A particular people must be chosen for the purpose of the divine experiment.

A particular law-giver must be commissioned to declare to the chosen people the will of the Supernatural God.

And from time to time a particular prophet must be sent to rebuke the chosen people for its backslidings, to show it where it has gone astray, and to exhort it to turn again to its God.
For if it is far from Man to discern good, it is still farther from him to desire it.

How, then, shall he be induced to walk in the path which the Law has prescribed for him?
To this question there can be but one answer: By the promise of external reward, and the threat of external punishment.

To set before Man an ideal of life--an ideal which would be to him an unfailing fountain of magnetic force and guiding light--is not in the power of legalism.