o Him to a calf, which they
believed to be the god who had brought them out of Egypt. In truth, it
is hardly likely that men accustomed to the superstitions of Egypt,
uncultivated and sunk in most abject slavery, should have held any sound
notions about the Deity, or that Moses should have taught them anything
beyond a rule of right living; inculcating it not like a philosopher, as
the result of freedom, but like a lawgiver compelling them to be moral
by legal authority. Thus the rule of right living, the worship and love
of God, was to them rather a bondage than the true liberty, the gift and
grace of the Deity. Moses bid them love God and keep His law, because
they had in the past received benefits from Him (such as the deliverance
from slavery in Egypt), and further terrified them with threats if they
transgressed His commands, holding out many promises of good if they
should observe them; thus treating them as parents treat irrational
children. It is, therefore, certain that they knew not the excellence of
virtue and the true happiness.

Jonah thought that he was fleeing from the sight of God, which seems to
show that he too held that God had entrusted the care of the nations
outside Judaea to other substituted powers. No one in the whole of the
Old Testament speaks more rationally of God than Solomon, who in fact
surpassed all the men of his time in natural ability. Yet he considered
himself above the law (esteeming it only to have been given for men
without reasonable and intellectual grounds for their actions), and made
small account of the laws concerning kings, which are mainly three: nay,
he openly violated them (in this he did wrong, and acted in a manner
unworthy of a philosopher, by indulging in sensual pleasure), and taught
that all Fortune's favors to mankind are vanity, that humanity has no
nobler gift than wisdom, and no greater punishment than folly. (See
Proverbs xvi. 22, 23.)

... God adapted revelations to the understanding and opinions of the
prophets, and ... in matters of theory without bearing on charity or
morality, the prophets could be, and, in fact, were ignorant, and held
conflicting opinions. It therefore follows that we must by no means go
to the prophets for knowledge, either of natural or of spiritual
phenomena.

We have determined, then, that we are only bound to believe in the
prophetic writings, the object and substance of the revelation; with
regard to the details, every one may