Nor was this all, but in less than one Year more we find them, (at his Instigation too) setting up a _golden Calf_, and making all the People dance about it at Mount _Sinai_; even when God himself had but just before appear'd to them in the Terrors of a burning Fire upon the Top of the Mountain; _and what was the Pretence?_ Truly, nothing but that they had lost _Moses_, who used to be their Guide, and he had hid himself in the Mount, and had not been seen in forty Days, so that they could not tell what was become of him. This put them all into Confusion; a poor Pretence indeed, to turn them all back to Idolatry! but the _watchful Devil_ took the Hint, push'd the Advantage, and insinuated that they should never see _Moses_ again, that he was certainly devour'd by venturing too near the Flashes of Fire in the Mount, and presuming upon the Liberty he had taken before; in a word, that God had destroyed _Moses_, or he was starved to Death for want of Food, having been forty Days and forty Nights absent.
All these were, it's true, in themselves most foolish Suggestions, considering _Moses_ was admitted to the Vision of God, and that God had been pleased to appear to him in the most intimate manner; that as they might depend God would not destroy his faithful Servant, so they might have concluded he was able to support his Being without Food as long as he thought fit; but to a People so easy to believe any thing, what could be too gross for the _Devil_ to persuade them to?
A People who could dance round a Calf, and call it their God, might do any thing; that could say to one another, that this was the Great JEHOVAH, _that brought them out of the Land of Egypt_; and that within so few Days after God's miraculous Appearance to them, and for them; I say, such a People were really fitted to be imposed upon, nothing could be too gross for them.
This was indeed his first considerable Experiment upon them as _a People_, or as _a Body_; and the Truth is, his Affairs requir'd it, for _Satan_, who had been a Successful Devil in most of his Attempts upon Mankind, could hardly doubt of Success in any thing after he had carried his Point at Mount _Sinai_: To bring them to Idolatry in the very Face of their Deliverer, and just after their Deliverance! It was more astonishing in the main than even their passing _the Red Sea_: In a Word, the _Devil_'s whole History does not furnish us with a Story equally surprising.