"band; yet neither he nor his were to be pardoned, till "Abraham, (the offended person,) being a prophet, was "to pray for him." It is hard to say, whether the iniquity or the profaneness of this paragraph be the greatest. In the first place, the charging Abraham and Sarah with a lie is petulant and abusive, and is committing the fault which he condemns: see above. Next, his flouting God Almighty for ordering Abimelech to beg Abraham's prayers, is shooting up his arrows against Heaven, to fall with vengeance upon his own head. A modest opposition to Divine revelation, in cases of real difficulty, might be in some measure excusable: but a malicious opposition, where there is not so much as colour for any objection at all, is unpardonable: it shows more of a disposition to revile or blaspheme, than to argue or debate; and upon the whole betrays a very dark mind. But to the matter in hand. What does the Lord himself own, in respect to Abimelech's integrity? Abimelech pleaded his integrity as to Sarah's being a married woman, and God admitted his plea so far. But though Abimelech did not know she was Abraham's wife, yet certainly he knew that she was not his own wife, and that he had no right to take her against her consent, and without leave of her friends. He sinned against the eighth Commandment by unjust seizure, though not against the seventh, by intending adultery. And he was not altogether innocent even as to that, because though he meant no adultery, yet he intended either fornication or rape, and would certainly have gone on with his lewd intentions, had not God withheld himy. Whatever this writer may think of incontinence with a single woman, wiser men will judge it a sin against the law of nature, and more so, when attended with violence. Abimelech therefore was not so innocent as this gentleman imagines, but stood in need both of God's pardon and Abraham's prayers. God insisted the more upon his applying to Abraham, because of the in

y Gen. xx. 6.

jury he had intended him, though not the greatest; and for the sake of doing honour to his Prophet in a strange country, and to provide most effectually for his future peace and security there, both with prince and people.

66

GEN. XXI. 12.

AND GOD SAID UNTO ABRAHAM, LET IT NOT BE GRIEVOUS IN THY SIGHT, BECAUSE OF THE LAD, AND BECAUSE OF THY BOND-WOMAN; IN ALL THAT SARAH HATH SAID UNTO THEE, HEARKEN UNTO HER VOICE. FOR IN ISAAC SHALL THY SEED BE CALLED. Here the infidel says 2; "This holy Prophet "was guilty of a very barbarous action, in sending out Hagar, whom Sarah had given him to wife, and his son Ishmael, to perish in the wilderness; for no other "C reason, but because Sarah had seen the son of Hagar "mocking. And it is likely they had both perished, had "not an angel, calling out of heaven, directed him to a "well of water. But in this last domestic quarrel, God "himself miraculously interposes, and says, IN ALL 66 THAT SARAH HATH SAID UNTO THEE, HEARKEN UNTO HER VOICE. The Objector is so eager to write blasphemy, that he forgets to write sense. barous, and by Divine command too! How is it possible? The sacred historian, it must be owned, has observed both decorum and consistency, and has guarded effectually against every thing but calumny. The Objector, in order to form his accusation, sets out with a falsehood, that Abraham did the thing for "no other reason, but because "Sarah had seen the lad mocking;" and yet he observes in the close, that God himself interposed, and commanded Abraham to do it. Is a Divine command, and backed with a reason too, (FOR IN ISAAC SHALL THY SEED BE CALLED,) is all that no reason at all? And if God, who is all-sufficient, and can supply all wants, (and diḍ abundantly supply them in the case of Hagar and Ish

Christianity as Old, &c. p. 329.

Bar

can.

`mael;) I say, if God commanded them to be sent out naked and destitute, thereby taking the care of them upon himself; could it be barbarous in Abraham to commit them, in such a case, to Divine Providence; that is, to much abler and better hands than his own? Let the story be taken as Moses has told it, with all its circumstances, and then let the Objector find any flaw in it, if he But is this his way of treating a subject of the last importance, to sit down and invent any false accusation whatever against Scripture, because he cannot find matter for a true one? This, again, is the man that boasts of his sincerity. I do not think it necessary to enter farther into the case of Hagar and Ishmael, in order to show that their circumstances were not so very calamitous, in themselves considered; because I have said enough to clear Abraham of the charge here made. But if the reader desires a more particular account of their circumstances, he may see it ingeniously drawn out at length, by a very good writer, in a work just come to my hands a.

GEN. XXII. 10.

AND ABRAHAM STRETCHED FORTH HIS HAND, AND TOOK THE KNIFE TO SLAY HIS SON. The Objector, after first taking a deal of trifling pains to prove (what is impossible) that the Levitical law approved and countenanced human sacrifices, comes at length to the famous case of Abraham's submitting to the Divine command, which had enjoined him to offer up his son Isaac for a burnt-offering. Upon this case, the Objector thus expresses himself: "The Jews could not think it abso"lutely unlawful for a father to sacrifice an innocent "child, since Abraham was highly extolled for being "ready to sacrifice his only son; and that too without "the least expostulation, though he was importunate "with God to save an inhospitable, idolatrous, and in

a Shuckford's Sacred and Profane Hist. vol. ii. p. 16, &c.

b Christianity as Old, &c. p. 97.

"cestuous city." It may first be observed, that the whole thought is stolen from a noble c writer, and without notice, as before. The words, as they lie there, run thus: "It appears, that even the elder of these Hebrew princes was under no extreme surprise on this trying "revelation. Nor did he think of expostulating, in the "least, on this occasion; when at another time he could "be so importunate for the pardon of an inhospitable, murderous, impious, and incestuous city." Gen. xviii.

23.

The reader will take notice here, that that noble writer had chosen proper epithets for the city of Sodom, two of which his retailer also has taken, inhospitable and incestuous but he has left out murderous and impious, and substituted idolatrous; an epithet which there is no foundation for in the Scripture story, and therefore not made use of by that noble lord. There seems to be something of low cunning in our writer's clapping in idolatrous: for undoubtedly he would have it thought, that all wickedness is owing to idolatry or superstition, and that to d priests; and he would not have it supposed, that men can be wicked who are impious only, and have no external religion at all: for what then becomes of his sovereign law of nature, which would prevent or correct all disorders? He seems to suppose, that Sodom could never have been so inhospitable or incestuous, if they had not had some religion or other, the parent of all mischief and the cause of all confusions. Such appears to be his turn of thinking and arguing quite through his book; and therefore it is natural to suppose, that his own avowed principles led him to insert idolatrous, and to leave out impious. But why he dropped murderous, I cannot say; unless it was the better to cover his design in leaving out impious, that both might appear to have been omitted by chance. However that be, come we next to consider the

Lord Shaftesbury's Charact. vol. iii. p. 124.

d Christianity as Old, &c. p. 379.

case of Abraham's sacrifice, and to vindicate the same against the cavils both of this author and his leader.

1. The Jews most certainly could not think it ordinarily lawful to sacrifice any innocent man, woman, or child; because the law had forbidden it, and had taken particular care that the first-born should not be sacrificed, (though in a certain sense devoted or consecrated to God,) but should serve the e priests, or be redeemed. Of this I may say more hereafter, when I come to consider Levit. xxvii. 28. But whatever the ordinary rule might be, the Jews had more sense than to imagine it unlawful, or not their bounden duty, to sacrifice man, woman, or child, when God himself should expressly command or require it. For why should not God have as much right to demand the life of any, even the most innocent man, by a knife, or a sword, as by a fever or pestilence, by a lion or bear, or other instrument whatever? And if a man be employed in it by God's express order, he is God's executioner in doing it, and only pays a debt which God has at any time a sovereign power and right to demand of him; though it be a son, or a daughter, or any the dearest friend. In short, the Divine command is a circumstance which changes the very nature and quality of the act, which makes killing no murder, no iniquity, but duty, and strict justice.

2. Abraham's readiness to do as God had commanded him, without expostulating, shows the excellency of his faith, and is a high commendation of his humility, modesty, resignation, and unreproveable integrity. When he expostulated in behalf of Sodom, he might handsomely do it, having no self-concern in it, more than as he was a lover of mankind. But to have expostulated in the case of his own son, in whom he had so near a concern, and who was his second self, if I may so speak; that would have been unworthy of Abraham's great soul and most exalted mind. He knew what respect, honour, and awful

e Numb. xviii. 15, 16.