infenfibly into their selfish and ambitious defigns: for if we except Mahomet, hiftory does not fur.nifh us with a more infamous and deteftable character than that of Odin; who having knowledge, and the confidence of great and numerous nations, instead of endeavouring, like Mango Copac, Confucius, and others, to draw them out of the state of ignorance in which they were then abforbed, plunged them into scenes of the most abominable and inhuman idolatry, to promote his ambitious defigns.

Mahomet, in a more enlightened age, and among people who had been informed of the mighty works which Mofes had done for the Ifraelites, and who had as well been inftructed in the pure and refined moral and doctrines of Jefus Chrift, which were preached both by him and by his apostles, had nevertheless art and cunning enough, by giving into the humours, and flattering the paffions, of a depraved race, firft, infenfibly by perfuafion, and afterwards by force, to make them obey his laws and dictates; although they were stamped with fuch ftriking marks of abfurdity, libertinand tyranny, as must shock every person who was not equally ignorant, libertine, and tyrannical with himself, and certainly, if his followers had not been forbid, under the most severe penalties, to enter into any enquiry about the truth, or probability, of his doctrines; and, for the most part, been born and bred in hot and fultry climates, which warmed their paffions, and rendered them

age,

almoft

almost incapable of refifting those delicious prero gatives wherewith their great prophet and lawgiver had invested them; it would not have been poffible that the Mahometan religion could have existed for fo many centuries. It is true, Mahomet's doctrines have kept his followers out of those grofs fcenes of idolatry, into which the ancient Gentile world was plunged; and even, in many places, drawn multitudes of people out of those abominable practices, to the knowledge of one God, and fo far, out of evil, fome good has arifen: but, as this has been done by acts of violence and terror, and not by perfuafion and conviction, and rather to gratify the ambition of this pretended prophet, and the ambitious views of some of his principal followers, than from any defire to promote the good and happiness of their fellow-creatures, they can claim no merit therefrom; but we are to regard them as perfons who, in confequence of their free agency, intended to do evil; but nevertheless, the divine Providence has fo ordered it, that their wicked defigns have been productive of fome good.

When we confider, on the other hand, the mighty works which Mofes did in Egypt, and among the Ifraelites, of which, confidering the allegorical manner of writing in those days, he has given us a history that appears to be clear, fimple, uncontroverted, and void of all that pomp and felffufficiency, with which we find the writings of fome of the ancient, and of many of the modern philofophers filled: Moreover we find in this history,

idolatry, and into a fpecies of unnatural wickednefs, which made them more brutal, and unlike rational creatures, than the beafts; for which two of their cities were deftroyed by fire. It is moreover faid, that God, by his angel, made the fame promise unto Ifaac, and unto Jacob, which he had made to Abraham, they being, in thofe days, the only perfons upon the earth who ferved him in purity, and integrity of heart. For mankind were fo much given to idolatry, that the latter of thofe patriarchs had the greateft difficulty, notwithstanding all his piety, to keep his own house free from idols, and his household from worshipping of strange gods.

By the wickedness of Jacob's fons, in felling their own brother into Egypt to be a flave, and from a great famine which afterwards happened in those countries, Jacob and all his family went down into Egypt; and, the now called Ifraelites or Hebrews, dwelt there for two or three genera tions in peace; but their defcendants were afterwards made flaves to the Egyptians, and ufed with great cruelty, for near 400 years, before they were delivered, in a moft miraculous manner, by Mofes, one of the most extraordinary men that ever appeared upon the face of the earth.

Mofes was born of Hebrew parents, but, from the cruelty with which the defcendants of Ifrael were treated, in those days, by the Egyptians, was caft into the flags, and afterwards found by

Pharaoh's

Pharaoh's daughter, brought up, as her fon, in Pharaoh's houfe, and in all the learning and luxury of Egypt. But, from motives which do not appear to us at prefent, he left all this, and joined himself to his brethren, although they were then flaves; and, by endeavouring to revenge their wrongs, was forced to fly out of Egypt. Surely a man of Mofes's great talents would never have quitted the fituation he was in, being regarded as Pharaoh's grandson, to join himself with slaves, except he had been led thereto, by fome innate principles of goodness, which he was too modeft to defcribe.-The hiftory which he gives us of the mighty works which he afterwards did, before Pharaoh, in Egypt, by the immediate order and affiftance of the Divinity, and of the attempts which the Egyptian magicians made to do the fame, is related with fuch an air of candor, and of modefty, he taking nothing upon himself, but attributing even the most minute circumftance to the Great Being who directed him, that it carries conviction upon the face of it. But this great fcene was continued, by leading the Ifraelites out of Egypt through the Red-fea, and, at the fame time, drowning all the hosts of Pharaoh therein; an act fo notoriously public, although fo wonderful in itself, that no Egyptian, Greek, Roman, or any other ancient writer, has ever attempted to deny it.

When Mofes had delivered the children of Ifrael from their Egyptian mafters, by fuch won

derous

our original inftitution, our actions are free; and, therefore, we can only form an idea of two ways to draw us out of this degenerate state; first, by changing our nature entirely, and new forming us; or, fecondly, by reviving that innate voice of nature, which our degeneracy, and the violence of our paffions, had choaked, or enveloped, in confufion and depravity. This appears to have been exactly the fituation of the Egyptians, of the inhabitants of Canaan, and, in a great meafure, of the Ifraelites, when Mofes appeared among them; and this great prophet tells us, that the Supreme Being, feeing that those people were in this degenerate state, and that they had almost divested themselves of the excellencies of human nature, began with thundering in their ears, and fhewing his miraculous powers among them, to roufe that divine and innate principle in their respective hearts, which they had almost fuffocated; and, thereby, as a juft and merciful God, to bring them again to a state of judging of their own wicked conduct, and how much they had offended their Creator and common father. But, when this means was not fufficient to draw those rebels out of their rebellious and depraved fituation, from paying that adoration to stocks and ftones, and to the works of men's hands, which they owed only to their Creator, and from making their bodies, which he had stamped after his own image, and invested with the prerogatives of intelligent beings, more base and servile than

the