  LXII. the descendants of the patriarchs, grown into a numerous people, were, then, obliged to undergo the severe trial of a long servitude in Egypt, from which they could expect no rescue otherwise than by a recourse to the God of their fathers. If the privations of earthly enjoyments tended to strengthen their spirits and courage against adversity, and to direct their desires towards gratifications of a more elevated nature; if the repulsive conduct of their oppressors (by character hostile to all strangers, and by system constituted in different castes, each of which jealous of its own privileges) favoured in a great measure their isolation, and kept them from a pernicious contact and association, it was the prayer which they offered up from the bottom of their hearts to the Supreme Ruler of their destinies, whose covenant with their progenitors they remembered; it was that prayer that hastened the termination of so severe a discipline, and drew near the epoch of their glorification. A fit instrument only was wanted, through which the deliverance should be effected, an organ to communicate to the people the Divine laws, a medium for the new solemn covenant which was to be proclaimed between God and Israel. This elect from among all mortals—whose noble character, resplendent with all human virtues, was heightened by the true grandeur of an unexampled humility—was the holy legislator Moses, the divine man, the faithful expounder of the will of God, the first link of the glorious chain connecting the human family with its Maker. He was appointed to deliver miraculously the Israelitish mass from the yoke of Egypt, and to lead it to the skirts of a mountain, where the grand act of the revelation was to be accomplished. LXIII. Before imparting that revelation, the Divine wisdom vouchsafed to declare to the people at large, in brief but clear words, the ultimate object intended to be attained by such an institution, and the principal condition conducive to its realisation. Therefore it was, that God began his communications by saying to Israel, through Moses, "I have brought you unto me" a concise and sublime sentence, which comprehends in itself the whole system of revealed religion, for the recognition of the intimate relation which brings the rational creature near to its Creator, is the true goal of man's destination. He added that, to facilitate the attainment of that object, He had adopted the means of electing a small portion of mankind to be His missionaries ("although" said He, "all the earth is mine"); that He wished, therefore, to form of them a sacerdotal kingdom, that is, a class of persons, who, as priests of God, should watch over, conserve, and promote spiritual interests upon the earth; and that in consequence of the gravity of such a task, He required of them that they should become a holy people, that is, a people peculiarly devoted to self-sanctification—which substantially consists in imitating, in as far as human nature permits, the Divine perfections, or virtues. LXIV. The awfully solemn act which succeeded this preliminary manifestation is the most portentous event to be found in the annals of the world. Two millions of persons, ranged around the skirts of a mountain, witness a majestic supernatural vision; and amid thunder and lightning, dense vapour and blazing fire, the whole ground trembling and the mountain echoing, a sonorous voice from heaven descends on the terrified ears of the people, and carries distinctly and unmistakeably to humanity the high message of God. By the pomp and circumstance which attended the glorious scene of the first revelation, God was pleased to afford an incontestable evidence of the truth and divinity, not only of the doctrines which were then and there being revealed, but of those, also, that were to follow; the unimpeachable testimony of the senses of a vast multitude, brought to bear upon the first and fundamental communication, was capable of producing so full and lasting a conviction in the minds of the numerous hearers, as to remove for the future all doubt as to the divine origin of revelation. Through an immediate sensible perception—which by its nature carries the most irrefragable certainty—Israel, then, received from God Himself the first dictates of a religion, of which that people was to become the professor, conservator, and propagator, in perpetuity; and equally convinced of the true mission of its leader, Moses, it naturally accepted from the latter all subsequent instructions, as laws emanating from the same divine source. LXV. The word of God pronounced in that memorable instant, and known since under the name of Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, could not, however, embrace the whole sum of religious truths that were intended to be revealed, because it would have been humanly impossible to the people to persist in that extraordinary state of intimate spiritual or prophetic relation with the Deity, till the end of all the revelation. Therefore, the Decalogue exhibits only some fundamental points, which, from their importance, deserved to be more prominently impressed; it marks the outlines of the foundation upon which the edifice of revealed religion was afterwards to be raised. Yet, although the promulgation of the entire divine code was a work reserved for the blessed legislator Moses, the Ten Commandments present, nevertheless, a compendious but complete system of institutions, referring to all those social and religious subjects, which most interest mankind. In fact, the three relations of man towards his Creator, his fellow-man, and himself, are traced in the Decalogue in a masterly manner, classified according to their order, and elucidated by placing prominently forward one culminating point, which serves to determine their true character. Such is the wise economy of all revealed laws, that generally avoiding abstractions, they select as a standard one special case of the most interesting, and leave it to thy care of the human understanding to generalize, and deduce from it universal theories. |
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