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LECTURE II.

The Authenticity and Truth of the four last books of the Pentateuch, proved from the subject and structure of the history, so far as the facts are not miraculous. Importance and peculiar nature of its various regulations concerning property-Publicity and importance of the main series of facts-Marks of truth in the minute detail of these facts-Simplicity of style and narrative-Selection and arrangement of facts and cir· cumstances, such as is natural if Moses were the writer, unaccountable otherwiseImpartiality Comparison of the Pentateuch, in this respect, with Josephus.

DEUTERONOMY, xxxi. 9.

'And Moses wrote all this Law, and delivered it unto the Priests, the sons of Levi, and unto all the Elders of Israel."

Ir is the object of these lectures, to prove the divine original of that Law which the Jewish legislator is stated to have thus solemnly delivered to his nation. The four last books of the Pentateuch contain this Law, and the history of the facts on which its authority is founded. It is therefore necessary to prove that these books are genuine, and the history they relate true. The proof of this may be deduced, either from the external testimony by which their truth and genuineness is supported, or from the internal structure of the works themselves. The former topic I have already noticed, and endeavoured to show that these books have been received by the Jews from the very first settlement of their nation, as containing an authentic and faithful account of their Lawgiver and his institutions. And if they have been so received, we can scarcely doubt the truth of the facts which they detail. For it must be remembered, that the history does not relate the origin of the Jews as a nation, after a length of time had elapsed, when we might suppose fiction may have been employed to conceal the weakness or the barbarism of its infancy; but that it was published and received

while these events were transacting, or immediately after they had taken place; and that it was incorporated with the system of Laws by which the religion of the people was from the very first regulated; on which their liberties were founded; by which the rights and privileges of every class and every profession were adjusted; and, above all, by which the distribution and the descent of property were determined. We may also remark, that the nature of several Laws concerning property, was such, that if they had not been enacted before its distribution among the people, and established as the tenure and condition on which it was held, their introduction at any subsequent period would have excited a great ferment and great opposition. Such was the Law of release from all debts and all personal servitude every seventh year ;* and that Law which ordered, that if the property of any family had been alienated by sale, it should be restored to the family every fiftieth year, or year of Jubilee. All who know the commotions which attempts to discharge debts, and change the distribution of property, have always excited, and who recollect the examples of Sparta, Athens, and Rome, in this matter, will be sensible, that a code, containing such regulations as these, could not have been established as the regular Law of the Jewish state, without opposition, except before the distribution of property, and as the condition on which it was held; and therefore before the settlement of the Jews in the land of their inheritance.

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Another regulation as to property, occurs in Leviticus, of a singular kind,“ When," (says the Lawgivert)" ye shall come into "the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then "shall ye count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised; three years "shall it be as uncircumcised unto you: it shall not be eaten of. "But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the Lord withal. And in the fifth year shall ye eat of "the fruit thereof: I am the Lord your God." Now, would such a regulation as this have been observed, if it had not been established on clear authority, before the Jews took possession of the promised land? And if it never had been established and observed, what motive could have induced a fictitious writer to load his account with so improbable and so apparently useless a cir

* Vide Deuteronomy, xv, and Leviticus, xxv.

Leviticus, xix. 23-25.

cumstance?* Does it not, therefore, supply a presumptive argument, that the system of which it forms a part, was known and received by the Jewish nation before their settlement in the promised land?

I now proceed to confirm the conclusion thus derived from the testimony of the Jewish nation, still farther, by considering the internal structure of the history itself. If the Pentateuch is not the work of Moses, it is a forgery imposed upon the nation in his name. It is totally impossible this should have been done during the life of the legislator, or immediately after his death, during the lives of his contemporaries. If then the Pentateuch was not the original record of Moses himself, it was the work of some compiler in a period long subsequent, who assumed the character, and wrote in the name of the Jewish Lawgiver, to answer some design different from genuine truth. And if so, we can hardly fail of discerning, in the texture of the work itself, marks of a compilation long subsequent to the facts it relates. We cannot but perceive some traces of the particular purpose for which it was composed. If it was calculated to obtain fame for its author, as an elaborate and beautiful composition, this will appear in its style and sentiments. If it was intended to falsify the history, in order to gratify personal vanity, party interest, or national pride, this will be discernible. Let us then examine whether the four last books of the Pentateuch are liable to any such suspicions as these. Are the facts and institutions which they contain, so public and important that we cannot suppose any account of them materially false could at any time be fabricated and imposed upon the nation? And if this be so evident that we must admit the main substance of the history to be true, yet can we be sure of truth in its minuter detail? Does this relation bear in it the marks of simplicity and undesignedness, of impartiality and sincerity? Does it exhibit such particularity, and exact suitableness to the different situations in which the author is supposed to have been placed, as indicate a writer engaged in the transactions he describes, and recording them from his own personal knowledge with exact fidelity? And finally, are the miraculous facts of the history so blended with, and

* It was not, I am persuaded, really useless; it may have been to give the trees age and strength, and to give the eaters a knowledge of what was wholesome or otherwise, which, after their long detention in the desert, they might not be sufficiently acquainted with.

so necessary to the common events, and related with such clear characters of simplicity and reality, as to form one inseparable, uniform, and consistent narrative, evidently dictated by nature and truth?

On the most cursory perusal of the four last books of the Pentateuch, it seems most evident that the main facts (considering at present only such as were not supernatural) were so public, so singular, and so important, affecting in their consequences the most valuable rights and interests of every order of society, nay, almost of every individual; that we cannot suppose any man could have ventured to fabricate a false account of them, and have been successful in gaining for such a fabrication, that universal credit and permanent authority, which it has been proved the Pentateuch certainly obtained amongst the Jews from the very commencement of their state. The rapid increase of the Jews in Egypt; the severe oppression they sustained there; the treasure cities, and other public works raised by their labours; above all, the cruel edict to destroy all their male children, in order, gradually and totally, to exterminate the nation; all these were facts, which must have been engraven on the hearts, and handed down in the traditions of every Hebrew family. Nor were the fcircumstances which led to their departure from the land of bondage, less public and notorious. On the first application of Moses, united with the Elders of Israel, to Pharaoh, entreating him to permit their departure, he was so incensed as to increase the severities under which they laboured, by a public order rigorously enforced throughout the land. The people complain heavily of this new grievance, many public interviews take place between the Jewish Lawgiver and the Egyptian monarch; at length the obstinacy of the latter is overcome, he not only permits the Jews to retire, but his people are eager to implore and hasten their departure. The Hebrews § demand of the Egyptians gold and silver and jewels, and the Egyptians comply with the demand; the nation emigrates in a great body, Pharaoh soon repents his having permitted them to retire, and pursues them with the chief force of his kingdom; the Jews notwithstanding escape, Pharaoh and his host are destroyed. Moses, instead of leading his people the shortest way to the land which they hoped to possess, detains them forty

Ibid. v.

* Exod. i.
Exod. xii. 35. Compare Exod. iii. 21.

Ibid. xii. 33. || Exod xiv.

years, marching or encamped in the wilderness of Arabia. At the †commencement of this period, he lays down a code of religious institutions and civil Laws; he builds a tabernacle of great expense and elaborate structure for divine worship, to which all the nation contributed; he sets apart a tribe for divine service, and for instructing the people in religion. At the close of their abode in the wilderness, Moses recapitulates all the Laws which he had before delivered in detail, and appeals to the people in attestation of the different events which had befallen them. He prescribes the mode in which they should divide the land they were proceeding to conquer. They take possession of so much of it as lay east of Jordan; and before they proceed to the conquest of the rest, their legislator dies, having shortly before his death composed a popular song or hymn, ¶ which he "spake in the ears of "all the congregation of Israel, and taught it them, that it should "not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed, but testify "against them," if they should attempt to forsake the Law and the God of their fathers.

Such is the series of facts which the four last books of the Pentateuch detail, separated from the miracles to which many of them are ascribed. Now can we believe that these facts were not true, and yet that the Jewish nation should have universally received them as such? Let it be remembered that this history does not recount the origin and growth of an infant colony, or the emigration of a savage horde, but the march of a numerous nation; for they** "journeyed about 600,000 men, besides women and chil"dren; and a mixed multitude went up also with them, and flocks "and herds, and very much cattle." While the magnificent structure of their tabernacle, the distribution of property, the tribe of the Levites set apart for ministers of divine worship and for public instructors, and the code of their religious and civil institutions, prove that a great degree of civilization prevailed amongst the Jews at the very time when these facts were said to have taken place. Now can we believe a nation so great and so civilized were universally and palpably deceived as to a whole series of facts, so public and important as this history details?

* Compare Numb. xiv. 33, and Deut. i. 3.

+ Vide Exodus and Leviticus, passim.

§ Numb. xxxiii. 54. Deut. xix. 3. Compare Josh. xviii.

¶ Deut. xxxii. Compare xxxi. 21.

Vide Deut. i. || Numb. xxxii.

** Exod. xii, 37, and 38.

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