will observe that the foundations of a true conception. of personality are being laid even at a period when the existence of individual rights seems to be totally ignored. The germ of a doctrine of human individuality is perhaps to be traced in the rite of circumcision, which was extended to children and even to the servants of a Hebrew household. Further, we may point to all primitive enactments which limited. the arbitrary power of those who owned slaves 1, or enjoined simple duties of charity and humanity 2. Nor must we overlook the influence of those sacred traditions which witnessed to a divine tenderness for the humble and lonely soul, the story of Hagar, for example, whom the angel of the Lord 'found' by a fountain of water in the wilderness of Shur and addressed by name: Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? These considerations show that the Law in its earliest stages implicitly recognized that very truth of man's relationship to God and to his fellow which ultimately led to the recognition of his own personal rights as an individual. By way of illustrating this point, we may notice the practice of human sacrifice and the divine injunction to slaughter the Canaanites.

In regard to human sacrifice we may at once set aside the notion of an original connexion between the worship of Moloch and the service of Jehovah, which some critics base, somewhat fancifully, on the description of Jehovah as 'fire'. Nevertheless, it is clear that the primitive Semites regarded human life—the life, for instance, of a fellow-tribesman-as a thing of unique sanctity, and therefore likely to be specially efficacious when employed as

1 Exod. xxi. 20; Deut. xxi. 10 foll.

2 See Exod. chh. xxi-xxiii; Deut. chh. xx, xxii, xxiv, xxv.

3 Gen. xvi. 8; cp. xxi. 17.

Cp. Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, p. 235.

5 See König, The Religion of Israel, ch. ix; Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, ch. x. On human sacrifice in Israel see Schultz, O. T. Theology, vol. i. p. 191; Dillmann on Genesis xxii; Kamphausen, Das Verhältnis des Menschenopfers zur Isr. Religion, &c.

This will account for the

a medium of atonement. occasional tendency of Israel to relapse into the barbarous customs of heathen worship. The primitive notion that God might claim for Himself a human life as man's most acceptable offering, probably lingered long in the popular mind. The idea, indeed, contained an element of nobility and truth which the religion of Jehovah was destined to extricate and purify. We naturally think in this connexion of the offering of Isaac by Abraham described in the twentysecond chapter of Genesis. What, then, is the purport of this narrative? The point of it appears to depend on the 'prevailing low theology of sacrifice,' in which for the moment Jehovah seems to acquiesce 1. The injunction to sacrifice a human victim to Jehovah was in accordance with the ideas common to Abraham's race and the age in which he lived. There was nothing in the spirit of his time that would necessarily deter the patriarch from executing it. Further, the passage in question supplies an explanation of the fact, that at a comparatively early stage in its history the Hebrew people was distinguished from its heathen neighbours by the disuse of human sacrifice 3. God dealt with the custom pedagogically, and in a manner analogous to His action in other departments of man's moral education. The element of good which lies at the root of human sacrifice was enforced-viz. the principle that man is bound to devote to God his best and choicest gift. It was this element which made Abraham's act not only morally glorious, but typical of the perfect 'sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction' which was consummated on Calvary. The subsequent effect of the tradition embodied in this narrative was twofold. On the one hand, the practice of human sacrifice came to be regarded with horror as 1 Cp. Newman Smyth, Old Faiths in New Lights, pp. 84-90. Cp. Renan, Histoire du peuple d'Israël, bk. i. ch. 9 [Eng. Tr. p. 102]. Robertson. Early Religion of Israel, p. 254. Cp. Fairbairn, Religion in History and in Modern Life, lect. ii. p. 129.

N

a shocking relapse into heathen atrocities; on the other, there arose a more profound conception of Jehovah's requirement: He was a God who did not delight in destroying life, but in saving and sanctifying it1'; and the oblation in which alone He could delight was the free-will offering of a perfect human obedience. Thus the divine Educator practically succeeded in destroying the fatal errors, and saving the vital truth, of sacrifice 2. He accepts the best that primitive man can offer, and, as Dr. Mozley observes, directs his 'earlier ideas and modes of thinking towards such great moral achievements as are able to be founded upon them 3.

So much may be said from an apologetic point of view in regard to Genesis xxii. The bearing of the narrative, however, upon our present subject lies in its contribution to the idea of the worth of personality, and in its restriction of absolute paternal rights. It inculcates the lesson that 'parents have only such rights over their children as are consistent with the acknowledgment of God's higher right of property.'

This last point leads naturally to the consideration of the divine injunction to exterminate the inhabitants of Canaan. Various attempts have been made to explain, or mitigate, a sentence of destruction which at first sight seems so inconsistent with the very features of Jehovah's character which the deliverance of Israel from Egypt had manifested 3. As in the matter of human sacrifice, so in this case it might be said that God appears to acquiesce in a view of human life which knows nothing of individual responsibility.

1 Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, p. 255.

2 Newman Smyth, op. cit. p. 89. Cp. Oehler, Theol. of the O. T. § 23. On the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter see Schultz, vol. i. p. 191; Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, p. 255.

3

4

Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, p. 55.

Oehler, § 105. He observes that the same principle appears in the ordinances relating to the redemption of firstborn sons, representing perhaps the whole family (Exod. xiii. 13).

5

See W. S. Bruce, The Ethics of the O. T. pp. 259 foll.; Mozley, Ruling Ideas, &c., lect. iv.

But the judicial extirpation of the Canaanites may rather be regarded as a proof that the interests of man's moral progress occasionally demand the employment of stern and relentless methods. The Old Testament itself indicates the real ground of the transaction when it insists that the inhabitants of the land had already been long spared in spite of their abominations, and that the cup of their iniquities was now full1. Herein consists the moral impressiveness of the tragic doom that overtook the Canaanitesa doom delayed for centuries, but at length descending upon the guilty with appalling severity. The whole proceeding enters as a wholesome element into the moral education of Israel and of the world. It had at least the effect of signalizing the divine abhorrence of portentous sensuality. It was an act characteristic of that Power which throughout human history 'makes for righteousness, and sweeps away degenerate races in order to make way for such as are fresh and vigorous. Here is no partiality,' says Dr. Bruce, of a merely national God befriending His worshippers at the expense of others without regard to justice; here rather is a Power making for righteousness and against iniquity; yea, a Power acting with a beneficent regard to the good of humanity, burying a putrefying carcase out of sight lest it should taint the air3 After all, the Canaanite nations were put under the ban, ‘not for false belief, but for vile actions, a significant circumstance which plainly implies that in the execution of His righteous purpose Almighty God is guided by one supreme aim, namely, the elevation of human character. If Israel was duly to discharge its mission, and to become the vehicle to mankind of a purer religion and a loftier morality, it was necessary, humanly speaking, that

1 Lev. xviii. 27 foll.; Deut. xii. 31. Cp. Gen. xv. 16.

2 See Oehler, § 32, note 3.

3 Chief End of Revelation, pp. 140 foll.

4 Westcott, Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 139.

a signal manifestation should be made, at the very outset of its history, of the divine hostility to sin. It is to be observed, finally, that Israel itself is threatened with a similar judgment in the event of its yielding to the depraved rites or practices of heathendom 1. These considerations at least suggest that the idea of individuality is one for which a moral basis is required. The interests of morality may well have demanded an inexorably severe treatment of an evil which might have fatally thwarted God's beneficent purpose for mankind at the very outset. It was more important that a people, destined to be the missionary of the world, should have a just conception of the meaning of divine holiness, than that it should learn the duty of respect for individual rights. The sense of national consecration was utilized as a factor in the development of morality, but it naturally preceded by a long interval the idea of personal sanctification.

With these few illustrations of the progressiveness of Israel's ethical education I must be content. The caution however may be repeated, that it is inconsistent with all sound historical principles to pronounce a verdict upon the morality of the old dispensation apart from due consideration of its uniform tendency, and of the purpose by which it was manifestly inspired and guided 2.

1 Deut. viii. 19, 20; xiii. 12 foll.; Josh. xxiii. 15 foll.

2 Cp. Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, p. 238: 'When you talk of the imperfect and mistaken morality of the Old Testament dispensation, ask yourself, to begin with, what you mean, and what you intend to assert by the expression. Do you mean to assert that the written law was imperfect? If that is all, you state what is simply a fact; but this does not touch the morality of the Lawgiver, because He is abundantly fortified by the defence that He could give no higher at the time to an unenlightened people. Do you mean to assert that the scope and design was imperfectly moral? In that case you are contradicted by the whole course of history. ... You blame in the Old Testament dispensation, i. e. in its Author, what? The moral standard He permits? It is the highest man can then receive. The moral standard He desires? He desires a perfect moral standard, and ultimately establishes it.'