the conftitution of the law, or the contents of the facred books.

Least of all, can it be fuppofed that Ezra would, at that particular time, have introduced the injunction on which he laid fo much ftrefs, about putting away all their strange wives. In his circumftances this measure must have appeared exceedingly hazardous, confidering how many perfons, even among the priests themselves, had contracted fuch mar- riages, how confiderable they were by their birth and alliances, and confequently how many enemies the Jews would thereby make them felves. We find, in fact, that this measure did meet with the moft violent opposition, produced a lasting division among themselves, and made them incur the hatred and ill offices of all their neighbours. Befides, fince many of the priests, who must have known as much of the law of Mofes as Ezra himself, were highly exasperated at this proceeding, they would never have fuffered him to publish that as one of the laws of Mofes, which they knew to be a mere forgery.

If we go farther back into the Jewish history, we fhall ftill be unable to pitch upon any time in which any material change in the facred books could have been attempted, with the leaft profpect of fuccefs. It was one of the most earnest instructions of Mofes himself, that the book of the law, a copy of which was lodged in the ark, fhould be the fubiect

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subject of constant reading and meditation in every Ifraelitifh family; and it was exprefsly appointed that it should be read publicly every feven years, at the feaft of Tabernacles, Deut. xxxi. 9, 13; and the Levites, who were difperfed through all the twelve tribes, were particularly appointed to study and to explain it to the reft of the nation} and, notwithstanding the times of defection and idolatry, they were never intirely without prophets, and even many thousands of others, who continued firm in the worship of the true God, and therefore must have retained their regard to the facred books of the Law.

As to the alarm of king Jofiah and his court, on finding a copy of the Law in the temple, it may be accounted for many ways better than upon the fuppofition of that being the first copy of all, either imposed upon the king, or imposed by him upon the people; neither of which could poffibly have been effected. It is not improbable, but that this particular copy might have been the original one, which had been taken out of the ark, and miflaid, in fome former idolatrous reign; and the paffages which they read might contain some awful denunciations against idolatry, to which they had given but little attention before. Whatever we may conjecture with respect to this particular fact, it can never be thought in the leaft probable, that a nation fo prone to idolatry as the Ifraelites were,

from

from the time of their fettlement in the land of Canaan to the Babylonifh captivity, should either forge, or not detect and expofe the forgery of books pretending to fo high authority, and fo hoftile to their favourite propenfity.

Upon the whole, the Jews have, no doubt, acted the part of moft faithful and even fcrupulous guardians of their facred books, for the ufe of all the world in the times of christianity. After the laft of their prophets, Malachi, they admitted no more books into their canon, fo as to permit them to be read in their fynagogues, though they were written by the most eminent men in their nation; it being a maxim with them, that no book could be entitled to a place in the canon of their scriptures, unless it was written by a prophet, or a person who had had communication with God.

That the fcriptures of the Old Teftament have not been materially corrupted by the Jews fince the promulgation of christianity, notwithstanding it is thought that, out of enmity to christianity, they attempted it in a few paffages, (though it was more with respect to the Septuagint Greek than the original Hebrew) is evident from the many prophecies ftill remaining in their fcriptures, concerning the humiliation and fufferings of the Meffiah, in which the chriftians always triumphed when they difputed with the Jews. Thefe paffages, therefore, we may affure ourselves, would L 5

have

have been the firft that the Jews would have prac tifed upon, if it had been in their power, or in their inclination to do it.

All the books of feripture have alfo many internal marks of their being the genuine production of the ages in which they are faid to have been written, as they contain fo many allufions to particular perfons, places, opinions, and cuftoms, which are known, from other allowed hiftories, to have exifted in thofe times; and the hiftorical incidents which the facred writers occafionally mention, are fufficiently agreeable to other authentic accounts; the variations being no greater than fuch as are to be found in other genuine hiftories of the fame period. This branch of the evidence of christianity has also been particularly illuftrated by Dr. Lardner.

SECTION II.

Of the evidence from teftimony in favour of the chriftiax

revelation.

TAKING it for granted that the books of fcripture are the genuine productions of the

perfons and times to which they are usually afcribed, I fhall proceed to confider the value of the evidence which they contain, for those facts, on

which the truth of the Jewish and christian religions depends, beginning with the latter.

We find in the books of the New Teftament, and especially the four Evangelifts, and the book of Acts, not only that twelve perfons who are called apofiles, but that thousands of others were witneffes of a continued courfe of miracles performed by Jefus Chrift, during the whole courfe of his ministry; especially that he was actually put to death, and that great numbers of perfons had the most satisfactory evidence that he rose again from the dead, as he himself had foretold. These were perfons who had attended upon him conftantly, and had had the faireft opportunity of inquir ing into the truth of the facts. Many of thefe witnesses of the miracles of Chrift were ftrangers, and others were his moft inveterate enemies; who, notwithstanding this, could not deny but that he performed many real miracles, though they afcribed some of them to the agency of evil spirits.

The miracles of Christ were of fo great notoriety, that Peter, addreffing himself to the body of the Jews at Jerufalem, within a fhort time after the refurrection, had no occafion to produce any particular witneffes of them; but, without being contradicted by any perfon, appealed to the whole body of the people prefent, as having already the fullest conviction concerning them, Acts ii. 22. St. Paul, alfo, when he had an audience of King Agrippa,

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