tion moft received: in favour of which it is urged, it is expressly remarked in the Bible, that so long before as the days of Enos *, Adam's grandfon, men began to call themselves, or to be called by, the name of the Lord, Gen. iv. 26. that is, the family of Seth, who adhered to God and his worship, began to have a denomination fignificant of their regard to him, in oppofition to the irreligious family of Cain.

Now from this mixture and conjunction of the fons of God with the daughters of men in the one fenfe or the other, according to Mofes, fprung a generation of men of enormous violence and rapacioufnefs, if not alfo of extraordinary ftature and ftrength, who acquired to themselves, by their oppreffion, a remarkable name. And they were a fecond race of this fort, for indeed Mofes's words seem to imply, that there was such a race antecedent to this aflinity and intercourfe between the fons of God and the daughters of men which he speaks of, Gen. vi. And is not either fenfe much more rational than that which Mr. Voltaire hath propofed as the certain and uncontroverted meaning of the paffage, while, at the fame time, it is very agreeable to the idiom of the Hebrews? He hath not then here dealt candidly and honestly.

3.

* See Taylor's Scripture Divinity, page 176. Aquila turns this fentence, Gen. iv. 26. Τοτε ηρχθη το καλείσθαι εν ονόματι Κυρι8. And the fame phrafe is used for calling by name, Numb. xxxii. 42. Ifaiah, xlii. 7. xliv. 5. lxv. 1. Pf. xlix. 12. There is, however, a great variety of fentiments about the import of that text, which I may not confider.—Compare Univ. Hift. vol. 1. page 160, and 170 -178. upon this fection.

Of his faying in the forty-ninth chapter of the fame work, that the Jews, according to their own confeffion, were not circumcifed till the time of Jofhua; upon which occasion also, the affertion by this writer and others, that the Jews borrowed circumcifion from the Egyptians, is examined.

MR. VOLTAIRE's forty-ninth chapter consists chiefly of fome details from Philo and Jofephus, which have been examined already. There is then only one affertion in it which falls now to be exposed, as a mifrepresentation of the fenfe of Scripture.— Having + faid And would it really be probable that the antient and powerful nation of the Egyptians 'fhould have adopted this cuftom' (of circumcision, he means) from a little people whom they abhorred,' he fubjoins, And who, according to 'their own account, did not practise circumcifion 'till the time of Joshua?' But what fhameless falfhood here? to tell the world that the Jews, according to their own confeffion, were not circumcised till the time of Joshua, when their facred historian informs us, That all the males that came out of Egypt, and afterwards perifhed through difobedience to the word of the Lord, were circumcised, though their children that were born in the wil'dernefs by the way were not circumcifed;' on which account the Lord commanded Jofhua to circumcife them, after their paffage of the Jordan, Josh. v. 2-7. And it is the clear fenfe of the writer, according to + Page 239.

all manuscripts and verfions, without exception.

For what reason the ceremony was omitted in the wilderness, we cannot fay, unless it was because it would have been dangerous to have travelled children, uneafy by their recent wound of circumcifion, when yet against a sudden call to move from place to place, in fuch fituation, there could be no fecurity; and because the use of it would then be less neceffary, as there was smaller danger of intermixture with other nations, during their abode in the defert. But whatever was the reafon of its neglect then, it is certain it had been before practised by them, and was now only revived and renewed after forty years intermiffion or discontinuance, on their arrival in Canaan, at the approach of the

* Maimonides Moreh Nebochim, part 3. cap. 19. having faid, 'Cir'cumcifion was a rite of such a nature, that no person would perform it

upon himself or his children, but on account of religion,' gives this reafon for his judgment, Nam non eft levis aliqua cruris laefio, vel ⚫ brachii aduftio, fed res duriffima et difficillima. For it is not a flight 'hurt of the leg, or burning of the arm, but a thing most harsh and ' uneasy.' Though, afterwards, to fhew the propriety of circumcifing in infancy, rather than in more mature age, be observes, that then the pain was fmaller. So likewise Philo de Circumcif. page 810. speaks of circumcifion as an operation attended with grievous anguish, Merα Xαλeπwv axyndorwr. It may even seem to have been hazardous to life. For Lightfoot, in his Exercitations upon i Cor. vii. 19. (fee his Works, vol. 2. page 760.) produces fome paffages from Rabbinical writings, in which mention is made of a man 'whose brethren had died of cir'cumcifion.' Nay, one from the Jerufalem Talmud itself, where R. Nathan fays, 'There was a woman in Cefarea of Cappadocia, who ' had lost three fons fucceffively by it.' And he himself afferts, that in such a cafe, the ceremony was omitted upon those that were born after. We may therefore be less furprized that its observation was laid afide during the pilgrimage of Ifrael in the wilderness.

paffover, unto which feaft no uncircumcifed perfon might come at any time by their law, under pain of being cut off; as indeed it had, in the interval betwixt their departure from Egypt, and their entrance into Canaan, been, among other pofitive rites, re-injoined, Levit. xii. 2. So far is it from being true that it was then first begun or introduced among them, as our author would perfuade his readers.

What moved Mr. Voltaire to give so palpably false an account of this matter, is not easy to perceive. It is true, he supposes the Hebrews first practised this rite, in imitation of their neighbours. For he says, in the fifth chapter + of this fame Treatife, The t Jews themselves, though they looked with horror upon the rest of men, which deteftation increased ' with time, imitated the circumcifion of the Arabs ' and Egyptians.' And, as he intimates, they learned it from the Egyptians, in the chapter before us, where he likewise represents Jofephus to affirm, that the Jews themselves confeffed it, (how unjustly* hath been already fhewed) fo he dwells upon the conceit at greater length in his Philofophical Dictionary. For, having quoted a paffage from Herodotus, of which presently, he adds‡' It is clear from this paffage of 'Herodotus, that several nations had taken circum'cifion from Egypt, but no nation has ever said, that "they derived it from the Jews. To which then must "the origin of this cuftom be attributed, to that nation, from whom five or fix others acknowledge they hold it, or to another much inferior in power, + Page 18. *Part I. fection 7. page 41. + Article Circumcifion, page 128.j

lefs commercial, lefs military, hidden in a nook of • Arabia Petrea, and which has never been able to introduce the leaft of its cuftoms in any na

tion? The Jews fay, that they were first received into Egypt by way of compaflion and charity;

now, is it not very probable, that the little people 'adopted a practice of the great people, and that the Jews joined in fome of their mafters cuftoms?' But, notwithstanding this was his hypothefis, that circumcifion was of more antient use among other nations than among the Ifraelites, he might, in perfect confiftency with it, have allowed, as well as Sir John Marsham, Lord Shaftesbury, and others who embraced it, that the Jews practifed that rite long before the days of Jofhua, and their entrance into the promised land under his conduct. And, indced, one would imagine this previous observation of it by them was too manifeft to be denied. For, we are told, Gen. xvii. 23-27. that Abraham circumcifed Ishmael his fon, and all the males that were born in his house, or bought with his money of any stranger, at the fame time fubmitting to the rite himself; and again, Gen. xxi. 4. that he circumcifed his fon Ifaac: all which must have been tranfacted confiderably more than 400 years before his pofterity paffed the Jordan. Further, we read that Jacob's fons represented to Shechem, who had debauched their fifter Dinah, and to Hamor his father, that every male of them was circumcifed, when they pleaded, that these princes and their people should alfo undergo circumcifion, ere they would agree to their propofal of inter-marriages with them; and that they, on the other hand, reafoned upon