Providence, equally dispensing temporal Rewards and That Scripture gives this representation of GOD'S government. And that there are many favourable cir- cumstances in the character of the Jewish People, to in- Shews, that as temporal Rewards and Punishments were the proper sanction of the Jewish Law, fo, there were no other; Moses entirely omitting the Doctrine of a future State. - That this omiffion was not ac- cidental, but designed, and of a thing well known and from the Law of punishing the crimes of Parents on their Posterity, which was to supply the want of the Doctrine of a future State. - The na- ture and equity of this Law explained, and defended against Unbelievers. - It is then shown that as Mofes taught not the Doctrine of a future State of Rewards and Punishments, so neither bad the ancient Jews any Proves the same point from the books of the New [1] THE DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. I BOOK IV. SECT. VI. COME, at length, to my second proposition: which if, by this time, the Reader should have forgotten, he may be easily excused. It is this, That the Jewish people were extremely fond of Egyptian manners, and did frequently fall into Egyptian fuperftitions: and that many of the laws given to them by the ministry of Mofes, were instituted, partly in compliance to their prejudices, and partly in oppofition to those superstitions. The first part of this proposition, the people's fondness for, and frequent lapse into, Egyptian fuperstitions, - needs not many words to evince. The thing, as we shall fee hereafter, being so natural VOL. IV. B in in itself; and, as we shall now fee, so fully recorded in holy Scripture. The time was now come for the deliverance of the chosen People from their Egyptian bondage: For now VICE and IDOLATRY were arrived at their height; the former (as St. Paul tells us) by means of the latter; for as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, &c2. The two most populous regions at that time in the world were CANAAN and EGYPT: The first diftinguished from all other by its violence and unnatural crimes; the latter by its fuperstitions and idolatries. It concerned God's moral government that a speedy check should be put to both; the inhabitants of these two places being now ripe for divine vengeance. And as the Instruments he employed to punish their present enormities were defigned for a barrier against future, the Ifraelites went out of Egypt with a high hand, which defolated their haughty tyrants; and were led into the poffeffion of the land of Canaan, whose inhabitants they were utterly to exterminate. The dispensation of this Providence appears admirable, both in the time and in the modes of the punishment. VICE and IDOLATRY had now (as I faid) filled up their measure. EGYPT, the capital of false Religion, being likewise the nursery of arts and sciences, was preserved from total deftruction for the fake of civil life and polished manners, which were to derive their fource from thence: But the CANAANITES were to be utterly exterminated, to vindicate the honour of humanity, and to put a stop • Ром. і. 28. to to a spreading contagion which changed the reasonable Nature into brutal. Now it was that God, remembering his Covenant with Abraham, was pleased to appoint his People, then groaning under their bondage, a Leader and Deliverer. But so great was their degeneracy, and so sensible was MOSES of its effects, in their ignorance of, or alienation from the true God, that he would willingly have declined the office: And when absolutely commanded to undertake it, he defired however that God would let him know by what NAME he would be called, when the people should ask the name of the God of their fathers. And Mofes faid unto GOD, Behold when I come unto the children of Ifrael, and say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, WHAT IS HIS NAME? what shall I say unto them? Here we fee a people not only loft to all knowledge of the UNITY, (for the asking for a name necessarily implied their opinion of a plurality) but likewise possessed with the very fpirit of Egyptian idolatry. The religion of NAMES, as we have shewn', was a matter of great consequence in Egypt. It was one of their effential superstitions: it was one of their native inventions: and the first of them which they communicated to the Greeks. Thus when Hagar, the handmaid of Sarai, who was an Egyptian woman, saw the angel of God in the wilderness, the text tells usd, She called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Elroi, the God of vision, or the visible God: that is, according to the established custom of Egypt, she gave him a name of honour: not merely a name of distinc b EXOD. iii. 13. xvi. 13. • Page 254, & feq. B2 d GEN. tion; |