Wesley Corpus

Why, even these were “a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law. They provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea; ” (Psalm lxxviii. 8, 10; cvi. 7; Exod. xiv. 11, 12;) the very place where he had so signally delivered them. “They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image,” (Psalm cvi. 19,) where they had heard the Lord, but a little before, saying, out of the midst of the fire, “Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image; thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them.” And how amazing was their beha viour during those whole forty years that they sojourned in the wilderness! even while he “led them in the day-time with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire!” (Psalm lxxviii. 14.) Such were the knowledge and virtue of God’s peculiar people, (certainly the most knowing and virtuous nation which was then to be found upon the face of the earth,) till God brought them into the land of Canaan;-considerably more than two thousand years from the creation of the world. None, I presume, will say there was any other nation at that time more knowing and more virtuous than the Israelites. None can say this while he professes to believe, according to the scriptural account, that Israel was then underatheocracy, under the immediate government of God; that he conversed with their subordinate governor “face to face, as a man talketh with his friend;” and that God was daily, through him, conveying such instructions to them as they were capable of receiving. 7. Shall we turn our eyes for a moment from the scriptural to the profane account of mankind in the earliest ages? What was the general sentiment of the most polite and knowing nation, the Romans, when their learning was in its utmost perfection? Let one, who certainly was no bigot or enthusiast, speak for the rest. And he speaks home to the point: Nam fuit ante Helenam cunnus teterrima belli Causa; sed ignotis perierunt mortibus omnes Quos venerem incertam rapientes more ferarum, Viribus editior caedebat, ut in grege taurus.