Page 88.—_Mosaic imitation of the Egyptian polity._] Whether any part of the Jewish laws and institutions were borrowed by Moses from the Egyptians, is a question of which the affirmative side has been maintained, with great learning, by Spencer, in his treatise _De Legibus Hebræorum_; and the negative by Witsius in his _Ægyptiaca_. Witsius, not denying many of the coincidences, alleges, that many things in which the Egyptians and the Jews agreed, may have been borrowed by the former from the latter. Considering that Egypt was a civilized, populous, and wealthy country, when Israel had not even become a people, this seems not probable. Some of those customs and rites which were observed by both nations, do not appear to have exclusively belonged to either, e. g. the remarkable custom of circumcision, the hereditary succession of the priesthood, the dress of the priests, the multiplicity of purifications, &c. Customs either exactly corresponding or nearly analogous to these, may be found in other nations; they had their origin from wants and feelings common to all, or had been handed down from primeval times. In regard to the coincidence between the civil laws of the Egyptians and the Jews, Michaelis well observes, “Without in the least degree derogating from his divine mission, I may be allowed to conjecture, that he may have adopted from other nations what he found among them deserving of imitation. If it be no presumption against his prophetic character, that he changed the traditionary usages of the nomadic Israelites into laws; neither is it any that he incorporated with his code the wisest civil regulations of the most civilized people.” Mos. Law, § 4. The grand peculiarity of the system of Moses, the unity, spirituality, and providence of God, he could have learnt neither from the wisdom of the Egyptians, nor that of any other nation; and on this argument may we safely rest the proof that he was really a prophet of the Most High. Compare Prichard’s Analysis of Egyptian Mythology, ch. iv. Page 90.—_Only in the state of divine inspiration._] Plato quoted by Leland, Necess. of Rev. i. 258. Page 94.—_Drifted sand._] “The lake Sirbonis is bordered on each side with hills of sand, which, borne into the water by the wind so thicken the same, as not by the eye to be distinguished from part of the continent, by means whereof whole armies have been devoured.” Sandys’ Travels, p. 107. Page 94.—_Larish._] So Baumgarten writes the word commonly and more correctly spelt El-Arish, Churchill, i. 411.