the fincerity of those Holy Writers, will you distrust what the Prophets tell you only by the by, that, for Example, which is told you without any manner of Affectation in the Book of Pfalms, and in many other Places, wherein they could never have thought upon of dexterously inferting any Chimerical matters of Fact? If you fear leaft Solomon fhould have counterfeited the Law, do but obferve how Jeroboam the Capital Enemy to Solomon's Race, and whofe grand Concerns it was to prevent the People from going to Worship at Ferufalem; yet inftead of convincing the People of that pretended Fiction, as his Interest demanded, does himself publicly acknowledge the Authority of this Law.

It cannot be doubted but that Mofes has left feveral Memorials and Monuments of it in thofe Ceremonies he practifed. The Tabernacle was in being in the Days of David and Solomon. There were Levites appointed by Moses to perform Divine Services. The Ark of God effecting both in their time, and afterwards, feveral Miracles that were noted in those Hymns, which were preferved down to us, as well as in the Jewish Hiftory, was to David and Solomon a great and illuftrious Pledge of the Wonders God had wrought, by the hands of his Servant Moses.

CHAP. XVI.

That Mofes could never have any Design to Deceive the Ifraelites.

WE

E have gone through the difficulteft part of the performance already, in proving, that the Scriptures of the Jews, especially the Writings of

Mofes, could not have been any ways corrupted, as to the Effentials of them; and that the Matters of Fact they contain, have been derived from Mofes down to us. For to fuppofe that Mofes was the Inventer of them, or that he defir'd to make the People believe them against their own Knowledge, it would have been a very extravagant and ridiculous Fancy in him, because neither that innumerable Company of Perfons, which must have been impofed upon, nor the Nature of those Matters of Fact, too great and too palpable to be capable of Illufion; nor the Reproaches or Complaints, concerning the Conduct of the Ifraelites, which Mofes intermixes in his Hiftory; nor the care he takes to confirm all his Exhortations by all thofe Objects which the Ifraelites had feen with their Eyes; nor laftly, that of preferving the Memory of thofe Matters of Fact, by fo many fenfible and lafting Monuments, will allow us to frame the leaft Scruples in this refpect.

I do not deny but that indeed an able person, a perfon of Credit and Authority, may fometimes impofe upon Men with refpect to Matters of Speculation, as of Divinity or Philofophy. But then how is it pof fible one Man fhould deceive another, with refpect to those Matters of Fact, which affect the Senses, with fuch bright Evidence, and with so much Surprize to the Soul that perceives them ?

Perhaps one fingle perfon might be perfwaded to believe one fingle Matter of Fact of this kind, and that either by making him believe, that he has loft the Memory of them, by the effect of fome Diftemper ; or, that fome bad dream may occafion his Oblivion of those things he hath feen, but then to perfwade above 60000 Souls, to believe fuch a multitude of very fenfible Matters of Fact, pretended to haye paft in their own time and prefence, is fuch a

thing as cannot fo much as be thought practicable, Certainly, had it ever been the Intention of that Lawgiver, to impose upon the Ifraelites, we might very well affirm, that he did not go the right way about it; in effect, 'tis obfervable, that he is not contented to put two or three Reproaches upon the Ifraelites, but that he is divided between his extolling God's Benefits towards them, and his reproaching them for their prodigious hardness of Heart. He calls them a ftiff-necked People. Be fure, fays he, that it is not for thy Righteousneß fake, that the Lord has given thee, &c. for thou art a stiff-necked People, &c. Do not forget how Strangely thou haft provoked the Lord to anger. He gives an account of all their various Murmurings, for which they had kindled God's Wrath against them. He represents their horrible perverseness in worshipping the Golden Calf, their Distrusts, Seditions, Rebellions, Impurities, Blafphemies, &c. Is it because he thinks by those Flatteries to gain them to himself, and fo induce them to believe against every ones own proper Knowledge; that they had feen Rivers turned into Blood, Frogs filling all the Houfes of the Egyptians, Boy's breaking forth upon them with Blains, their Fields deftroyed with Hail-ftones and Locusts, the Land covered with Darkness, all their First-born flain. in one Night, a general Cry and Lamentation heard in Egypt, and the Egyptians urging them to haften, out of their Land; the Waters of the Red Sea dividing themselves, and forming as it were a double Wall to open them a free Paffage, and returning again to their strength to overthrow their Enemies, which they faw dead on the Sea-fhore ; a Pillar of a Cloud, and of Fire leading them; Manna falling. down from Heaven, when they had nothing left them to feed upon, Mount Sinai covered with a Cloud, and with a Whirlwind of Fire for fourty Days, Thunders

'Z 4

and

and Lightnings roaring upon that Mount, and the Voice of God making it felf to be heard in the midft of them; the Destruction of Kwab, Dathan and 4biram, by a terrible kind of Death, which was seen and known by all Ifrael? And how can Mofes ground all the Precepts he gave the Children of Ifrael upon those fingular and extraordinary Favours, he says, God had fo lately beftowed upon them? How can he exhort them by the confideration of thofe Things which he pretends their Eyes had feen? How can he propofe fuch Motives as thofe to their Obedience? Can we think him fo fenceless, as to propofe Fables for the Foundation of his Law and Religion, and for the only Principle of his Authority, and fuch Fables too as could not but be known for fuch by all the World? To what purpofe doth he fo often remind the Children of Ifrael, Pharaoh, the Egyptians, Korah, Dathan and Abiram, calling their Eyes to witnefs to a punishment which they never faw with their Eyes? Every one knows it is not cuftomary to eftablifh any public Memorials of any thing but of Events very well known and very important? Would he then have ordered the Memory of fuch Events as thefe, to be preferv'd in fenfible Monuments? Would he then have commanded Parents to teach them their Children from Age to Age? Would he have eftablished the use of thofe holy Ceremonies which did eternize the remembrance of them, if they had been meer Fictions, and known for fuch by the whole Body of his Nation; and which, undoubtedly, would have made him incur the Contempt and Scoffings of every one? No certainly: And this Truth is of the number of thofe which rather loofe fomething of their Force, than are strengthened by the Attempts which are made to illuftrate them.

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CHAP

I

CHAP. XVII.

That fuppofing, that the Miracles which Moses
relates be true, they are of themselves a
Sufficient Argument for the Truth of the
Jewish Religion.

T'S

IS now our Bufinefs to enquire, whether those Matters of Fact fufficiently prove the Divinity of the Jewish Religion, fuppofing them true ; which likewife depends upon knowing whether they be miraculous: For, fuppofing they are fo, they must of neceffity interrupt the Courfe and the Laws of Nature, and confequently they muft proceed from the Author of Nature himself, who only can dispense with her eftablifh'd Laws.

Spinofa puts his Fancy to wrack, to make it appear

that all the Miracles we are told of in the Books of Mofes, have all of them had natural Caufes; but it will appear, that if his Arguments are of no ftrength in the other parts of his Treatife, here they are moft extremely pitiful and ridiculous.

He endeavours to fhew firft of all, that it is impoffible to interrupt the Course of Nature by any true Miracles; and he grounds his rafh Affertion upon this doughty Argument. The Laws of Nature, fays he, are nothing elfe but the Decrees of God. Now fince it is certain, there is no altering of the Decrees of God, because God himself is immutable; fo confequently there is no violating the Laws of Nature by thofe very Miracles, which we fuppofe capable to alter and interrupt their Courfe.

One would think, that this Argument were his Buckler and Shield. He repeats it in feveral Places

of