XV.

about them a little, to fee whether LET. they understood the text, and whether there were no poffible way of bringing us off. As they have not been kind enough to do it for us, we must e'en try what we can do for ourselves.

We apprehend, then, in the first place, that when it is faid, "He drove "out the inhabitants of the moun

tain, but could not drive out the "inhabitants of the valley;" the antecedent is Judah, not Jehovah; becaufe Jehovah had often difplayed much more eminent instances of his power; and he that effected the greater, could certainly have effected the lefs. In the fecond place, though it pleased God to give fuccefs to Judah in one inftance, it does not neceffarily follow, that therefore he should give it in all. So that there is no

more

XV.

LET. more abfurdity in the paffage, than there would be in the following fpeech, if fuch had been addreffed to the Sovereign by one of his Commanders returned from America-" By the

66

bleffing of God upon your Ma"jefty's arms, we overcame general "Greene in the field; but we could "not attack general Washington, be"cause he was too ftrongly intrenched "in his camp." There is no reason, therefore, for fuppofing, that "the

cr

Jews confidered the God of Ifrael "their protector as a local divinity "who was in fome inftances more, "and in others lefs powerful, than "the gods of their enemies." *

Nor is it altogether "THUS that "David in many places compares the "Lord with other Gods:" fince he

P. 19.

com

XV.

compares him with them, only to fet LET. him above them; as fufficiently ap pears by the paffage quoted-" The "Lord is a great God,

'

and a great

In the hea

gods many,

An Ifraelite

. king above all gods."*
then world there were
"and lords many."
acknowleged one only God, the
maker of heaven and earth, and of
all the fuppofed deities that were
therein. "All the gods of the hea-
"then (fo ftiled by them) are but
"idols; but it is the Lord that made
"the heavens."

Such, as an Ifraelite, must have been the fentiments of Jephthah, as well as David; and therefore the citation from his addrefs to the king of the Ammonites will avail nothing to the purpose for which it is adduced

*P. 19.

LET. -"Wilt thou not poffefs that, which "Chemofh thy god giveth thee to

xv.

66

poffefs? So whomfoever the Lord 66 our God fhall drive out from be. "fore us, them will we poffess.” * It cannot seriously be thought, that Jephthah, a judge in Ifrael, intended to acknowlege the real divinity of the Ammonitish idol, Chemofh. No: the argument is evidently of the kind which logicians ftyle argumentum ad bominem, an argument formed upon the principles of the adversaries, and therefore conclufive to them." You deem

yourselves entitled to any poffeffion, "acquired, as you imagine, by the "affiftance of him whom you call your god, and cannot reasonably

expect us to yield that, which we "know the Lord our God has awarded

Judg. XI. 24.

56 to

XV.

"to us." Jephthah, in a negotiation LET. with the Ammonites, had no occafion to difcufs the subject of their idolatry, or tell them what he thought of Chemofh; but ftates the matter according to their own ideas, fuppofing them, for a moment, to be true, though he believed them to be false; as is done every day.

Voltaire has amufed himself much with this text, and between one and another of his manifold publications, kept it up like a fhuttle-cock. He ftruggles hard for it but in vain. "The words of Scripture (fays he)

are not, Thou thinkest thou haft a right "to poffefs, &c. but exprefsly, Thou "baft a right to poffefs, &c. for that "is the true interpretation af the He"brew words, otho thirafch." * Ay, * 'n Treatife on Toleration, Chap. XII.

my