this ferpent was made to cure the bite of real ferpents, it was not however adored.' It is true in the place juft quoted, he leaves alfo ground for complaint of his difingenuity; for he infinuates, that making this ferpent was a violation of the divine law, Mofes ' notwithstanding the divine law, which forbad the 'making the reprefentation of men or animals, erected · a brazen ferpent, which was an imitation of the filver ferpent carried by the Egyptian priests in pro'ceffion;' But how foolish the cavil! To omit, that whatever Mofes did here, he did by order of Jehovah, who could not be under any restraints from the rules he had prescribed to his creatures, it is plain from the general scope, and moft natural conftruction of the fecond precept in the decalogue itself, that the making an image or figure of any thing was only condemned by it in this precife and determinate view, of making it to be worshipped; and the reafon annexed

I am a jealous God,' doth only fuit with this expofition of it: for where is the conclusiveness and force of the argument against making images for other purposes, though it has irresistible energy against making them to be proftrated unto, and to receive religious adoration? +

marks of carelessnefs! The cherubims not looked upon as gods, and yet confecrated like the calves which Jeroboam ftiled gods,-The Jews no longer adoring foreign divinities, and yet looking for deliverance by the affiftance of their gods, though Jehovah was their alone God, fo that any on whom they relied, befides him, must have been strange gods. See Phil. of Hift. chap. 30. p. 138.

As to his fancy, that it was an imitation of the filver ferpent, carried by the Egyptian priests in proceffion, I wish he had given us a particular account what led him to entertain it; I do not believe

Farther, is it not most spiteful and malicious in him to represent, that the Saviour himself, in conformity to vulgar prejudices, fays, That new wine • should never be put into old cafks?' Does not almost every person of any literature know that his

he hath the authority either of Sir John Marsham or Dr. Spencer for it, as ingenious and fertile as each of these learned perfons was, in discoveries of this fort. Probably he borrowed it from Dr. Middleton, who after he hath faid that 'The making the golden calf was nothing else but recalling the worship of the Egyptian god Apis, repre⚫ fented always under that form,' adds ' And the setting up the brazen ⚫ ferpent seems to have been done in condescension to the fame humour; ⚫ being an object they had been used to reverence in Egypt; where 'from the Ifiac table of Bembo, the obelisks and other Egyptian monuments, it appears that the image of a ferpent erected in that manner on a pillar, had extraordinary honours and a fuperftitious veneration paid to it ;' and then refers us to Pierius Valerianus in his Hieroglyphica, lib. 14. and to Eufebius in his Praep. Evang. lib. 1. cap. 10. for the truth bereof. See his Works, vol. 3. Letter to Dr. Waterland, page 33. Still however it must be regarded as an idle conceit, for all that is in Eufebius to the purpose is a quotation from Philo Byblius's translation of Sanchoniatho, (an author whom Dr. Middleton himself hath pronounced little worthy to ground any conjecture upon, ibid. page 27.) That the Egyptians after Taautus afcribed divinity to ferpents, and called a figure of a ferpent which had a hawk's 'head joined to it, cneph, and offered facrifices, and celebrated festi'vals thereunto;' and as to his other authorities, all that looks favourable to his hypothefis either in the brazen Ifiac table of Cardinal Bembo, (as it is engraven in Pignorius's book,) or in Pierius's volume, is, that ferpents are there represented to receive worship. But furely there is no reafon hence to affirm, that the erection of the brazen ferpent to cure the Ifraelites, was an imitation of an Egyptian rite, whatever cause there may be afforded for fufpicion, that this people in fucceeding times, when they begun to burn incenfe to it, were tainted with Egyptian manners. See Pignorii Menfa Ifiaca, and pages 23, 26, 69, of his Commentary. * Page 225.

R

obfervation is,' Neither do men put new wine into "old bottles, else the bottles break, and the wine 'runneth out?' nor can the truth of this be queftioned, when it is considered that the term translated bottles, did not signify in those ages and countries, veffels made of glass, fuch as we denote by that name, but budgets or bladders made of the hides of animals for containing liquors; for fuch old leathern budgets would be apt to rend and burft by the fermentation of new wine, to its entire lofs and effufion. No more is it difficult to defend the pertinence of it to our Saviour's defign, which was to fhew, that weak and feeble virtue, fhould not have the most burdenfome tasks, and difficult fervices impofed, left it faint and be difcouraged.

As little juftice is there in his producing St. Paul's expreffion there, as a condescension to vulgar errors, or prevailing falfe opinions, That the feed which 'thou foweft is not quickened, except it die;' for there is enough in the common appearance of nature to vindicate the remark, together with his application of it, for fhewing it was poffible that the diffolution of the body might be fucceeded by its revival; fince the grain we throw into the earth feems to rot

+ The word aoxoc is properly uter, a bladder; hence we read of ano, or bladders made of goat-fkin, ox-skin, &c. So Athenaeus Deipnofoph. lib. 5. p. 199. speaks of an aoxoc or budget holding 3000 METONTα, (each of which, according to Arbuthnot, contained two English gallons, and two pints) fewed of panther-skins, ex wapdanwv degμatwv eggaμμeros. And Homer's Iliad, iii. 246 247.

Ασκώ εν αγγειῳ.

To name no more inftances.

εκ

οινον εύφρονα καρπον αρέρης

By this account of their materials, light is thrown upon Joshua, ix. 13. and Pf. cxix. 83.

and putrefy, to waste and wither away, the external fhell moistening and corrupting, ere it produce perfect corn, whatever vegetative quality may flill lurk in it.

Finally, fhould not Mr. Voltaire* have confidered, that there are Chriftian divines, who neither allow that the Pharifees in fact drove out devils like our Saviour, nor that he supposed them endowed with fuch an energy, in conformity to the popular prejudices of his place and day, when the faid, If 1 by Beelzebub caft out devils, by whom do your children caft them out? therefore they shall be your 'judges.' Be it, that it would be doing violence to his words, either to explain them of the expulfion of evil fpirits by prophets of their own nation long dead, because he seems to fpeak of the prefent difplay of fuch virtue, or to interpret them of the ejection of demons by his disciples, when he sent them before that, through the cities and villages of Judea, with power to difpoffefs them, in order to awake attention and procure credit to their doctrine, because it is not likely they would attribute fuch operations in them to a divine affistance, more than in their master, though indeed each of these senses hath its advocates; ftill we may very well fuppofe that our Lord, with

Page 227. The paffage alluded to, runs thus, The Jews were at length fo skilful in driving out devils, that our Saviour, who, according to St. Matthew, was himself accused of driving them out by the power of Beelzebub, grants the Jews the fame power, and asks them "if it is by means of Beelzebub, that they triumph over evil spirits ?—"If they had not this gift, Jefus conformed himself to the popular pre'judices, in deigning to fuppofe that his implacable enemies had it, and ' prevailed over demons.' Matt. xii. 27.

out granting that any of the Pharifees really freed the bodies of men from the oppreffion of evil fpirits, argues here with them upon their belief that they did, while they did not pretend that they owed this ability to Beelzebub, but looked upon it as the gift of God, and on this account tells them, that fuch men would furnish matter for their condemnation, by their fo favourable opinion and honourable treatment of them beyond himself.

Animadverfions on his forty-eighth chapter, where he writes, that Satan appears in Job mafter of the earth, fubordinate to God; and that Satan is a Chaldaean word, and the Arimanius of the Perfians.

IN the chapter which fucceeds, our author treats of angels, genii, and devils of the antient nations, and amongst the antient Jews. He fails not however here alfo to afford reafon for various cenfures of his work.

'Satan,' fays he, appears in Job to be the ma'fter of the earth, fubordinate to God.' But is this true? all which appears from this book is, that he roves through the earth,-that he is difpofed to detract from the virtue or excellence of a holy perfon, --that he can upon God's licence, for the wife purpofes of his government, bring ruin upon a good. man's family and eftate, and inflict diseases upon his body, and that he cannot work any hurt, or pro*Phil. of Hift. chap. 48. p. 231.