the worms which creep upon the earth, according to the ideas which our limited faculties are capable of forming of those matters, no other method remained, confiftent with the freedom of human nature, but to cut them off from the earth, as corrupt and poisonous plants, that were capable of infecting the reft of the creation. This was the plan which Mofes pursued, and I fee no manner of reason whereby we can justly arraign his conduct, notwithstanding all that our modern philosophers have said to the contrary.

This great prophet, after having proved his divine authority by the mighty works which he did, and left no manner of doubt among the people of Ifrael, and even among many of the Egyptians, of his being fent from God, to draw the former out of the wretched state in which they were enveloped, held in one hand the laws, and the form of worship which they were to offer up to the God of heaven; at the fame time promising the Ifraelites pardon for all their past offences, if they would be obedient, and submit to the laws and orders of God; and, in the other hand, fire and fword, to destroy all those who rebelled against them. It does not appear to us what prophets, or preachers, were fent before among the inhabitants of Canaan, to lay before them the wicked and deteftable ftate into which they were fallen,' and to exhort them to repent, and to call upon the name of the Lord, before they were destroyed, except in the examples of Abraham and Lot, who

foretold

with amazement. If a man, who had just before beheld the mighty works of the Lord, and who was even inftrumental in doing them, fhould fo fuddenly fall into the groffeft fcenes of idolatry and wickedness, to fupport a kind of fuperiority over a lawless and abandoned people, when he was left to himself, it is not fo much to be wondered, that the Druids, the priests of Odin, or the Brachmans, should do the fame, who apparently had no knowledge of the laws of the Supreme Being, but what they received from the lights of nature.

The laws which Mofes is faid to have received, for the Ifraelites, in mount Sinai, are fuch as, confidering the then fituation of this people, and their idolatrous and rebellious difpofition, seem to be exceedingly well adapted to keep them in civil order, and to make them good and moral members of human fociety; for it does not appear that Moses ever informed them of the immortality of the foul, and that they were likewife to be rewarded, or punished, in another life.-The ten commandments have ever fince been received, not only among the devout in the Jewish nation, but even in the Christian world, as the commandments of God, which were to be followed, and literally abided by; although a part of the fecond commandment, where God is faid to vifit the fins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation, does not at all agree with the attributes of the Supreme Being, which we have. fince been taught by revelation. A juft and mer

ciful God can never punish an innocent perfon, because his grandfather, or great grandfather, was a wicked man: But we are to suppose that such rigour was abfolutely neceffary, in those days, to ftrike the Ifraelites with greater terror; because all the other commandments, and even the remaining part of the second commandment, are extremely well calculated to form a good and moral member of a well-regulated civil society.

Great objections have been made to the severity, and even apparent cruelty, of feveral of the laws of Mofes; and many have from hence taken upon them to say, that it is impoffible that fuch laws could have been dictated by a merciful God, which even Mofes himself has represented him to be. For we often find, that whole families, and thousands of apparently innocent perfons, were cut off for the offences of a few wicked and rebellious wretches. I must own that the objection, at first fight, appears to have fome foundation: But when we confider, on the other hand, that mankind are free agents here on earth, and that the Ifraelites were fo debauched in principle, by the wickedness of the Egyptians, and of the Canaanites, of which they had been frequently eyewitneffes, and fuch flaves to their own unnatural lufts and paffions, that Mofes, with all this feverity, could not, without the greatest difficulty, keep them in any tolerable civil order, and in obedience to the laws of the Lord their God, we ought not to condemn his conduct, which appears

of him would be fulfilled: For when Herod, from the report of the wife men, heard that there was a king of the Jews born, he called together all the chief priests and fcribes, and demanded of them where Christ should be born; and they said unto him, in Bethlehem of Judah, for thus it is written by the prophet *.-It likewife appears from hence, that not only the Jewish nation, but also a part of the heathen world, were in expectation of this great event; but whether the latter founded their belief upon the Jewish prophecies, or upon fome other figns or tokens, which they had received themselves, does not appear; but I am much inclined to think the latter; otherwise the wife men would have been much at a lofs, with all their science, to have difcovered that the star which they faw announced the birth of a Meffias.

The hiftory of the birth of Jefus Chrift, with all the extraordinary circumftances that attended it, is fo clearly set forth by St. Matthew and by St. Luke, and fo well known, that it would be needless for me to say any thing thereon; except that we find he was born of a virgin, agreeable to what Isaiah had prophefied of him several hundred years before. Nothing particular is faid of Jefus Chrift during his childhood, except that, when he was only twelve years old, he left his reputed father, and his mother, and took his feat among the doctors, in the temple, to hear, and to ask them questions, and that all those who heard him • Matthew, chap. ii. ver. 5.

were

nefs, that they were led up out of Egypt, but that they were to be the inftruments to destroy the ancient inhabitants of Canaan, whofe unaccountable wickedness had defiled the land: For which reafon he ordered them to destroy all the people of Canaan, wherever they came, both men, women, and children, and to burn their cities, and all their effects, left they fhould thereby be led into the fame horrid scenes of wickedness, of which the others had been guilty, and which were an abomination before the Lord. And, for this reafon likewife, he forbid the Ifraelites to have any communion with the neighbouring nations, who were grofs idolaters, left they fhould draw them, or their children, into their idolatry. But, notwithstanding this wife precaution of Mofes, we find that this was afterwards the cause of the destruction of this people.

Another wife and prudent regulation which Mofes made to keep the Ifraelites in civil order, and in obedience to the laws which he laid before them, was, that of endeavouring to preferve a perfect equality among them; and that no individuals, or particular families, by growing too powerful, should attempt thereby to gain a superiority over the others, and to disturb the civil order of the state; which, confidering the turbulent and rebellious difpofition of this people, they might easily have done; and this was by ordering, that the inheritance of each tribe, and of each family, fhould always remain in fuch tribe, or in fuch

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