The superficial view which accounts for the pure monotheism of the Hebrews from their peculiar national character, is sufficiently refuted by their history.  Notwithstanding the severe penalties with which the Mosaic code of laws visited idolatrous practices in every form, the people were perpetually relapsing into the idolatry of the surrounding nations, and could be cured of this propensity only by the oft-repeated judgments of their covenant God.

3.  Next we have the wonderful code of morals contained in the Bible.  Of its perfection, we in Christian lands have but a dim apprehension, because it is the only system of morals with which we are familiar; but the moment we compare it with any code outside of Christendom, its supreme excellence at once appears.

It is a spiritual code, made for the heart.  It proposes to regulate the inward affections of the soul, and through them the outward life.  Thus it lays the axe at the root of all sin.

It is a reasonable code, giving to God the first place in the human heart, and to man only a subordinate place.  Its first and great commandment is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart;” its second, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”  Thus it lays broad and deep the foundations of a righteous character.  If any moral proposition is self-evident, it is that such a code as this, which exalts God to the throne of the human soul and humbles man beneath his feet, is not the offspring of human self-love.  If any one would know the difference between the Bible and a human code of morals, let him read Cicero’s treatise on Duties, perhaps the best system of ethics which pure heathenism ever produced, but from which man’s relation to deity is virtually left out.

It is a comprehensive code, not insisting upon one or two favorite virtues, but upon all virtues.  Just as the light of the sun is white and glistering because it contains in itself, in due proportion, all the different sorts of rays, so the morality of the Bible shines forth, like the sun, with a pure and dazzling brightness, because it unites in itself, in just proportion, all the duties which men owe to God and each other.

Many who outwardly profess Christianity do not make the precepts of the Bible their rule of life, or they do so only in a very imperfect way, and thus scandal is brought upon the name of Christ, whose servants they profess to be.  But it is self-evident that he who obeys the Bible in sincerity and truth is thus made a thoroughly good man; good in his inward principles and feelings, and good in his outward life; good in his relations to God and man; good in prosperity and adversity, in honor and dishonor, in life and death; a good husband and father, a good neighbor, a good citizen.  If there is ever to be a perfect state of society on earth, it must come from simple obedience to the precepts of the Bible, obedience