadow forth the superb changes so long announced by prophecy; the new construction 
of earthly power, the beating of the sword and spear into the ploughshare, the living 
verdure of the moral wilderness, the subduing of the craft, corruption, and ferocity of 
human nature, and the ultimate establishment of one golden sceptre in the midst of a 
regenerated and rejoicing world ? 
During the long period, from the conquest of Canaan until the reign of Saul, the people 
continued under the direct government of the Almighty. Viceroys, bearing the name of 
judges, chiefly administered the details, but the principle was theocracy. This was the 
happiest existence of Israel. Though the separate tribes, falling from time to time into 
idolatry, were punished by peculiar defeats, and local captivities, the great body was 
uninjured: and of the 447 years of this period, scarcely more than a fourth was thus 
marked with misfortune. Even when the people in their vanity demanded an earthly king, 
the monarch was anointed by tire declared will of Jehovah. The build'ng of the Temple by 
Solomon, a labour of seven years, which employed all the skill and opidence of the 
kingdom, and its consecration by the descent of the Shekinah, consummated this glorious 
series of providential triumphs. In her Heaven-gifted king, the most illustrious monarch 
that ever sat upon a throne, in her authority over the surrounding nations, and in her 
possession of a worship at once the truest, the loftiest, and the most distinguished by 
Heaven; Israel seemed to have at length acquired the pledge of those transcendant 
prospects, which formed the hopes of her patriarchs and the promises of her Omnipotent 
protector. 
But it is a melancholy warning against human nature, that from this moment she began 
to decline. The promise was conditional, and the condition was violated. The king, 
sinking into idolatry, that High Treason against which the hand of Heaven had been 
raising barriers for five hundred years, drew down with him the people. From the reign 
of Solomon all was downfall, sometimes headlong, sometimes retarded, but still descending; 
temporal power soon shared the fate of spiritual integrity; the thunderbolt came at last, 
and shivered the throne into fragments never to be united again. 
By the Ten Commandments, idolatry had been pronounced the especial act which 
amounted to hatred of God, and the especial guilt which branded his wrath on generation 
after generation. In this language there was nothing arbitrary; all the Divine 
prohibitions are only examples of the Divine benevolence; the inevitable effects of 
idolatry in every age have been to corrupt the heart and blind the understanding. 
The chief part of human vice is obviously the result of allowing the sensual faculties to 
predominate over the moral and intellectual. Man, indulging in the immediate enjoyment, 
in neglect of the nobler but the more remote, habitually learns to substitute passion for 
duty, sense for soul, and earth for eternity. But, to elevate him into the power of 
self-control, what could be conceived more effectual than the idea of an Omnipotent Being, 
sustaining, impelling, and governing the whole course of man and nature; incapable of 
being resisted or deceived; reading every motive, and viewing every moment of human 
life, at once with the eye of a father and the justice of a sovereign; yet in all this vast 
and vivid activity of providence. Invisible ! The mere thought of such a Being, so 
