Long Livers:

Rites and Ceremonies in Worship , and was , as is believed , the Founder and Father of Idolatry . In his Time too , it is hi ghly probable , that bloody Sacrifices were invented . It was easy to persuade a Criminal against the Gods , that he might expiate what ho

deserved to die for , by the Death of a poor Beast ; and if the Gods did not eat the reserved Part of the Sacrifice , which was always the best , their Ministers or Vicegerents ( the Sacrificators ) who in all likelihood had hunted with their Grand Monarch , and loved his Roast-Meat , would eat it for them , and that was as well .

From this same Cham proceeded Cush , Mizraim and Canaan , whence descended the Ethiopians , Egyptians , and Canaanites , all great and most noble Nations indeed , but withal most wicked and abominable , and cursed by God , inasmuch as they contemned his Lawwhich he gave from the

, Beginning , and turned aside from his true Worship , and transferred the Glory of the one immortal God to a thousand of his Creatures , to the Sun , and Moon , and Planets , and all the Host of Heaven . In this condition was the Worldwhen

, the Almighty chose another just Man , Abraham the Father of the Faithful , who by unerring tradition had received the Divine Truths ; for our Great God has always a number of those who believe in him arightand worship him in Spirit and

, in Truth , and write his Law , not in Tables of Stone , but in their Hearts , and who live in Quiet and Peace , private and unknown ; as he told tho Prophet afterwards , that he had 7000 who had not bent the Knee to Baal .

This holy Patriarch and his Posterity persevered in their Justice till they were in danger in Egypt to loose it by the Cruelty of a wicked Prince ( who knew not Joseph ) and their Conversation with the Professors of a pompous luxurious Idolatry : Then God raised up Moses , a

great astronomer and a learned Man in Men and Things , who wonderfull y freed them from their Servitude after havinn eased and despoiled their Enemies of their superfluous Gold . These People he delivered from Servitude after a wonderful manner from the Fury of an impious King . In the Desert they

continued forty Years , tho' their Deliverer might have brought them into the Land of Promise in Forty Days : But as this was a most excellent piece of Policy , and worthy the Foresight ot Moses , so it cannot bo sufficiently commended ; ho knew that a Company of raw undisciplined People

, trained up for tho most part in keeping of Sheep , would not be a Match for those warlike People , whose Cities and Kingdoms they were to take from them ; besides that they might bo in Danger of falling into Idolatry , to which by their long Residence

in Egypt , and their being acquainted with their Flesh-pots , Ragous , or made Dishes ( probably deriving their Origin from luxurious Sacrifices ) he had observed they were too much addicted . Everybody knows that the Egyptians

( to whom we owe the invention of the Zodaic ) adored the Sun under those Symbols ; so because that glorious luminary enters Aries in the month of March , they

worshipped him under the Symbol of a Lamb , or a human Figure with that Animal ' s head , as they did in the following month under the Symbol of a Calf , or young Bull . Moses , whose grand design was to bring them back to their original

divine and most perfect Law , given Man by God Almighty in the beginning , was resolved to bend all his thoughts to efface those tinctures of Idolatry that they had received in their servitude , by constituting a Religion wonderfull y adapted to the

present occasion , with pompous Sacrifices , Rites , and Ceremonies , magnificent Sacerdotal and Levitical Vestments , and a vast number of mystical Hieroglyphics , as the Egyptians had ; but with this essential differencethat these mystic Shadows all

, tended to set forth the Glory of one God the Creator ; whereas those were entirely subservient to the worship of a Multitude of Creatures , an opposition greater than which could never be .

The first public act then of religion after their Deliverance was the Passover , or the ceremony of eating the Paschal Lamb , which was in the month of March ; so that in every month that the Egyptians adored the Ram , the Israelites were roasting and eating up this their God , and that too after such a manner , being shod , girded , and with their Staves in their Hands , in a hurry , and with bitter Herbs ,