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    nations who had neither done nor oflfered to do them any injury or insult . " It is a strong presumption that an author has no intention to deceive

    ivhen he uses an unguarded style , or a simplicity and looseness of expression , and takes no care to stop the avenues , by . which a suspicion might enter either of fraud or error . This

    appears to be the character of the writer or writers of the Hebrew his tory . They relate the most extraordinary events with the greatest simplicity ; and apply terms in such loose and general meaning , as is usual and familiar . It will not then be a

    stumbling-block , or matter of surprise , to a judicious reader , when he perceives and remarks , that a great destruction of the cattle or produce of Egypt , or of the Egyptian army is expressed in words which strictly and literally understood , would imply , that not a

    living creature or blade of corn escaped ; and that in tike manner the slaughter made by the Hebrews in the invasion of Canaan , and the capture of cities or towns , is often expressed as if not a single person was

    left alive ; though many must certainly have escaped , by flight or other methods , and many spared from motives of humanity and compassion . To give but one instance . The Amalekites of all the nations were the most

    expressly doomed to utter destruction , and King Saul declares to Samuel that he had executed the sentence with the utmost rigor y yet we find afterward that the young man who brought Saul ' s crown and bracelet to David , was an Amnlekite .

    What is related of the magicians of Egypt may justly be thought another specimen of the like popular and undefined expression ; for when they are represented as working some miracles of the same kind with some

    which Moses had performed , the writer may be properly considered as choosing rather to adopt the popular language and opinion of the Hebrews concerning those pretended miracles , than to express his . own sentiments ,

    and deny the reality of them . Especially , as those magicians soon . thought fit to desist from their attempts of mimickry and to confess a superior power on the sid ^ of Moses . Yet a belief that they did not only imitate ? Moses but really performed # ome mi-

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    racles like his * might be cinw among the Hebrews as well as tlJ Egyptians . For the notion of W national and peculiar deities , riyS to , each other in dominion , s eems to have been common to the Hebrews with other nations , it was a work

    of long time and great difficult y to train them to the acknowled gment © f one-only living and true God , till which time , it was easy and natural in them to believe or suspect that the god or gods of the Egyptians might

    be able to work some rairai les , though the God of Moses proved himself to be far more powerful . They , or at least a party among them , were so deeply tinctured with the religious notions and customs of Egypt , that we find them making a bold and

    zealous attempt to revive the Egyptian worship in the wilderness . The author , therefore , of the Boole of Exodus , was prudently content with shewing the vast superiority . of the power by which Moses acted , to all the efforts of the magicians ; leaving it to the readers to judge of the

    artifice and fraud of those enchanters ; yet discovering his own opinion with sufficient clearness by stylmg their works enchantments . As to their being divinely authorized to pillage and rob the

    Egyptians , which has been the language of some unbelievers , it scarcely merits any serious attention or answer . For without pleading the tyranny , with which they had- been treated as a sufficient vindication or excuse for

    them , if they had taken all advantages to make reprisals j the fact appears to be , that the Egyptians whether from motives of fear or compassion , or both , were as willing to assist them in their departure , and even to bestow useful and valuable

    presents upon them , as they were to solicit their assistance and bounty ; and it is evident that the situatiou would not admit , either one party to promise , or the other to expect any return ; though the Hebrew war ** improperly translated borruto , * instead of beg from them , or ask them

    to give . j That the Hebrews were empovyerea and " directed by a divine comm ^ to ' d < mb > y or exterminate certain v * * Seethe word hHW in Tay lor ' s accordance . No > \ & 4 &-

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    & 7 2 Dissertation concerning the Porter and Authority by which Masts acted .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1815, page 272, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1760/page/8/