SECTION VIII. Whether Moses could have invented the Doctrine he taught concerning the Creation. If the history of the constitution of the world, on which Moses laid the foundation of his law, were not derived from the authentic source to which it pretends, there are three several ways in which its appearance may be accounted for: it must either have been devised by himself, as the most clear and rational; or secondly, borrowed by him from the Egyptians, and embodied in his own legislative code; or, lastly, must have been adopted and reduced into form from the generally prevailing opinions of his own nation. It will be proper, therefore, to consider attentively each of these possible explanations; especially as none of them exhibit at first sight, that appearance of improbability, which we shall find, on inquiry, belonging to them all. I have already admitted the likelihood, that Moses, considered as a mere political legislator, should be anxious to impress upon his infant people the belief of a Creator, whose omnipotence formed and whose providence maintains the universe, supposing him convinced of it himself. But it may justly be doubted whether the resources of his own, or of any human reason, unassisted by traditional history originally derived from revelation, could ever have furnished Moses with that distinct proposition which first arrests our attention in the opening of the book of Genesis: "In the beginning "God created the heaven and the earth." It may indeed appear probable to those, who, from the fortune of their birth and education, have been accustomed to draw the habitual inference of a Creator from his visible works, that a declaration equivalent to that of Moses, would be the spontaneous result of a reasonable and reflecting mind. It is true, that such a result seems insensibly to arise from the appearance of a world, which in every part displays proofs of an omnipotent Intelligence, incalculably exceeding the limits, not merely of our comprehension, but even of our imagination. That atheism, properly so called, is an error chiefly of speculative minds, appears clearly from the fact, that when we attempt to disseminate the purer doctrines of our religion among uncivilized tribes, the difficulty consists rather in unteaching prior false notions concerning superior beings, than in proving their existence. But although it cannot be denied, that the being of one intelligent Creator is a proposition so congenial and satisfactory to our minds when offered to them, that for many ages it was believed innate; and that it bears so well the test of reason, as almost to seem its unpremeditated result; yet we are by no means warranted by experience in saying, that the human mind, when left to itself, has ge nerally been found to embrace it, or human reason to ascertain and establish the discovery. In arguing concerning the natural capacity of the human understanding, we should act very erroneously in assuming the present state of our knowledge as a criterion. A close acquaintance with the ancients, both in their philosophical and moral writings, and also in their familiar and practical opinions, can alone enable us to judge how much has been added to the first principles of religious belief by the diffusion of Christianity.* In fact, however, we have no other sure mode of appreciating the powers of human reason to form or disseminate sublime ideas on the relation between the world and its Creator, between God and man, * A regular attempt to prove the claims of natural religion has been made by Wollaston, though with no intention to discredit Revelation. But Dr. Ireland very truly observes, that "notwithstanding all his efforts on the side of unassisted reason, Wollaston could not descend to the level of nature. He was too well instructed by Christianity, not to feel its influence even against his own purpose. The suggestions of his reason are tinged with revelation; and the standard which he establishes for the religion of nature, is of a height which Plato never reached." Lect. vii. than by examining what in former ages reason, when confessedly unassisted, was actually able to perform; and the close acquaintance with the most civilized states of antiquity which we derive from their writings, enables us to make this examination, both with respect to the philosophical and the popular belief, with less chance of error than would arise from reasoning à priori. It appears from history, both sacred and profane, that, within a few centuries after the deluge, idolatry had become very general among mankind; either to the total exclusion of a purer worship, or in that milder form which added the veneration of fictitious deities to an acknowledgment of a Supreme Creator. The necessity of seeking habitations, and settlements, and subsistence, soon depressed, it is probable, whatever degree of cultivation may be supposed antecedent to the flood: the barbarous mode of life which accompanies an unsettled state, and the vices which deform it, would soon degrade that clear view of justice which is ne |