Washington should write the history of the American War, and should, from his great modesty, speak of himself in the third person, would you think it reasonable that, two or three thousand years hence, any person should, on that account, contend that the history was not true? Cæsar writes of himself in the third person. It is always, Cæsar made a speech, or a speech was made to Cæsar, Cæsar crossed the Rhine, Cæsar invaded Britain; but every school-boy knows, that this circumstance cannot be adduced as a serious argument against Cæsar's being the author of his own Commentaries.

But Moses, you urge, cannot be the author of the book of Numbers, because he says of himself" that Moses was a very meek man, above all the men that were on the face of the earth." If he said this of himself, he was, as you say, "a vain and arrogant coxcomb (such is your phrase) and unworthy of credit-and if he did not say it, the books are without authority." This your delimma is perfectly harmless; it has not a horn to hurt the weakest logician. If Moses did not write this little verse, if it was inserted by Samuel, or any of his countrymen, who knew his character and revered his memory, will it follow that he did not write any other part of the book of Numbers? Or if he did not write any part of the book of Numbers, will it follow that he did not write any of the other books of which he is usually reputed the author? And if he did write this of himself, he was justified by the occasion which extorted from him this commendation. Had this expression been written in a modern style and manner it would probably have given you no offence. For who would be so fastidious as to find fault with an illustrious man, who, being calumniated by his nearest relations, as guilty of pride and fond of power, should vindicate his character by saying-my temper was naturally as meek and unassuming as that of any man upon earth? There are occasions, in which a modest man, who speaks truly, may speak proudly of himself, without forfeiting his general character; and there is no occasion, which either more requires, or more excuses this conduct, than when he is repelling the foul and envious aspersions of those who both knew his character and had experienced his kindness; and in that predicament stood Aaron and Miriam, the accusers of Moses. You yourself have probably felt the sting of calumny, and have been anxious to remove the impression. I do not call you a vain and arrogant coxcomb for vindicating your character, when in the latter part of this very work you boast, and I hope truly, "the man does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or any set of men, in the American Revolution or in the French Revolution; or that I have in any case returned evil for evil." I know not what kings and priests may say to this: you may not have returned to them evil for evil, because they never, I believe, did you any harm; but you have done them all the harm you could, and that without provocation.

I think it needless to notice your observation upon what you call the dramatic style of Deuteronomy: it is an ill founded hypothesis. You might as well ask, where the author of Cæsar's Commentaries got the speeches of Cæsar, as where the author of Deuteronomy got the speeches of Moses. But your argument-that Moses was not the author of Deuteronomy, because the reason given in that book for the observation of the Sabbath, is different from that given in Exodus, merits a reply.

You need not be told that the very name of this book imports, in Greek, a repetition of a law: and that the Hebrew doctors have called it by a word of the same meaning. In the fifth verse of the first chapter it is said in our Bibles, "Moses began to declare this law;" but the Hebrew words, more properly translated, import that "Moses began, or determined to explain the law." This is no shift of mine to get over a difficulty; the words are so rendered in most of the ancient versions, and by Fagius, Vetablus and Le Clerc, men eminently skilled in the Hebrew language. This repetition and explanation of the law, was a wise and benevolent proceeding in Moses: that those who were either not born, or were mere infants, when it was first (forty years before) delivered in Horeb, might have an opportunity of knowing it; especially as Moses their leader was soon to be taken from them, and they were about to be settled in the midst of nations given to idolatry and sunk in vice. Now where is the wonder, that some variations, and some additions, should be made to a law, when a legislator thinks fit to republish it many years after its first promulgation.

With respect to the Sabbath, the learned are divided in opinion concerning its origin; some contending that it was sanctified from the creation of the the world; that it was observed by the patriarchs before the flood; that it was neglected by the Israelites during their bondage in Egypt; revived on the falling of manna in the wilderness; and enjoined as a positive law at Sinai. Others esteem its institution to have been no older than the age of Moses; and argue, that what is said of the sanctification of the Sabbath in the book of Genesis, is said by way of anticipation. There may be truth in both these accounts. To me it is probable that the memory of the creation was handed down from Adam to all his posterity; and that the seventh day was for a long time, held sacred by all nations, in commemoration of that event; but that the peculiar rigidness of its observance was enjoined by Moses to the Israelites alone. As to their being two reasons given for its being kept holy,one, that on that day God rested from the work of creation-the other, on that day God had given them rest from the servitude of Egypt-I see no contradiction in the accounts. If a man, in writing the history of England, should inform his readers that the parliament had ordered the fifth day of November to be kept holy, because on that day God delivered the nation from a bloody-intended massacre by gunpowder; and, if, in another part if his history, he should assign the deliverance of our church and nation from popery and arbitrary power, by the arrival of King William, as a reason for its being kept holy; would any one contend that he was not justified in both these ways of expression, or that we ought from thence to conclude, that he was not the author of them both.

You think" that law in Deuteronomy inhuman and brutal, which authorises parents, the father and the mother, to bring their own children to have them stoned to death for what it is pleased to call stubbornness." You are aware, I suppose, that paternal power, amongst the Romans, the Gauls, the Persians, and other nations, was of the most arbitrary kind; that it extended to the taking away of the life of the child. I do not know whether the Israelites in the time of Moses exercised this pa ternal power; it was not a custom adopted by all nations; but it was by many; and in the infancy of society, before individual families had

coalesced into communities, it was probably very general. Now Moses, by this law, which you esteem brutal and inhuman, hindered such an extravagant power from being either introduced or exercised amongst the Israelites. This law is so far from countenancing the arbitrary power of a father over the life of his child, that it takes from him the power of accusing the child before a magistrate-the father and mother of the child must agree in bringing the child to judgment—and it is not by their united will that the child was to be condemned to death; the elders of the city were to judge whether the accusation was true: and the accusation was to be not merely, as you insinuate, that the child was stubborn, but that he was "stubborn and rebellious, a glutton and a drunkard." Considered in this light, you must allow the law to have been a humane restriction of a power improper to be lodged with any parent.

That you may abuse the priests, you abandon your subject-"Priests," you say, "preach up Deuteronomy, for Deuteronomy preaches up tithes." I do not know that priests preach up Deuteronomy, more than they preach up other books of scripture; but I do know that tithes are not preached up in Deuteronomy, more than in Leviticus, in Numbers, in Chronicles, in Malichi, in the law, the history, and the prophets of the Jewish nation. You go on, "It is from this book, chap. xxv, ver. 4, they have taken the phrase, and applied it to tithing Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn:' and that this might not escape observation, they have noted it in the table of the contents at the head of the chapter, though it is only a single verse of less than two lines. O priests! priests! ye are willing to be compared to an ox for the sake of tithes !" I cannot call this-reasoning-and I will not pollute my page by giving it a proper appellation. Had the table of contents, instead of simply saying-the ox is not to be muzzled, said-tithes enjoined, or priests to be maintained-there would have been a little ground for your censure. Whoever noted this phrase at the head of the chapter, had better reason for doing it than you have attributed to them. They did it, because St. Paul had quoted it, when he was proving to the Corinthians, that they who preached the gospel had a right to live by the gospel; it was Paul, and not the priests, who first applied this phrase to tithing. St. Paul, indeed, did not avail himself of the right he contended for; he was not therefore, interested in what he said. The reason, on which he grounds the right, is not merely this quotation, which you ridicule; nor the appointment of the law of Moses, which you think fabulous; nor the injunction of Jesus, which you despise; no, it is a reason founded in the nature of things, and which no philosopher, no unbeliever, no man of common sense can deny to be a solid reason; it amounts to this-that "The labourer is worthy of his hire." Nothing is so much a man's own, as his labor and ingenuity; and it is entirely consonant to the law of nature, that by the innocent use of these he should provide for his subsistence. Husbandmen, artists, soldiers, physicians, lawyers, all let out their labor and talents for a stipulated reward: why may not a priest do the same? Some accounts of you have been published in England; but, conceiving them to have proceeded from a design to injure your character, I never read them. I know nothing of your parentage, your education, or condition of life. You may have been elevated, by your birth, above the necessity of acquiring the means of sustaining life by the

albor of either hand or head; if this be the case, you ought not to des pise those who have come into the world in less favorable circumstances. If your origin has been less fortunate, you must have supported yourself, either by manual labor, or the exercise of your genius. Why should you think that conduct disreputable in priests, which you probably consider as laudable in yourself? I know not whether you have not as great a dislike of kings as of priests; but that you may be induced to think more favorably of men of my profession, I will just mention to you that the payment of tithes is no new institution, but that they were paid in the most ancient times, not to priests only but to kings. I could give an hundred instances of this: two may be sufficient. Abraham paid tithes to the king of Salem, four hundred years before the law of Moses was given. The king of Salem was priest also of the most high God. Priests, you see, existed in the world, and were held in high estimation, for kings were priests, long before the impostures, as you esteem them, of the Jewish and Christian dispensations were heard of. But as this instance is taken from a book which you call "A book of contradictions and lies"-the Bible-I will give you another, from a book, to the authority of which, as it is written by a profane author, you probably will not object. Diogenes Lærtius, in his life of Solon, cites a letter of Pisistratus to that lawgiver, in which he says "I Pisistratus, the Tyrant, am contented with the stipends which were paid to those who reigned before me; the people of Athens set apart a tenth of the fruits of their land, not for my private use, but to be expended in the public sacrifices, and for the general good."

LETTER III.

HAVING done with what you call the grammatical evidence that Moses was not the author of the books attributed to him, you come to your historical and chronological evidence, and you begin with Genesis. Your first argument is taken from the single word-Dan-being found in Genesis, when it appears from the book of Judges, that the town Laish was not called Dan, till above three hundred and thirty years after the death of Moses; therefore the writer of Genesis, you conclude, must have lived after the town of Laish had the name of Dan given it. Lest this objection should not be obvious enough to a common capacity, you illustrate in the following manner-“ Havre-de-Grace was called HavreMarat in 1793-should then any dateless writing be found, in after times, with the name of Havre-Marat, it would be certain evidence that such a writing could not have been written till after the year 1793" This is a wrong conclusion. Suppose some hot republican should at this day publish a new edition of any old history of France, and instead of Havre-de-grace should write Havre-Marat; and that two or three thousand years hence, a man, like yourself, should, on that account, reject the whole history as spurious, would he be justified in so doing? Would it not be reasonable to tell him-that the name of Havre-Marat

had been inserted, not by the original author of the history, but by a subsequent editor of it; and to refer him, for a proof of the genuineness of the book, to the testimony of the whole French nation? This supposition so obviously applies to your difficulty, that I cannot but recommend it to your impartial attention. But if this solution does not please you, I desire it may be proved, that the Dan mentioned in Genesis, was the same town as the Dan, mentioned in Judges; I desire, further, to have it proved, that the Dan, mentioned in Genesis, was the name of a town and not of a river. It is merely said-Abraham pursued them, the enemies of Lot, to Dan. Now a river was full as likely as a town to stop a pursuit. Lot, we know, was settled in the plain of Jordan: and Jordan, we know, was composed of the united streams of two rivers, called Jor and Dan.

Your next difficulty respects it's being said in Genesis-"These are the kings that reigned in Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel;-this passage could only have been written, you say (and I think you say rightly) after the first king began to reign over Israel; so far from being written by Moses, it could not have been written till the time of Saul at the least." I admit this inference, but I deny its application. A small addition to a book does not destroy either the genuineness or the authenticity of the whole book. I am not ignorant of the manner in which commentators have answered this objection of Spinoza, without making the concession which I have made; but I have no scruple in admitting, that the passage in question, consisting of nine verses, containing the genealogy of some kings of Edom, might have been inserted in the book of Genesis, after the book of Chronicles (which was called in Greek by a name importing that it contained things left out in other books) was written. The learned have shewn that interpolations have happened to other books; but these insertions by other hands have never been considered as invalidating the authority of the books.

"Take away from Genesis," you say, "the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the Word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies." What! Is it a story then, that the world had a beginning, and that the author of it was God? If you deem this a story, I am not disputing with af deistical philosopher, but with an atheistic madman. Is it a story, that our first parents fell from a paradisiacle state-that this earth was destroyed by a deluge-that Noah and his family were preserved in the ark, and that the world has been re-peopled by his descendents? Look into a book so common that almost every body has it, and so excellent that no person ought to be without it-Grotius on the truth of the Christian religion-and you will there meet with abundant testimony to the truth of all the principal facts recorded in Genesis. The testimony is not that of Jews, Christians and priests; it is the testimony of the philosophers, historians, and poets of antiquity. The oldest book in the world is Genesis; and it is remarkable that those books which come nearest to it in age, are those which make either the most distinct mention, or the most evident allusion to the facts related in Genesis concerning the formation of the world from a chaotic mass, the primeval innocence and subsequent fall of man, the longevity