mighty is made to tell the Ifraelites that he was not known to their forefathers as the God who had redeemed their posterity from Egypt, before they had any pofterity to redeem. A marvellous revelation, and, without doubt, much wanted. To

return.

MOSES however appears ftill unwilling to accept this Commiffion; and prefumes to tell God, plainly, Behold they will not believe me, nor hearken to my voice: for they will fay, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee'. But could this be faid or thought by a People, who, groaning in the bittereft fervitude, had a message from GoD, of a long promised deliverance, at the very time that, according to the prediction, the promife was to be fulfilled, if they had kept him and his difpenfations in memory? When this objection is removed, Mofes hath yet another; and that is, his inability for the office of an ORATOR. This too is anfwered. And when he is now driven from all his fubterfuges, he with much paffion declines the whole employment, and cries out, O my GOD, fend I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt fend". This juftly provokes God's difpleasure and thereon, he finally complies. From all this backwardness, (and the cause of it could be no other than what is here affigned; for MOSES, as appears by the former part of his history", was

ne leur ai point esté connu en mon nom de Jehovah, cela fignifie, Je ne me fuis point fait connoitre, comme fidelle à remplir mes promeffes, c'eft a dire, JE N'AI PAS ENCORE REMPLI LA PROMISSE, qui je leur avois faite, de retirer de l'Egypte leur pofterité, et de lui donner la terre de Chanaan. M. Aftruc. Conjectures fur le livre de la Genese, p. 305. He fays very truly, that, in this folution, he had no other part to perform, que fuivre la foule des Commentateurs tant Chretiens que Juifs. p. 301.

1 Chap. iv. ver. 1. hap. ii. ver. 12. VOL. IV.

forward and zealous enough to promote the welfare of his brethren) we must needs conclude, that he thought the recovery of this People from EGYPTIAN SUPERSTITIONS to be altogether defperate. And, humanly speaking, he did not judge amifs as may be feen from a fuccinct account of their behaviour during the whole time GOD was working this amazing Deliverance.

For now Mofes and Aaron discharge their miffage; and having confirmed it by figns and wonders, the People believed: but it was fuch a belief, as men have of a new and unexpected matter, well attefted. They bow the head too, and worship"; but it appears to be a thing they had not been lately accustomed to. And how little true fenfe they had of God's promifes and vifitation is feen from their murmuring and desponding when things did not immediately fucceed to their wishes; though Mofes, as from God, had told them before-hand, that Pharaoh would prove cruel and hard-hearted, and would defer their liberty to the very last diftrefs. And at length, when that time came, and GOD had ordered them to purify themselves from all the idolatries of EGYPT, fo prodigiously attached were they to these follies, that they difobeyed his command even at the very eve of their deliverance'. A thing althogether incredible,

• Exod. iv. 31. iii. ver. 19, 20, 21.

P Chap. v. ver. 21.

a Chap.

A learned writer [Mr. Fourmont-Reflexions Critiques fur les Hiftoires de anciens Peuples] hath followed a fyftem which very well accounts for this unconquerable propenfity to Egyp tian fuperftitions. He fuppofeth that the Egyptian, and confequently the Jewish idolatry, confifted in the worship of the dead Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, &c. The mischief

dible, but that we have God's own word for it, by the prophet Ezekiel: In the day (fays he) that I lifted up mine hand unto them to bring them forth of the land of Egypt, into a land that I had spied for them flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands: Then faid I unto them, Caft ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the Lord your GOD. But they rebelled against me, and would not hearken unto me: they did not every man caft away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forfake the idols of Egypt: Then I faid, I will pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. But I wrought for my name's fake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, amongst whom they were, in whofe fight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.

is, that this fhould have the common luck of fo many other learned Systems, to have all Antiquity obftinately bent against it. Not more fo, however, than its Author is againft Antiquity, as the reader may fee by the inftance I am about to give him. Mr. Fourmont, in confequence of his fyftem, having taken it into his head, that Cronos, in Sanchoniatho, was ABRAHAM; notwithItanding that fragment tells us, that Cronos rebelled against his father, and cut off his privities; buried his brother alive, and murdered his own fon and daughter; that he was an idolater; and a propagator of idolatry, by confecrating feveral of his own family that he gave away the kingdom of Athens to the Goddefs Athena; and the kingdom of Egypt to the God Taaut; notwithstanding all this, fo foreign and inconfiftent with the hiftory of Abraham, yet, because the fame fragment fays, that Cronos, in the time of a plague, facrificed his only fon to appeafe the fhade of his murdered father; and circumcifed himfelf and his whole army; on the ftrength of this, and two or three cold, fanciful etymologies, this great Critic cries out, Nier qu'il s'agiffe ici du feul Abraham, c'eft étre AVEUGLE D'ESPRIT, ET D'UN AVEUGLEMENT IRREMEDIABLE. Liv. ii. fect. 3.

C. 3.

Wherefore

९

Wherefore I caufed them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness.

From all this it appears, that their Cry, by reaJon of their bondage, which came up unto God, was not for fuch a deliverance as was promised to their forefathers, to be brought up out of Egypt; but for fuch a one as might enable them to live at eafe, amongst their flesh-pots, in it.

But now they are delivered: and, by a series of miracles performed in their behalf, got quite clear of the power of Pharaoh. Yet on every little diftrefs, Let us return to Egypt, was ftill the cry, Thus, immediately after their deliverance at the Red-Sea, on fo common an accident, as meeting with bitter waters in their rout, they were presently at their What shall we drink? And no fooner had a miracle removed this diftrefs, and they gotten into the barren wilderness, but they were, again, at their What shall we eat"? Not that indeed they feared to die either of hunger or of thirst; for they found the hand of GoD was ftill ready to fupply their wants; all but their capital want, to return again into EGYPT; and these pretences were only a lefs indecent cover to their designs: which yet, on occafion, they were not afhamed to throw off, as where they fay to Mofes, when frightened by the pursuit of the Egyptians at the Red-Sea, Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, Let us alone that we may ferve the Egyptians. And again, Would to GOD, we had died by the band of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we fat by the flefb-pots and did eat bread to the full. That is, in " Chap. * Exod. xvi. 3. plain

S EZEK. XX. 6. & feq. xvi. ver. 2.

t EXOD. XV, 24.

Chap. xiv. ver. 12.

plain terms, "Would we had died with our bre

thren the Egyptians." For they here allude to the deftruction of the firft-born, when the deftroying angel (which was more than they deserved) paffed over the habitations of Ifrael.

But they have now both flesh and bread, when they cry out the fecond time for water: and even while, again, at their Why haft thou brought us up out of Egypt, a rock, lefs impenetrable than their hearts, is made to pour out a stream so large that the water run down like rivers: yet all the effect it seemed to have upon them was only to put them more in mind of the way of Egypt, and the WATERS of Sibor.

Nay even after their receiving the LAW, on their free and folemn acceptance of Jehovah for their GOD and KING, and their being confecrated anew, as it were, for his peculiar People, Mofes only happening to stay a little longer in the Mount than they expected, They fairly took the occafion of projecting a fcheme, and, to say the truth, no bad one, of returning back into Egypt. They went to Aaron; and pretending they never hoped to fee Mofes again, defired another Leader. But they would have one in the mode of Egypt; an Image, or visible reprefentative of GOD, to go be fore them. Aaron complies, and makes them a GOLDEN CALF, in conformity to the fuperftition of Egypt; whofe great God Ofiris was worshiped under that reprefentation"; and, for greater holinefs too, out of the jewels of the Egyptians, In a Ps. lxxviii. 16, EXOD. xxxii. 1.

Chap. xvii. ver. 3.

ii. 18.

b JER.

· Ο ΜΟΣΧΟΣ ὗτος, ὁ ΑΠΙΣ καλεόμενΘ. Herodot. 1. iii. 28.