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, Cast 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 cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt: Then I said, 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 whose fight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.

is, that this should have the common luck of so many other learned Systems, to have all Antiquity obstinately bent against it. Not more fo, however, than its Author is against Antiquity, as the reader may fee by the instance I am about to give him. Mr. Fourmont, in consequence of his system, having taken it into his head, that Cronos, in Sanchoniatho, was ABRAHAM; notwithstanding 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 Goddess Athena; and the kingdom of Egypt to the God Taaut; notwithstanding all this, fo foreign and inconsistent with the history of Abraham, yet, because the fame fragment says, that Cronos, in the time of a plague, sacrificed his only fon to appease the shade of his murdered father; and circumcised himself and his whole army; on the strength of this, and two or three cold, fanciful etymologies, this great Critic cries out, Nier qu'il s'agisse ici du seul Abraham, c'est étre AVEUGLE D'ESPRIT, ET D'UN AVEUGLEMENT IRREMEDIABLE. Liv. ii. fect. 3. C.3.

Wherefore

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Wherefore I caused 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 rea-
Son 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
such a one as might enable them to live at ease,
amongst their flesh-pots, in it.

But now they are delivered: and, by a feries 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 still 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 distress, 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 still ready to fupply their wants; all but their capital want, to return again into EGYPT; and these pretences were only a less indecent cover to their designs: which yet, on occafion, they were not ashamed to throw off, as where they say 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 serve the Egyptians*. And again, Would to God, we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we fat by the flesh-pots and did eat bread to the full That is, in

•

* EZEK. xx. 6. & feq. * Exod. XV, 24. " Chap. xvi. ver. 2.

* Chap. xiv, ver. 12.

y Exop. xvi. 3.

plain

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plain terms, " Would we had died with our bre "thren the Egyptians." For they here allude to the destruction of the first-born, when the destroying angel (which was more than they deferved) passed over the habitations of Ifrael.

But they have now both flesh and bread, when they cry out the second time for water: and even while, again, at their Why hast thou brought us up out of Egypt, a rock, less 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 occa sion of projecting a scheme, 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 representative of God, to go be fore them. Aaron complies, and makes them a GOLDEN CALF, in conformity to the fuperftition of Egypt; whose great God Ofiris was worshiped under that representation; and, for greater holiness too, out of the jewels of the Egyptians, In

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this so horrid an impiety to the God of their fathers, their secret drift, if we may believe St. Stephen, was this; they wanted to get back into Egypt; and while the CALF, so much adored in that country, went before them, they could return with an atonement and reconciliation in their hands. And doubtless their worthy Mediator, being made all of facred, Egyptian metal, would have been confecrated in one of their temples, under the title of OSIRIS REDUCTOR. But Mofes's fudden appearance broke all their measures; and the ringleaders of the design were punished as they deferved.

At length, after numberless follies and perversities, they are brought, through God's patience and long-fuffering, to the end of all their travels, to the promised place of rest, which is just opening to receive them; When, on the report of the cowardly explorers of the Land, they relapse again into their old delirium, Wherefore bath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt'. This fo provoked the Almighty, that he condemned that Generation to be worn away in the Wilderness. How they spent their time there, the prophet Amos will inform us, Have ye offered unto me (says God) any facrifices and offerings in the Wilderness, forty years, O house of Ifrael?

"To whom our fathers would not obey, but thruft him " from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, " saying unto Aaron, Make us Gods to go before us,” &c.. Acts vii. 39, 40.

In a word, this unwillingness to leave Egypt, and this impatience to return thither, are convincing proofs of their fondness for its customs and fuperstitions. When I confider this, I seem more inclined than the generality even of fober Critics to excuse the false accounts of the Pagan writers concerning the Exodus; who concur in reprefenting the Jews as expelled or forcibly driven out of Egypt; For so indeed they were. was only about their driver. The Pagans suppofed him to be the King of Egypt; when indeed it was the God of Ifrael himself, by the ministry of Mofes.

The mistake

Let us view them next, in possession of the PROMISED LAND. A land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands. One would expect now their longing after Egypt should have entirely ceased. And fo without doubt it would, had it arose only from the flesh-pots; but it had a deeper root; it was the spiritual luxury of Egypt, their fuperstitions, with which the Ifraelites were so debauched. And therefore no wonder they should still continue slaves to their appetite. Thus the prophet Ezekiel, Neither LEFT she her whoredoms brought from Egypt. So that after all God's mercies conferred upon them in putting them in poffeffion of the land of Canaan, Joshua is, at last, forced to leave them with this fruitless admonition: Now therefore fear the Lord, and ferve him in fincerity and in truth, and PUT AWAY the Gods which your fathers served on the other fide of the flood and in EGYPT. It is true, we are told that the people served the Lord all the days of Jofhua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord