Other facts might be added to the induction, which would make the design, if possible, more apparent. If the Jews were to be the recipients of new instruction--to obey new laws, and to sustain new institutions, it would be desirable that their minds, so far as possible, should be in the condition of new material, occupied by little previous knowledge, and by no national prejudices against or in favour of governmental forms and systems. Now, in the case of the Jews, the habit of obedience had been acquired. They had no national predilections or prejudices arising from past experience. In relation to knowledge of any kind, their mind was almost a _tabula rasa_. They were as new material prepared to receive the moulding of a master hand, and the impress of a governing mind. Now, as this discipline of the descendants of Abraham was the result of a long concatenation of events, and could not have been designed by themselves to accomplish the necessary end; and as the whole chain of events was connected together and perfectly adapted, in accordance with the nature of things, to produce the specific purpose which was accomplished by them, it follows, as the only rational conclusion, 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. CHAPTER III. CONCERNING MIRACLES--PARTICULARLY THE MIRACLES WHICH ACCOMPANIED THE DELIVERANCE OF THE ISRAELITES FROM BONDAGE IN EGYPT. There has been so much false philosophy written concerning the subject of miracles, that it is difficult for those conversant with the speculations of writers upon this subject, to divest their minds sufficiently of preformed biases, to examine candidly the simple and natural principles upon which are based the evidence and necessity of miraculous interposition.