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Summary sf the Evidences of Revealed Religion . 243
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he only fancied the Egyptian nation to suffer all those calamities . which he enumerates , Tshall * ve also suppose that he made Pharaoh and all his subjects fancy the same thing ? Did lie make them believe that boils , and pestilence , and famine , overspread the land , if no such event had ever happened ? Did lie make them believe that their servants and their cattle viere slain in the
fields , by judgments from heaven , that all the first-born were cut off in one night , and that the king himself with all his boasting multitude fell victims to their wickedness in the mighty deep ? Shall we suppose farther , if no such thing happened , that he persuaded the children of Israel also , that the Red Sea opened before them , that he led them through the wilderness forty years , that during all that time they were fed with bread from heaven , and that from the flinty rocks flowed rivers of water to give them drink ? Or , shall we suppose , that all the
people of Egpyt were madmen and enthusiasts , and that there was not one man of the 600 , 000 Israelites in his right mind ? Shall we , on the ojther hand , suppose , that the whole was aa imposture , and that there was no individual of so vast a number , who was honest enough to discover the fraud—not one of those who were so ready upon all other occasions , to rise up against their leader who did not unite with him in this useless piece Qf unprofitable fiction ? Such absurdities are too gross to be admitted ; and yet must be admitted , or all the leading points in Moses ' s history must ^ stand confirmed by the voice of mankind .
Another thing , which demands our notice , is what we are so distinctly told concerning the general deluge . That such an event once happened , and that there were some persons preserved from this dreadful , devastation in an ark , is evident from the manifest vestiges of it in different parts of the globe , and the concurring testimony of all . nations . What human foresi g ht , thon , in ... Noah , what less than a message from God himself , could make him so clearly and positively foretel this , 130 years before it hap . pened ? Or , should it be denied that he had any knowledge of
the fact , but only accidentally provided against it , what motive could induce him alone to make such preparations ? It must seem most strange and very unaccountable , to suppose , that a man should imagine such a calamity to happen without any parallel , that he should publish it to the world without any fear , or hesita- * tion , and that it should take place exactly at the time appointed according to his prediction , if he had not had his knowledge from above ! This would appear as much a miracle as the , former . But , the prediction after the ilood , that thore should never be another so fatal to mankind , is no less remarkable . ] s this to be also considered as a random guess of the author ? Have ^ ve Hot xnucli more probable reasons to conclude , that nothing short
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1807, page 243, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2380/page/19/
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