manners of both would receive a high tincture from those with whom they had fo long, and in fuch different stations, converfed: And in fact, holy Scripture affures us, that MOSES was converfant in all the wisdom, and the ISRAELITES befotted with all the whoredoms or idolatries, of Egypt. It will be of importance therefore to know the ftate of SUPERSTITION and LEARNING in Egypt during these early ages. This, as it is a neceffary, fo one would think, fhould be no difficult enquiry; for it is natural to suppose, that the fame Scripture which tells us, that the Lawgiver and his people brought their wisdom and fuperftitions from Egypt, would tell us alfo what that wisdom and what thofe fuperftitions were. And fo indeed it does; as will be feen in due time: Yet, by ill fortune, the fact ftands, at prefent, fo precarious, as to need much pains, and many words to make it owned. Divines, it is confeffed, seem to allow the testimony of Stephen and Ezekiel, who under the very impulse of infpiration, fay that Moses was learned in all the wisdom, and the people devoted to all the fuperftitions of Egypt; yet, when they come to explain that learning, they make it to confift in fuch fopperies, as a wife and honest man, like MOSES, would never practise: when they come to particularize thofe fuperftitions, they will not allow even the Golden Calf, the MOXXOΣ TO •АПIΣ xaλεóμε, to be of their number. For by an odd chance, tho' not uncommon in blind fcuffles, the infidels and we have chang'd weapons: Our enemies attack us with the Bible, to prove the Egyptians very learned and very fuper VOL. III. ↑ Herod. 1. iii. c. 28. ftitious ftitious in the time of Mofes; and we defend ourfelves with the new Chronology of Sir Ifaac Newton, to prove them very barbarous and very innocent. Would the reader know how this came about; it was in this wife: The infidels had obferved, (as who that ever looked into facred and profane Antiquity hath not?) that in the jewish Law there were many ordinances refpective of the inftitutions of Egypt. This circumftance they seized; and, according to their cuftom, envenomed; by drawing from thence a conclufion against the Divine Legation of Mofes. The defenders of Revelation, furprized with the novelty of the argument, did that, in a fright and in excess of caution, which one may obferve unprepared difputants generally do, to fupport their opinions; that is, they chose rather to deny the PREMISSES than the CONCLUSION. For fuch, not knowing to what their adversary's prin ciples may lead, think it a point of prudence to ftop him in his firft advance: whereas the fkilful difputant well knows, that he never has his enemy at more advantage, than when, by allowing the premiffes, he fhews him arguing wrong from his own principles; for the queftion being then to be decided by the certain rules of logic, his confutation expofes the weakness of the advocate as well as of the caufe. When this is over, he may turn with a good grace upon the premiffes; to expose them, if falfe; to rectify them, if mifreprefented; or to employ them in the fervice of Religion, if truely and faithfully delivered: and this fervice they will never refufe him; as I fhall fhew In the previous queftion of the high antiquity of Egypt, and in the main queftion of the omiffion of future ftate in the inftitution of the Hebrews. And And I am well perfuaded that, had those excellent advocates of Religion (whose labours have fet the truth in a light not to be refifted) but duly weighed the character of those with whom they had to do, they would have been lefs ftartled at any confequences the power of their logic could have deduced. The Tolands, the Blounts, the Tindals, are, in truth, of a temper and complexion, in which one finds more of that quality which fubjects men to draw wrong Conclufions, than of that which enables them to invent falfe Principles. The excellent SPENCER, indeed, endeavoured to diffipate this panic, by fhewing these premiffes to be the true key to the REASON OF THE LAW; for the want of a fufficient reafon in the ceremonial and pofitive part of it, was the greatest objection, which thinking men had, to the divinity of its ori ginal. But all this did not yet reconcile men to those premiffes. It would feem as if they had another quarrel with them, befides the poor unlearned fear of their leading to the infidel's conclufion; namely, for their being an adversary's principle fimply; and, on that score alone to be difputed. This is a perverfe, tho' common prejudice, which infects our whole communication; and hath hurt unity in the church, and humanity in civil life, as well as peace in the schools. For who knows not that the fame impotent averfion to things abused by an enemy, hath made one fort of fectaries divide from the national church, and another reprobate the most indifferent manners of their country"? • Puritans, Quakers, &c. C 2 And And it is to be observed, that till that unlucky time when the infidels firft blundered upon truth, this principle met with a very general reception: the ancient Fathers, and modern Divines of all denominations concurring in their use of it, to illuftrate the wisdom of God's Laws, and the truth of his Son's interpretation of them, where he affureth us that they were given to the Hebrews for the hardness of their hearts; no fort of men fticking out, but a few vifionary Jews, who, befotted with the nonsense of their cabbala, obftinately fhut their eyes against all the light which the excellent MAIMONIDES had firft poured into this palpable obfcure. Not that I would be understood as admitting the premiffes in the latitude in which our adverfaries deliver them; Iliacos intra muros peccatur & extra. The human mind, miferably weak and inftable, and distracted with a great variety of objects, is naturally inclined to repose itself in SYSTEM; nothing being more uneafy to us than a state of doubt; or a view too large for our comprehenfion. Hence we fee, that, of every imaginary fact, fome or other have made an hypothefis; of every cloud, a caftle: And the common vice of these. caftle-builders is to draw every thing within its precincts, which they fancy may contribute to its defence or embellishment. We have given an inftance, in the former volume, of the folly of: those who have run into the contrary extreme, and are for deriving all arts, laws and religions * Vol. i. part 2d. page 133. from from the People of God: an extravagance at length come to fuch a height, that, if you will believe certain writers, the poor heathen had neither the grace to kneel to prayers, nor the wit to put their Gods under cover, till the Ifraelites taught them the way. But our wife adversaries are even with them; and will bate no believer an inch, in driving on an hypothesis: for had not the Egyptians, by great good luck, as they give us to understand2, enjoined honour to parents, and reftrained theft, by punishment, the Jews had been in a fad blind condition when they came to take poffeffion of the promised land. Are these men more fober in their accounts of the religious Inftitutions of the Hebrews? I think not; when they pretend to prove circumcifion of egyptian original from the testimony of late writers, who neither speak to the point, nor in this point are in reafon to be regarded, if they did. - But ▾ See Shuckford's Sacred and profane hiftory of the world connected, vol, ii, edit, 2d, p. 317–327. Our countryman Gale, in the like manner, is for deriving all arts and sciences, without exception, from the Jews." Arithmetic, he fays, it is "evident had its foundation from God himself; for the first " computation of time is made by God, GEN, i. 5, &c. And "as for navigation, tho' fome afcribe it to the Phenicians; yet "it is manifeft the first idea thereof was taken from Noah's ark. "It is as plain that geography traduced its first lines from the "mofaic defcription of the feveral plantations of Noah's pof"terity."-Court of the Gentiles, part i, p. 18. Who would not think but the learned man, and learned he really was in good truth, was disposed to banter us, had he not given fo fad a proof of his being in earnest as the writing three bulky volumes to fupport these wonderful discoveries? See Marfham's Canon Chron. ed. Franeq. p. 177, 188. * See Canon Chron. Secul, v. tit. Circumcifio. I decline entering into this controverfy for two reasons: 1. Because C3 which |