Now, if we please ourselves with accounting for the miraculous interview in the desert by the theory of hallucination; how shall we account for that miraculous evidence of his divine legation, which Moses was enabled to afford to all the assembled people of Israel? That they were little inclined to credulity, their whole behaviour testifies that they were convinced however of his being a divinely commissioned messenger, is certain that they did not all hallucinate, may be fairly presumed and will probably not be asserted. They most assuredly must either have beheld the miracles, or they must have fancied that they beheld them. The former cannot be allowed, without allowing also that Moses was indeed the delegate of heaven: the latter cannot be maintained, without maintaining also that he was an impostor who contrived to deceive them by illusive appearances. But, if it be maintained that he was an impostor, the ground of the argument, as once before, is entirely shifted and the inquiry, which such an assertion demands, must be prosecuted in its proper place. This at least is perfectly clear, that the same theory of hallucination will not account, both for the miracles which Moses professed himself to have beheld in the wilderness, and likewise for those identical miracles when repeated in the presence of all the people. It may also be briefly added at present: that, if we consent for a moment to shift the ground of the argument, and even if we freely concede that the miracles wrought before the Israelites might have

been performed by sleight of hand; it must still be shewn, before the charge of artifice can be satisfactorily established, how either Moses himself, or the Hebrews, or the Egyptians, could be imposed upon by those tremendous visitations which at length compelled the obedience of the obstinately reluctant Pharaoh. The changing of a whole river into blood, the bringing on a preternatural darkness of three days continuance, and the sudden death of all the first-born of Egypt, were dreadful realities, which preclude all possibility either of hallucination or of imposture.

But I am trespassing upon a subject, which requires its own distinct consideration. Enough has been said to prove, that Moses was not himself deceived, when he assumed the functions of a prophet and a lawgiver.

CHAP. III.

THE EVIDENCE THAT MOSES WAS NOT AN

IMPOSTOR.

Ir shall next be tried, whether the Mosaical dispensation possesses the second mark of authenticity.

At present therefore we have to shew, that Moses was not an artful impostor, and consequently that he had no intention to deceive others.

The most convincing argument to prove, that this was not the case with Moses, is that which may be drawn from his conduct: for, in almost every respect, from first to last, it was directly opposite to that, which a person guided by mere human reason would have adopted. Hence, as an excellent modern writer well observes, if we exclude the idea of a divine interposition, it is impossible, on any rational principles, to account for the conduct of Moses.'

1 Graves's Lect. on the four last books of the Pent. part i. lect. 5. p. 129.

I. After his extraordinary preservation from death, we first become acquainted with him as the prime favourite and adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter. In this capacity, he is brought up amidst all the luxury of a court, is carefully instituted in all the learning of the age, and is taught to anticipate with rational confidence the highest offices and the most commanding stations in the Egyptian monarchy.

Now after what manner would a person of bare secular wisdom; which must ever be the character of a mere impostor, as contradistinguished either from a mere enthusiast or from that not unusual compound an enthusiastic impostor: in what manner, I say, would a person of bare secular wisdom have acted, when placed by so rare a conjuncture in the very advantageous situation of Moses? He would plainly have affected great strangeness towards his brethren; because it were discreditable to have any close connection with a race of degraded slaves, because such a connection would have a direct tendency to thwart every ambitious project, and because it could in no respect serve to advance his interests. His feelings would have been those, which we so often perceive in operation, when a man of low origin has raised himself above the rest of his family, and when he has been thus brought to move in a higher sphere. In the presence of the haughty Egyptian nobles, he would have been ashamed of his extraction: he would have been unwilling to acknowledge it: he would have felt provoked, if it were ever alluded

to. In short, bent only upon his own aggrandizement, he would have sedulously improved his unusual good fortune; and, clearly perceiving in what line his-preferment lay, he would in all things have industriously Egyptianized.

But in what inanner did Moses act?

The apostle, with a single masterly touch of his pen, sets at once before us both his principles and his practice. Having learned from his pious ancestors the purpose of God respecting a Saviour who should be born from the house of Israel, and being fully assured that his people were under the care of a special providence, he chose rather to cast In his lot with them than to prosecute any tempting schemes of worldly ambition. By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.'

Accordingly, so far from shunning or being ashamed of his oppressed brethren, so far from dreading the reproach of being an Israelite by birth; he stepped forward, without very nicely weighing the probable consequences, as their vindicator and avenger. Roused to sudden indignation by the treatment which his countrymen experienced from the taskmasters, he attacked one

Heb. xi. 24-26.