extraordinary Providence ;] the effects of which he describes in the next words," He made him ride on the high places of the earth," [i. e. he made the Wilderness to equal, in its produce, the best cultivated places] "that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the Rock, and oil out of the flinty Rock: Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan" [i. e. as large as that breed] " and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat," [i. e. the flour of wheat] "and thou didst drink the pure blood of the Grape."

That this was no fairy-scene, appears from the effects.—“ Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation," &c.* This severe reproof of Moses certainly did not put the Israelites in an humour, to take the wonders in the foregoing account on his word, had the facts he appeals to been the least equivocal.

On the whole, we can form no conception how God could have chosen a People, and assigned them a land to inhabit, more proper for the display of his almighty Power, than the People of Israel and the land of Judea. As to the People, the PROPHET in his Parable of the Vine-tree, informs us, that they were naturally, the weakest and most contemptible of all nations: and as to the land, the POET, in his great Fable, which he calls a General History, assures us, that Judea was the vilest and most barren of all countries. Yet somehow or other this chosen People became the Instructors of mankind, in the noblest office of humanity, the science of true Theology: and the promised Land, while made subservient to the worship of one God, was changed, from its native sterility, to a region flowing with milk and honey; and, by reason of the incredible numbers which it sustained, deservedly entitled the GLORY OF ALL LANDS.

This is the state of things which SCRIPTURE lays before us. And I have never yet seen those strong reasons, from the schools of Infidelity, that should induce a man, bred up in any school at all, to prefer their logic to the plain facts of the Sacred Historians.

I have used their testimony to expose one, who, indeed, renounces their authority: but in this I am not conscious of having transgressed any rule of fair reasoning. The Freethinker laments that there is no contemporary Historian remaining, to confront with the Jewish Lawgiver, and detect his impostures. However, he takes heart, and boldly engages his credit to confute him from his own history. This is a fair attempt. But he prevaricates on the very first onset. History, besides the many civil facts which it contains, has many of a miraculous nature. Of these, our Freethinker will allow the first only

• Deut. xxxii. 10, et seq.

The Sacred

to be brought in evidence. And then bravely attacks his adversary, who has now one hand tied behind him: for the civil and the miraculous facts, in the Jewish Dispensation, have the same, nay, a nearer relation to each other, than the two hands of the same body; for these may be used singly and independently, though to disadvantage; whereas the civil and the miraculous facts can neither be understood nor accounted for, but on the individual inspection of both. This is confessed by one who, as clear-sighted as he was, certainly did not see the* consequence of what he so liberally acknowledged. "The miracles in the Bible" (says his philosophic Lordship) "are not like those in Livy, detached pieces, that do not disturb the civil History, which goes on very well without them. But the miracles of the Jewish Historian are intimately connected with all the civil affairs, and make a necessary and inseparable part. The whole history is founded in them; it consists of little else; and if it were not an history of them, it would be a history of nothing."+

From all this, I assume that where an Unbeliever, a Philosopher if you will, (for the Poet Voltaire makes them convertible terms) pretends to shew the falshood of Moses's mission from Moses's own history of it; he who undertakes to confute his reasoning, argues fairly when he confutes it upon facts recorded in that history, whether they be of the miraculous or of the civil kind: since the two sorts are so inseparably connected, that they must always be taken together, to make the history understood, or the facts which it contains intelligible.

SECTION II.

ALLOWING it then, to have been GoD's purpose to perpetuate the knowledge of himself amidst an idolatrous World, by the means of a separated People; let us see how this design was brought about, when the Family, he had chosen, was now become numerous enough to support itself under a separation; and Idolatry, which was grown to its most gigantic stature, was now to be repressed.

The Israelites were, at this time, groaning under the yoke of Egypt; whither the all-wise providence of God had conducted them, while they were yet few in number, and in danger of mixing and confounding themselves with the rest of the Nations. In this distress, one of their own brethren is sent to them with a message from GOD, by the name and character of the GOD OF THEIR FATHERS, whose virtues God had promised to reward with distinguished blessings on their Posterity. The message, accompanied with signs and wonders, denounced their speedy deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and their certain possession of the land of Canaan, the scene of all the promised See the "View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy," vol. vi. p. 732, of the quarto edition. ↑ BOLINGBROKE'S "Posthumous Works," vol. iii. P. 279. + See note B, at the end of this book.

blessings. The People hearken, and are delivered. They depart from Egypt; and in the third month from their departure, come to Mount Sinai. Here GOD first tells them by their Leader, MOSES, that, if they would obey his voice indeed, and keep his Covenant, then they should be a PECULIAR TREASURE to him above all people, for that the WHOLE EARTH was his.* Where we see an example of what hath been observed above, that whenever an Institution was given to this People, in compliance with the notions they had imbibed in Egypt, a corrective was always joined with it to prevent the abuse. Thus God having here told them, that if they would obey his voice they should be his peculiar treasure above all people, (speaking in the character of a tutelary God;) to prevent this compliance from falling into abuse, as the division of the several regions of the earth to several celestial rulers was inseparably connected with the idea of a tutelary Deity, he adds, as a reason for making this People his Peculiar, a circumstance destructive of that pagan notion of tutelary Gods-for that the WHOLE EARTH was his. Well. The people consent; † and God delivers the Covenant to them, in the words of the two Tables.‡

But this promise, of their being received for GOD's peculiar treasure, could be visibly performed no otherwise than by their separation from the rest of mankind. As on the other hand, their separation could not have been effected without this visible protection. And this, Moses observes in his intercession for the people: For wherein shall it be known here, that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou GOEST WITH US? So shall we be SEPARATED, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.§ The better, therefore, to secure this separation, GoD proposes to them to become their KING. And, for reasons that will be explained anon, condescends to receive the Magistracy, on their free choice.—And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests,|| and an holy nation.—And all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.¶ GOD then delivers them a Digest of their civil and religious Laws, and settles the whole Constitution both of Church and State. Thus the Almighty becoming their KING, in as real a sense as he was their GOD, the republic of the Israelites was properly a THEOCRACY; in which the two Societies, civil and religious, were of course intirely incorporated. A thing neither attended to nor understood. The name indeed is of familiar use: but how little men mean by it, is seen from hence, that those who, out of form, are accustomed to call it a Theocracy, yet, in their reasonings about it, consider it as a mere Aristocracy under the Judges; and as a mere Monarchy under the Kings: • Exod. xix. 5. † Verse 8. § Exod. xxxiii. 16. For where God is King, every subject is, in some sense or other, a priest; because in that case, civil obedience must have in it the nature of religious ministration. Exod. xix. 6-8.

Exod. xx.

whereas, in truth, it was neither one nor the other, but a real and proper THEOCRACY, under both.

Thus was this famous SEPARATION made. But it will be asked, Why in so extraordinary a way? A way, in which the sagacious Deist can discover nothing but the marks of the Legislator's fraud, and the People's superstition.-As to what a mere human Lawgiver could gain by such a project, will be seen hereafter. At present, it will be sufficient, for the removal of these suspicions, to shew, that a THEOCRACY WAS NECESSARY, as the separation could not be effected any other way. It appears, from what hath been shewn above, that the Israelites had ever a violent propensity to mix with the neighbouring Nations, and to devote themselves to the practices of idolatry: this would naturally, and did, in fact, absorb large portions of them. And the sole human means which preserved the remainder, was the severity of their civil Laws against idolatry.* Such Laws therefore were necessary to support a separation. But penal Laws, inforced by the ordinary Magistrate, for matters of opinion, are manifestly unjust. Some way therefore was to be contrived to render these Laws equitable. For we are not to suppose GOD would ordain any thing that should violate the rule of natural justice. Now these penal Laws are equitable only in a Theocracy: therefore was a THEOCRACY NECESSARY.

That the punishment of opinions, by civil Laws, under a THEOCRACY, is agreeable to the rules of natural justice, I shall now endeavour to prove.

Unbelievers and intolerant Christians have both tried to make their advantage of this part of the Mosaic institution. The one using it as an argument against the divinity of the Jewish Religion, on presumption that such Laws are contrary to natural equity; and the other bringing it to defend their intolerant principles by the example of Heaven itself. But they are both equally deceived by their ignorance of the nature of a Theocracy: which, rightly understood, clears the Jewish Law from an embarrassing objection, and leaves the rights of mankind inviolate.

Mr. Bayle, in an excellent treatise for Toleration, when he comes to examine the arguments of the Intolerants, takes notice of that which they bring from the example in question. "The fourth objection" (says he) "may arise from hence, that the Law of Moses gives

"If there be found amongst you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy GOD giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy GOD in transgressing his covenant, and hath gone and served other Gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and behold it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman (which have committed that wicked thing) unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die." (Deut. xvii. 2—5.)

CAN

no toleration to idolaters, and false prophets, whom it punishes with death; and from what the Prophet Elijah did to the Priests of Baal, whom he ordered to be destroyed without mercy. From whence it follows, that all the reasons I have employed, in the first part of this commentary, prove nothing, because they prove too much; namely, that the literal sense of the Law of Moses, as far as relates to the punishment of opinions, would be impious and abominable. Therefore, since GOD could, without violating the eternal order of things, command the Jews to put false prophets to death, it follows, evidently, that he could, under the Gospel also, command orthodox believers to inflict the same punishment upon heretics.

"I am not, if I rightly know myself, of that temper of mind, so thoroughly corrupted by the contagion of Controversy, as to treat this objection with an air of haughtiness and contempt; as is the way when men find themselves incapable of answering to the purpose. I ingenuously own the objection to be strong; and that it seems to be a mark of GoD's sovereign pleasure, that we should not arrive at certainty in any thing, seeing he hath given exceptions in his holy word to almost all the common notices of reason. Nay I know some who have no greater difficulties to hinder their believing that GOD was the author of the Laws of Moses, and of all those Revelations that occasioned so much slaughter and devastation, than this very matter of intolerance, so contrary to our clearest ideas of natural equity." *

Whether Mr. Bayle himself was one of these backward believers, as by some of his expressions he gives us reason to suspect, is not material. That he dwelt with pleasure on this circumstance, as favouring his beloved scepticism, is too evident. But sure he went a little too far when he said, GOD's word contains exceptions to almost all the common notices of reason.† I hope to shew, before I have done with Infidelity, that it contains exceptions to none.‡ Our excellent countryman Mr. LOCKE, who wrote about this time on the same subject, and with that force and precision which is the character of all his writings, was more reasonable and modest in his account of this matter. As to the case (says he) of the Israelites in the Jewish Commonwealth, who being initiated into the Mosaical rites, and made citizens of the commonwealth, did afterwards apostatize from the worship of the GOD of Israel; these were proceeded against as traitors and rebels, guilty of no less than high treason. For the commonwealth of

"Voions presentement cette iv. objection. On la peut tirer de ce que la loi du Moise," &c.-Commentaire Philosophique, part ii. chap. 4. +"Par les exceptions qu'il a mises dans sa parole à presque toutes les notions communes de la raison." [In the fourth edition of 1765, the two following sentences occur:-" But the solution of the difficulty was above his strength, had he been ever so willing to reconcile Scripture to Reason. Judea was a terra incognita to this great Adventurer." For the omis sion of them in the editions of 1788 and 1811, I can assign no reason.-J. N.]