supplied by miracle, or not supplied at all. I therefore do not see as much mischief as the Doctor in literal translations, and do not think myself credulous in believing this miracle real, rather than believing that the whole Jewish nation were so imposed on as to believe it contrary to the direct personal experience of every individual amongst them for forty years.

To conclude this long argument, that my readers may be able to decide on whom the charge of credulity lies; and whether the Doctor and his followers observe all the rules of probability, and apply them with philosophic sagacity, in connecting causes and effects, when they reject and ridicule the Mosaic miracles.

I shall briefly review the causes the Doctor assigns for such of the events vulgarly deemed miraculous, as he admits to have taken place, while he denies any miraculous interference.

And as to the plagues of Egypt, excluding all miraculous interference, my readers may perhaps be at a loss to conjecture what adequate cause can be assigned for any thing approaching to a series of events so calamitous, so extraordinary, and succeeding each other in such rapid succession. But the Doctor has found an adequate cause-it was nothing more or less than TOO GREAT AN OVERFLOW OF TURBID OR MUDDY WATERS; THIS WAS THE CAUSE OF THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT.

Hear the Doctor's own words :* "Such were the famous plagues of "Egypt, as they are related by the Hebrew historian, which narration, "with all the concomitant circumstances, if any unfettered mind can "really and truly believe, I will only say that it is far, very far remov"ed from scepticism.

While

"Is the story, then, without foundation? Perhaps not. "Moses and Aaron were soliciting the Egyptian King for leave to go "with the Israelites into the wilderness to sacrifice to their God, but in reality to escape altogether from their tyrannical masters, it might very well happen that an extraordinary inundation of the Nile should "take place, and be followed with an uncommon brood of frogs, gnats, "and other most troublesome animals, a tremendous hail, a prodigious flight of locusts, an unusual darkness, and finally a ravaging pesti"lence. And all these calamities might, in the course of nine months or so, have succeeded one another, and been in a great measure the consequence of the first calamity, TOO GREAT AN OVERFLOW OF TURBID WATER. But that these happened exactly according to the Scripture relation, it requires great faith, or rather credulity, to be"lieve."

66

How conformable is this conclusion to reason and experience! It is surely particularly natural, and happens every day, that too great an overflow of turbid waters should be attended with these consequences, particularly with a tremendous HAIL, a prodigious flight of LOCUSTS, "and an unusual DARKNESS!"

66

So much for the Doctor's system as to the plagues of Egypt. Next

* Vide Critical Remarks on Exodus, xii. 22.

let us review his system as to the supposed miraculous division of the Red Sea, the escape of the Israelites, and the destruction of the Egyptians.

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On this occasion, the cunning Israelites, or at least their leader, who doubtless foresaw every thing, though no prophet, decoyed their enemies into this snare, and, after having taken advantage of an uncommon tide* of ebb, (where no such ebb is now ever observed) protracted by a favourable wind, "passed safe; the Egyptians pursued "immediately, but they went along a shoal. A deep stagnation of "water on one side, a violent return of the sea on the other, both totally unexpected, a tempest may have blown in their faces, with "thunder and lightning, which made it terrible- —a tide as high perhaps as in the Bristol Channel, or in the river Plata, though in a "place where at other times the water does not rise above three feet "and an half. But this tide may have been the effect of an earth"quake." All these accidents combining instantly after the Israelites had passed safe, may have destroyed the Egyptians; but there was certainly no miracle, all quite natural and accidental, though as to the Egyptians very unlucky; the artful leader of the Jews, who had, it should appear, foreseen and taken advantage of all these accidents, persuaded his credulous nation that all was miraculous.

The CLOUD by day, and PILLAR OF FIRE by night, which accompanied and guided the Israelites for forty years, and which they have always believed supernatural, and of which such supernatural effects are so minutely recorded, was nothing more than bundles of straw,

or some equally common combustible, carried on high poles or a "portable altar, smoking by day and blazing by night."

The MANNA, which is represented as forming the regular staple food of two millions of people, in a wilderness in many parts wholly barren, and this for forty years, is only "a collection of grains shaken from a “particular shrub, in the morning before the sun rises,” † which the deluded Israelites were persuaded to believe came from the skies, and to which they ascribed a property, "which has not been remarked to 66 belong to the common manna, namely, that it bred worms and stank, "if kept until the next morning;" a mistake they did not seem to correct during the forty years. And again, they thought "that which was gathered on the sixth day would keep unto the eighth." Another mistake: credulous interpreters consider both these as parts of the miracle,

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The SOLEMN GIVING OF THE LAW FROM SINAI, which the Hebrew historian represents in such terrific colours, "with thunders and “lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the "trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people in the camp trembled ; "and Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord de"scended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke "of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly;" and of which

• Vide Critical Remarks on Exod. xiv. compared with a note to the translation of Exod. xiv. 21. + Critical Remarks on Exodus, xvi. 14. Ibid. xvi. 19, 20.

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the lawgiver tells the people, "The Lord spake unto you out of the "midst of the fire. Ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no "similitude, only ye heard the voice." All this was mere artful management on the part of the sapient lawgiver of the Jews." * "No"thing," says Dr. Geddes, "could be better contrived or more dex"terously executed, than the plan which he adopts to give a sanction to the precepts he was about to promulge. The highest top of Sinai, "where he was supposed to have received his first mission, is pitched upon as the secret sanctuary where he is to meet the Deity, and "receive from him a new code of laws, to be ever after observed by "the Hebrew nation, as coming from their own peculiar God: the "people, first purified by ablutions and abstinence from connubial 66 pleasures, are forbidden on pain of death to approach the mountain; "and the priests themselves, who might approach it to offer sacrifice "are inhibited from ascending to the summit; order is added to order, "and caution to precaution, to prevent the smallest infringement of "this injunction." Now comes another instance of the uncommon foresight or uncommon good luck of Moses: "while the people wait thus in awe and anxious expectation, A STORM OF THUNDER AND LIGHTNING ENSUES; this they are told is the voice of God, who "meanwhile is supposed to give to Moses, in words articulate, the "Decalogue, or ten commandments. Such I conceive to be the whole "mystery," says the philosophic Doctor. I would humbly suggest to the publisher of the next edition, to subjoin to the words, a storm "of thunder and lightning ensued," AND PROBABLY A VOLCANIC ERUPTION, WITH AN EARTHQUAKE; this will be No miracle, will answer the phenomena better; and why should not this, as well as the storm of thunder and lightning, happen exactly when Moses wants it to terrify the Jews?

6.

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As to the last instance, concerning the raiment of the Israelites being supernaturally preserved for forty years. Here there was neither miracle nor mystery; the raiment of the Jews was worn, and replaced by their own care and industry, out of the same materials as at all other times. We are only to suppose that the historian positively asserted they had been preserved miraculously, and that the people believed him, because he asserted it.

Such is Dr. Geddes's philosophical and probable explanation of the Mosaic miracles, of which I will only say

"Non credat Judæus apella-
Non ego."

TO CONCLUDE the preceding view of the system of Infidels, who, compelled to admit the common facts of the Jewish history, would yet set aside all miraculous interposition in the establishment of the Jewish religion: we see it exhibits and requires a series of effects without causes; unparalleled prodigies, produced without the aid of any supernatural power; unprecedented events, foreseen without the aid of any Divine foresight, and concurring to assist the plans of the Legislator,

Critical Remarks on Exodus, xix.

+Ibid. particularly verse 16, 18.

as if he could at will command all the powers of nature, and control all the faculties of man, while at the same time he is supposed to be nothing more than a rash and bold impostor.

It exhibits a whole nation deluded for a series of forty years, as to facts obvious to sense, and subject to the test of daily experience. It represents this nation as subsisting in a wilderness without any extraordinary means of support, and remaining there under unspeakable hardships, without any assignable motive; acknowledging the authority of their lawgiver, on assertions of facts which they must have known to be false, and submitting to a code of laws most strict and irksome,* and to regulations as to property most strange and unprecedented, on sanctions which there was plainly no power to realize.

Yet all this system of imposture and delusion became the means of preserving the worship of the true God in this nation, when it was banished from all the world besides; it prepared the way for the introduction of the Gospel, and thus communicating the most extensive blessings to mankind; and the nation acknowledging this law, still subsists at the close of 3,300 years, in a state nearly as strange and unprecedented as when in the wilderness of Arabia; attesting the truth of prophecy, and prepared in a most peculiar manner to assist in its further accomplishment, and complete that grand scheme of Providence, which is constantly, though gradually, advancing the improvement of the human race. A scheme which, however, we are by infidels called on to believe was introduced originally by human fraud and delusion, and is still carried on by mere worldly policy, hypocrisy, and priestcraft, on the one side; ignorance, error, and delusion, on the other. Such is the philosophy of infidelity, and such the credulity of those who spurn at the faith of a Christian as unfounded and irrational.

e. g. As to the Sabbatic year, the year of jubilee, vide supra

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