as it is to believe, miracles certainly
do not make men better; the history of Israel proves it. And the only
mode of escaping this conclusion, to which some persons feel a great
repugnance, is to fancy that the Israelites were much worse than other
nations, which accordingly has been maintained. It has often been
said, that they were stiff-necked and hard-hearted beyond the rest of
the world. Now, even supposing, for argument's sake, I should grant
that they were so, this would not sufficiently account for the strange
circumstance under consideration; for this people was not moved at all.
It is not a question of more or less: surely they must have been
altogether distinct from other men, destitute of the feelings and
opinions of other men, nay, hardly partakers of human nature, if other
men would, as a matter of course, have been moved by those miracles
which had no influence whatever upon them. That there _are_, indeed,
men in the world who would have been moved, and would have obeyed in
consequence, I do not deny; such were to be found among the Israelites
also; but I am speaking of men in general; and I say, that if the
Israelites had a common nature with us, surely that insensibility which
they exhibited on the whole, must be just what we should exhibit on the
whole under the same circumstances.

It confirms this view of the subject to observe, that the children of
Israel _are_ like other men in all points of their conduct, save this
insensibility, which other men have not had the opportunity to show as
they had. There is no difference between their conduct and ours in
point of _fact_, the difference is entirely in the external discipline
to which God subjected them. Whether or not miracles ought to have
influenced them in a way in which God's dealings in Providence do not
influence us, so far is clear, that looking into their modes of living
and of thought, we find a nature just like our own, not better indeed,
but in no respect worse. Those evil tempers which the people displayed
in the desert, their greediness, selfishness, murmuring, caprice,
waywardness, fickleness, ingratitude, jealousy, suspiciousness,
obstinacy, unbelief, all these are seen in the uneducated multitude
now-a-days, according to its opportunity of displaying them.

The pride of Dathan and the presumption of Korah are still instanced in
our higher ranks and among educated persons. Saul, Ahithophel, Joab,
and Absalom, have had their par