The Historical Scriptures [pp. 484-504]

Old Testament lHstory.
case, they sustained an intimate relation to Jehovah as their
covenant God; but this relation was externally manifested un der very different forms in the two cases. Under the earlier
or patriarchal dispensation, the communication between God
and man was kept up by divine appearances in human or an gelic form, of which the Greek name is Theophany, (Soav,n.)
Under the later, or Mosaic dispensation, the chosen race had
been matured into a people, and organized as a State, of which
Jehovah was the head, not a mere providential ruler, as he is of
other nations, but a special and immediate sovereign, corresponding to the human head of other systems, the sovereign people in a pure Democracy, the select few in an Aristocracy, the
sole chief in a Monarchy or Autocracy; in strict analogy to
which terms, the Mosaic State has been distinguished, since
Josephus, by the name of a Theocracy, (8EoxpFTta.) These terms,
if not too rigidly expounded, so as to confine all theophanic revelation to the earlier period, and all theocratic organization to
the later, but used merely to present these as the prominent
characteristics of the two conditions, are convenient and expressive designations of the periods in question, that of Theophany concluding, that of the Theocracy commencing, at the
same point, namely, the Mosaic Legislation.
Pursuing the same method which has thus far been adopted,
descending from generals to particulars, first dividing and then
subdividing, and adhering still to the principles of letting the
history arrange itself, to the exclusion of all fanciful and arbitrary methods, let us look successively at each of the great
subdivisions just obtained, in order, first, to gain a just view of
their character and aspect; and secondly, to subdivide them in
their turn. Beginning with the period to which the name
Theophany has been assigned, we find the whole of it pervaded
by the thing which this name was intended to express. That
is to say, we find the immediate divine communications, accompanied by visible appearances, continued from Adam to Moses,
with little interruption beyond that arising from the silence of
the history itself, as to the greater part of the long sojourn in
the land of Egypt. But as we trace this long chain of theophanies, we come to a perceptible change in the structure or
connection of the links which form it. This change consists in
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