ordinances, and rejected that glorious Messiah, who was the sum and substance of all their ancient prophecies. Having thus taken a view of the many afflictions which the Jews suffered, in consequence of their disobedience to the Divine law, and their rejecting the Messiah; let us, in the second place, consider in what manner we as Christians and Protestants should treat them. This is, indeed, a serious consideration, and such as should sink deep into our hearts. God made choice of them from among all nations of the earth; to them were committed the Divine oracles, the giving of the law and the promises; from them, according to the flesh, the glorious Messiah came: whose kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and of whose dominions there shall be no end. While our ancestors were worshipping idols, and offering up human sacrifices, the Jews were adoring the true God, and waiting for the consolation of Israel. In the fulness of time, God made manifest to them his purpose of saving a lost world, and although they could not comprehend the nature of the gospel covenant, yet we received inestimable benefits from their unbelief; and our darkness was turned into light, in consequence of their lamp of knowledge being extinguished. The nations, who sat in the region and shadow of death, saw great light; and upon the ignorant, knowledge saw poured out. When a favour is conferred upon a man, gratitude becomes a duty, and when a Christian is injured, his religion obliges him to forgive. We have, in the dispensation of the gospel, received such favours from the Jews, as if properly improved, will bring us to everlasting happiness. Have they done us any injuries? as Christians, we are obliged to forget them. Did they put our Divine Redeemer to death? Let us remember that he died for our sins. Each of our sins became a nail; And unbelief the spear. we are to teach the pure doctrines of the gospel, and thus convince the unbelieving Jews, that we wish for nothing more than their salvation. Do we behold them as cast out of the society of men? Let us remember, that there was a time when they were highly favoured of God, while our ancestors were abominable in his sight. Do we hear them accused of crimes? Let us look to ourselves, and enquire, whether under all the privileges we enjoy, we are not more guilty than they? From those to which much is given, much will be required. Undoubtedly, blindness in part has happened to Israel; but let us not be high minded, but fear: for when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, then all Israel shall be saved; God will make known to his ancient people, the nature of his promises, and they will embrace that gospel which they have for many years rejected. Let us, therefore, consider the Jews as our elder brethren, according to Divine Revelation; let their state in the world serve as a proof of all we read in the sacred history of the Old and New Testament; let the afflictions we have heard of their labouring under, in different ages and nations, teach us not to abuse our privileges; and let the benefits which have been transmitted to us through them, teach us to treat them with tenderness and benevolence; with compassion and charity. Every sincere believer desires to have an evidence of his religion; and can the Christian ever obtain a greater than that of the present state of the Jews? God, however, has not left us that evidence to be trampled on or abused; we are to improve it to a proper advantage, and nothing can be more proper than shewing mercy to those unhappy people, whose hearts at present are clouded with darkness. It is not in our power to form any notion concerning their sentiments of toleration, supposing they had the civil power in their hands; but this we know, that Christians have no right to persecute; for the through God, to bring every soul in subjection to Christ. By cruelty and persecution, we may force the Jews to blaspheme; but we can never make them believe, by any coercive means whatever; our tenderness, our benevolence, our humility, and our compassion joined to our affectionate instructions, may lead them to admire, to love, and to worship their Messiah, who alone can procure them eternal happiness. The goodness of the Divine Being is best displayed in the charitable disposition of his creatures; and those who are most convinced of their own unworthiness, will be the first to forgive such as differ from them in sentiment. Do the Jews labour under a most stubborn hard-weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty, ness of heart? Are they aliens to the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise? Then what great objects of pity should we consider them? Do we consider their souls as of everlasting value, and shall we not pray incessantly, that God would remove the veil by which their understandings are darkened? Has their disobedience brought upon them the Divine displeasure, and shall we be the executioners of Almighty vengeance? God forbid. It is remarkable, that those who have oppressed the Jews in different ages and nations, were the worst of men; and shall we follow their example? No: our Divine master has given us a lesson of a very different nature. By precept, and by example, No 2. H The The RELIGION of the EGYPTIANS. The patriarch being asked where he would desire to settle, made choice of the land of Goshen, and his request was complied with, because he had flocks to maintain; but had there not been much waste ground in the country, his request could not have been complied with. From this circumstance, we may learn, that there were but few people at that N order to understand, in a proper manner, the ancient religion of the Egyptians, it will be necessary to take a retrospective view of what happened before Jacob and his children went down into that country. Abraham, the father of the faithful, was called away from his native country, somewhat less than three hundred years after the deluge, which naturally leads us to enquire into the origin of idol-time in Egypt, otherwise the king could not have atry. Abraham, as a wanderer and sojourner in a strange country, had not been above ten years absent from Ur, of the Chaldeans, when a famine obliged him to go into Egypt, at that time a very flourishing monarchy. That Egypt should have had a regal form of government within three hundred years after the deluge, has been objected to by many of our deistical writers; but when attentively consider ed, we cannot find any thing in it of an extraordinary nature. People in those early ages lived in the most frugal manner, and few of them died before they had attained to years of maturity; so that there is no reason for us to be surprized, when we find the children of Mizraim founding a monarchy, in the fertile plains of Egypt, as soon as a sufficient number of the human species had been collected together. It does not, however, appear that these people were idolators, in the strict sense of the word, although it is more than probable, that in many instances, they deviated from the worship of the true God, according to its original purity. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, at that time, calls the God of Abraham, JEHOVAH and ELOHIM, both of which are the highest titles that can be ascribed to the Divine Being, because they include all his inconceivable attributes. There is no doubt but idolatry was then beginning to take place in the nations of the universe; but still they had not lost the knowledge of the true God. From the time of Abraham's return from Egypt, we have no account of that country transmitted to us, till Jacob with his family went down there, at the request of his son Joseph. That they were not gross idolators, at that time is evident, from the king of Egypt's mentioning, with the highest respect, the God of the Hebrews; and that Egypt was at that time no more than a small colony of emigrants, will appear evident, when we consider what was said by their king to Jacob. had it in his power to make a grant of such a large tract of ground to strangers, with whom he was in a manner but little acquainted. But still it does not appear, that the Egyptians were at this time gross idolators, though the knowledge of the true God was beginning to vanish from the earth; and there is too much reason to believe, that after the death of Joseph, his kinsmen, the children of Israel, became idolators in Egypt, in compliance with the common custom. A revolution, the particulars of which we are left unacquainted with, took place about the time of Joseph's death; and an Ethiopian usurper being placed on the throne, the Jews were reduced to the utmost hardships, which naturally leads us to enquire into the state of the Egyptian religion at that time, and its progress, till it was totally abolished. That the Jews were idolators, during their captivity in Egypt, cannot be doubted by any person who has read the sacred scriptures; and who upon enquiry, it will appear, that before Moses came to lead them from that country, idol temples had been established, otherwise they would never have made a molten calf in the wilderness, which gave so much offence to the great JEHOVAH, that he threatened to destroy them from off the face of the earth. Thus St. Stephen, in his celebrated speech before the Jewish Sanhedrim, says, "And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol; and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God. turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heavens, as it is written in the book of the prophet. (See Amos v. 25.) O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts, and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan; figures which you made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. From these emphatic expressions, some notion may be formed of the nature of the Egyptian idolatry, in ancient antient times: but we shall now proceed to describe | Sphinxes; and every thing in their religion wasit in a more particular manner, as conveyed down to us by Heródotus, and many other celebrated authors. In Egypt, the priests held the next rank to kings, and from among them were chosen the great officers of state. They enjoyed many priveleges; and, among others, that of having their lands exempted from the payment of taxes, of which we have a remarkable instance, in Genesis xlvii. 26, where we read, that, "Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's." As they had the sole management of the religious rites and ceremonies, so they were at the head of all the public seminaries of learning; and to their care was committed the education of the youth especially such as were designed for high employments. That the progress of idolatry was very rapid after the deluge, cannot be doubted; and yet the Egyptians pretend, that they were the first people who instituted festivals, sacrifices, and processions in honour of the gods. These festivals were held in the most celebrated cities, where all the inhabitants of the kingdom were obliged to attend, unless prevented by sickness; and when that happened, they were to illuminate their windows with torches. They sacrificed many different sorts of beasts; and at every sacrifice, the people drew near, one by one, and laid their hands upon the head of the victim, praying that God would inflict upon that creature, all the punishment due to him for his sins. Then the priest stabbed the victim, part of which was burnt, and part eaten; for no person was thought to gain any benefit from the sacrifice, who did not taste less or more of it. The Egyptians believed, that the souls of men, at death, went into other bodies; such as had been virtuous, going into such persons as were to be happy in the world; but the vicious, into the bodies of such as were to be miserable, and sometimes into those of serpents. In that state of punishment, they were to remain a certain number of years, till they had been purified from their guilt, and then they were to inhabit more exalted beings. The priests had the keeping of all the sacred books, whether relating to religion, or to civil polity; and, therefore, to the common people, every thing was delivered in a mysterious emblematical manner. Silence, with respect to their sacred rites, was pointed out by a figure called Harpocrates, resembling a man holding his finger upon his lips; intimating, that mysteries were not to be revealed to the vulgar. They had likewise, at the gates of all their temples, images of a similar nature, called symbolical: The figure of a hare pointed out attention, or watchfulness; because that creature has been always esteemed as one of the most fearful in the universe. A judge was painted without hands, with his eyes fixed on the ground, thereby intimating, that a magistrate should judge with impartiality, without considering the characters or stations of the persons who are brought before him. From attending, in a careful manner, to the perusal of the Egyptian history, it would seem, that while idolatry was in some measure cultivated by the neighbouring nations, there it flourished in a state of perfection. The number of their idols was endless; but those who seem to have been most regarded by them, in antient times, were Orisis and Isis, which we have much reason to believe were the sun and moon. These, however, were only the general gods of Egypt, and such as were worshipped by the king, and his courtiers; for almost every district had its particular deity. Some worshipped dogs; others oxen, some hawks, some owls, some crocodiles, some cats; and others ibis, a sort of an Egyptian stork. The worship of these animals was confined to certain places; and it often happened, that those who adored the crocodile, were ridiculed by such as paid divine honours to the To support the honour of their different idols, bloody wars often took place; and whole provinces were depopulated to decide the question, whether a crocodile or a cat was a god? And yet it is remarkable, that although they disputed concerning the attributes of their idols, yet they all agreed in this, that every person was guilty of a capital offence, who injured any of those animals, whose figures were set up in their temples; Of this we have a remarkable instance in Diodorus Siculus, who was an eye witness to ths fact which he relates. cat. A Roman soldier, during the time of Mark Anthony, having inadvertently killed a cat, at Alexandria, the populace rose in a tumultuous manner, dragged him from his house, and murdered him. Nay, such was the respect the Egyptians had for these animals; that during an extreme famine, they chose rather to eat one another than to hurt them. But of all the idols worshipped by the Egyptians, the Apis, or Bull, had the preference; and it is undoubtedly from his figure, that the Jews formed the golden calf in the wilderness. The most magnificent temples were erected for him; he was adored by all ranks of people while living, and when he died (for he was a living Bull) all Egypt went into mourning for him. We are told by Pliny, that, during the reign of Ptolemy Lagus, the Bull Apis died of extreme old age, and such was the the pompous manner in which he was interred, that the funeral expences amounted to a sum equal to that of twelve thousand pounds sterling. The next. thing to be done, was to provide a successor for this god, and all Egypt was ransacked on purpose. He was to be distinguished by certain marks from all other animals of his own species; particularly he was to have on his forehead a white mark, resembling a crescent; on his back, the figure of an eagle; on his tongue, that of a beetle. As soon as an ox answering that description was found, mourning gave place to joy; and nothing was to be heard of in Egypt, but festivals and rejoicings. The new discovered god, or rather beast, was brought to Memphis, to take possession of his dignity, and there placed upon a throne, with a great number of ceremonies. Indeed, the Egyptians seem to have given such encouragement to superstition, that not content with worshipping the vilest of all reptiles, they actually paid divine honours to vegetables. For this they are severely and justly ridiculed, by Juvenal, in his fifteenth satire. Who has not heard, where Egypt's realms are nam'd, What monster gods her fertile sons have fram'd? Here Ibis gorg'd, with well grown serpents, there, The crocodile command religious fear; That such absurdities should have taken place among a people, justly celebrated for their knowledge of the sciences, is what we are hardly able to account for: but that it did so, we have the greatest authority to assert, from the whole evidence of antiquity. To read of animals, and vile insects, honoured with religious worship placed in the most pompous temples erected at a most extravagant expence; that those who killed them should be put to death, and that those animals were embalmed after death, and treated with Divine honours, is what a sober heathen would hardly believe, and yet we have it from the testimony of the most sober heathens. We may add further, that to hear that leeks and onions were worshipped as deities: nay, were invoked in all cases of necessity, are such surprising instances of the weakness of the human understanding, and the corruption of the human nature; that we have reason to bless God for the times, and the places where we were born, Lucian, a prophane heathen poet, who lived about the middle of the third century of the Christian æra, seems to have had very just notions of the ridiculous rites and ceremonies of the Egyptians in his time. His words are, "You may enter into one of their most magnificent temples, adorned with gold and silver; but look around you for a god, and you behold a stork, an ape, or a cat." It is, therefore, proper that we should enquire what motives could induce those people to act in such a manner; but here we are led into a large field indeed. The antient Egyptians had a tradition, that, at a certain period, men rebelled against the gods, and drove them out of heaven. Upon this disaster taking place, the gods fled into Egypt, where they concealed themselves under the form of different animals; and this was the first reason assigned for the worship of those creatures. But there was another reason assigned for the worship. of these animals; namely, the benefits which men often received from them particularly in Egypt. Oxen, by their labour, helped to cultivate the ground, sheep cloathed them with their wool, dogs, among many other services, prevented their houses. from being robbed; the ibis, a bird, somewhat resembling a stork, was of great service in destroying the winged serpents, with which Egypt abounded; the crocodile, an amphibious creature, was worshipped, because it prevented the wild Arabs from making incursions; the Ichneumon, a little animal was of great service to them in different ways; he watches the crocodile's absence and breaks his eggs, and when he lays down to sleep on the banks of the Nile, which he always does, with his mouth open, this little creature jumps out of the mud, and leaping into his throat, forces his way down to his entrails, which he gnaws, then he pierces his belly, and thus triumphs over this most dreadful animal. The first Christian fathers ridiculed the Egyptian idolatry, and painted the absurdity of it in the most lively colours; and asked the heathen priests how they could dishonour the great God of heaven and earth, by offering sacrifices to the vilest, and most contemptible animals and reptiles; such as snakes, crocodiles, crocodiles, serpents, and cats. Indeed, God, in his Indeed, God, in his righteous judgment, gave them up to a reprobate mind; and whilst they professed themselves to be wise, they became fools, for having changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image, made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. large. The judges, who were to examine into the merits of the deceased, met on the opposite side of a lake, of which there were many in Egypt; and while they crossed the lake, he who sat at the helm, was called Charon, which gave rise to the fable among the Greeks, that Charon conducted the souls of deceased persons into the Elysian fields, or the The funeral ceremonies of the Egyptians, deserve infernal regions. When the judgees met, all those particular notice; for no people, of whom we have who had any thing to object against the deceased any account transmitted us, ever paid so much regard to the bodies of their departed friends Of this we have a striking instance, in what still remains of pyramids, the most stupendous buildings that ever were erected to petuate the memory of their princes. This ostentation like most other customs, originated first in the courts of their kings; but in time was imitated, as far as lay in their power, by the lower ranks of people. When any of their relations died, the whole family quitted the place of their abode; and during sixty or seventy days, according to the rank and quality of the deceased, abstained from all the comforts of life, excepting such as were necessary to support nature. They embalmed the bodies, and many persons were employed in performing this ceremony. The brains were drawn through the nostrils by an instrument, and the intestines were emptied by cutting a hole in the abdomen, or bellly, with a sharp stone; after which, the cavities were filled up with perfumes, and the finest odoriforous spices; but the person who made the incision in the body for this purpose, and who was commonly a slave,, was obliged to run away immediately after, or the people present would have stoned him to death; but those who embalmed the body, were treated with the utmost respect. The interior parts of the body were filled with all sorts of curious spices, which they purchased from the Arabians; and after a certain number of days had expired, it was wrapped up in fine linen, glued together with gum, and then spread over with the richest perfumes. The body being thus embalmed, was delivered to the relations, and placed either in a sepulchre, or in their own houses, according to their rank and ability. It stood in a wooden chest, erect; and all those who visited the family, treated it with some marks of respect. This was done, that those who knew them while alive, should endeavour to imitate their conduct after death. Of this we have a striking instance in the account of the funcrat of Joseph, in Egypt, and the regard that was paid to his remains, long after his deccase. The Egyptians would not suffer praises to be bestowed Indiscritanately upon every person, let his rank be ever so elevated; for characters given to the deceased, were bestowed by the judges, who represented the people at No. 2 persons were heard; and if it appeared that he had heen a wicked person, then his name was condemned to perpetual infamy; nor could his dearest relations erect any monument to perpetuate his memory. This made a deep impression on the minds of the people; for nothing operates more strongly than the fear of shame, and the consideration of our deceased relations, being consigned to infamy hereafter. Kings themselves were not exempted from this enquiry; all their actions were canvassed at large by the judges, and the same impartial decision took place, as if it had been upon one of the meanest of the subjects. Of this we have some instances in scripture, where we read, that wicked kings were not suffered to be interred in the sepulchres of their ancestors. Happy for mankind, that this was more attended to in our days; then wicked princes and sovereigns would learn, that notwithstanding their elevated rank in life, yet the justice of their country, which they often trample on, will scrutinize, with severity, their actions, while their bodies are consigned to the silent tomb. If no objection was made to the conduct of the deceased, then a funeral oration was delivered in memory of him, reciting his most worthy actions; but no notice was taken of his birth, because every Egyptian was considered as noble. No praises were bestowed, but such as related to temporal merit; and he was applauded for having cultivated piety to the gods, and discharged his duty to his fellow creatures. Then all the people shouted with voices of applause, and the body was honourably interred. The Egypuans, however, believed much in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls; and likewise, that for some time after death, the souls of the deccased hovered round the bodics; which, among many others, was one of the reasons why they deferred the interment of their relations so long. That the ancient Egyptians had some notion of the resurrection of the body, cannot be denied; but their eneavouring to preserve human bodies from a state of corruption, was one of the most absurd thoughts that could ever take place in the mind of a "Dust thou art; and unto dust And, certainly, those who be- rational creature. thou shalt return." I lieve |