dental introduction of the miracles, and their being blended with other facts not miraculous, but tending to impress the same conclusion, natural? Does not the whole appear totally unlike the timidity and artifice of fiction or imposture?

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It might be proved by a minute induction of every instance in which the miracles are referred to in Deuteronomy, that the allusion is naturally suggested by the nature of the topic which the legislator wishes to enforce ; and that it is addressed to the people in that manner, which would be clear and forcible if they had been spectators of the miracle alluded to, and on no other supposition. Thus the whole miracle is never related, but that leading circumstance selected which suited the present subject. When, in the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, he calls on the people to keep and do the statutes and judgments which he taught them, and to teach them to their sons, and their sons' sons; his argument is derived from the solemn manner in which the people had heard them promulgated by the voice of God himself: "Especially," says he, "in the day when ye stood "before the Lord your God in Horeb ; when the Lord said unto 'me, Gather the people together, and I will make them hear "my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that "they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their "children. And ye came near and stood under the mountain, "and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, "with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. And the Lord "spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice "of the words, but saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice." ask why, of the many awful circumstances attending this dread appearance, is this of their having seen no similitude thus singled out? The next paragraph explains: “Take there"fore good heed unto yourselves, for ye saw no manner of "similitude on the day when the Lord spake unto you in Horeb "out of the midst of the fire; lest ye corrupt yourselves, and "make you a graven image.". Now here let me ask, Would it have been natural to ground this prohibition against making a graven image, not on the absurdity of it, not on the danger of its leading them to forget God, but simply on this circumstance, of their having seen no similitude when God spake to them in fire from mount Horeb? Would this, I ask, have been natural, if any doubt could have been raised on this particular fact, or if

We

may

this account had been first published when all the generation who could be supposed to witness this fact had disappeared?

Another circumstance still more remarkable occurs in this exhortation. The Midianites had seduced the Israelites to join in their idolatry to Baal Peor. The original narrative relates the manner in which this took place ;* and states, that a plague from the Lord destroyed 24,000 Jews, and that it was stayed by the zeal of Phineas, in putting two of the highest rank amongst the offenders to death. The legislator, in order to deter the Jews from idolatry, alludes to this fact; but he notices no circumstance of it but one, which, though in the original narrative not stated, was infinitely the most important to advert to on this occasion; but which no persons but spectators of the fact, and perfectly acquainted with every individual concerned in it, could possibly feel the truth of."Your eyes," says he,† "have seen what the Lord did because of Baal Peor; for‡ all "the men that followed Baal Peor, the Lord thy God hath "destroyed them from among you. But ye that did cleave "unto the Lord your God, are alive every one of you this day." It was extremely natural for Moses himself to use this argument; but I confess it seems to me improbable in the extreme, that it should be used when nobody who had been witness of the fact remained alive; or if a compiler had resolved to make this assertion at hazard, and put it in the mouth of Moses, it seems very strange, that it is the only circumstance he should forget to notice in the direct narrative, and the only one he should notice in his reference to it.

I add some few instances of incidental allusions to miracles, to show how naturally they are introduced, and how exactly the manner in which they are spoken of, suits the situation of Moses himself addressing the eye-witnesses of the fact.

The Ten Commandments had been the only precepts of the Law, which God had distinctly proclaimed from mount Horeb to the assembled nation of the Jews; the rest of it had been promulgated by Moses himself, as the divine command. Now how does he argue with the people, in order to induce them to receive what he announced as the divine will, equally with that

*Numb. xxiv.

+ Deut. iv. 3 and 4. How decidedly does this statement justify the punishment extending to such a multitude; a circumstance so often objected to.

which God himself had directly proclaimed? He might have urged that the miracles which God had wrought by him, established his divine authority; that the Ten Commandments, being of pre-eminent importance, God had himself proclaimed them to impress them the more deeply, and chosen to employ him as the medium of conveying the rest of the Law. He might have urged the severe punishments which God had inflicted on those who had contested against his divine mission (as he does in another * passage,) and rested the point on these arguments; but he chooses a quite different ground. He states, that the people had declined hearing the rest of the Law directly from God himself, and had entreated that it should be conveyed to them through him. He recites the Ten Commandments, and adds, "These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the "mount, out of the midst of the fire, and he added no more; "and he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them "unto me. And ye came near unto me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders; and ye said, This great fire will 66 consume us: if we hear the voice of the Lord our God

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any

more, then we shall die. Go thou near, and hear all that "the Lord our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that "the Lord our God shall speak unto thee, and we will hear it, "and do it." Such is the ground on which Moses claims the obedience of the people to the statutes and judgments which he asserts the Lord commanded him to teach them. Now if this argument had never been used by the legislator, if the fact had never occurred, if the Pentateuch had been the invention of fancy, or even the compilation of some historian long subsequent to the events, what could lead him to clog his narrative with such a circumstance as this? In short, what but truth and reality could suggest such an argument, or gain it the slightest credit from the people to whom it was addressed?

Sometimes the allusions to the miracles are so brief, that their application to the topic which it is meant to enforce cannot be made without an intimate knowledge of the facts. Exhorting the people to love and obey God, it is said, "If ye hearken to "these judgments, the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, "and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt (which thou knowest) upon thee:" commanding the people, that in the * Deut. xi. 6. Ibid. v. 22, &c.

Deut. vii. 12 & 15.; & Exod. xv. 26.

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plague of leprosy they should do according to all that the Priests and the Levites should teach them. To confirm this injuction it is added, "Remember what the Lord thy God did unto Mi"riam by the way, after that ye were come forth out of "Egypt." Threatening the people with punishment, if they should "at all forget the Lord their God, and walk after other gods," it is said, if ye do so, "I testify against you this day, "that ye shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord "destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish."+ Commanding the Jews to take care lest in their prosperity they forget their God, it is added. "God, who brought thee forth "out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage, and led thee "through that great and terrible wilderness, where were fiery "serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no "water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; "who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy "fathers knew not, that he might humble thee. Thou shalt "remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth."‡ And again, "Love the Lord, and "keep his charge; for I speak not with your children which "have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement "of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and "his stretched-out arm, and his miracles, and his acts, which "he did in the midst of Egypt, unto Pharaoh the king of "Egypt, and all his land; and what he did unto the army of "Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots, how he made "the water of the Red Sea to overflow them, as they pursued “after you, and how the Lord hath destroyed them unto this "day; and what he did unto you in the wilderness, until 66 ye came unto this place; and what he did unto Dathan "and Abiram the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the "earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their “households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in "their possession in the midst of all Israel. But your eyes "have seen all the great acts of the Lord, which he did. There "fore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command "you this day."§ Is not this brief allusion to all the miracles which God had wrought, this more full statement of two, cal

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* Compare Numbers, xii. with Deut. xiv. 9. Deut. viii. 14—18.

+ Deut. viii. 19, 20. Ibid. xi. 1 to 8.

culated, the one to inspire gratitude, and both to strike terror? Is not resting the credit of the facts on the persons addressed, being themselves spectators of these facts, and not merely the children of those who had been spectators; is not all this natural in Moses addressing his cotemporaries? Would it not be most unnatural in any body else, addressing the Jews at any subsequent period?

In the promises of divine assistance which Moses announces to the people, I meet with one circumstance of a very singular nature. When he encourages the people not to be afraid of the nations of Canaan, as mightier than themselves, and declares God shall deliver them unto thee, and destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed, he interposes this limitation: "I will not drive them out from before thee in one "year, lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee; by little and little I will drive them "out from before thee, until thou be increased and inherit the "land." ** Here is a remarkable instance of miraculous interference being extended no further than was absolutely necessary, and combined with a regard to the general analogy of nature and the regular course of Providence. Would the author of a fictitious narrative, the compiler of fugitive and uncertain traditions, have thought of such a limitation, when his whole object must have been to exalt the divine power, whose interference he described as immediate and resistless?

In the account of the return of Moses from Mount Sinai, after having received the tables of the Ten Commandments, a second time, a remarkable fact is related. "When he came "down from the mount, Moses wist not that the skin of his "face shone. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel

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saw it, they were afraid to come nigh him. And Moses called

"unto them; and till he had done speaking with them, he put

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a vail on his face. But when he went in before the Lord to

speak with him, he took the vail off until he came out."+ This divine splendor caught, as it were, from the near approach to the glory of the divine presence, with which the inspired legislator had just been honored, was admirably calculated to impress the Jewish people (ever strongly affected by sensible objects) with reverence for the Lawgiver and his Laws. But † Exod. xxxiv. 29, &c.

* Deut. vii. 22.