I Year of the flood 609, before Chrift

Idumean was loft and quite difufed. * shall here break off and refer the reader to the hiftory of the Jews for further fatisfaction.

Before I quit the Edomites, I fhall fay, (though foreign to the main fcope of this hiftory) a word or two on their arts and sciences, which were doubtlefs great, confidering the time, and were many and well perfected; and though perhaps there may be no neceffity to fuppofe (as the excellent Sir Ifaac Newton has done,) that they were the parents of those amiable sisters; yet we may fafely pronounce, that they were not much, if at all behind hand with the most ancient learned nations. The invention and use of conftellations appear + by the book of Job to have been known to the Edomites, among whom he dwelt: a rare inftance of the early progress of aftronomy, if we fuppofe his book to be of fuch ancient date as many think.

1739.

Prideaux's Connect. of the Old and New Teftament, book v. page 307. † Job, chap. ix. ver. 26.

5

No. VI.

Year of the

The Religion of the Amalekites.

food 1253, AMALEK was the father of this people,

before Chrift

1095.

.

and from him were they called Amalekites, and their country Amalekitis. Of their religion and civil cuftoms we can know nothing for certain, fince we are in the dark about their descent. If from Efau, we may fuppofe they ufed circumcifion; and that the decree of their total excifion was owing to the outrages they committed on the diftreffed Ifraelites ;* but if of a Canaanitish race, their horrid idolatries fubjected them, without all doubt, to one common doom with the Canaanitish nation; if the former, they had, at least for fome time, the fame religion with their progenitors, Abraham Ifaac,

Exodus, chap. xvii. ver. 8. 14. 16.

flood 1253,

1095.

Ifaac, &c. if the latter, they gave probably, Year of the into all the abominations of their neigh- before Chrift bours. Jofephus mentions their idols; but the fcripture terms them the idols of mount Seir; fo that they feemed to have more properly belonged to the Edomites than to the Amalekites.

No.

26

No. VII.

The Religion of the Canaanites.

Year of the THEY were a daring, obftinate, and in

flood 427,

before Chrift

1921. war, very expert, and almost invincible

peo

ple, and in the example of the Gibeonites, they wanted not craft or policy. They retained the pure religion quite down to the days of Abraham, who acknowledged Melchifedek to be priest of the most high God; and Melchifedek was indifputably a Canaanite, or at least dwelt there at that time, in high esteem and veneration. *

They never offered to moleft Abraham; on the contrary they were ready to oblige

him

*Sir Ifaac Newton concludes, that they perfevered in the true religion till the death of Melchifedeck; but that afterwards they fell from it, and began to embrace idolatry, now spreading, as he thinks, from Chaldea. They are faid to have been given to the superstition of the ancient Perfians.

flood 427.

before Chrift

1921.

him in every thing, a noble example of Year of the which we have in the behaviour and good intentions of Ephron towards him, in the affair of the cave of Machpelah. To dwell no longer on this fubject, we must hence allow, that there was not a general corruption of religion among the Canaanites at this day but it must be granted, that the very Hittites, fo feemingly commendable in the days of Abraham, degenerated apace, fince they were become the averfion of Ifaac and Rebecca, who could not endure the thoughts of their fon Jacob's marrying among the daughters of Heth, as their fon Efau had done, to their great grief. * So that about this time we muft date the rife of those abominations, which fubjected them to the wrath of God, and made them unworthy of the land which they poffeffed. In the days of Mofes they were become incorrigible idolaters: for he commands the Ifraelites to destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. And left they

fhould

Shuckford's Connect. of the Sacred and Prophane History, vol. 1. book 2. page 100—163.