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The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated
The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated Author:William Warburton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: But we have not yet done with this Character. The finding Satan in the fcene is a ftrong proof that the Work was compofed in the age we have afligned to it. This... more » evil Being was little known to the Jewifh People till about this time. Their great Lawgiver, where he fo frequently enumerates, and warns them of, the fnares and temptations which would draw them to tranfgrefs the Law of God, never once mentions this Capital enemy of Heaven; yet this was an expedient which the wifeft Pagan Lawgivers k thought of ufe, to keep the Populace in the ways of virtue. Thus Zaleu- cus, in the preface to his book of Laws, fpeaks of an evil Demon tempting men to mifchief: And in the popular Religion there was always a Fury at hand, to purfue the more atrocious Offenders through the world. Nay, when the end of that facred Hiftory which Mofes compofed, obliged him to treat or Satan's firft grand machination againft man-, kind, he entirely hides this wicked Spirit under the Animal which he made his inftrument. (The rea- fon of this wife conduct hath been in part explained already, and will be more exactly treated in the courfe of our general argument'.) But, as the fulnefs of time drew near, they were made more and more acquainted with this their capital Enemy. When Ahab, for the crimes and follies of the People, was 'fufFered to be infatuated, we have this account of the matter in the firft book of Kings: And Micaiab fatd, Hear tbou therefore the word of the See Di-v. Leg. Vol. i. p. 128. 4th ed. ' J "Divine Wifdom procures many em/s by one and the feme mean; fo here, betides this ufe, of throwing the Reader's attention entirely on the Serpent, it had another, viz, to make the Serpent, which was of the mod (acred and venerable regard in the Myflerious Religion of Egypt, the objeft of the Ifraef...« less