The best of kings is a title which adulation and servility have always conferred on the most contemptible, as well as the most detestable tyrants; and the frequency of its application to the object is ever in proportion as he is undeserving of it. Had the flattering sycophants of king David been satisfied with applying to him this common-place appellation, rational men, who form their conclusions from the result of general experience, would have inferred only that he had been one of the numerous herd of bad princes who have oppressed mankind, and there would have been nothing peculiar either in the fact or the inference. But when the extremity of adulation conferred on David the title of The Man after God's own heart, thinking men, who know the source from which such adulation ever flows, are prepared to expect, in the development of his history, a character pre-eminently wicked, and in this they are not deceived.
All historians of credit agree in describing God's chosen people, the Jews, as the most vicious and detestable of mankind;* their own historians confirm this character of them, and the whole series of facts which constitute their history, prove it beyond a possibility of doubt.
* Tacitus describes the Jewish people as formed of the worst
outcasts of the surrounding nations, collected together by
Moses, and kept for ever separated from the rest of mankind,
by an opposition of manners, and hostility of sentiment. Nam
passimus quisque, spretis religionibus patriis, tributa et
stipes illuc congerebant; unde auctæ Judeorum res—ad versus
omnes alios hostile odium—transgressi in morem eorum, idem
usurpent; nec quidquam prius imbuuntur quam contemnere Deos,
exuere patriam; arentes, liberos, fratres, vilia habere.—
Ticiti Hist. Lib. v.
Among the chosen people of God—the most depraved of all nations—it is pretty certain that the worst and wickedest man of that nation was David, The Man after God's own heart. The truth of this proposition will be abundantly proved in the following short history.
A question will here naturally present itself, how the Jews became so much more vicious and depraved than their neighbours? And to resolve that question, it will be necessary to consider in what respects their laws and customs differed from those of others. It will be found that they differed most essentially from all other nations in the world in two particulars: 1st. They had more religion than any other nation; and, 2dly. They had more priests. Other nations among whom superstitious rites and ceremonies prevailed, were satisfied with practising them on solemn festivals, and occasionally on particular or important events; but the Jews practised their superstition incessantly: none of the common duties, or ordinary functions of life, could be performed by them, without a reference to the rules of their superstition; they were bound to a strict observance of them whenever they ate, drank, or performed any other of the natural functions.* **
* Moses quo sibi in posterum gentem firmaret, novos ritus
coutrariosque ceteris mortalibus indidit; profana illic
omnia, quae apud nos sacra; rursum concessa apud illos, quæ
nobis incesta.—Seperati epulis, discreti cubilibus,
projectissima ad libidinem gens, aliena rum cubitu
abstinent, inter se nihil illicitum, circumcidere genitalia
instituere, ut diversitate noscanttir.—Taciti Hist. Lib. v.
It is impossible to draw a more disgusting picture of a
nation than this elegant and correct historian, in
describing the Jews.
** The Romans, though so numerous and powerful a nation, had
but very few priests, compared to the Jews. The Augurs were
at first only 3, and in process of time were increased to
15. The Arnspices were 12. The Pontifices were at first but
4, and were afterwards increased to 10. The Flamines were
but 3. The Sàlit 12. The Feciales, who were 20 in number,
though classed by authors among the priesthood, were merely
civil officers employed as heralds. And the Vestals, or Nuns
of Rome, were only 4; altogether between 50 and 60. Vide
Kennett's Roman Antiq. And yet Saint Austin, De Cevitate
Dei, Lib. iv. cap. 15, admits that the Romans were so
virtuous, that God gave them the empire of the world because
they were more virtuous than other nations, vet, with true
Christian charity, he says, that they must nevertheless he
damned as heathens. We do not find that the priests of other
enlightened nations of antiquity were proportionality much
more numerous than amoung the Romans. In England at present
the number of the priesthood cannot be much less than
20,000; there are near 10,000 parishes, each having one
priest at least, several two, and some three or more,
exclusive of Deans and Chapters, Prebends, &c. &c. and all
these in the established church, as it is called, exclusive
of a great variety of other sectaries of different
denominations.
Other nations had a few priests dedicated to their gods or idols, seldom exceeding a few dozen in a whole nation but the Jewish priesthood constituted a twelfth part of the whole people, and claimed and exercised the privilege of devouring a tenth part of the produce of the country, without contributing any thing to its productive labour.* And it is probable that the Jewish nation alone, though but a miserable handful of semi-barbarous savages, had more priests than the rest of the then known world collectively, and were consequently more vicious and more enslaved than any other people.
* The Jewish priesthood being one tribe, or twelfth part of
the nation, do not appear to have assumed to themselves much
more than an equal proportion, compared to their numbers, in
taking the tithe or tenth part of the produce of the land,
however unjust it may appear that they should be supported
in idleness at the expence of the industry of the rest: but
the English priesthood, though abundantly numerous, do not
form above one five-hundredth part of the whole nation, yet
they have the conscience to take also the tenth of the whole
produce, which is near fifty times more than their just
share, according to the proportion of their romish models,
from whose example they pretend to derive them.
Mankind have been too long duped by that universal cant of priests, who, in their language, have ever affected to couple religion and morality together, and to represent them as inseparably united, though the slightest attention must show that they are perfectly distinct, and a full and mature consideration of the subject must prove that they are even extremely opposite. They well knew that man, in the most abject state of mental degradation to which superstition could reduce him, must still acknowledge the force and excellence of virtue and morality, and must perceive their necessary tendency to promote his welfare and happiness. They well knew how useful to their own views and interests it would be to persuade him that religion, virtue, and morality, were one and the same, or, at least, intimately and inseparably connected; the credulity of man gave credit to the imposture without examination, and the uniform experience of above 2,000 years has not hitherto been sufficient to undeceive him.
Unhappy man! destined for ever to be the dupe of his own credulity, in opposition to the testimony of his experience, and the evidence of his senses. Does not the history of all ages show, that the most religious nations have always been, and still are, the most vicious and immoral!