Section 6 (Page iii)
EGYPT. iii might, while he displayed that nice sense of justice and Early truth that is inseparable from all true religion ; and the Belief, covenant that he established with Abraham, based on a 0en. „vl. 3. definite religious obligation, was afterwards renewed with «vi. a> his son Isaac.
Descending to the time of Joseph's administration of the affairs of Egypt, we meet with occasional evidences of a true religious sense, and Pharaoh confessed in Joseph Gen. xii. ». the operation of God's Holy Spirit, unless indeed a plural sense be attached here to as in the book of Daniel, Dan. w s. where fTl^ nn has been correctly rendered by our translators, the spirit of the holy gods.
It may be af
firmed with greater certainty, that there could have been no very great discordance in religious belief between JoGen.xii.50. seph and the priest of On, whose daughter he received in marriage, and who gave birth to Ephraim and Manasseh.
The priest of On, like Melchizedek and Jethro, was in all probability the temporal and spiritual chieftain of his tribe, and, according to patriarchal usage, had supreme authority in all matters pertaining to faith and discipline.
It is in the highest degree probable, therefore, that the fear and knowledge of God subsisted among those tribes of the human race that first come forth from the dark background of antiquity.
The earliest traditions still sur vived, and preserved these primitive races from becoming merged in total darkness.
Laban, as a Syrian ready to perish, may have had his senseless personifications of things divine, his sculptile gods and Teraphim, and yet have con fessed faith in one God; at least, the example of Jacob' S Gen. xxxv. household leads directly to the inference, that this was a very possible inconsistency.
The Mosaic period still bears out our theory, not in deed as regards the state of Egypt, which now was en veloped in darkness that might be felt ; but as regards the history of such of the adjoining tribes as the extreme a
EDOM.
Early conciseness of tlie sacred history, and of the inspired reFMief0f cords, enable us to place under investigation.
Thus Jethro, Exod xviiL the father-in-law of Moses, was priest of Midian, but the lii^ii wisdom and godliness of his counsel to the elect deliverer of God's people, and his faultless confession, mark that he worshipped God, according to the light that he possessed, in spirit and in truth.
The patriarch Job may be referred to this period of history; though not a Jew, he was of job 1. 17.
Shemitic blood, and lived within foray reach of the Chaldees ; but he had a true and spiritual knowledge of God.
And we are not justified in limiting this belief to himself.
His three friends, however mistaken they may have been
in their views, were at least true to the religious traditions of their forefathers, and expressed sentiments that found job is. 11. a ready echo in the soul of the Patriarch.
The Temanite, the Shuhite, and the Naamathite spoke out in them ; and if so, the tribes that they respectively represented can hardly be excluded from the number of those that, with a certain degree of fidelity, still preserved a true knowledge of God.
They may have been infected indeed with Zabianism ; and Job implies that the worship of the host of heaven was by no means strange to his neighbourhood ; job xxxi. 20, If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand; still Zabianism, what ever it might be in a popular point of view, was quite consistent with a philosophical faith in One Supreme
Being, which, for the present, is all that we are concerned to ascertain.
Job's friends may have spoken as wise men with the wise, and still have kissed the hand with the multitude aKinpiv. 17. to the starry firmament: much as Naaman found no difficulty in confessing faith in the God of Israel, but still reserved to himself the liberty to bow himself in the house of Rirumon.
Again, the prophetic burthen of the son of Beor proves that the full flood-tide of corruption had not yet