silver, and gold, and jewels,"* as the remuneration due to their past unrequited labours, conceded by divine justice, and obtained by divine power; as the homage due to their present acknowledged superiority, and the purchase of their immediate departure. The Egyptians grant every thing; the Israelites begin their emigration: "Six hundred thousand men on foot, besides "women and children, and a mixed multitude went with them, "as well as flocks and herds, and much cattle."+

But notwithstanding this unparalleled success in his main project, the leader of this great body acknowledges himself to have acted in a mode utterly destitute of the slightest human foresight or prudence; for this multitude are so little prepared for their emigration, that they had not time so much as to leaven the bread which they brought out of Egypt; "Because they were thrust out and could not tarry, neither had they "prepared for themselves any victual." And as if in the first step to display his total neglect of every precaution which a wise leader would adopt, he is afraid of conducting them "by "the way of the land of the Philistines, though that was near, "lest they should see war, and return to Egypt;"§ yet he takes no care to guide them in such a course as would enable them to escape from pursuit, or contend to advantage with their pursuers. He leads them into a defile, with mountains on either side, and the sea in front. At this moment the Egyptians recover from the panic, under the influence of which they had consented to their departure; and they said, "Why have we "done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us? And "they pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of "Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, ¶ and soon over"took the fugitives, for they were entangled by the land, the "wilderness had shut them in."||

Perhaps at this crisis, despair inspired them with courage: No, all is dismay and lamentation; they cried unto the Lord, and said unto Moses, "Because there were no graves in Egypt, "hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore "hast thou thus dealt with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? "Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, "Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? for it had

*Compare Exod. iii. 22, with xii. 35. § Exod. xiii. 17.

+ Exod. xii. 37, 38.
Ibid. xiv. 5 & 9.

Ib. ver. 39.
Ibid, xiv. 3.

"been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should "die in the wilderness." *

Here now is a second crisis, in which no human hope or help appears to sustain their leader: on one side, a regular disciplined army, assured of triumph-on the other, a rabble of women and children, and men as spiritless as they, expecting nothing but certain death, lamenting they had left their servitude, and ready to implore their masters to permit them again to be their slaves."

But if their leader had betrayed unparalleled imprudence in exposing his host to such a danger, the high strain of confidence he now speaks in, is equally unparalleled ; "Fear ye not," (says he to the terrified multitude :) does he add, rouse your courage; there is no way to avoid slavery or death, but by one manly effort; turn then on your pursuers, and your God will aid you? No; his language is, "Stand ye still, and see the salvation of "the Lord, which he will show you to-day; for the Egyptians "whom you have seen to-day, you shall see them again no "more for ever; the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold "your peace."+ What would this be in any mere human leader, but the ravings of frenzy? yet, wonderful to relate, the event accords with it. The Israelites escape "by the way of "the sea;" the Egyptians perish in the same sea, we know not how or why, except we admit the miraculous interposition which divided the Red-Sea, "the waters being a wall on the “right and left hand," to let his people pass free; and when the infatuated Egyptians pursued, overwhelmed with its waves their proud and impious host.

Let us now pass by the intermediate events of a few months, and observe this people on the confines of that land, to establish themselves in which they had emigrated from Egypt. Their leader with his usual confidence of success thus addresses them: "Ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites, "which the Lord our God doth give unto us. Behold, the Lord

thy God hath set the land before thee; go up, and possess it, "as the Lord of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, nei"ther be discouraged." But the people propose to adopt some precautions which human prudence would naturally dictate. "We will send men before us (say they) to mark out the land, Deut. i, 20, 21.

* Ibid. xiv. 11 and 12. + Exod. xiv. 13, 14.

"and bring us word again, by what way we must go up, and "into what cities we shall come." They are sent: they report; "The land is a good land, and fruitful; but the people be strong "that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very "great: we be not able to go up against the people, for they are "stronger than we; all the people that we saw in it are men of "of great stature; we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, "and so we were in their sight." *

At this discouraging report this timid and unwarlike race were filled with the deepest terrors: "All the congregation "lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that "night. And they murmured against Moses and Aaron; and "the whole congregation said unto them: Would to God we ❝ had died in the land of Egypt, or would to God we had died "in the wilderness. And wherefore hath the Lord brought us "unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our "children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return "to Egypt?" In vain did Moses and Aaron fall on their faces before all the congregation; in vain did two of the chief men, who had searched out the land, and who adhered to them, represent its fertility, and endeavour to inspire the host with a pious confidence in the divine protection. So incurable was their despair, and so violent their rebellion, that they resented, as the grossest crime, the advice of these honest and spirited men: for "all the congregation bade stone them with stones "till they die." They even determine to abandon altogether the enterprize; to depose their leader in contempt of the divine authority which he claimed, to elect another captain, and return to Egypt.

At this crisis, what conduct would human prudence have dictated? No other, surely, than to soothe the multitude till this extreme panic might have time to subside; then gradually to revive their confidence, by recalling to their view the miseries of that servitude from which they had escaped, the extraordinary success which had hitherto attended their efforts, and the consequent probability of their overcoming the difficulties by which they were now dispirited; then gradually leading them from one assault, where circumstances were most likely to ensure victory, to another, till their courage was reani

*For this ent're transaction vide Numb. xiii, & xiv.

F

mated, and the great object of their enterprize might be again attempted with probability of success. But how strange and unparalleled is the conduct of the Jewish leader! He denounces against this whole rebellious multitude the extreme wrath of God: instead of animating them to resume their enterprize, he commands them never to resume it: instead of encouraging them to hope for success, he assures them they never shall succeed he suffers them not to return to Egypt, yet he will not permit them to invade Canaan. He denounces to them, that they shall continue under his command; that he would march and countermarch them for forty years in the wilderness, until every one of the rebellious multitude then able to bear arms should perish there; and that then, and not till then, should their children resume the invasion of Canaan, and infallibly succeed in it. 66 Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the "Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: 66 your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness; all of you, from "twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against 66 me. But your little ones which ye said should be a prey, " them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye "have despised. And your children shall wander forty years “in the wilderness, until your carcasses be wasted in it: I the "Lord have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congre

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gation that are gathered together against me: in this wilder"ness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die. Joshua "and Caleb, they shall come into the land, for they had not "joined to make the congregation murmur against the Lord."

Now let me ask in seriousness and simplicity of mind, can we believe that such a denunciation as this could have been uttered by any human being, not distracted with the wildest frenzy, if it had not been dictated by the clearest divine authority; or if uttered, whether it could have been received by an entire nation, with any other sensation than that of scorn and contempt, if the manifestation of the divine power from which it proceeded, and by which alone it could be executed, had not been most certain and conspicuous? But can we be sure, it is said, that it was ever uttered? I answer, yes; because it was assuredly fulfilled; and its accomplishment forms the last particular I shall notice in the history of this unparalleled expedition, as exhibiting a fact partly natural; for the existence of a

whole nation in a particular country for a certain length of time, is an event of a natural kind, yet inseparably connected with a continued miraculous interposition, which if not real, no human imagination could have invented, and no human credulity believed; I mean the miraculous sustenance of the whole Jewish nation of six hundred thousand men, besides women and children, for forty years, within the compass of a barren wilderness, where a single caravan of travellers could never subsist, even marching through it by the shortest route, without having brought with them their own provisions; yet so long the host of Israel remained in it: they had first refused to obey their leader's order to invade Canaan; then when they heard the denunciation of divine vengeance, "all the people mourned greatly, "and early the next morning they rose up and said, Lo, we be "here, and we will go up to the place which the Lord hath "promised: for we have sinned." But "Moses said, Where"fore now do you transgress the commandment of the Lord? "but it shall not prosper. Go not up, for the Lord is not among "you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies. But they "presumed to go up unto the hill-top: nevertheless, the Ark of "the Covenant of the Lord, and Moses, departed not out of "the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites which "dwelt in that hill, came down and smote them, and discom"fited them, even unto Hormah. *" And they returned "and wept before the Lord; but the Lord would not hearken "unto their voice, nor give ear unto them. And yet he abode," says their leader, (recapitulating the history of this event†) “in "Kadesh (where it took place) many days. And the space in "which we came from Kadesh, until we came over the brook "Zered, was thirty-eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were wasted from among the host, as the Lord sware unto them." Then, and not before, was the Jewish host permitted to invade the country in which they were to settle: then, and not before, were they permitted to combat and to conquer. In the interval they were fed with food from heaven, even with manna, until in the plains of Jericho they did eat of the corn of the land; and the manna ceased the morrow after they had eaten the old corn of the land.

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*Numb, xiv. 39, &c.

+ Deut. i. 45, 46. & ii. 14. ‡ Vide Exod. xvi. and Josh. v. 12.