5. Q. Leaving the God of the Bible out of view, what has been the character of the objects man has worshiped? A. Those objects have always had a defective and unholy character.
6. Q. What third fact is stated in connection with the other two already given? A. There were no means within the reach of human power or wisdom by which man could extricate himself from the evil of idolatry, either by an immediate, or by a progressive series of efforts.
7. Q. How is this fact maintained? A. From the history of idolatry, the testimony of the heathen philosophers, and the nature of man.
8. Q. What is said of the means and instrumentalities by which his redemption would have to be accomplished if man were ever redeemed from idolatrous worship? A. It would have to be accomplished by means and instrumentalities adapted to his nature and the circumstances in which he existed.
9. Q. What was the first thing necessary to be accomplished for man to relieve himself from the corrupting influence of idolatry? A. That a pure object of worship should be placed before the eye of the soul.
10. Q. What was the second necessary thing in order to man’s redemption? A. That when a holy object of worship was revealed the revelation should be accompanied with sufficient power to influence men to forsake their former worship, and to worship the holy object made known to them.
11. Q. What is mentioned as having a tendency to unite the minds of a whole people into one common mind? A. Any cause which creates a common interest and a common feeling, common biases and common hopes in the individual minds which compose a nation.
12. Q. What are some of these causes that are especially strong? A. A common parentage, a common religion, and a common fellowship in suffering and deliverance.
13. Q. Upon what people did these causes operate with peculiar force? A. The Israelites.
14. Q. What follows as the only rational conclusion in regard to the discipline of the descendants of Abraham? A. First, that the overruling intelligence of God was employed in thus preparing material for a purer religious worship than the world then enjoyed; and, second, that a nation could have been so prepared by no other agent, and in no other way.