リ

plain recital, however, of the creation, the fall, the deluge, | even by his enemies, and several testimonies from heathen and the dispersion of mankind, does unquestionably develope that origin, and bring to light those facts; and it therefore follows, not only that the account is the true one, but there being no human means of his acquiring the | knowledge of it, that it was, as he asserts it to have been, revealed to him by God himself.

authors, in favour of his character as a historian, and as a sublime writer, have already been adduced. Whether we view him as a historian, as a prophet, as a poet, or as a law-giver, we find him varying and accommodating his style to his subject, and few writers excel in any one of these characters so much as he does in them all. It is evident also, that Moses had a chief concern in all the transactions recorded in the four last books of the Pentateuch, as legislator and governor of the Jews. Every thing was done under his eye and cognizance, and therefore he cannot be charged with ignorance of the facts which he relates.

With regard to the book of Genesis, although there are many things in it which could be derived only from divine revelation, yet there are many other events and facts which must have been known in the time of Moses by tradition, and when this book was first delivered many persons then living must have been competent to decide on the fidelity with which he relates those events. They must have heard of, and believed, the remarkable incidents in the lives of the patriarchs, the prophecies which they uttered, and the actions which they performed; for the longevity of man, in the earlier ages of the world, rendered tradition the criterion of truth; and in the days of Moses, the channels of information must have been as yet uncorrupted; for though ages had already elapsed, even 2432 years, before the birth of the sacred historian, yet those relations were easily ascertained, which might have been conveyed by seven persons from Adam to Moses; and that the traditions were so secure from error, we shall immediately be convinced, if we consider that Methusalem was 340 years old when Adam died, and that he lived till the year of the flood, when Noah had attained 600 years. In like manner, Shem conveyed tradition from Noah to Abraham, for he conversed with both for a considerable time. Isaac also lived to instruct Joseph in the history of his predecessors, and Amram, the father of Moses, was contemporary with Joseph. The Israelites then must have been able, by interesting tradition, to judge how far the Mosaic account was consistent with truth.-Gray's Key to the Old Testament, Introd. to Genesis. As to the hypothesis which some have enter

We have now seen, from undoubted testimony, that the Pentateuch has been uniformly ascribed to Moses as its author; that the most ancient traditions remarkably agree with his account of the creation of the world, the fall of man, the deluge, the dispersion of mankind, and the departure of the Israelites from Egypt under Moses; that a people with such laws and institutions as he professes to have given them, have existed from remote antiquity; and we ourselves are eye-witnesses that such a people, so circumstanced, exist at this hour, and in a state exactly conformable to his predictions concerning them. But it may be observed, that the civil history of the Jews is seldom contested, even by those who imagine the Pentateuch to have been written in some age subsequent to that of Moses, from a collection of annals or diaries; it is the miraculous part of it which is chiefly disputed. To this observation, however, we may oppose the conclusive argument of a professed enemy to revealed religion, 'that the miraculous part of the Mosaic history is not like the prodigies of Livy and other profane authors, unconnected with the facts recorded; it is so intermixed and blended with the narrative that they must both stand or fall together.'-Lord Bolingbroke. With respect to the annals which are mentioned as the supposed foundation of this history, they must have been either true or false; if true, the history of the Israelites remains equally marvellous; if false, how was it possible for the history to acquire the credit and esteem in which it was so universally held? But upon what is this supposition founded? No particular person is mentioned with any colour of probability as the author or compiler of the Pentateuch; no particular age is pointed out with any appearance of certainty, though that of Solomon is usually fixed upon as the most likely. Yet why the most enlightened period of the Jewish history should be chosen as the best adapted to forgers or interpolation, nay, to the most gross imposi-tained, namely, that Moses compiled the book of Genesis tion that was ever practised upon mankind, it is difficult to conjecture. Was it possible, in such an age, to write the Pentateuch in the name of the venerated law-giver of the Jews, from a collection of annals, and produce the firm belief that it actually had been written more than 400 years before; and this not only throughout the nation itself, but among all those whom the widely extended fame of Solomon had connected with him, or had induced to study the history and pretensions of this extraordinary people?

from written records preserved in the family of Shem, and extant in the time of Moses, we reject it as fanciful and destitute of any proper foundation.

In

Moses was also an honest and disinterested writer, and has given such proofs of impartiality and veracity, as are rarely to be found in the most faithful historians. stead of flattering his countrymen, or courting their applause, he rather exposes their infidelity and wickedness; and while he celebrates the virtues of some of their ancestors, he at the same time records the failings and The truth of the Mosaic history receives farther con- imperfections of the very best of them. He does not firmation from the character of Moses, from his qualifi- spare even his own family and his nearest relations. cations as a historian, and from the opportunities he en- He freely relates the cruelty and barbarity of Levi, the joyed of becoming acquainted with the events and trans-founder of his family, in the affair of the Shechemites, actions which he records.

Moses was well qualified to write his history, in consequence of his having received a princely education in the court of Pharaoh, and it is certain that Egypt was the most famous school of learning in ancient times. His parts and attainments are allowed to have been great,

and the curse entailed upon him on account of it. He gives an exact detail of the conduct of Aaron his brother, with respect to the golden calf, and also of Aaron and Miriam's sedition. Neither does he conceal his own faults, but fairly acknowledges his want of faith and confidence in God; and if at any time he commends himself,

it is when he finds it necessary to do so in order to vindi- | to have happened, unless there had been the clearest cate himself from unjust calumnies.

No one can charge Moses with avarice, or with ambitious motives. He forsook all the pleasures and all the honours of the court of Egypt, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God;' and though he was appointed to a high command, yet it was attended with continual labour and pain, with great trouble and vexation to himself, and with little profit or advantage to his family. The priesthood he settled in the line of Aaron, the supreme command he resigned to one of another tribe, and his own family he reduced to the rank of common Levites.

His excellent moral qualities furnish an additional argument in proof of his fidelity as an historian. Not only does he appear in all his writings to have had an ardent zeal for the glory of God, but also for the service and happiness of his countrymen. He delivered them from the meanest and bitterest slavery in a foreign land, | and conducted them safely, through dangers and difficulties, to a land of liberty. Often did he stand between them and destruction, and rather than that they should be cut off, as they had deserved, he prayed and entreated that he himself might be blotted out of the book of life. | A man who had so sincere a love for his friends and country, could not be a bad man; and if he had been a Grecian or Roman legislator, those who are now the most forward to traduce him, would then, perhaps, have been the most profuse and lavish in his praises.-Bishop Newton's Works, vol. i. dissert. i.-See also Grave's Lectures on the four last Books of the Pentateuch, Lectures ii. iii. iv.—Blunt's Veracity of the five Books of Moses.-Horne's Introduction, vol. i.

evidence of their certainty and truth. Nor were these facts the transient occurrences of a single hour or day, and witnessed only by a small number of persons; on the contrary, some of them were continued through a space of forty years, and were known and felt by several millions of people: the pillar of the cloud was seen by day, and the pillar of fire by night during their whole journey in the wilderness; nor did the manna fail till they had eaten of the corn in the land of Canaan, We see Moses in the combined characters of leader, law-giver, and historian, not once or twice, or as it were cautiously and surreptitiously, but avowedly, and continually appealing to the conviction of a whole people, who were witnesses of these manifestations of divine power for the justice of their punishments, and resting the authority of the Law upon the truth of the wonderful history he records. And farther, in order to preserve the accurate recollection of these events, and prevent the possibility of any alteration in this history, he expressly commanded that the whole Pentateuch should be read at the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, at the feast of tabernacles, in the hearing of all Israel, that all the people, men, women, and children, and the strangers within their gates, might hear, and learn to fear the Lord their God, and observe to do all the words of the Law; and especially, that their children, who had not been eyewitnesses of the miracles which established its claim to their faith and obedience, might hear the marvellous history, which they were taught by their fathers, publicly declared and confirmed, and learn to fear and obey the Lord their God from the wonders of creation and proviBut a more particular consideration of the contents dence, revealed to his servant Moses, and from the of the Pentateuch, as relating immediately to the Jews, supernatural powers with which he was invested. (Deut. will furnish irrefragable arguments to prove its authen- xxxi. 10, &c.). Can we require a more striking proof ticity, and the truth of its claims to inspiration. The of the existence and designed publicity of the Law, than Pentateuch contains directions for the establishment of the command to write all the words of the Law very the civil and religious policy of the Jews, which, it is plainly on pillars of stone, and to set them up on the acknowledged, existed from the time of Moses; it con- day they passed over Jordan, the day they took possestains a code of laws, which every individual of the sion of the promised land, and to plaster them over to nation was required to observe with the utmost punctu- preserve them.' (Deut. xxvii. 2.)—See Patrick in loc. ality, under pain of the severest punishment, and with They were commanded also to teach the Law diligently which, therefore, every individual must be supposed to to their children, and explain to them the testimonies, have been acquainted; it contains the history of the an- and the statutes, and the judgments, and the history of cestors of the Jews, in a regular succession, from the their forefathers; to talk of them when sitting in the creation of the world, and a series of prophecies which, house, when walking in the way, when they lay down, and in an especial manner, concerned themselves, and which when they rose up; to bind the words for a sign upon must have been beyond measure interesting to a people their door posts and gates, and upon their hands, and who were alternately enjoying promised blessings, and as frontlets between their eyes. (Deut. vi.) Words suffering under predicted calamities; it contains not only cannot express more strongly than these do, the general the wonders of creation and providence in a general view, obligation of the people to acquire an accurate knowbut also repeated instances of the superintending care ledge of the Law, and to pay a constant, habitual attenof the God of the whole earth over their particular nation, tion to its precepts, whether these be taken in a literal and the institution of feasts and ceremonies in perpetual or figurative sense. These repeated injunctions with remembrance of these divine interpositions; and all regard to public and private instruction in the Law, also these things are professedly addressed in the name, and to manifestly imply that the book of the Law existed in the contemporaries, of Moses-to those who had seen the writing at that time, and that the people must have had miracles he records, who had been witnesses to the events easy access to copies of it, and without doubt the office he relates, and who had heard the awful promulgation of the Levite, whom every family was 'to keep within of the law. Let any one reflect upon these extraordin- their gates,' must have been to teach the law. The comary and wonderful facts, and surely he must be con-mand that every king upon his accession to the throne, vinced, that they could never have obtained the universal belief of those among whose ancestors they are said

should 'write him a copy of the law in a book, out of that which is before the priests,' (Deut, xvii. 18.) is a proof

not only that the Law existed in writing, but that there | privileges, and government of a nation, there will always

was a copy of it under the peculiar care of the priests; that is, deposited in the tabernacle or temple.

be a sufficient number of persons whose interest will lead them to prevent impostures. It is no easy matter to forge a magna charta, and to invent laws; the caution and prudence of men are never so much on the alert as in matters which concern their estates and privileges. The general interest of men lies contrary to such impostures, and therefore they will prevent their obtaining credit among them. Now the laws of Moses are incorporated with the very republic of the Jews, and their subsistence and government depend upon them; their religion and laws are so interwoven the one with the other, that one cannot be separated from the other. Their right to their temporal possessions in the land of Canaan depended on their owning the sovereignty of God, who gave these possessions to them, and on the truth of the history recorded by Moses, concerning the promises made to the patriarchs; so that on that account it was impossible that those laws should be counterfeited on which the welfare of the nation depended, and according to which they were governed ever since they were a nation.-Stillingfleet's Orig. Sac. b. ii. c. i.

Is it credible that any people would have submitted to so rigorous and burdensome a law as that of Moses, unless they had been fully convinced, by a series of miracles, that he was a prophet sent from God? And being thus convinced of the divine mission of Moses, would they have suffered any writing to pass under his venerated name, of which he was not really the author? Had fraud or imposture of any kind belonged to any part of it, would not the Israelites, at the moment of rebellion, have availed themselves of that circumstance as a ground or justification of their disobedience? The Jews were exceedingly prone to transgress the law of Moses, and to fall into idolatry; but had there been the least suspicion of any falsity or imposture in the writings of Moses, the ringleaders of their revolts would have eagerly availed themselves of it, as the most plausible plea to draw them off from the worship of the true God. | Can we think that a nation and religion so maligned as the Jewish were, could have escaped discovery if there had been any deceit in their religious polity, when so many lay in wait continually to expose them to all contumelies imaginable? Nay, among themselves in their frequent apostasies, and occasions given for such a pretence, how comes this to be never heard of, nor in the least questioned, whether the law was undoubtedly of Moses's writing or not? What an excellent plea would this have been for Jeroboam's calves in Dan and Bethel, for the Samaritan temple on mount Gerizim, could any the least supicion have been raised among them concerning the authenticity of the fundamental records of the Jewish commonwealth. And what is very remarkable, the Jews, who were a people strangely suspicious and incredulous while they were fed and clothed by miracles, yet could never find ground to question this; nay, Moses himself, we find, was greatly envied by many of the Israelites in the wilderness, as is evident from the conspiracy of Korah and his accomplices, and that on the very ground that he took too much upon him:' how unlikely then is it, that amidst so many enemies heBp. Tomline's Elem. of Christ. Theol. part i. c. i. should dare to enter any thing into public records which was not most undoubtedly true, or undertake to prescribe a law to oblige the people and their posterity, or that after his own age any thing should come out under his name, which would not be presently detected by the emulators of his glory? What then is the thing itself incredible? surely not, that Moses should write the records we speak of? Were the people not able to understand the truth of it? What, not those who were in the same age, and conveyed it down by a certain tradition to posterity? Or did not the Israelites all constantly believe it? What, not they who would sooner part with their lives and fortunes, than admit any alter-sist a rude, unconquered race, notwithstanding the most ation or variation as to their law?-Stillingfleet's Orig. Sac. b. ii. c. i.

Can we have more undoubted evidence that there were such persons as Solon, Lycurgus, and Numa, and that the laws bearing their names were theirs, than the history of the several commonwealths of Athens, Sparta, and Rome, which were governed by those laws? When writings are not of general concernment, they may be more easily counterfeited, but when they concern the rights,

Let those then who are disposed to deny the genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch, consider its real importance to the Jewish people, and the high veneration in which it was unquestionably held by them, and surely they must be convinced of the impossibility of ignorance or mistake concerning any fact relative to it; and in particular it will appear scarcely credible, that the Jews should err in attributing it to any person who was not its real author, or that they should not know who it was that digested it into the shape in which we now have it from materials left by Moses, had it been compiled in that manner in some subsequent age. The silence of history and tradition upon this point is a sufficient proof that no such compilation ever took place. If we believe that Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, why should we not believe that he wrote the account of that deliverance? If we believe that God enabled Moses to work miracles,* why should we not believe that he also enabled him to write the history of the creation?

The prophecies contained in the books of Moses furnish undeniable evidence of his divine mission, and consequently of the divine authority of these books. These prophecies not only relate to former times, but several of them have been fulfilled in later ages or are fulfilling at this time in the world. God hath 'blessed' and enlarged' the posterity of Shem and Japhet, and Canaan, in his posterity, hath been' a servant of servants unto his brethren,' as Noah foretold. (Gen. ix. 25, 26, 27.) The posterity of Ishmael, the Arabs, are to this day wild men; their hand has been against every man, and every man's hand against them, and they still sub

powerful efforts of their enemies to subdue them; they still dwell in the presence of all their brethren. (Gen. xvi. 12.) The posterity of Abraham obtained possession of Canaan, according to the promise made to that patriarch, 400 years before its fulfilment. The seed of

*The evidence on which the truth of the miracles recorded by Moses, as well as those of our Saviour, rest, will be fully stated in the New Testament part of this history. See b. viii. sect ii. c. iv. p. 985.

Abraham multiplied as the stars of heaven, and it is | solemnity, purity, and decency in divine worship, uncomputed that they are at this day as numerous as ever known to heathen nations, or unpractised by them, the other

institutions, both moral and political, were calculated to promote the prosperity and comfort of all who lived under them. They prohibited idolatry, perjury, theft, murder, adultery, and every species of covetousness and envy, and enforced the opposite virtues of justice, mercy, chastity, and charity, with a due reverence towards our natural parents and accidental superiors. In almost every page, the people are exhorted to amendment and submission to their God and king; they are reminded of their former murmurings and miscarriages, and compassionately forewarned of the grievous punishments that should await their disobedience. The theology of the Mosaic law was pure, sublime, and devotional. The belief of one supreme, self-existent, and all-perfect being, the creator of the heavens and the earth, was the basis of all the religious institutions of the Israelites, the sole object of their hopes, fears, and worship. His adorable perfections, and especially the supreme provi

they were in Canaan, although they are dispersed into all parts of the world. (Gen. xv. 13. xxii. 17.) The sceptre continued in Judah till the time of the coming of Shiloh, and then departed, as Jacob foretold. (Gen. xlix. 10.) The prophet foretold by Moses has appeared, even Christ, the promised seed. (Deut. xviii. 15, &c.) In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses foretold that the Israelites should be blessed or cursed, according as they were obedient or disobedient to the commandments and statutes which he had given them; and all their subsequent history abundantly confirms the truth of the prediction. And what can be a stronger proof of the divinity of the Law of Moses? In particular, he foretold that a nation should come against them from far, swift as the eagle flieth, a nation whose tongue they should not understand; that this nation should besiege them in their gates; that they should be greatly straitened and distressed in the siege; that they should be plucked from off their own land; that they should become an astonishment, a proverb and a by-dence of Jehovah, as the sole dispenser of good and word amongst all nations; that they should be scattered among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; and that their plagues should be wonderful, even great plagues, and of long continuance, (Deut. xxviii.) all which predictions the world has seen fulfilled, and still sees at this very day. And how was it possible for an author, who lived above three thousand years ago, to foretel so many particulars, which are transacting in the world even now, unless they were suggested by divine inspiration? Surely all reasonable men must conclude with the apostle, 'that prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.' (2 Pet. i. 21.)-Bishop Newton's Works, vol. i.

The intrinsic excellence of the Mosaic writings, and their moral tendency, furnish another strong argument in favour of their divine origin. They give such a description of the Supreme Being, as our natural conceptions would lead us to acquiesce in. We behold him represented as infinite in wisdom, goodness, and power; and expecting from mankind that degree of submission and homage, which, we must easily perceive, is a reasonable service, and consonant with our notions of the relative situations of the Creator and his creatures. They deliver to the world things highly becoming of God to impart, and absolutely necessary for man to know. They explain the formation and origin of the universe, the creation of man, his state of innocence, fall, and expulsion from the seat of happiness; they announce to a guilty world the glorious promise of a deliverer, who should repair the ruin produced by the fall; they describe the propagation of mankind, their general corruption, the deluge, the confusion of tongues, the plantation of families, and their separation into kingdoms; they record the selection of a particular family, out of which the Messiah was destined to proceed; they commemorate the miracles by which God was pleased to redeem his chosen people from servitude, and lead them through the midst of many dangers and difficulties, to the land which he had promised them as their future inheritance. The laws which they enumerate as prescribed by God for the use of his people, are such as are consonant with his wisdom and goodness. Whilst the religious precepts and ordinances required a

evil, and the benevolent protector and benefactor of mankind, are described in the Pentateuch in unaffected strains of unrivalled sublimity; which while they are adapted to our finite apprehensions, by imagery borrowed from terrestrial and sensible objects, at the same time raise our conceptions to the contemplation of the spirituality and majesty of Him who dwelleth in light inaccessible.' In the decalogue, we have a repository of duty to God and man, so pure and comprehensive as to be absolutely without parallel. We recognise in the ten commandments, not the impotent recommendations of man, or the uncertain deductions of human reason, but the dictates of the God of purity, flowing from his immediate legislation, and promulgated with awful solemnity.

The sanctions also of the remaining enactments of the law, point out their divine origin, whilst the moral precepts which are scattered throughout the whole of the Pentateuch, possess such intrinsic excellence, such dignity and authority, as no human precepts ever possessed. The rites and ceremonies prescribed in the law are at once dignified and expressive; they point out the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, the necessity of an atonement. As to the punishments of the law, they are ever such as the nature and circumstances of the crime render just and necessary; and its rewards are not such as flow merely from retributive justice, but from a fatherly tenderness and regard, which make obedience to the laws the highest interest of the subject. In short, the Mosaic law is calculated not only to restrain vice, but to infuse virtue. It alone, of all other laws, brings man to the footstool of his Maker, and keeps him dependent on the strong for strength, on the wise for wisdom, and on the merciful for grace. It abounds with promises of support and salvation for the present life, which no false system dared even to propose. Every where Moses, in the most confident manner, pledges his God for the fulfilment of all the gracious promises with which his laws are so plentifully interspersed. Who that dispassionately reads the Pentateuch, that considers it in itself, and in its references to that glorious gospel which it was intended to introduce, (see Introduction to the New Testament, ch. i. ii. p. 826.) can for a moment deny it the palm of infinite superiority over all the systems ever framed or

imagined by man ?*—Robison on Revealed Religion.—| some of whom were inspired, though prophetic revela

| Dr A. Clarke's Comment.-Horne's Introd. vol. i.— See also the Divine Authority of the four last books of the Pentateuch, established from internal evidence in Grave's valuable Lectures.

Thus we have given a brief statement of the leading arguments in support of the genuineness, authenticity, and inspiration of the five books of Moses. These arguments will serve to confirm the faith of the believer, and when combined together, they present a body of evidence so strong, and so decisive, as cannot fail to remove every reasonable doubt, and satisfy every candid and unprejudiced inquirer, that the writings of Moses are of divine authority, and were dictated by the Spirit of the living God.

The same arguments which prove the genuineness, authenticity, and divine authority of the Pentateuch, are also applicable to the remaining books of the Old Testament, and the divine authority of the latter may be inferred from that of the former; for so great is their mutual and immediate dependence upon each other, that if the authority of the one be taken away, the authority of the other must necessarily be destroyed. The books that follow after Deuteronomy are all historical, devotional, moral, or prophetical. The historical books are those from Joshua to Esther, inclusive. Some of them bear the names of distinguished prophets, and the rest are universally attributed to writers invested with the same character. They contain a compendium of the Jewish history from the death of Moses to the reformation established by Nehemiah, after the return from the captivity, being a period of more than 1000 years. After the death of Moses, Joshua continued to record those miraculous particulars which demonstrated the divine interposition in favour of the Israelites, and to commemorate the events that preceded and accomplished their settlement in the land of Canaan. The period which succeeded the death of Joshua, during which the Hebrews were subjected to the government of the judges, opened a large scope for the industry of the sacred historians; and Samuel, or some other prophet, appears to have selected such particulars as were best calculated to describe this period, and to have digested them into the book of Judges, having doubtless procured much information from the records of the priests or judges,† * With regard to the marks of a posterior date, or at least of posterior interpolation, so often urged with an insidious design to weaken the authority of the Pentateuch, it will be sufficient to observe, that it may safely be admitted that Joshua, Samuel, or some one of the succeeding prophets, wrote the account of the death of Moses contained in the last chapter of Deuteronomy; and that Ezra, when he transcribed the history written by Moses, changed the names of some places, which were then become obsolete, to those by which they were called in his time, and added, for the purpose of elucidation, the few passages which are allowed to be not suitable to the age of Moses. Now surely, when it is considered that these few passages are of an explanatory nature; that they are easily distinguished from the original writings of Moses; and that Ezra was himself an inspired writer, raised up by God to re-establish the Jewish church after the return from captivity, the cavils founded upon such circumstances can scarcely be thought deserving of any serious attention. The reader, however, will find a complete answer to these objections in the Appendix to Grave's Lectures on the Pentateuch, Sect. I.

tions were "scarce in those days,” (1 Sam. iii. 1.) and divine communications were made by means of the Urim and Thummim, (Exod. xxviii. 30. Lev. viii. 8.) From the time of Samuel, the Jews seem to have been favoured with a regular succession of prophets, who, in an uninterrupted series, bequeathed to each other, with the mantle of prophecy, the charge of commemorating such important particulars as were consistent with the plan of sacred history; and who took up the history where the preceding prophet ceased, without distinguishing their respective contributions. It is possible, however, that the books of Kings and of Chronicles do not contain a complete compilation of the entire works of each contemporary prophet, but rather an abridgement of their several labours digested by Ezra, in or after the captivity, with the intention to exhibit the sacred history at one point of view; and hence it is that they contain some expressions which evidently result from contemporary description, and others that as clearly argue them to have been completed long after the occurrences which they relate. Hence also it is, that, though particular periods are more diffusively treated of than others, we still find throughout a connected series of events, and in each individual book a general uniformity of style.

But although we cannot determine with certainty the authors of the historical books, yet we may rest assured, that the Jews, who had already received inspired books from the hands of Moses, would not have admitted any others as of equal authority, if they had not been fully convinced that the writers were supernaturally assisted. And although the testimony of a nation is far from being, in every instance, a sufficient reason for believing its sacred books to be possessed of that divine authority which is ascribed to them, yet the testimony of the Jews, in the present case, has a peculiar title to be credited, from the circumstances in which it was delivered. It is the testimony of a people, who having already in their possession genuine inspired books, were the better able to judge of others who advanced a claim to inspiration, and who, we have reason to think, far from being credulous with respect to such a claim, or disposed precipitately to recognise it, proceeded with deliberation and care in examining all pretensions of this nature, and rejected them when not supported by satisfactory evidence-witness their rejection of the Apocryphal books. They were likewise forewarned that false prophets would arise, and deliver their own fancies, in the name of the Lord, and they were furnished with rules to assist them in distinguishing a true from a pretended revelation. (Deut. xviii. 20—22.) The testimony then of the Jews, who, without a dissenting voice, have asserted the inspiration of the historical books, authorises us to receive them as a part of the oracles of God, which were committed to their care.

The object of the historical books was to communicate instruction to his chosen people, and to mankind in general; and to illustrate the nature of God's providence in small as well as in great occurrences, in particular instances as well as in general appointments; they

cords the sacred writers occasionally allude as bearing testimony to their accounts; or refer to them for a more minute detail of those particulars which they omit as inconsistent with their designs. See Josh. x. 13. 2 Sam. i. 18, and various other passages.

It appears from the testimony of Josephus, (Cont. Apion, i.) that public and circumstantial records were kept by the priests, and other publicly appointed persons, and to such re