them, they were all willing to make the Attempt, nay, and fo refolutely bent upon it, that all he could fay against it, could not prevent their marching (s). And now would not one think the Camp fpirited up to a Temper, fuch as a wife General would have wished for, and made ufe of? But we find Mofes acted a Part directly contrary to what in human Prudence might have been expected from him: He affured the People, that no Attempt they should now make would be crowned with Succefs; that forty Years must pass before they should be able to enter the Land (t): Will it be here faid, that probably Mofes judged very wifely of his Army; that he knew well the Courage they pretended, to be no more than a fudden Heat; and that it would not fupport him thro' the War that was before him, and that many Years Difcipline was really neceffary to form them. for greater things, than they were yet capable of, before he could hope to reduce by them fo many and fuch warlike Nations as poffeffed Canaan, and that therefore he affigned them forty Years to fit them for it? But furely if this had been his Purpose, a shorter Respite might have anfwered his Intentions, and above all things, he would never have denounced, that all the Men of War, that were then the Strength and Flower of the Camp, must be brought down to their Graves before he could hope to be able to attempt, what was the Defign of their Expedition: But this was what Mofes without (s) Ver. 41, 44. (t) Numb. xiv. 33. X 2 any Referve Reserve now offered to them: As truely as I live, faith the Lord, your Carcafes fhall fall in this Wilderness, and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole Number, from twenty Years old and upwards- doubtless you fhall not come into the Land your Carcafes, they fhall fall in this Wilderness (u). Here now is a View of things for a wife General to pretend to offer to his whole Army: to affure almost every Man amongst them capable of bearing Arms, that he had now no Hope of bringing them to any good End of all their Labours; but that the only thing he could pretend to for them, was to carry them about for forty Years together, from Difficulty to Difficulty, and bury them in the Defart: God indeed might appoint them this Punishment for their Difobedience (w), and Mofes in confidence of an Almighty Support, might fecurely pronounce their Doom to them, and the People convinced that it was God's Appointment might fubmit to it; but unless we allow all this what General would have fhocked a whole Army in this manner, or have fuffered any Attempt to have fuch Impreffions made upon them? For what could fuch a View of things naturally produce, but numerous Tumults, Mutinies, and a total Defection? Our modern Deifts are indeed ready to allow Mofes the Character of a great and wife (u) Numb. xiv. 28, 29, 30, 32. (w) Numb. xiv. 28, 29, 30, 32. Man; Man; to suppose him far fuperior in all points of Science to any of, or to all the People under his Direction, and they imagine him to have given Laws to the Ifraelites, and to have formed their Commonwealth with great Art and Addrefs; but to have had no more divine Affiftance towards it, than Minos, Numa, Lycurgus, or other famous Legiflators of the Heathen World: All these were as highly thought of by their Followers as Mofes by his Ifraelites (x), and they all pretended to have been favoured with Revelations from Heaven, in order to create a Reverence of their Eftablishments amongst their People, and fome of them are recorded to have been fupported with Miracles in their Undertakings: They were wife and learned Men: They gave every Appearance an artful Turn, and made the ordinary Course of Nature feem full of Mira (*) Πεσαι, φασί, πρῶτον ἀγράπτοις νόμοις χρήσαπς τὰ πλήθη διῶν τὸν Mvdl, ἄνδρα καὶ τῇ ψυχῇ μέγαν, καὶ τῷ Εἴῳ κοινόζαλον τῶν μνημονευομένων προσποιηθῆναι ἢ αὐτῷ τὸν Ερμων δεδωκέναι τέτες, ὡς μεγάλων ἀγαθῶν ἀλίες ἐσομένες. καθάπερ παρ Ἕλλησι ποιῆσαι φασὶν ἐν μὲν τῇ Κρήτη Μίνωα, τὰ ἢ Λακεδαιμονίοις Λυκέργον τὸν μὲν πρ Διὸς, τὸν ἢ παρ Ἀπόλλωνος φήσαντα τέτες ειληφέναι· καὶ παρ ἑτέροις δὲ πλείοσιν ἔθνεσι βραδέδοται τότε τὸ γένος τῆς ἐπινοίας ὑπάρξαι, καὶ πολλῶν ἀγαθῶν ἄλιον γενέθς τοῖς πειπᾶσι παρὰ μὲν γὰρ τοῖς ̓Αραματοῖς Ζαβράντω ἱσορᾶσι τὸν ἀγαθὸν Δαίμονα προσποιήσας τις νόμος αυτῷ διδόναι, παρὰ ἢ τοῖς ὀνομαζομένοις Γέταις Ζαμολξιν ὡσάν]ως των κοινω Εσίαν, παρὰ ἢ τοῖς Ιεδαίοις· Μωσήν τὸν Ιαῶ ἐπικαλέμενον θεόν είτε θαυμαςὴν καὶ θείαν ὅλως ἔννοναν είναι κείναντας τω μέλλεσαν ὠφελήσειν ἀνθρώπων πλῆθος, εἴτε καὶ πρὸς των προχὴν καὶ διύαμιν τῶν βρεῖν λεγομένων τις νόμες ἀποβλέ ψανα τὸν ὄχλον, μᾶλλον ὑπακέσας διαλαβόντας, Diodor, Sic. Lib. 1. p. 59. Χ 3 cles cles to Perfons of inferior Understandings, for the carrying forward of their Purposes amongst them. Quintus Curtius informs us, that Alexander the Great erected over his own Pavilion an artificial Signal, to give notice for a Decampment of his Army; that it was contrived of Materials, fo as to be confpicuous in the Day-time by a great Smoke iffuing from it, that in the Night-time it appeared to be on Fire (y); a modern Writer infinuates the Pillar of the Cloud and of Fire, which directed the Marches of the Ifraelites (Z), to have been a Contrivance of Mofes of a like Nature Others have intimated it to have no greater Miracle, than the Pillar of Light, which conducted Thrafybulus and his Followfrom Phyla (a): But in Anfwer hereto let us confider, 1. That if Mofes has recorded nothing but what was real Fact, it must be undeniably evident, that the Hand of God was moft miraculously employed in leading the Ifraelites out of Egypt, in giving their Law, in conduct (y) Tuba, cum caftra movere vellet, fignum dabat: cujus fonus plerumque tumultantium fremitu exoriente haud fatis exaudiebatur: Ergo perticam, quæ undique confpici poffet, fupra Frætorium ftatuit, ex quâ fignum eminebat pariter omnibus confpicuum: Obfervabatur Ignis noctu, Fumus interdiu. Quint. Curt. lib. 5. C. 2. (z) Exod. xl. 38, (α) ̓Αλλὰ καὶ ΘΕ συβόλῳ τὲς ἐκπεσόντας ἀπὸ φυλῆς καταγαγόντι καὶ βελομένῳ λαθῶν, σύλος ὁδηγὸς γίνεται διὰ τῶν ἀκριβῶν ἰόντι· τῷ Θρασυβέλῳ νύκτωρ, ἀπελήνη καὶ δυχειμερίς το καταςήματα γεγονότα, πῦρ ἑωρα το προηγέμενον, ὅπερ αυτὲς ἀπλαίς ως προπέμψαν, κατὰ τον Μενυχίαν ἐξέλιπεν, ἔνθα νῦν ὁ ή φωσ Cops Baμds 67. Clem. Alexand. Stromat. 1. 1. p. 418. Edit. Oxon. ing them thro' the Wilderness, and in bringing them into Canaan. If the Miracles were wrought in the Land of Egypt, and the Judgments executed upon Pharaoh and his People, as Mofes has related (b): If the Red-Sea was really divided before the Ifraelites, and Pharaob and his Hoft drowned in it, as Mofes has recorded (c): If a miraculous Supply of Food was given daily to the Ifraelites in the Wilderness for forty Years together (d): If God did indeed speak to them in an audible Voice from Heaven (e): If their Laws were given as Mofes informs us (f): If their Tabernacle was directed, and when finished, if a Cloud covered the Tent, and the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle and refted upon it in a Cloud by Day, and in Fire by Night (g): If this Cloud removed vifibly to conduct their Journeyings (b): If the many Oppofitions of the People were miraculously punished in the feveral Manners related to us (i), and the Miracles that are recorded, were wrought to teftify the Divine appointment of the Inftitutions enjoined, when the People would have varied from them (k): If a Prophet even of another Nation, corrupt in the Inclination of his Heart, and tempted by great Offers to speak Evil of this People, was by very astonishing (b) Exod. vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii. (c) xiv. 35. (e) xix, xx. Deut. iv. 12, 33, 36. ubi fup. Deut. v, &c. (b) Ver. 38. (i) Numb. xi. (k) Levit. x. Numb, xvi, xvii, (d) xvi. Exod. (g) Exod. xxxv. xl. 34. xii. xiv. xvi. xxi. xxy, &c; &c, |