se stand foremost all
such as refer to the treatment of, and relations with, the Canaanitic
families. The strict separation of Israel from those corrupt and
idolatrous populations, and their ultimate destruction, were conditions
necessary to the establishment and success of the new order of things.
As soon as the end of those ordinances was accomplished, they naturally
ceased to have any other than a historical value. Therefore, he (if any
such there be) who would transfer to the Gentiles of our days the
principles of the policy that was inculcated towards the Canaanites of
the time of Moses, would not only he committing a sad mistake, but
running counter to the spirit of Judaism, and violating the very letter
of the law, elsewhere clearly expressed. "Thou shalt love the stranger
as thyself," is the motto which God inscribed for perpetuity on the
banner of Israel.--THE TRANSLATOR.]

XCVI. What the inspired Arch-prophet had foretold came too truly to
pass, as soon as the people of Israel, mixing too freely with their
corrupt neighbours, wished to imitate them, and assumed the form of a
monarchy. Ambition and lust of power could ill agree with a law, which
establishes individual liberty and equality of rights. Consequently, it
was not long before Paganism ascended the throne, attended by a hideous
train of profligacies and crimes; and, what then remained of the Mosaic
institutions, consisted only of the material service of the temple, and
some exterior acts mechanically performed, but sadly lacking the idea,
which alone constitutes their merit. To put an end to so great a
disorder, Prophetism rose. With admirable zeal, energy, eloquence, and
abnegation, thundering in the courts, the temple, and the public
markets; now by word of mouth, then by writings; now threatening, anon
exhorting; always struggling with infinite obstacles, and setting at
defiance the tyranny of the ruling powers with the sole prestige of the
animated word, Prophetism undertook to revivify the religious idea,
almost extinguished, or crushed under the weight of universal
perversion. But to repress with greater force the overflowing depravity,
and to combat the evil with an opposite extreme, it was proper to divest
the religious idea of its particularising and national forms, and to
present it in its more comprehensive and general character, in its
celestial beauty of a future reign of happiness, based on love, justice,
liberty, and universal peace. T