II. THE FOREIGN TESTIMONIES WHICH REMAIN TO THESE FACTS *.

Respecting the authority of that portion of sacred history over which we have now passed, let the following particulars be observed:

1. It cannot be denied that there did exist such a person as Moses; and that he was the Jewish legislator. JUSTIN, in his abridgment of Trogus Pompeius †, mentions his beauty; and Longinus cites him by name, in his character as a lawgiver, and quotes the beginning of Genesis, as an instance of the true sublime.

2. It will not be disputed that Moses brought the children of Israel from Egypt. This fact is not only asserted throughout the whole of the sacred writings, but confirmed by the combined evidence of all ancient historians.

MANETHO gives an account of the time, the manner, and many of the principal circumstances, attending this event; as we learn from JOSEPHUS in his first book against Apion ‡.

* The statements which follow, are selected principally from Bishop Watson's Theological Tracts: Vol. I. p. 294, &c.

Justin. lib. xxxvi. cap. 2.

↑ Manetho, as is customary in ancient writers, because of the

JUSTIN mentions their departure, but assigns a false reason for it: this, however, does not invalidate his testimony respecting the fact in question; and so far as his authority goes, it proves that the departure of Israel from Egypt under the conduct of Moses, was acknowledged in his days *.

TACITUS records the same event; and asserts that the Jews were expelled Egypt on account of the leprosy. This conjecture, for it is no more, is perfectly groundless: because it is well known that the leprosy was a common distemper among the Egyptians; and for this reason, the law of Moses calls the leprosy the disease of Egypt, and banishes lepers from the congregation.

PLINY confirms this assertion, by speaking of the leprosy (which he calls Elephantiasis) as common to the Egyptians.-They might possibly communicate it to the Israelites: but it is improbable that they should expel them for a distemper which they themselves imparted to them. But

TROGUS POMPEIUS says, that the magicians

questionable sources whence their information was frequently drawn, blends truth with fable, as may be seen by referring to Josephus.

Justin. ut supra.

'caused Moses and the Israelites to be expelled, because they themselves were afflicted with a kind of murrain or leprosy, and were afraid lest it should spread throughout the land: which account probably refers to the plague of boits which was brought upon all Egypt, because Pharaoh refused to let the people go. Still observe whatever reasons these heathen writers give for the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, they all agree in confirming the fact, that the descendants of Abraham were enslaved in Egypt, and that they departed out of it warder the conduct of Moses.

8. The Jews could not have asserted these miracles, and the deliverance of their fathers, supposing no such miracles to have been wrought, and no such deliverance to have been effected, without exposing themselves to contempt, and their fiction to detection, among all the nations by which they were subdued, after the death of Moses and Joshua. Whereas, it does not appear that their records were disputed; and the writer of the first book of Samuel, (who was probably Samuel himself, or some contem porary, so far as his history is concerned in it,) represents the Philistines as saying, when the

* Justin. ut supra. See note 3, at the end of this Lecture.

ark of God came into the camp,

"Woe unto us!

"who shall deliver us out of the hands of these

mighty Gods? These are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the "wilderness" evidently an imperfect tradition of these facts, as they confound the transactions of Egypt, and those of the wilderness, together. Now what purpose could it answer, to put into the mouth of the Philistines such a declaration, if they did not really utter it, except to expose the historian to contempt? as, at the time, any one was able to contradict it, if it were not true. But it is evident that the remembrance of these miracles was not confined to Egypt: and that other lands had heard of them, and believed them,

4. NUMENIUS, a Pythagorean philosopher, relates that Jannes and Jambres (as is recorded also in the New Testament) were chosen by the Egyptians, to oppose Moses, and " to hinder the "effects of his miracles and prayers, which had

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brought down many grievous plagues upon Egypt, just about the time of the Jews' banishment from that country."

5. The Jews themselves, upon whom Moses could not have imposed in the first instance, kept in remembrance all the principal facts which we have recited this night, by their rites; which rites received birth with the events them

selves, and were kept up till the coming of Christ; and some of them, connected inseparably with the departure from Egypt, are celebrated to this hour among the Jews: such are the passover, and the redemption of the firstborn.

6. In a most able work, entitled "Reflections <c upon the Books of the Holy Scriptures, to "establish the Truth of the Christian Religion," a custom of the Egyptians is mentioned, which continued till after Jesus Christ: "They used "to mark with red, their sheep, their trees, "their houses, and their lands, the day before "the passover; as may be seen in EPIPHANIUS; "which custom could proceed from no other

cause, than from the fear of the Egyptians lest the same plague and mortality should come upon them, which was inflicted upon "their forefathers, and from the hope of pre"venting it, by the use of a talisman, some"what resembling the sprinkling of the blood "of the paschal lamb on the doors of the Is

raelites, which was the method prescribed to "Moses, for the deliverance of his people from "that great plague *."

This work was composed by P. Allix, a French refugee: it was published in London in 1688: this extract is in chap, iii. on the four