Second advent library

'csars'r's slcorm course. R)bells us, Judges ll, 12, "The children of Israel didevil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim; andforsook the Lord God of their fathers, which broughtthem out of the land ofEgypt, and followed other ofthe gods tglods,of the people at were round about em,and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked theLord to anger." They dwelt among the Canuanites,and,as it is said, Judges iii. 6, " they took their daughtersto be their wives, and gpve their daughters to theirIons, and served their gods.This was the character and practice ofthe Jews, God'sancientThey ate, they drank, andcovenantqpeople.rose up to play. hey were proud, rebellious, and un-They obeyed not the commands of God, andee ed not ewarning voice of the Almighty. Theyre rded not theteachintg of the true prophets, butfollgwed in the train of epopular prophets of Baal.They persecuted and drove into the wildemms the-true servants of Jehovah, while they fed, clothed, andschooled hundreds ofthe servants of Baalim. They becamea stiiilnecked and hard-hearted people to their own-God, and bowed their necks, and were subservient tothe nations and their gods around them. They forsook-or demolished the altars erected for the worship of the*true God, and erected under every rrreen tree altars to'-Baalim and Ashtaroth. They waxed:rich in corn, wine,andoilglyet. were poor and scanty in their first fruits toGod. hey multiplied in cattle, silver, and gold, and forgotthat it was God who gave them power to get wealth.-fThis, we must acknowledge, is the character of the"Jews, as given unto us by the sacred historians. Thesewere 'whom God had chosen out of all the na-'fiol ofthetgeople e earth, to be his peculiarlpeople -a peoplewho had seen and experienced the ss. vatron of God in ailsost miraculous manner; from Egyptianbondage, fromand famine in the wilderness, and from epowfbfbthe nations whosouglrt tn impede their profess, or'shisder their epossessing promised land. T ey had-Ullsjwyed the visible presence of the of the covenantis the wilderness.They angusé heard the audi~Nb stlweflshovah on the mountain ; they saw his pow-