ham, that he sent Hagar off cruelly and married many wives; of the former it is sufficient to say, that being done by an especial direction of Providence, we may depend upon it such methods were taken to secure the mother and child, as God saw necessary; who so received them into his protection, that this apparently disinherited son became a nation more powerful than most of his brethren. Of the latter objection we may observe, that the original constitution of human nature in the creation of only one man and one woman, had been forgotten in the patriarch's time, and had not then been renewed. In this instance therefore, as in others, we must judge of the conduct of the parties by that share of knowledge of duty with which they were favoured, and not condemn Abraham and the other patriarchs for the transgression of a law, of the existence of which they were ignorant.

Of the conduct of the second, Jacob, in taking advantage of his brother's distress, and then deceiving his father in order to secure to himself the birth right, which he had so ungenerously purchased, the honour of Scripture does not require that we should offer any vindication; for it is one of those cases which too often occur in the conduct of degenerate mortals, even in what ought to be better days, of pursuing what they esteem a good end by unlawful means: and of which too many instances are recorded in Scripture. It is one of the greatest temptations to

which they are exposed, who set their hearts eagerly upon any pursuit in this world; a temptation by which the statesman is beguiled into the most atrocious expedients; the man of business into the most disreputable schemes; the lover of pleasure into the most flagitious courses; and even the ardent disciple of religion into practices subversive of charity. It cannot be said, however, that Providence suffered Jacob's obliquity to meet with no censure: for the consequence of his simulation was, that he was driven from home, and passed many years in a laborious servitude, and subject to oppression. In more than one instance, he was imposed upon by arts similar to those, by which he had imposed upon his father; and many disastrous events in his family must have brought his own misdemeanor frequently to his recollection. But if he was in other respects a fit instrument for the great ends designed in giving the priority to Jacob and his family, no objection can be raised against the dispensation of Providence, or the history which gives an account of it, because he was not cast off for this offence, and so prevented from exercising that integrity and firm adherence to the true God, which he afterwards displayed.

2 See Scott's Bible.

* See Lightfoot's Chronicle on Gen. Cap. xxvii-xxx. vol. i. p. 17. and Cap. xxxvii. p. 19, &c.

It might seem hardly necessary to offer any thing in vindication of the third, Jeremiah; but his concealment of the conversation between himself and King Zedekiah has really been lately urged as an argument, that he was not a true prophet. The fact was simply this: Zedekiah had sent for Jeremiah out of the dungeon, where he was in danger of perishing, and inquired of him what the Lord had commanded him to prophecy: Jeremiah told him plainly, there was no hope of safety, but in yielding to the king of Babylon: he at the same time made his petition to the king, that he might not be remanded to the same dungeon. In the next chapter a more particular account is given, either of this or another similar conversation between the king and the prophet; in which Jeremiah told him every thing, having first exacted an oath, that the king would neither himself put him to death, nor deliver him into the hand of the princes: but the king added a condition to the oath, that Jeremiah should not divulge the subject of their conferThe princes, hearing such an interview had taken place, demanded of Jeremiah the subject of it: what was he to do? they had no right to know; and he would have forfeited his faith to the king if he had divulged it. At the same time plainly to say he would not tell them, would not have contented them, and would as

ence.

Jer. xxxvii. 17-21.

Jer. xxxviii. 14-28.

directly have made known to them the nature of the conference, as if he had told them in so many words. But he did neither the one nor the other: he told them a part of the subject, that he had petitioned not to be remanded to the same prison; with which they were satisfied, and demanded no more. No one more deserves the reprobation of mankind than he who justifies falsehood; and the more subtle his distinctions are, the more is he to be detested. But when a man, without his own fault, is reduced to such a dilemma, that he must either betray the secret which it is his duty to keep, or conceal a portion of the truth from those who have no right to know any part of it; the plain rule of justice and fidelity seems, not only to allow, but to require, that the faith pledged should be maintained inviolate, even by such an evasion as would not, under dissimilar circumstances, be consistent with that regard to truth, which men have a right to expect of each other. To deny a man, placed in such a situation of conflicting duties, the right of keeping in ignorance of a secret confided to him, those who sought the destruction of himself and the person confiding it, is to overwhelm justice by the weight of her own decrees, and pervert the practical effect of truth by adhering too closely to the maxims of abstract theory;

"And right too rigid hardens into wrong."

6 Ecclus. xix. 25.

So that, if in the most rigorous sense, the prophet's reply be esteemed an equivocation, yet it was not, in any view of it, a crime of so heinous a nature as to degrade Jeremiah from his claim to be considered as one sent by God, even if the faults of the man were to derogate from the truths delivered by the prophet; whose authority we have shewn before rests upon a very different foundation.

CHAPTER III.

Destruction of the Seven Nations of Canaan.

THE next class of objections refers to the persons employed to gain possession of the land of Israel, to retain it, or to recover the parts subsequently lost; charging them with having violated the rules of righteousness by the very means used for the accomplishment of their purposes.

A general inference is drawn against the divine origin of the Mosaic dispensation, as sanctioning injustice in planting the Israelites in Canaan instead of the seven nations, who had pre-occupied it, and of cruelty in the utter destruction of those nations by the sword of the Israelites.

With respect to the charge of injustice in transferring the land from the former posses