Hume has justly observed, that "were men led into the apprehension of invisible, intelligent power, by a contemplation of the works of nature, they could never possibly entertain any conception but of one single Being, who bestowed existence and order on this vast machine, and adjusted all its parts according to one regular plan or connected system." To this unbiassed testimony may be added that of Lord Bolingbroke; who has declared, that "the idea of an all-wise and all-powerful Being, the first cause of all things, is proportionable to human reason; and that the whole universe bears witness to his existence." This rational doctrine, as it is most justly characterized, was the doctrine of Moses, and was explicitly taught by him alone of all the ancient philosophers who attempted to give any account of the existence of the world. It is a fact which can be no otherwise explained, than by admitting the truth of the history itself, that Moses in a very early age, and in an unphilosophical country, taught and established a system which *Hist. of Nat. Religion. philosophers gradually approached, as the cultivation of the human mind advanced: and which appeared most agreeable to reason, when reason was most improved. SECTION IX. Moses neither received his Doctrine of the Creation from the Egyptians, nor from the popular Belief of the Israelites. If it is thus morally improbable, that Moses should have been the inventor of the sublime theology he established among the Hebrews, we come now to consider the second explanation that may be proposed. The Hebrews, it is said, during some centuries preceding the age of Moses, had been a settled people in a civilized nation; and Moses being "learned in "all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” it is pretended that he imbibed from that fountain the opinions he promulgated concerning the creation of the world. * * In a sentence of Simplicius's Commentary on Aristotle (1. 8, p. 268), this is affirmed, but merely at random. Speaking of the Mosaic account, he says, évvoeírw (Grammaticus, against whom he is arguing) ἔτι μυθικὴ τίς ἐστιν ἤ παράδοσις, καὶ ἀπὸ μύθων Αιγυπτίων ειλκυσμένη. See Huet. Dem. Evang. Prop. 4, c. 4 I. What the Egyptian philosophy or religious worship might be in the days of Moses, we have no certain means of collecting except from the Scriptures. These, it must be confessed, do not favour the idea under consideration. They represent the God of the Hebrews, as altogether unknown to the Egyptians. When Moses prefers his request to Pharaoh in behalf of the people of Israel, Pharaoh answers, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his "voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, "neither will I let Israel go." Many of the peculiar rites and ceremonies which distinguished the Hebrew worship, were pointed against the idolatry of the Egyptians, into which the Jews were wont to relapse when they swerved from their allegiance to the God of their fathers: and it was on this account a familiar custom with their writers, when condemning idolatrous practices, to speak of the abominations of the Egyptians. Josephus * expressly attributes the hatred of that nation against the Jews to their religious differences; * Contra Ap. i. 25. there being, he says, as decided an opposition between the respective habits of worship, as between the nature of God and that of irrational animals. And Tacitus,* after remarking some customs which the Jews had derived from Egypt, observes, that there was a decided contrast in their theology. It certainly appears at first sight rather improbable, that the only people among the ancients who were not polytheists, should have borrowed their faith from a nation which was ridiculed, even among polytheists, for the grossness of its idolatry.† Thus much at least must be acknowledged: that if there were, at the period of which we are now speaking, any * Hist. l. v. c. 5. † Ausa Jovi nostro latrantem opponere Anubin. Accepimus Isin, Prop. 3. 11. 41. Semideosque canes.-Lucan. 8. 831. Quis nescit, Volusi Bithynice, qualia demens Herod. 2. 42. Minuc. Fel. 284. |