Wesley Corpus

We have no ground to suppose that the other inhabit ants of the earth (Abraham, with his family and descendants, excepted) had either the knowledge or the fear of God, from that time till Jacob “went into Egypt.” This was then, as well as for several ages after, the great seat of learning; inso much that “the wisdom of the Egyptians” was celebrated even to a proverb. And indeed for this end, as well as “to save much people alive,” (Gen. l. 20,) did “God send Joseph into Egypt,” even “to inform their Princes after his will, and to teach their Senators wisdom.” And yet not long after his death, as their King “knew not Joseph,” so his people knew not God. Yea, they set him at defiance: They and their King provoked him more and more, and “hardened their hearts” against him; even after they had “seen his wonders in Egypt,” after they had groaned under his repeated vengeance. They still added sin to sin, till they constrained the Lord to destroy them with an utter destruction; till the divided “waters returned, and covered the chariots and horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh.” 6. Nor were the other nations who then inhabited the earth, any better than the Egyptians; the true knowledge and spiritual worship of God being confined to the descendants of Abraham. “He had not dealt so with other nations, neither had the Hea thens knowledge of his laws.” (Psalm cxlvii. 20.) And in what state were the Israelites themselves? How did they worship the God of their fathers? Why, even these were “a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law. They provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea; ” (Psalm lxxviii. 8, 10; cvi. 7; Exod. xiv. 11, 12;) the very place where he had so signally delivered them. “They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image,” (Psalm cvi. 19,) where they had heard the Lord, but a little before, saying, out of the midst of the fire, “Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image; thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them.” And how amazing was their beha viour during those whole forty years that they sojourned in the wilderness!