EXODUS.

HAVING concluded my First Part with Genesis, I have nothing now to do but to go on directly to Exodus. There has indeed appeared a pamphlet called a Second Address, which pretends to make some exceptions to what I had written upon the former texts: but the performance is so low, that my readers would not excuse my stopping one moment about it. The author, I perceive, had exhausted himself in his great work, and it is but very little reinforcement we are to expect from him. He has shown that he can rail, which nobody doubted of; and so he might as well have spared himself this new trouble. He shall say what he pleases, for the present, of the Vindicator. I have Apostles, Prophets, and holy Patriarchs to defend, in the first place, against his unrighteous accusations.

So, with God's assistance, I proceed to the work I had undertaken, to maintain the authority and purity of the word of God against the foolish imaginations of perverse

men.

EXOD. II. 12.

HE SLEW THE EGYPTIAN, AND HID HIM IN THE

SAND.

The Objector a has a fling at Moses, for slaying the Egyptian (as he conceives) without sufficient warrant or authority. But it will be proper to let the reader know, how this gentleman introduces his censure upon that ser

vant of God. He insinuates in the page before b, that a spirit of cruelty (though he, out of his great modesty, "dares not call it so") had prevailed much under the Old Testament and he brings in the Prophet Elias as an example of it. Then he proceeds as follows:

"And if it be contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, even "to wish to imitate that great Prophet, so favoured of "God; the same will hold as strongly in relation to all "the actions that are of a like nature, of other holy men,

66

though quoted with approbation in the New Testa"ment: as Moses is for acting the part of a magistrate, "when a private man, in destroying his fellow-subject. "And if there is a contrast between the spirit of the Old "and the spirit of the New Testament, ought not we "Christians to stick to the latter? &c."

What "we Christians" ought to do, is very well understood by honest and sensible Christians, who want none of his insidious instructions or abusive admonitions. Old Testament precedents (which he here alludes to) may be as safely followed as any in the New, if they be really and strictly precedents; that is, if the cases be similar, and the circumstances parallel. But without that, they are no precedents. As to the formal tale he tells of a contrast, or contrariety, between the spirit of the Old, and the spirit of the New Testament, it is (in the sense he takes it) mere invention and romance. That good and great Prophet Elias did no more than was proper for a "favoured of God" to do in his circumstances: what he did was God's doing, the same God both of Old Testament and New, and the same spirit. Elias did nothing contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, nor with any other spirit than St. Paul acted by, when he struck Elymas the sorcerer with blindness; or St. Peter, d when he denounced present death upon Ananias and Sapphira. What the Objector builds upon is nothing but a misin

man so

yea,

b Christianity as Old, &c. p. 268.

d Acts v. 5.

C

Acts xiii. 11.

terpretation of Luke ix. 55, 56. which shall be distinctly considered in its place: to examine it now would lead us too far from the business in hand.

However that matter stands, the Objector shows no acuteness in bringing in the instance of Moses, to make out his pretended contrast between the Old and New Testament. He should have found out some express approbation of that act of Moses in the Old Testament, and then have confronted it by something in the New, in order to show the contrast. But instead of this, he cites a precedent of the Old Testament, "quoted" (as he owns) " with approbation in the New:" there it seems is the contrast between Old and New, that both agree in the self-same thing, one in setting the precedent, the other in approving it; which shows that the spirit of both is

one.

But, I suppose, the sly insinuation which he chiefly aims at (though he has committed a blunder in thus bringing it in) is, that the New Testament, at which he strikes all the while he is commending the spirit of it, has approved something which he conceives to be wrong, has approved a private man's acting the part of a magistrate, in destroying a fellow-subject. But if that be his drift, he is very easily defeated in that point also. For since that act of Moses is approved in the New Testament, by St. Stephen speaking by the Spirit of God, we may be confident that Moses had a Divine direction for what he did. That circumstance was omitted in the history of Exodus: but the same Spirit of God, speaking in St. Stephen, has since supplied it, and has thereby justified what Moses did. Seeing then that St. Stephen's words do amount to an approbation of that act of Moses, (as the Objector himself allows,) the rest lies in a very little compass, and admits of a short decision. It is only this: whether St. Stephen "full of the Holy Ghost," or this gentleman full of himself and his own imaginations, be most likely to pass a true judgment upon the case. It cannot be here pretended, that the nature of the thing

was such as no Divine warrant could justify. God has an indisputable power and right over the lives of all men: and so if Moses acted by Divine warrant, he had as clear a right as any magistrate could claim, and he needed no other, because he could have no higher authority.

EXOD. III. 18.

—AND YOU SHALL SAY UNTO HIM, (Pharaoh,) THE LORD GOD OF THE HEBREWS HATH MET WITH US: AND NOW LET US GO (WE BESEECH THEE) THREE DAYS' JOURNEY INTO THE WILDERNESS, THAT WE MAY SACRIFICE TO THE LORD OUR GOD.

This precedent, among others, appears to our Objector very surprisinge: and why? For some weighty reason, no doubt, as usual. He goes on. “The Lord, though " he told Moses and the elders of Israel his real design "of bringing his people out of Egypt into the land of the "Canaanites, yet bids them say to the king of Egypt, "LET US GO THREE DAYS' JOURNEY INTO THE WIL"DERNESS," &c. A marvellous thing! that the Lord should tell Moses and the elders of Israel his people, something more than was proper to be told again unto Pharaoh their avowed enemy. Let the reader observe how maliciously and disingenuously the Objector draws up his charge against the Lord, that he had told Moses his real design, as if what Moses was to tell to Pharaoh was not his real design also. Both were equally real: only Moses was not to discover the whole of God's real designs to Pharaoh, because it would have been highly improper and imprudent to do it. God was pleased to give Moses a good lesson of prudence: and how comes prudence, which has been commonly reckoned among the cardinal virtues by the Pagan moralists, to be here condemned by our Objector, who professes himself & their devoted admirer?

⚫ Christianity as Old, &c. p. 348.

f Exod. iii. 18. v. 3.

* See Christianity as Old, &c. p. 166, 167.