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are applicable to every one of these ordinances, yet they are introduced here, and particularly subjoined to this second commandment, that it be in the strongest manner inforced. The attachment of this people to the rites of Egypt may be farther seen by the repeated admonitions of their great lawgiver; and particularly by the cautions, which he gives at large in the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, He there intimates by his fears, how liable the people were to lapse into this mode of idolatry,

Ver. 15. Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire.

V. 16. Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

V. 17. The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air,

V. 18. The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth;

V. 19. And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon,

and the stars, even all the host of heaven, thou shouldset be driven to worship them, and serve them, &c.

Whosever is at all acquainted with the ancient religion of Egypt, will see every article of their idolatry included in this address. He will likewise perceive the propriety of these cautions to a people, who had so long sojourned in that country.

I have mentioned, that this worship was of very early date; for the Egyptians very soon gave into a dark and mystic mode of devotion, suitable to the gloom and melancholy of their tempers. To this they were invincibly attached, and consequently averse to any alteration. They seldom admitted any rite or custom, that had not the sanction of their forefathers. Hence Sir John Marsham very truly tells us concerning them '---Ægyptii cultûs extranei nomine detestari videntur, quicquid δι γονεις 8 παρεδειξαν, parentes non commonstrârunt. The Egyptians, under the notion of foreign worship, seem to have been averse to every thing which had not been transmitted by their ancestors. They therefore, for the most part, differed in their rites and religion from

1 Sæc. ix. P. 155.

all other nations'. These borrowed from them; and also adopted the rites of many different people. But the Egyptians seldom admitted of any innovation.

This is what I thought proper to offer concerning the wisdom and design, witnessed in these judgments upon the Egyptians; and concerning the analogy which they bore to the crimes and idolatry of that people.

'Concerning this difference see Herodotus, 1. 2. c. 35, 36. p. 119.

PART FOURTH.

A DISSERTATION

UPON THE

DIVINE MISSION OF MOSES.

Concerning this Divine Mission.

MOSES was the immediate agent of God, in all those mighty operations which took place during his residence with the Israelites in Egypt, as well as in those which ensued. The destination of this people, was to the land of Canaan; and though the history of their journeyings may not be uniformly attended with the same astonishing prodigies as they had experienced in Egypt, yet in every movement, throughout the whole process, there are marks of divine power and wisdom, by which they were at all times conducted. For no man could have formed such a system, much

less have carried it on in the manner, by which we see it at last completed. For the process was oftentimes contrary to human prudence, though consonant to divine wisdom. My meaning is, that the Israelites in their progress to Canaan were led into scenes of distress, in which no person, who had the charge of them, would have permitted them to have been engaged. No leader in his senses would have suffered those difficulties and embarrassments to have arisen, into which the people were at times plunged; and when they were brought into these straits, no human power was adequate to free them from the danger. In short, through the whole process of the history every step seems contrary to what human foresight and common experience would have permitted to take place. But I speak only in respect to man. With God it was far otherwise. He can raise, and he can depress; he can kill, and he can make alive. If he led the people into difficulties and dangers, he could remedy those difficulties; and free them from those dangers. For my thoughts, says the Almighty, are not your thoughts: either are your ways my ways. For as the horens are higher than thẻ

I

Isaiah viii. 9.

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