culiar wilderness, in which Ifmael and his fons must have pitched their tents, in the face of their brethren.

Yet thefe exceptions are temporary and local ; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the arms of Sefoftris and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the prefent Sovereign of the Turks may exercife the Shadow of jurifdiction, but his pride is reduced to folicit the friendship of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack. The obvious caufes of their freedom are infcribed on the character and country of the Arabs Their fpirit is free, their steps are unconfined, the defert is open, and the tribes and families are held together by a mutual and voluntary compact-The feparation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of ftranger and enemy-They pretend, that in the divifion of the earth, the rich and fertile climates were affigned to the other branches of the human family, and that the pofterity of the outlaw Ifmael might recover, by fraud or force, the portion of inheritance, of which he had been unjustly deprived. According to Pliny, the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and merchandize: the cara

1

vans

vans that traverse the defert are ranfomed or pillaged: and their neighbours, fince the remote times of Job and Sefoftris, have been victims of their rapacious Spirit-Whatever may be · the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived from the original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and Chaldean tongues -The fame hofpitality, which was practifed by Abraham, and celebrated by Homer, is ftill renewed in the camps of the Arabs-The religion of the Arabs as well as of the Indians, confifted in the worship of the fun, the moon, and stars. - In a remote period of antiquity, Sabianism was diffused over Afia, by the fcience of the Chaldeans, and the arms of the Affyrians. In the tradition of the creation, the deluge, and the patriarchs, they held a fingular agreement. with their Jewish captives. They appealed to the fecret books of Adam, Seth, and Enoch.. From Japan to Peru, the use of facrifice has univerfally prevailed°.—The life of a man is

།

the

• There can hardly be a doubt that facrifices were inftituted by the direction of God himself. It cannot be fupposed that Adam or Abel would have prefumed to kill any creature, or could fuppofe the offering fuch a victim, or the fhedding of blood (death being their allotted punishment, and what they must hold in abhorrence) would be acceptable to God, unless fuch a facrifice had been fpecially appointed. It is not impoffible from the Apostle's expreffion,

the most precious oblation to deprecate a public calamity; the altars of Phenicia and Egypt, of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted with human gore.-The. cruel practice was long preferved among the Arabs. In the time of ignorance, the Arabs, like the Jews and Egyptians, abstained from the use of swine's flesh; they circumcifed their children at the of puberty P; the fame customs, without the cenfure or the precept of the Koran, have been filently tranfmitted to their pofterity and profelytes."

age

The diftinguished pofterity of Ifaac, the child of promife, exhibits a yet more striking

+

Heb. xi. 4. "Abel's facrifice was made acceptable by faith;" that the design of this inftitution, and the necessity of the sacrifice, which was to redeem the world, was revealed at the fame time; and this conjecture is ftrengthened by the fimilar tradition, which is proved, by the recently discovered Sanscreet writings, to have existed in the Eaft, in India, in times coeval, if not prior, to the time of Mofes. God teftified his acceptance of the facrifice, by fire from heaven, or (as is more probable during the times of the conftant, or ftated appearance of the Shechinah, or divine fplendor of light, by which God manifefted his especial prefence) by a ftream of flame from the visible glory of the Lord, which burnt up the facrifice. See Patrick's Commentary upon Genesis, vol. i.

c. iv.

Ifmael was circumcifed at this age.

4

example

example of the accurate fulfilment of this Prophecy. Jacob removed into Egypt with 66 perfons: When Mofes gave an account of the condition of the Ifraelites in Egypt, he declared, that after the death of Jofeph "they were fruitful, and increased abundantly and multiplied, and waxed mighty, and the land was filled with them." At their departure from Egypt they amounted to 600,000 men able to bear arms, exclufive of old men, women, and children, fo that the whole number may be computed at two millions. 9. During their journey to the promifed land, Balaam the Prophét exclaimed, when fummoned to a high place by Balak, "to curfe him a people, who covered the face of the earth" 39 years after their departure from Egypt, “Who can count the duft of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Ifrael?" And Mofes, remarking their increase with a reference to the promife made to Abraham, said, addressing himself to the people on a fubfequent occafion, “Behold, you are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.'

When David in the pride of his heart numbered his people, his fubjects fit to bear arms

1 See Patrick's Commentary.

F 3

amounted

amounted to 1,300,000. Upon the difperfion of the ten tribes of the kingdom of Ifrael, and the captivity of the people of Judah, numerous colonies were established in all parts of the Eaft, from whence multitudes came annually to celebrate the feast of Pentecoft at Jerufalem. In the various countries in which the Apostles first preached the Gospel, they found fynagogues, which had been for ages eftablished,

The vast numbers who were flain or taken prisoners by Titus, at the fiege of Jerufalem, and of those afterwards deftroyed in the reigns of Trajan and Adrian; the horrible maffacres and perfecutions, to which they have been fubjected in almost every age fince. their difperfion; and the numbers, which ftruggling with peculiar hardship and oppreffion, in all the various countries wherein they are fcattered, are fuppofed by fome authors to be as great as during the time of their establishment in Palestine, at once declare the exact agreement of history with prophecy, and the fuperintending providence of God over" the Seed of Abraham in their generations-for

See Philo, Jofephus, Juftin, Tacitus, Strabo, and Diodorus Siculus, in confirmation of thefe accounts from Scripture,