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the fows, that the God that they Worship, was the God that made the World, and all the Gods that their Neighbours worshiped, particularly the Sun, Moon, and Stars his Creatures.

This then being fet up as the great Festival, of the Creator of Heaven and Earth, from hence it was that the Precept of not Worshiping of Idols, and Keeping the Sabbath, are so frequently coupled together in Scripture; and that the Breach of the Sabbath is punished in the fame manner as Idolatry it felf.

But I shall treat of this more largely when I come to a Review. At present I have only given a narrow Profpect of the whole matter, but upon a full and open View of the Mafaick History, it will appear in full and undeniable Evidence, by these Two Confiderations.

Firf, If we confider the great Propenfity of the Ifraelites to renounce the Worship of the One True Invisible God, and to return to their accufromed Worship of Idol Gods.

Secondly, If we consider that these Gods were nothing else but the Heavenly Bodies, and that the Sun was worshiped as the Supreme Deity.

As to the fuft, their continual Revolts, and Rebellions against that Almighty God, of whose Power they had had fo much Experience, could proceed from nothing less than the most inveterate and invincible Prejudices. Their whole History from their

their first Deliverance to their laft Captivity, is nothing but a perpetual Series of Difloyalty againft the God of Ifrael, to play the Harlot (as the Scripture exprefles it) or commit Fornication with the Idol of the Gentiles.

Pfal.78. We have an acurate Epitome of this whole History, the Miracles that God wrought for them in Egypt, in the Wilderness, in the Land of Canaan, notwithstanding all which, as they made continual Attempts of Rebellion, so they at last funk into an universal Apostacy, v. 58. Provoking him to Anger with their High Places, and moving him to Jealousie with their Graven Images; so that at length he gave them up into the Hands of their Enemies: And first the Ten Tribes were led away Captive, and not long after the Tribe of Judah, as it imme diately follows in the fame Pfalm, God was wrath, and greatly abhorred Ifrael, so that be forfook the Tabernacle of Shiloh, the Tent which be placed among Men, and delivered his Strength into Captivity, and his Glory (that was the Symbol of his Divine Presence) into the Enemies hand.

But to Trace a few Particulars. The first Opportunity they could gain in the Wilderness, after the miraculous Deliverance out of Egypt, by the Abfence of Mofes, they set up and worshiped the Golden Calf, a Form of Worship they were accustomed to in Egypt: what this Idol was, is varioufly difputed by Learned Men; fome will

will have it to have been made in Imitation of the Cherubin, when as yet God had made no Description of them. Others, and almost all the learn'd, will have it to have been the Idol of Apis, or Serapis, or Ofyris, whom the Egyptians worshiped by that Symbol; and that it was the fame Idol, is certain; but I take it to be much more antient; for as yet we find not any Footsteps of Divine Worship given to Men and Women. That Folly is of a much younger Date, and feems to have been brought in purely by the Grecian Vanity, to derive the Originals of all Nations from themselves, and to People Heaven with their own Country-men.

Thus they tell us, that this Apis was King of the Argives, natural Son to King Jupiter by Niobe, who marrying Ifis, left his Kingdom, and went into Egypt, where teaching the barbarous People Civility, and the Art of dressing Vines and Agriculture, He was by common confent chofen their King; and after he had reigned with extraordinary Wisdom and Mercy (to the great Improvement of the Nation) when he dyed, they deify'd him, and worshiped him under the Image of a Calf or Ox, all which is pure Grecian Fable.

For Egypt had been a famous Nation many Hundred Ages, before any of the Grecian Deities were born: It was a flourishing Kingdom in the days of Abraham; I am sure they knew how to drefs

dress their Vines, and plow their Fields, before there was any fuch Nation as Greece, or any of its Cantons known by any Records: There was no News of them till the Trojan War, and that is the thing objected by all Writers to the Greeks, both before and fince Christianity, that their remoteft Antiquity is meer Novelty in comparison of the Egyptians, and is confeft by their own beft and most antient Writers; at least in thefe antient Times, there were no Men nor Women Deities, Gods or Goddesses.

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But when the Greeks had stollen their Religion from the Eastern Nations; in requital they furnished them with Gods of their own, and clapt the Heads of one of their own Country-men upon every antient Idol, thereby gaining Reputation of Antiquity both to their Nation and Religion, as if they had been as antient as the Egyptian and Oriental Idolatry.

Thus they fasten this old Idol of the Golden Calf upon King Apis, whereas if there ever were any such Man (for the Greeks have neither Faith nor Knowledge enough to be believed one Word in any matter of Antiquity, either of their own, or other Nations) he was born many Ages after this Idol had been famous in the World: And in that unknown Interval of which there are no Hiftorical Records, and therefore the whole Story of him, as well as of all the other Grecian Gods, is nothing but Fable.

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And much more probable it is, that the Greeks were fo far from bringing a God Apis into Egypt, that they carried the very word thence: Apis being the Hebrew and Egyptian Word to fignifie a Calf,or a Bullock, and so it is rendred by the Septuagint. Jer. 46.15. in the Prophetick Burthen againft Egypt, Διατί έφυγαν απο 68ο "Απις ὁ μόσχοὁ ἐκλεκτός σε Bochart. σόκ ἔμένεν, ὅτι Κύριοι παρέλυσεν αυτόν. . Why did your Apis fly, or that your beloved Calf defert you, because Dr.Spencer. the Lord did drive him? Tho we render it in the Kircher. English Tranflation, Why are thy valiant Men Swept away.

Dr. Hammond.

So that the Calf can be nothing else than an Old Egyptian Idol, or Symbol of fome Deity, that they had been accustomed to Worship. And there fore thinking themselves betray'd or deferted by Moses after Forty Days Absence, (as for this Mofes, the Man that brought us up out of the Land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him) they force Aaron to reftore to them the Symbols of their Old Gods to go before them, instead of this new God, that now seem'd to have deserted them, and to those they ascribe their Deliverance out of Egypt; and this is the first chearful Act of Devotion, that they feem to have perform'd since their Deliverance. For as for all their Worship of the True God, efpecially at the Delivery of the Law, it seems to be forc'd and uneasie, to which they were rather overaw'd by dreadful Appearances, than inclin'd by their own Choice.

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