fuperftitions of the land he led them from, as from those of the promised land he was leading them to. As Mofes was allowed to be most profoundly skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians, and confequently in that of the Bramins (which had been perverted by those Magi, as before shewn, to myfterious purposes), we cannot suppose him to have been ignorant that the other primitive truths had been already revealed, and that in fulness of time they would be confirmed to mankind; but he also knew that was a task reserved for a more exalted being than himself; therefore we are not to wonder that he is utterly filent on those heads of falvation.

96. Refpecting Mofes's fhort narration of the creation and fall of man, it should seem, if taken literally, to be a matter foreign to his commiffion; but on a nearer view, and confidered as typical of the angelic fall, it carries a very different and effential afpect; and if not typical, it is most certainly laughable. We cannot, without violence to our conceptions of the wisdom of God, fuppofe, that he would propagate the human fpecies by a horrid inceftuous union, which pure human nature ftarts at, and which by his Holy Spirit ftands condemned in his gofpel difpenfation; for thus man

kind

kind muft have increafed, if propagated ac cording to the literal fenfe of Mofes, from one man and one woman; fo that it is felfevident he never intended it fhould be taken literally, but as typical of a prior and much greater event: nor have we the smallest doubt but that, in the days he penn'd it, the allegory was well and commonly underftood by all; and we think we shall be able, without much difficulty, to prove to a demonftration, by analifing this allegory, that it affords the fulleft confirmation of the truth of the Bramanical doctrines of the creation of man, that man can be no other than the apostate angels, and that the Metempfychofis is a well-founded truth, neceffarily refulting from these premises; and we shall alfo fhew, that Mofes was well acquainted with thofe doctrines; nay it is more than probable that he himself was the very identical fpirit, felected and deputed in an earlier age, to deliver thofe truths free from allegory, under the ftile and title of Bramah, as before intimated. But to our proof, from Mofes's narrative.

97. Eve is beguiled by the ferpent, fhe eats, and tempts Adam to do the like, and thereby both become guilty of the fin of difobedience against an exprefs law and order of their God and Creator: Satan is

tempted

tempted by Evil, the affociate of his bofom. The ferpent represents the infidious arguments and wiles of Satan to engage the angelic tribes to become affociates in his revolt and rebellion, which it may be very naturally fupposed were fimilar to those made use of by the Serpent to Eve. Paradife marks the beauty of the original earth, and the garden of Eden is the fymbol of heaven; Adam and Eve for their difobedience are driven out of Eden, and Satan and his affociates are banished from heaven for their rebellion. The gates of Eden are fhut, and guarded on every fide by angelic powers, to prevent the re-entrance of Adam and Eve and their pofterity; the heavenly regions are impervious to Satan and his confederates. The curfe of forrow, labor, and death, are entailed upon Adam and Eve, and their posterity; wherein is figuratively fhewn the original sentence, doom, and punishment of the apoftate angels in their mortal fojourn on earth. Mofes introduces God curfing the ground for their fakes, allufive of the change brought about in this globe at the deluge, &c. occafioned by the fecond defection of the apoftate angels in their ftate of probation. The brutes being the elder brothers of the creation, and prior to the formation of man (the doctrine both of Bramah and Mofes), fhews

5

fhews them to have been a preparatory creation for future purpofes; and Mofes tacitly coincides with Bramah as to the intended use of this prior animal creation; otherwise man, who is evidently fuperior in form and intellect, would, upon a rational fuppofition, have been the first object of all animal creation. God's being faid by Mofes to have breathed the breath of life into all his animal creation, is a happy figurative illustration of that paffage in the Shaftah (part 2. pag. 59), where the ETERNAL ONE fpake again, "and faid-Do thou BIRMAH (the first "created, the Chrift), arrayed in my glo

ry, and armed with my power, descend

the loweft boboon (region) of punish"ment and purgation, and make known "to the rebellious debtah the words that I "have uttered, and the decrees which I "have pronounced against them, and fee "that they enter into the bodies that I have prepared for them.And Birmah food "before the throne and faid, ETERNAL "ONE, I have done as thou haft com"manded-The delinquent debtab rejoice in

thy mercy, confefs the justice of thy decrees, avow their forrow and repentance, "and have entered into the mortal bodies "which thou haft prepared for them."

98. The

98. The perfonages which Mofes calls by the names of Abel and Cain, said to be the immediate defcendants of Adam and Eve, are obviously types of good and evil, or vice and virtue, that were to guide and govern the actions of the human fpecies, in the course of their trial, from generation to generation. In the murder of Abel by Cain, Mofes prophetically points out (what his knowledge of the race then made clear to him), that vice would totally fubdue and defroy vir

tue; a prediction that is no roy vir

we fear, very near being accomplished, as the may be too truly faid to be at the last gasp, and on the verge of expiring. By fin, our fcriptures fay, death entered into the world, that is by the fin of Satan, not of Adam (vide the Rev. Mr. Berrow), and as in Satan (not in Adam), all men die, that is, are fubjected by fentence to death, fo in Chrift (deftined to confirm to mankind the primitive truths of Jalvation) fhall all be made alive,

a confummation devoutly to be withed," but of which we have yet no figns or tokens. Why Mofes has made woman the substitute of evil, is not very clear, unlefs from his profound wisdom and knowledge of human nature, we fuppofe he had obferved, that no object had fo powerful an influence to feduce man from his duty and allegiance, as woman; and from thence he poffibly I

thought