Note 1 — LECTURE V.

‒ This most impious and wicked man, doubtless, thought he did God service, and fulfilled a plain positive Mosaic precept, namely, “If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.” (Deut. xiii. 6–9.) Poor Flora did not entice him to worship the image. The whole Jewish congregation, therefore, justly considered Abraham as a murderer, and worthy of death.”