You. VL] 
teachers in the inferior town and country- 
{chools, pp. 958, 8vo. is one of the moft 
ufeful and correct guides in that branch 
ef fcience; and We ferioufly recommend a 
{peedy tranflation of this much-eiteemed | 
{chuol-book into the Englifh language. 
Ee ae 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
ON THE LEGATION OF MOsEs. 
Mofheim in his Ecclefiattical Hiftory (voi. ii. 
p- 160.) jnforms us that Johannes Iilebius 
Agricola, about the year 1538, took occa- 
fion to dec!aim againft the Jaw, maintain- 
ing that it was neither fit to be propofed 
to the people as a rule of manners, nor to 
be ufed in the church’as a mean of inftruc- 
tion; but that rhe go/pel alone was to be 
inculcated and explained, both in the 
churches and in the fchools of learning. 
The followers of Agricola, he adds, were 
called Antimonians, i. e. enemies of the 
law. As feveral phenomena of Britifh li- 
terature feem to forbode an extenfion of 
this feet, it may be interefting to fuch as 
cultivate theology to know in what man- 
ner thofe perfons have attempted to ac- 
count forthe rife of the Jewith religion,who 
deny its claim-to a miraculous origin. Un- 
fatistaGiory as the hypothefis contained in 
the following pages may appear, it derives 
claim to attention from the celebrity of its 
great author, F. Scuitxier, profeflor of 
hiftory in the univerfity of Jena, and the 
moft impreflive of the German tragedians. 
Ufe has avowedly been made in it of a dif- 
fertation by B. Decius, ** Ueber die elteffen 
Hebraifchen Myferien. 
i Nig foundation of the Jewith ftate by 
Moles is one of the moft remark- 
able events on record: important by the 
ftrength of mind difplayed in the atchieve- 
ment, {till more important by its yet- 
enduring confequences to fociety. Two 
religions, which prevail over the greater 
part of the inhabited earth, Chriltianity 
and Tilamiim, lean upon thereligion of the 
Jews: without it neither could have been 
what they-are. 
In a certain fenfe may be afcribed to the 
Mofaic inftitutions much of the information 
in witich we now rejoice: by their means 
an important truth, which reafon left to 
itfelt, would very flowly have evolved, 
the doétrine of the unity of God, whic 
was imprefled on the people and pre- 
ferved among them as an object of 
blind faith, until it could be matured in 
the heads of the wifer to a rational idea. 
Thus a great. part of the human race 
eicaped the errors of polytheifm, and the 
Hebrew conttitution obtained this exclu- 
five advantage that the teligion of the 
wife and of the vulgar weremot in direst 
MONTHLY Mac. No. ®%, 
On the Legation of Mbfes. 
548 
oppofition, as was the cafe among the | 
heathens. 
Viewed from this ftation, the Hebrews 
cannot but appear a people important in 
hiftory, worthy to be refcued by the true 
philoiopher from the contempt with which 
witlings, and from the difguifing reverence 
with which fuperftitionifts have regarded 
them. 
The Hebrews formed, as is well known, 
a fingle nomade family of no more than 
feventy perfons on their arrival in Egypt, 
where they became a people. During a 
period of about 400 years which they pafs- 
ed in this country, they multiplied nearly 
to 2,000,000, and could mutter 600,000 
fighting men on their expulfion. During 
this long fojourn, they lived feparated 
from the Egyptians, not by dwelling- 
place merely, but by their nomade man- 
ners, which rendered them objects cf ayer- 
fion to the native inhabitants, and excluded 
them from civil rights. Their internal 
government was carried on after the man- 
ner of paltoral nations; a family obeyed 
the father; a tribe the hereditary tribe~ 
prince: and thus they formed a ftate 
within the ftate, which at length by its 
enormous increafe excited the jealouly of 
the Egyptian kings. 
A peculiar population in the heart of 
the kingdo:n, idle from its nomade way of 
lite, hanging to each other, but havin 
no common intereft with the ftate, might 
well become dangerous i cafe of foreign 
invafion, or become inclined to feize tor 
finifter purpofes any opportunity of tem- 
porary internal weaknefs of which it was 
{pestator. Policy therefore required that 
it fhould be observed, be occupied, and if 
poihble be reduced in number. Hard 
labours were with this view afligned to 
the Hebrews: and, the fecret of their 
poflible utility once difcovered, intereft 
tailed not to contrive new tafks. By de- 
grees they were reduced from free work- 
men to vaflals, from vaffals to flaves ; 
and overfeers were appointed to belabour 
ands,ttr mifufe them. This barbarous 
treatment ftill did not prevent their in- 
creaie. A found policy therefore would. 
have been intent on incorporating them 
into the national fyftem, by diftributing 
them among the other inhabitants, aad 
conceding to them equal rights. This 
the public prejudices refitted; for the 
Egyptians held them in abomination, and 
their abhorrence derived new force from 
the inconvenient confequences it infliSted, 
When the king of the Egyptians ceded to” 
the family of Jacob the land of Gothen, 
on the eaft-fide ot the lower Nile, he littie 
44 reckoned, 

