DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.548#0160
ANASTASI V.
157
and the real essence of the one Abrahamic, Mosaic,
and Christian Revelation ? And should any one be
displeased, at my thus at all connecting under one
view, the Eucharistic feast, and the absurdities of
the Book of the Dead, he must simply recur to the
known cases of Melchisedec, Abimelech, and the
contemporary Mizraimite Pharaoh. Thus we read
that " God came to Abimelech in a dream by
night;" and that Abimelech said, " Lord wilt thou
slay also a righteous nation;" and that God said
unto him in a dream, "Yea I know that thou didst
this in the integrity of thine, heart, for I also
withheld thee from sinning against me." So after-
wards, Abimelech, and Ahuzzath, one of his friends,
and Phicol the chief captain of his army, came to
Isaac, and said—" We saw certainly that the Lord
was with thee, and we said, let there now be an
oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let
us make a covenant with thee, . . thou art now
the Blessed of the Lord."
Indeed the more we reflect upon the fact that
eight ninths of the whole of the inhabitants of
the world, since Adam, have been heathens, by
which I mean neither Jews nor Christians, and
that among Christian nations, such as England at
present, the religion of vast numbers comprises
merely those great truths concerning morality, a
Supreme Being, and a future life, which Chris-
tianity holds in common with heathenism, so much
the more will it become a point of interest to .en-
deavour to pierce into the obscurity of the earliest
records of heathenism we know of, and to deter-
157
and the real essence of the one Abrahamic, Mosaic,
and Christian Revelation ? And should any one be
displeased, at my thus at all connecting under one
view, the Eucharistic feast, and the absurdities of
the Book of the Dead, he must simply recur to the
known cases of Melchisedec, Abimelech, and the
contemporary Mizraimite Pharaoh. Thus we read
that " God came to Abimelech in a dream by
night;" and that Abimelech said, " Lord wilt thou
slay also a righteous nation;" and that God said
unto him in a dream, "Yea I know that thou didst
this in the integrity of thine, heart, for I also
withheld thee from sinning against me." So after-
wards, Abimelech, and Ahuzzath, one of his friends,
and Phicol the chief captain of his army, came to
Isaac, and said—" We saw certainly that the Lord
was with thee, and we said, let there now be an
oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let
us make a covenant with thee, . . thou art now
the Blessed of the Lord."
Indeed the more we reflect upon the fact that
eight ninths of the whole of the inhabitants of
the world, since Adam, have been heathens, by
which I mean neither Jews nor Christians, and
that among Christian nations, such as England at
present, the religion of vast numbers comprises
merely those great truths concerning morality, a
Supreme Being, and a future life, which Chris-
tianity holds in common with heathenism, so much
the more will it become a point of interest to .en-
deavour to pierce into the obscurity of the earliest
records of heathenism we know of, and to deter-