sures of sense, they morosely arraigned the polygamy of the
patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the seraglio of Solomon. The
conquest of the land of Canaan, and the extirpation of the unsuspecting
natives, they were at a loss how to reconcile with the common notions of
humanity and justice. [261] But when they recollected the sanguinary list
of murders, of executions, and of massacres, which stain almost every
page of the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that the barbarians of
Palestine had exercised as much compassion towards their idolatrous
enemies, as they had ever shown to their friends or countrymen. [27]
Passing from the sectaries of the law to the law itself, they asserted
that it was impossible that a religion which consisted only of bloody
sacrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as
punishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire
the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity of passion. The Mosaic
account of the creation and fall of man was treated with profane
derision by the Gnostics, who would not listen with patience to the
repose of the Deity after six days' labor, to the rib of Adam, the
garden of Eden, the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking
serpent, the forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced against
human kind for the venial offence of their first progenitors. [28] The
God of Israel was impiously represented by the Gnostics as a being
liable to passion and to error, capricious in his favor, implacable
in his resentment, meanly jealous of his superstitious worship, and
confining his partial providence to a single people, and to this
transitory life. In such a character they could discover none of the
features of the wise and omnipotent Father of the universe. [29] They
allowed that the religion of the Jews was somewhat less criminal than
the idolatry of the Gentiles; but it was their fundamental doctrine,
that the Christ whom they adored as the first and brightest emanation
of the Deity appeared upon earth to rescue mankind from their various
errors, and to reveal a new system of truth and perfection. The
most learned of the fathers, by a very singular condescension, have
imprudently admitted the sophistry of the Gnostics. [291] Acknowledging
that the literal sense is repugnant to every principle of faith as well
as reason, they deem themselves secure and invulnerable behind the ample
veil of allegory, which they carefully spread over eve