And

for them, fufficiently establish the multitude, the antiquity, and the character of this literally fingular people-their uninterrupted independence, and their unchanging manners. thus the truth and accuracy of this defcriptive Prophecy is confirmed by the involuntary teftimony of one of the most artful opponents to the truth of Revelation.

The doubt he has expreffed relative to their origin is undeferving notice, as it is unfupported by argument or authority; but the reader who is inclined to examine this point, and to enter more fully into the subject of this Prophecy, will find it clearly and concifely stated by many writers, and particularly by Bishop Newton.

1" The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of controverfy transform this fingular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in favour of the posterity of Ifmael. Some exceptions, that can neither be diffembled nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as indifcreet as it is fuperfluous :

* Genefis xii. 16.

1 Gibbon's Roman Hiftory, vol. v. chap. 50. p. 178

the

the kingdom of Yemen has been fucceffively fubdued by the Abyffinians, the Perfians, the Sultans of Egypt, and the Turks": the holy cities of Mecca and Medina have repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the Roman province of Arabia embraced the pe

m

"It was fubdued A. D. 1173, by a brother of the great Saladin, who founded a dynasty of Curds or Ayoubites. See Guigne's Hiftoire des Huns, Tom. 1. p. 425. D'Herbelot, p. 477.”

n 66

By the lieutenant of Solyman I. A. D. 1538. and Selim II. 1568. See Cantemir's Hift. of the Othman Empire, p. 201-221. The pasha who refided at Saana commanded twenty-one beys, but no revenue was ever remitted to the Porte, and the Turks were expelled about the year 1630. Niebuhr, p. 167, 168."

• "Of the Roman province under the name of Arabia, and the third Palestine, the principal cities were Boftra and Petra, which dated their era from the year 105, when they were fubdued by Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan. Dion Caffius, 1. 68. Petra was the capital of the Nabathæans; whofe name is derived from the eldest of the fons of Ifmael. (Genef. xxv. 12, &c. with the Commentaries of Jerom, Le Clerc, and Calmet.) Juftinian relinquished a palm country of ten days journey to the south of Ælah (Procop. de Bell. Perfic. 1. i. c. 19.) and the Romans maintained a centurion and a custom-house (Arian in Periplo Maris Erythræi, p. 11. in Hudfon tom. i.) at a place (λeuxn Kaun, pagus albus Hawara) in the territory of Medina. (D'Anville Memoire fur l'Egypte, p. 243.) Thefe real poffeffions and fome naval inroads of Trajan, (Peripl. p. 14, 15.) are magnified by history and medals into the Roman conquest of Arabia." Gibbon's Notes to the Decline and Fall, &c.-vol. v. p. 179. F

VOL. I.

culiar

culiar wilderness, in which Ifmael and his fons must have pitched their tents, in the face of their brethren.

Yet these exceptions are temporary and local; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the arms of Sefoftris and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the prefent Sovereign of the Turks may exercife the fhadow of jurifdiction, but his pride is reduced to folicit the friendship of a people, whom it is dan. gerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack. The obvious caufes of their freedom are inferibed on the character and country of the Arabs-Their Spirit is free, their steps are unconfined, the defert is open, and the tribes and families are held together by a mutual and voluntary compactThe feparation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of ftranger and enemy-They pretend, that in the divifion of the earth, the rich and fertile climates were affigned to the other branches of the human family, and that the pofterity of the outlaw Ifmael might recover, by fraud or force, the portion of inheritance, of which he had been unjustly deprived. According to Pliny, the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and merchandize: the cara

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The Promifes made to Abraham.

vans that traverse the defert are ranfomed pillaged: and their neighbours, fince the remote times of Job and Sefoftris, have been victims of their rapacious Spirit-Whatever may be the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is derived from the original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, and Chaldean tongues-The fame hofpitality, which was practifed by Abraham, and celebrated by Homer, is fill renewed in the camps of the Arabs-The religion of the Arabs as well as of the Indians, confifted in the worship of the fun, the moon, and stars.

In a remote period of antiquity, Sabianism was diffused over Afia, by the Science of the Chaldeans, and the arms of the Affyrians.-In the tradition of the creation, the deluge, and the patriarchs, they held a fingular agreement with their Jewish captives.-They appealed to the fecret books of Adam, Seth, and Enoch.From Japan to Peru, the use of facrifice has univérfally prevailed.—The life of a man is

the

There can hardly be a doubt that facrifices were infti. tuted by the direction of God himself. It cannot be suppofed that Adam or Abel would have prefumed to kill any creature, or could fuppofe the offering fuch a victim, or the fhedding of blood (death being their allotted punishment, and what they must hold in abhorrence) would be acceptable to God, unless fuch a facrifice had been specially appointed. It is not impoffible from the Apoftle's expreffion,

the most precious oblation to deprecate a public calamity; the altars' of Phenicia and Egypt, of Rome and Carthage, have been polluted with human gore.—The cruel practice was long preferved among the Arabs.—In the time of ignorance, the Arabs, like the Jews and Egyptians, abstained from the use of swine's flesh; they circumcifed their children at the age of puberty; the fame cuftoms, without the cenfure or the precept of the Koran, have been filently tranfmitted to their pofterity and profelytes."

The distinguished pofterity of Ifaac, the child of promife, exhibits a yet more striking

Heb. xi. 4. "Abel's facrifice was made acceptable by faith;" that the design of this inflitution, and the neceffity of the facrifice, which was to redeem the world, was revealed at the fame time; and this conjecture is ftrengthened by the fimilar tradition, which is proved, by the recently discovered Sanfcreet writings, to have exifted in the Eaft, in India, in times coeval, if not prior, to the time of Mofes. God teftified his acceptance of the facrifice, by fire from heaven, or (as is more probable during the times of the conftant, or ftated appearance of the Shechinah, or divine fplendor of light, by which God manifefted his especial prefence) by a ftream of flame from the visible glory of the Lord, which burnt up the facrifice. See Patrick's Commentary upon Genesis, vol. i. c. iv.

Ifmael was circumcifed at this

age.

example