17. "The Lord was with Judah,** and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountains, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." It is difficult to conceive, how the Lord of heaven and earth, who had so often changed the order, and suspended the established laws of nature in favour of his people the Jews, could not succeed against the inhabitants of a valley, because they had chariots of iron! Or ought we not rather to infer that the book in which this passage is found, has nothing of divine inspiration in it, but was written by one of the Jews who considered the God of Israel their protector as a local divinity; who was in some instances more, and in others less powerful, than the gods of their enemies. Thus David in many places compares the Lord with other gods "The Lord is a great God, and a great king above all gods," &c. and Jephtha says to the king of the children of Ammon, "Wilt thou not possess that which Chemosh thy God giveth thee, to possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess." ** Judges i. 19. 18. How unjustly are the Spaniards stigmatised for the zeal they exhibited in converting the natives of Peru and Mexico to the Christian religion!*** It is true, they ripped up women with child, dashed infants to pieces against the rocks, and broiled men to death with slow fires; but as their pious intention was purely that of delivering these uninstructed and ignorant people from the more horrible pains of futurity, the truly compassionate can not but approve their conduct. How can we enough admire the mild and humane transaction of hanging up thirteen Indians in honour of Christ and the twelve apostles! *** See Marmoutel's Preface to the Incas, and the authors there cited.