Jewish constitution for a supreme executive.
But the law foretold that the time would come in which they would desire a
king, and it defined his authority. He should be a constitutional king.
(Deut. xvii. 14-20.)

We have already said that one great object and purpose of the ceremonial
law of Moses was to develop in the minds of the people the idea of
holiness. This is expressed (Lev. xix. 2), "Speak unto all the
congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be
holy; for I the Lord your God am holy."

Another object of the ceremonial law was to surround the whole nation with
an impenetrable hedge of peculiarities, and so to keep them separate from
surrounding nations. The ceremonial law was like a shell which protected
the kernel within till it was ripe. The ritual was the thorny husk, the
theology and morality were the sacred included fruit. In this point of
view the strangest peculiarities of the ritual find an easy explanation.
The more strange they are, the better they serve their purpose. These
peculiarities produced bitter prejudice between the Jews and the
surrounding nations. Despised by their neighbors, they despised them again
in turn; and this mutual contempt has produced the result desired. The
Jews, in the very heart of the world, surrounded by great nations far more
powerful than themselves, conquered and overrun by Assyrians, Medes,
Persians, Syrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, have been more entirely
separated from other nations than the Chinese or the people of Japan.
Dispersed as they are, they are still a distinct people, a nation within
other nations. Like drops of oil floating on the water but never mingling
with it, so the Jews are found everywhere, floating drops of national life
in the midst of other nationalities. In Leviticus (xviii. 3) we find the
command, "After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall
ye not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring
you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their ordinances." They
have not obeyed this command in its letter, but continue to obey its
spirit in its unwritten continuation: "After the doings of the English and
French and Americans shall ye not do, nor walk in their ordinances, but
shall still continue a peculiar people."

Sec. 4. David; or, Judaism as the personal Worship of a Father and friend.

Many disasters befell the Jews after their settlement in Palestine, which
we