few of thofe marks, which had before cafually excited the fenfation of those fimple founds, might be felected and formed into what has been fince called an alphabet, to exprefs them all: and then, their old accuftomed way of combining primitive founds into words, would as naturally and easily direct them to a like combination of what were now become the fimple marks of found; from whence would arife LITERARY WRITING.

In the early language of men, the fimple, primitive sounds would be ufed, whether out of choice or neceffity, as fignificative words or terms, to denote the most obvious of those things with which they perpetually conversed. Thefe founds, without arbitrary inftitution, would incite the idea of the thing, fome→ times, as its audible image, fometimes, as its natural reprefentative. Therefore the old marks for things, to which words of this original belonged, would certainly be first thought of for the figures of thofe alphabetic letters by the ingenious inventer of this wonderful contrivance. And, in fact, this which appears fo natural has been found to be actually the cafe: the most early alphabets being framed from the outlines of thofe figures in the real characters, which, by ufe, in their hieroglyphic ftate, had arrived at the facility of exciting, in the mind, the SOUND as well as THING.'

In the first fection of the fifth book, we have an addition of feveral pages, containing fome very pertinent and spirited obfervations upon what Voltaire has faid in regard to the Jews, in his additions to his General Hiftory.You are, fays Voltaire to his reader, ftruck with that hatred and contempt, which all people have always entertained for the Jewish nation. It is the unavoidable confequence of their legiflation; which reduced things to the neceffity, that either the Jews muft enflave the whole world, or that they, in their turn, must be crushed and deftroyed. It was commanded them to hold all other people in abhorrence, and to think themselves polluted if they had eat in the fame dish which belonged to a man of another religion. By the very law itself, they at length found themselves the natural enemies of the whole race of mankind.

It will not be eafy to find, his Lordfhip fays, even in the dirtieft fink of free-thinking, fo much falfhood, abfurdity, and malice heaped together in fo few words.-It might be thought unreasonable to expect that a poet fhould read his bible: but one might be allowed to fuppofe that he had heard at least of its general contents. If he ever had, could he, his Lordship afks, unmasked, and in the face of the fun, have faid that the Mofaic law directed or encouraged the Jewish people to attempt extenfive conquests?-That very law, which not only affigned a peculiar and narrow district for the abode of its followers; but, by a number of inftitutions, actually confined them within thofe

limits:

limits fuch as the ftated divifion of the land to each tribe; the prohibition of the ufe of horfe in their armies; the diftinction of meats into clean and unclean; the yearly vifit of each individual to Jerufalem, with many others.

His Lordship obferves farther, that every Jew, by the conftitution of the law itself, found all mankind to be his brethren. For Mofes was careful to acquaint the chofen family with the origin of the human race, and of their defcent from one man and woman; and, in order to impress this falutary truth more ftrongly on their minds, he draws out an exact genealogy from Adam, not only of the direct line which was to inhabit the land of Judea, but of all the collateral branches by which the whole earth was peopled.

So that were Voltaire to turn law-giver, (which he might as well do as general hiftorian) and fit down to contrive a method by which brotherly love and affection might be best established amongst the fons of men, one might (according to this writer) defy him, with all his invention, to hit upon any, more efficacious than that which Mofes has employed. St. Paul, when he would enlarge the affections of the Athenians (to whom all other nations as well as the Jews were become barbarians) to that extent which Chriftian benevolence requires, employed no other topic than this, that God had made of one blood all nations of men: and from thence inferred, that they all stand in the relation of brethren to one another.

But it may be afked, continues the Bishop, what are we then to think of that ODIUM HUMANI GENERIS with which the ancient pagans charged the Jews? I have fhewn, in the first volume of this work, that there was not the leaft fhadow from fact to fupport this calumny; and that it was merely an imaginary confequence, which they drew from the others declared hate and abhorrence of the idols of paganism, and firm adherence to the fole worship of the one true God. But befides this original, the principles and doctrine, there was another, the rites and ceremonies of the Mofaic religion; either of them fufficient alone to perpetuate this wretched calumny amongst ignorant and prejudiced men. That the doctrine was worthy of its original, the enemies of revelation confefs: that the establishment of the cere monies, as they were neceffary to fupport the doctrine, were of no lefs importance, I fhall now fhew our Poet.

To feparate one people from all others, in order to preferve the doctrine of the unity, was a juft purpose.

No feparation could be made but by a ceremonial law. No ceremonial law could be eftablished for this purpose, but what must make the Gentiles be efteemed unclean by the feparated people,

The

• The confequence of an estimated uncleanness, must be the avoiding it with horror: which, when obferved by their ene mies, would be maliciously reprefented to arise from this imaginary odium humani generis. What idea then must we needs entertain, I will not fay of the religion, but of the common honefty of a modern writer, who, without the least knowlege of the Jewish nation or their policy, can repeat an old exploded calumny with the affurance of one who had difcovered a newly acknowledged truth? But the pagans were decent when compared to this rude libertine. They never had the infolence to fay, that this pretended hate of all mankind was COMMANDED BY THE LAW ITSELF. They had more fenfe as well as modefty. They reverenced the great Jewish lawgiver, whom they saw, by his account of the origin of the human race, had laid the ftrongest foundation amongst his people, of brotherly love to all men. A foundation, which not one of the most celebrated lawgivers of antiquity had either the wit to inforce, or the fagacity to discover.'

His Lordship now proceeds to confider what Voltaire fays in regard to the fterility of the promised land, and concludes what he advances on this fubject in the following manner :

On the whole, fays he, we can form no conception how God could have chosen a people and affigned them a land to inhabit, more proper for the difplay of his almighty power, than the people of Ifrael and the land of Judea. As to the people, the PROPHET in his parable of the Vine-tree, informs us, that they were naturally, the weakest and most contemptible of all nations and as to the land, the POET, in his great fable, which he calls a General History, affures us, that Judea was the vilest and most barren of all countries. Yet fomehow or other this chofen people became the inftructors of mankind, in the noblest office of humanity, the fcience of true theology: and the promifed land, while made fubfervient to the worship of one God, was changed, from its native fterility, to a region flowing with milk and honey; and, by reafon of the incredible numbers which it fuftained, defervedly entitled the GLORY OF ALL LANDS.

This is the ftate of things which SCRIPTURE lays before us. And I have never yet feen those frong reafons, from the fchools of infidelity, that should induce a man, bred up in any fchool at all, to prefer their logic to the plain facts of the facred hiftorians.

I have used their teftimony to expose one, who, indeed, renounces their authority: but in this I am not confcious of having tranfgreffed any rule of fair reasoning. The freethinker laments that there is no contemporary hiftorian remaining,, to confront with the Jewish lawgiver, and detect his impoftures. However, he takes heart, and boldly engages his credit to confute

him

him from his own hiftory. This is a fair attempt. But he prevari cates on the very firft onfet. The facred history, besides the many civil facts which it contains, has many of a miraculous nature. Of these, our freethinker will allow the firft only to be brought in evidence. And then bravely attacks his adversary, who has now one hand tied behind him: for the civil and the miraculous facts, in the Jewish difpenfation, have the fame, nay, a nearer relation to each other, than the two hands of the fame body; for thefe may be ufed fingly and independently, though to disadvantage; whereas the civil and the miraculous facts can neither be understood or accounted for, but on the individual infpection of both. This is confeffed by one who, as clear-fighted as he was, certainly did not fee the confequence of what he fo liberally acknowledged. The miracles in the Bible (fays his philofophic lordfhip*) are not like thofe in Livy, detached pieces, that do not disturb the civil hiftory, which goes on very well without them. But the miracles of the Jewish hiftorian are intimately connected with all the civil affairs, and make a neceflary and infeparable part. The whole history is founded in them; it confifts of little elfe, and were it not an history of them, it would be a history of nothing."

From all this, I affume that where an unbeliever, a philofopher if you will, (for the Poet Voltaire makes them convertible terms) pretends to fhew the falfhood of Mofes's miffion from Mofes's own hiftory of it; he who undertakes to confute his reafoning, argues fairly when he confutes it upon facts recorded in that hiftory, whether they be of the miraculous or of the civil kind: fince the two forts are fo infeparably connected, that they must always be taken together, to make the hiftory understood, or the facts which it contains intelligible.'

In fection 4th book 5th, we find a confiderable addition of feveral pages, in regard to Jofephus, who, according to Spinoza, was as backward in the belief of miracles as any modern pagan whatsoever. The handle, for this calumny, is the hiftorian's relation of the paffage of the Red-Sea; which he compares to Alexander's through the Pamphylian, and which concludes with faying, that every man may believe of it as he pleafes: this, our learned Author fays, has fo libertine an air, that it has betrayed fome believers into the fame false judgment concerning Jofephus; as if he afforded only a political or philofophical belief to thefe things; and gave a latitude to thofe of his own religion, to think as they fhould fee cause.

But here lies the difficulty, we are told; the hiftorian is every "now and then putting on a very different afpect, and talking Fike a moft determined believer. Many are the places where he expreffes the fulleft and firmeft affent to the divinity of the Mofaic religion, and to the truth of the facred volumes. And what • Bolingbroke.

*

makes

makes the greatest difficulty of all, is, that the very places in which he ufes fuch offenfive latitude of expreffion are thofe where he employs his utmost endeavours to fhew the real divinity of his religion; of which miracles are produced as evidence; an evidence he studiously feeks, and feems to dwell upon with pleafure.

This varying afpect, fo indifferently affumed, creates all the embaraffment. But would men only do in this cafe, his Lordfhip fays, what they ought to do in all, when they pafs their judgment on an ancient writing, that is, confider the end, time, and genius of the writer, together with the character of thofe to whom the work is addrefled; they would find Jofephus to be indeed a fready believer of the law, and a firm believer of its miraculous establishment; and, at the fame time, difcover the easy folution of all those untoward appearances which have brought his religion into queftion.

The cafe, with him, we are told, ftood thus: his country was now in great distress; its conftitution overturned, and his brethren in apparent danger of utter extirpation; calamities arifing as much from the ill-will which the heathens had entertained of their religion for its unfociable nature, as for their own turbulent and rebellious carriage. This ill-will had been much increased by their fuperior averfion to Christianity, confidered by them as a fect of Judaism; which had carried its infociability as far, and its pretenfions much farther: fo far as to inft on the neceffity of all men's fubmitting to its dominion, and renounc ing their own country religions as the impoftures of politicians, or the inventions of evil demons. This put the heathen world into a flame, and produced those mad and wicked perfecutions that attended the first propagation of the Chriftian faith.

Such, fays the Bifhop, was the unfriendly ftate of things, when Josephus undertook an apology for his nation, in the Hiftory of its Antiquities. Now as their conquerors' averfion to them, arofe from the fuppofition that their religion required the belief and obedience of all mankind (for they had, as we obferved, confounded Judaifm with Chriftianity) to wipe off this invidious imputation, we must conclude, would be ever in the author's thoughts. So that when the courfe of his hiftory leads him to speak of the effects of God's extraordinary providence in his conduct to this people, he fometimes adds to his relation of a miraculous adventure, but in this every man may believe as he pleafes, A declaration merely to this effect: "The Jewish religion was given by God for the ufe of his chofen people, therefore the Gentiles might believe as they pleased. The Jews did not pretend they fhould leave their own country religion to embrace theirs that in this they were different from the Chriftian fect, which required all mankind to follow the faith of a cruci

fied