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DISCOURSE III.

Of the Miracles by which the Deliverance of the Ifraelites from their Bondage in Egypt was effected.

And Ifrael faw the great works which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord, and his fervant Mofes. EXOD. xiv. 31.

TH

HERE is nothing fo interefting to man as the intercourfe he has with his Maker, because his happiness is most nearly concerned in it; and the more interested we are in any thing, the more it behoves us to fee that we be not impofed upon, but that we have fufficient ground for our belief. Reafon and revelation are equally enemies to implicit faith, and require that we do not give our affent to important propofitions without the most fatisfactory evidence.

Though when any object of faith is of a
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pleafing

pleafing nature, we may be thought dif pofed to take up with lefs evidence, yet the magnitude of any thing will always require a proportionably clear proof. Thus we cannot doubt but that the apostles were pleafed with the idea of their master's refurrection, yet the greatnefs of the event begat a difpofition to incredulity; and we read that when they were first informed of it, and upon no apparently fufpicious ground, they believed not through joy. They thought the news too good to be true, and they did not give their full affent to the joyful tidings till they had the most overbearing evidence, fuch as no difpofition to incredulity could resist,

It behoves us, therefore, to examine with the most fcrupulous attention every circumftance in hiftories of intercourfe between God and man; and at this time I fhall felect for your attentive confideration, the first of which we have an account from eye-witneffes, I mean the deliverance of the Ifraelites from their ftate of fervitude in Egypt, and the promulgation of the law from Mount Sinai, recorded in the writ

ings of Mofes, who was himself the chief inftrument in thefe wonderful events.

Prior to this the Ifraelites had been in Egypt about two hundred years, about the latter half of which term they had been reduced to a state of the most abject fervitude. This was evidently the cafe at the birth of Mofes, who was him-. felf faved in an extraordinary manner from being drowned, in confequence of an order to throw every male child of the Ifraelites into the river, and he was eighty years old when he received his commiffion to effect their deliverance. It is probable, therefore, that they had been enslaved, and oppreffed, in various forms, about a hundred years, though the order for the deftruction of the male children had been withdrawn.

During this period of extreme oppreffion it is probable that the Ifraelites had in general ceased to worship the God of their fathers, and had conformed to the fuperftitions of their masters, which they would do the more readily from feeing the flourishing ftate they were in, and their E 4

very

own

own abject condition. For, in all the early ages of the world, outward profperity was confidered as the confequence of the public religion of any people; and the better condition of any nation with respect to any other, as a proof of the fuperiority of the gods they worshipped.

God had informed Abraham, that his pofterity would be in bondage in Egypt; but that after four hundred years (reckoning, as it appears, from the time of the prediction) they would be delivered, and become a great nation. This promife, however, they seem to have forgotten, or to have loft all faith in. Mofes himself had abandoned his countrymen, and had been forty years refident in Arabia, where he had married a wife, fo that it is pro bable he had no expectation of any thing very flattering being referved for his nation. He had even neglected the rite of circumcifion, which was the peculiar fymbol of the divine promise to the defcendants of Abraham, For it was only in confequence of the interpofition of an angel, or fome fupernatural appearance, that he

was

was compelled to perform this rite on his fon, on his return to Egypt.

In this fituation of things there did not appear to be any profpect of relief from this ftate of bondage. And, alarmed as the Egyptians were at the increase of the Ifraelites, it may be taken for granted that the use of arms was ftrictly forbidden them, while their mafters appear to have been the most warlike people in that age of the world; having not only an armed infantry, but multitudes of horses and chariots for war.

Suppofing the Ifraelites to have been fo oppreffed as to be driven to defpair, and to have come to a determination to aban don the country at all events, it is probable that they would have fought fome place of retreat, where they were likely to meet with the least resistance, either from the country being thinly inhabited, or inhabited by an unwarlike people. But inftead of this, they not only emancipate themselves, but take poffeffion of a country inhabited by the most warlike people in the world next to their masters, if they were

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