Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/82

 G4 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, jesty of their divine King, placed the idols of the na- ^^' tions in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phoenicia '. As the pro- tection of heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race, their faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigour and purity. The contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless indiffer- ence the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of every calamity, the belief of those miracles has pre- served the jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry ; and, in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind, that singular peo- ple seems to have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses "*. Their reli- The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, gioii better j^^j. jj. ^^g never designed for conquest ; and it seems suited to n ^ 1 defence probable that the number of proselytes was never much !'ifest'° '^"^ superior to that of apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received a sys- tem of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as it were the national God of Israel ; and with the most jealous care separated his favourite people from the rest of mankind. The conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the victorious jews were left in a state of irreconcileable hostility with all their neighbours. They had been commanded to extirpate some of the most idolatrous tribes; and the ' For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian deities, it may be ob- served, that INIilton has comprised in one hundred and thirty very beautiful lines, the two large and learned syntagmas, which Selden had composed on that aljstruse subject. ^ How long will this people provoke me"! and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shown among them? Num- bers xiv. 11. It would be easy, but it would be unbecoming, to justify the complaint of the Deity from the whole tenor of the Mosaic history.