to whom adoration and
loyal obedience were due. Thus the covenant, which had been formerly
established in general terms with Noah, as the representative of all
mankind, was afterwards confirmed in more specific terms to the
Abrahamites, as those who were appointed to keep and to promote among
mankind the fulfilment of the conditions of the said relation.

Considering the Abrahamitic covenant in this point of view, all
objections of unreasonable exclusiveness and unjust predilection, which
have been sometimes urged, must disappear. The God of Abraham is the God
of the universe; and the descendants of Abraham propose to themselves
nothing more than the attainment of that same happiness to which every
mortal can aspire.

LIX. In order that the idea of the contracted covenant might remain
firmly impressed on all Abraham's progeny, it was necessary to
institute some external mark, which should continually recall it to the
mind; for an idea being but an abstraction, it could not be very long
retained in men's minds, without some symbol or visible sign capable of
keeping its remembrance alive. It was also necessary that the adhesion
of that progeny to the covenant should not begin to take effect in
individuals in the adult age only, and as a result of one's own
spontaneous reflexions, as had been the case with the first stock of
that family, but that it should present itself as an accomplished fact,
and, therefore, irrevocable and obligatory; so that every future
offspring should bear from his birth an external indelible mark,
characterising him as a follower of that principle, and qualifying him
to enter into the pale of that association. By such means the
preservation of the covenant was insured, and a beginning was made in
the system of those external, symbolical, and commemorative acts, which
were to be thereafter prescribed to all that race, when sufficiently
increased to form an entire people distinct from others. This external
mark, instituted before the birth of the elect progeny of the patriarch,
is the _circumcision_.

LX. Before Abraham's descendants attained that degree of maturity which
would fit them to receive a revealed legislation, they had to pass
through various stages of progressive material increment and
intellectual development, and also to undergo several sad vicissitudes
produced by the inevitable relations of contact with other nations.
Throughout all this period, which we may call preparatory,