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their laws, that related to civil policy, in execution, which, it is plain, he did not, feeing every man lived as he lifted, without any publick check, or reftraint, then God was not, in fact, a king, or civil governor, to that people. The Jewish writers may, perhaps, have spoken of God, as their civil governor; but then, this did not make or conftitute him to be fuch, nor, I think, is fuch language of any weight in the prefent cafe; feeing God did not, in fact, take upon him that office, nor did he exercise any civil jurifdiction over that people; and, if God did give them a body of laws, yet he left them to govern themselves by thofe laws, without taking upon him the task of being their civil governor.

BUT farther, the prefence and miniftry of the God of Ifrael, with, and towards, the people of Ifrael, do by no means comport with the juft and proper character of the fupreme Deity, or the one God over all; but rather, with the character of fome tutelar and fubordinate God, or minifterial and guardian angel, fuitable to the pagan theology, in that refpect, of which, I think, there is abundant proof. Thus Exodus xxxiii. 21, 22, 23. And the Lord faid, behold there is

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a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock. And it shall come to pass, while my glory paffeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock; and will cover thee with my hand, while I pass by. And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt fee my backparts: but my face fhall not be feen. Here, we are informed, the perfon or Deity Mofes converfed with, and received his informations from, was local, and visible, and was circumfcribed within certain bounds, which cannot poffibly be applicable to the fupreme Deity. To fay, that those terms, face, hands, and back-parts, are all figures of speech, can answer no purpose; because there were fome things to be expreffed and fet forth, by those terms, or figures, which were relative to the perfon referred to, and which were the objects of vifion to Mofes; whereas, there is nothing relative to the perJon of the fupreme God, nor, indeed, to any other person, purely fpiritual, that could be expressed by thofe figures, which could poffibly be the objects of vision to Moses; so that what was intended to be expressed, by those figures, muft, of neceffity, have been relative and applicable only to fome local, visible being; and confequently, the perfon

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who appeared to, and converfed with Mofes, could not be the one God over all, but muft have been some local, tutelar, and fubordinate God. To fay, that the agent, or perfon, who shewed his back-parts to Moses, was not the Supreme Deity, but his angel, minister, and reprefentative, this is the very thing; and, indeed, it feems to have been St. Paul's opinion, touching this matter, viz. that the law, or the difpenfation of Mofes, was not difpenfed to the Jews, by the fupreme God himself, but (according to the Pagan theology) by a mediatorial and fubordinate God, Galatians iii. 19. this angel, or minifterial Deity, being the tutelar and fubftituted national God of Ifrael, or that fubordinate Deity, to whom the care of that nation had been committed; as Baalzebub, and other fictitious Deities of the Canaanites, were supposed to have had the several cities and nations, in Canaan, committed to their care and protection; the fupreme God, in both these views, being supposed to act, not in his own person, or immediately of himfelf, but by his ministerial and deputed Gods, fuitably to the theology of thofe times. Whether the Jews thought, that the person who had appeared to, and converfed with, Mojès,

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and other of their Patriarchs, was the fupreme Deity, and therefore, called him by fuch names as they judged proper, under that confideration, this, I think, is of no confequence; because the queftion is not who, or what the Jews might think their national God to be? but who, and what he was in himself? (abstracted from their opinion of him) who poffibly might err, in that respect. Nor, I think, is it of any confequence, what name the national God of Ifrael might call, or characterise himself by, whether Jehovah, or any other name, which may be supposed to be expreffive of, and only applicable to, the fupreme Deity; for if he was a substituted God, as, I think, it appears, from what I have already obferved, he could be no other; then, any name he might be called by, could not poffibly make him to be otherwife; nor is it likely that those names, when ufed by him, were then expreffive of what men, in after times, have used them to fignify; because it is very improbable, that a fubftituted God would take to himself the name, or the respect, that was proper and peculiar to his principal. And,

THAT the fupreme Deity was not the pational God of Ifrael, I think, is farther evident

evident, from the moral conduct of their national God; which, in feveral of it's branches, I think, will not comport with the true and proper character of the fupreme Deity, and therefore, can only be applicable to some tutelar and fubordinate God. Thus, 1 Sam. xv. 1, 2, 3. Samuel alfo faid unto Saul, the Lord fent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Ifrael: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus faith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Ifrael, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go, and fmite Amalek, and utterly deftroy all that they bave, and spare them not; but flay both man and woman, infant and fuckling, ox and Sheep, camel and afs. Here is a commiffion given forth, which, in it's execution, was most cruel, barbarous, and inhuman; and in it's moving cause must have been most unjust, and greatly contrary to true goodness; because the fufferers had not done any thing to be a just and proper ground for fo fevere a revenge: For whatever had been done to the Ifraelites, when they came up out of Egypt, by the ancestors of thofe Amalekites; yet, as the Amalekites then in being had

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