Also it must be admitted that Moses, as an expounder of a moral
code, achieved success. The moral principles which he laid down have been
accepted as sound from that day to this, and are still written up in our
churches, as a standard for men and women, however slackly they may be
observed. But when we come to mark the methods by which Moses obtained
acceptance of his code by his contemporaries, and, above all, sought to
constrain obedience to himself and to it, we find the prospect unalluring.
To begin with, Moses had only begun the exodus when he learned from his
practical father-in-law that the system he employed was fantastic and
certain to fail: his notion being that he should sit and judge causes
himself, as the mouthpiece of the infinite, and that therefore each
judgment he gave would demand a separate miracle or imposture. This could
not be contemplated. Therefore Moses was constrained to impose his code in
writing, once for all, by one gigantic fraud which he must perpetrate
himself. This he tried at Sinai, unblushingly declaring that the stone
tablets which he produced were "written with the finger of God";
wherefore, as they must have been written by himself, or under his
personal supervision, he brazenly and deliberately lied. His good faith
was obviously suspected, and this suspicion caused disastrous results.
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