upon this point, derived from the history of their ancestors, it is impossible to deny that the sanctions of the Mosaic law are altogether temporal. This circumstance has been even alleged as a charge to discredit his legislation *. It is indeed one of the many facts which can only be explained by acknowledging that he really acted under a divine commission, promulgating a temporary law for a peculiar purpose to a single nation. But if it is believed, that Moses had sufficient skill to frame the admirable system which he delivered to his people, out of the mixture of idolatry and mystery with which Egypt

Since Bolingbroke, who first touched this string, the omission of the doctrine of a future state from the Jewish law has been "seen with surprise" by every sceptical essayist. I am well aware that the knowledge of a resurrection and future state was familiar to the patriarchs; which is proved by the translation of Enoch, the faith of Abraham, the vision of Jacob, &c. beyond fair controversy. This has been often shown, but no where more clearly than by Sir H. Moncreiff Wellwood, in his recent volume on the evidence of the Jewish and Christian revelation, Discourse 2d; in which that able writer adduces the various passages of the Old Testament which bear upon this point, and shows the corroboration they

receive from allusions in the New.

POPULAR BELIEF OF THE ISRAELITES. 295

abounded, it is incredible that he should not have united with it, as the firmest support of his precepts and laws, their opinions, alike useful and popular, of the immortality of the soul.

II. It only remains to suppose that Moses received that doctrine which the Egyptians were unable to teach him, and which he cannot possibly be thought to have derived from the powers of his own mind, from the religious sentiments and traditions which prevailed among the He brew people *. If this account is held to be true, the difficulty which it creates is no less formidable than that which it is intended to explain.

The people of Israel, for some centuries preceding the time of Moses, had been pastoral. Their chiefs, or patriarchs, were shepherds; their riches consisted in flocks and herds. Jacob is described as "in"creasing exceedingly, and having much

* I do not, of course, intend to deny that the belief of a Creator existed among the Israelites in Egypt, but to show the improbability of such a belief prevailing among them, except by original revelation.

cattle, and men-servants and maid-ser"vants, and camels and asses.' His pre

sents to his brother Esau consisted of "two hundred she-goats, twenty he-goats, "two hundred ewes and twenty rams,

66

thirty milch camels, with their colts,

forty kine and ten bulls, twenty she66 asses, and ten foals *." His sons are represented as feeding their cattle from place to place. At the invitation of Joseph, his family seem to have changed their place of abode, with all the ease that characterizes the removal of a shepherd's riches." They took their cattle, and their "goods which they had gotten in the land “of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob " and all his seed with him †."

The people whose manners most closely resemble this description at the present day, are the Bedouin Arabs and the Tartarian hordes. Accordingly, this correspondence has struck the most intelligent travellers into those countries. "A Bedouin

Shaik," says. Volney, "who has the command of five hundred horse, does not dis

* Gen. xxxii. 13.

+ Gen. xlvi. 6.

dain to saddle and bridle his own, nor to give him barley and chopped straw. In his tent, his wife makes the coffee, kneads the dough, and superintends the dressing of the victuals. His daughters and kinswomen wash the linen, and go with pitchers on their heads, and veils over their faces, to draw water from the fountain. These manners agree precisely with the descriptions in Homer, and the history of Abraham in Genesis *."

In the same way, the inhabitants of the immense plains of Tartary have never attained that degree of civilization which incorporates a community in towns or cities, and is, in its turn, promoted by a settled residencc. This uniformity of life has naturally produced an uniformity of manners +. "All their wealth is their flocks; like those who lived in the early ages of the world, they have camels, horses, cows, and sheep. Of their religion (proceeds the same author) I can say little they are downright heathens." This,

Travels in Syria, i. 405.

+ Gibbon (vol. iv. p. 341) considers "the uniform stability of their manners as the natural consequence of the imperfection of their faculties."

it seems, excited in him no surprise. But if the same sensible observer* had found a nation so unimproved and rude, possessing a clear and rational account of the creation of the world, and its Creator, would he have recorded the fact with the same indifference, and concluded that such a doctrine had been inculcated among them by some philosopher or lawgiver of their own? Should we not rather have expect→ ed him to inquire from what communications of other more civilized countries, a belief so pure and rational had been introduced? Why, but because reason and experience alike deny the probability, that a nation in so uncivilized a state could have devised the idea of an immaterial Creator. For, after the errors have been exposed, by which the greatest philosophers were bewildered, when adventuring upon a theme so lofty, it will not be dis-. puted that the notion of one omnipotent Being, who formed all things out of nothing by his own individual will; who cherishes them by his goodness, and upholds them by his power; is the most grand and sub

3

Bell's Travels, vol. i.