enquiries would not occur to them, and the work would, among his countrymen, completely answer its author's intention. Profane history formed no part of his plan, and is only occasionally alluded to, when the circumstances in which the Israelites were placed, or the nature of his narrative, require such allusion. These allusions, however, as far as the most accurate researches have enabled us to trace them, appear to be particularly just and characteristic, and they therefore afford the strongest possible reason for concluding that his work is genuine and authentic. Indeed the circumstances attending it are, as we shall find, so numerous, and of such a nature, as completely to prevent the possibility of imposture. "Moses, according to his own account (and in this, at least, there was neither reason nor room for prevarication) was born in the year of the world (according to his own statement of its origin) 2433, after the flood, of which he gives an account, 777, and before Christ 1571, or 3467 years ago. This is prior to the destruction of Troy 380 years, to the first Olympiad 794, to the foundation of Rome 818, and to the era of Nabonassar 824. Ramesses Miamun, who began his reign in the year before Christ 1577, and who reigned 66 years and 2 months, was then king of Egypt. This is the Prince who, born after the death of Joseph, forgot the good deeds of the Hebrew. J viceroy, became jealous of the growing strength of the descendants of Israel, and used every means in his power to oppress them, and to prevent their further increase. Moses was saved for a little while, from suffering under a cruel edict of this tyrant, by the midwives who attended his mother; and he was afterwards snatched from the jaws of death by the king's daughter, and educated as her own son. The name of this Princess, according to Jesephus, * was Thermutis. Artapanes, a Greek writer, in a fragment preserved by Eusebius, † of Cesarea, calls her Meris. He says, that, being married to one of the petty kings of Egypt, to whom she had no children, she was induced, either to conceal or atone for her barrenness, to substitute this Hebrew child; that she called him Moses, which the Greeks afterwards turned into Musæus, and that he was the master of Orpheus. This author. had written a complete history of the Jews, which is quoted by St. Clement. It was thus that Moses became learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, then the most enlightened people in the world. Being the adopted son of the king's daughter, he was educated as a Prince, and doubtless with the best founded hopes of temporal advancement among the Egyptians. Ambition, therefore, Joseph. Antiq. Lib. 11. Cap. v. + Euseb. Prap. Lib. 1x. Cap. xxvii. could not possibly tempt him to renounce prospects so flattering to human pride. Imposture could not be so congenial to a mind thus reared, as to make him hazard his existence for a project at least doubtful in its effect, as every imposture must be. His continuing in the favour of the Egyptian court, if he had been a political schemer, and the prospect of perhaps becoming king of Egypt, was (according to mere human calculations) a much more certain mode of assisting his countrymen, and of extricating them from slavery and oppression, than any other which he could possibly devise. Indeed it is more than probable that his adoption was, for some time at least, of singular service to them. But the oppressions of the king were again renewed in the year before Christ 1531, when Moses was 40 years old. He refused any longer to be cal led the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and would not renounce his religion, even for the prospect of a crown. Though educated in a Pagan court, he yet professed the prin ciples, and believed in the God of Israel. But he found his countrymen less attentive to their duty than he expected; and his zeal in their cause obliged him to fly precipitately from Egypt. He travelled to Arabia, and, becoming the servant of Jethro, the prince and priest of a colony of Midianites that dwelt near Mount Sinai, in the way between Egypt and Canaan, he lived there. for 40 years; his good qualities having so recommended him to his master, that he gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage. In the year before Christ 1510, Ramesses dying, was succeeded by his son Amenophis, who reigned 19 years and 6 months. In the fabulous history of the Greeks, this Prince was afterwards called Belus, the father of Egyptus and Danaus. He is that Pharaoh whose heart was hardened against the Israelites, and during whose reign they left Egypt. "In the year before Christ 1491, Moses, who never seems of himself to have thought the thing possible, was pitched upon to be the deliverer of his countrymen. This same Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler, and a deliverer, by the hands of the angel which appeared to him in the bush. In the account of the circumstances attending this deliverance, there is nothing which in the smallest degree looks like imposture. The leading facts are certain and allowed. The Israelites, at this period, were numerous. They were in Egypt under cruel bondage. They had been there 215 years. They came thither a mere handful, and were for a considerable time happy and respected. For more than 80 years, however, they had been in circumstances most unpleasant. Yet neither prosperity nor adversity, power nor op pression, induced them to mix with the Egyptians, prevented their increase, or led them to alter their sentiments of religion. In Egypt, they were a peculiar people, as they have been ever since, and they entertained even then notions of the Deity widely different from, and very superior to those of the enlightened people among whom they dwelt. When Moses and Aaron appeared amongst them, as the messengers of the Most High, they talked to them in a language to which they were by no means strangers. Their long captivity and severe afflictions had probably blunted their con ceptions, but certainly had not annihilated their belief of the God of their fathers. Their joy, therefore, at the appearance of Moses and Aaron, and being told that the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, had not forgot them, and would visit their afflictions with comfort, was natural; and this circumstance confirms the account which Moses gives of those Patriarchs. For the Israelites of that age, who were not very distant descendants, could not be so completely ignorant of their origin, as to be imposed on by an idle story, as this must have been, were it false. Joseph they must have often heard of, and he was only the great grandson of Abraham the father of the faithful, and root of their nation. Joseph had died, as would be well known in Egypt, and particularly to his distressed country |