recognizing one High Priest, by whom they were to consult the oracle; and commands all the males of the twelve tribes to repair three times a-year to their common Temple, to join in a common form of worship, in adoration of their common God. This system was therefore entirely unfavourable to the views of the kings of Israel. If, then, its authority had not been acknowledged before the separation of the two kingdoms would these monarchs, so watchful and so politic in guarding their separate sway, have permitted it to be introduced and received, to be fabricated and imposed upon the whole Jewish race, and published before the face of that part of it which they governed, as the system which both nations, when united, had acknowledged as of divine authority? Would they, I say, have permitted all this, without making one effort to detect and expose an imposition so flagrant in itself, and so injurious to them? Nay, more, would they, in the very act of forming a new system of worship, while they indulged the gross ideas and idolatrous propensities of their people, by representing the true God under idolatrous symbols; would they, at that very moment, have imitated the rites, and fasts, and sacrifices, of that very code, whose influence they wished to undermine; "ordaining a feast "in the eighth month like unto the feast which is in Ju"dah!"* Assuredly not, except that code had been previously and universally admitted as of divine original, which they knew their subjects had been long habituated to reverence and obey. I conclude from hence, that the authority of the Pentateuch was acknowledged antecedent to the separation of the kingdom of Israel and Judah, above 970 years before the birth of Christ. But perhaps it may be asserted, that the support which the Pentateuch gives to the claims of the kings of Judah, renders it probable that it may have been compiled for the purpose of favouring their views: and that perhaps its authority was rejected by the kings of Israel and their subjects, though the history of their opposition is now lost-the kingdom of Judah having long survived that of Israel, and reunited all the Hebrews under one common government; and having perhaps taken care to obliterate all records that could justify the past or lead to a future separation. To this I answer, that the Samaritans, who, * 1 Kings, xii. 32. though hostile to the Jews, acknowledged the Pentateuch, succeeded to the ten tribes in the possession of their country; that they were intermingled with their posterity; and that it is not possible such a circumstance could have taken place, as that the original Samaritans should have rejected the Law which the Jews received, and for a series of 230 years should have combated its authority; and that immediately after, their successors should have received this Law, and this only, as of divine original, without preserving the least trace of its ever having been disputed; though an hostility as strong subsisted between them and the restored Jews, as had before the Captivity divided the separate kingdoms. Two particular examples, deserving peculiar attention, occur in the Jewish history, of the public and solemn homage paid to the sacredness of the Mosaic law, as promulgated in the Pentateuch, and by consequence affording the fullest testimony to the authenticity of the Pentateuch itself: the one in the reign of Hezekiah, while the separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel still subsisted and the other in the reign of his great grandson Josiah, subsequent to the Captivity of Israel. In the former we see the pious monarch of Judah,* assembling the Priests and Levites, and the rulers of the people, to deplore with him the trespasses of their fathers against the divine Law, to acknowledge the justice of those chastisements which according to the prophetic warnings of that Law had been inflicted upon them, to open the house of God which his father had impiously shut, and restore the true worship therein according to the Mosaic ritual; (with the minutest particulars of which he complied, in the sinofferings and the peace-offerings which in conjunction with his people he offered, for the kingdom and the sanctuary and the people, to make atonement to God for them, and for all Israel :) and thus restoring the service of God as it had been performed in the purest times. "And Hezekiah," (says the sacred narrative†) “rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the 'people: for the thing was done suddenly:" immediately on the king's accession to the throne, on the first declaration of his pious resolution. How clear a proof does this exhibit of the previous existence and clearly acknowledged authority of those laws which the Pentateuch contains! 66 * 2 Kings, xviii, 2 Chron. xxix, and xxx. lb. xxix. 36. 66 But a yet more remarkable part of this transaction still remains. At this time Hoshea was king of Israel, and so far disposed to countenance the worship of the true God, that he appears to have made no opposition to the pious zeal of Hezekiah. For he, with the concurrence of the whole congregation which had assembled, sent out letters, and made a proclamation, not only to his own people of Judah,* "but to Ephraim and Ma"nasseh and all Israel from Beersheba even unto Dan, that they should come to the House of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel; saying,† Ye "children of Israel, turn again to the Lord God of Abraham, "Isaac, and Jacob, and he will return to the remnant of you who "are escaped out of the hands of the kings of Assyria; and be "not ye like your fathers and your brethren, which trespassed "against the Lord God of their fathers, who therefore gave "them up to desolation as ye see. Now be ye not stiff-necked "as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and "enter into his sanctuary which he hath sanctified for ever, "and serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of his wrath "may turn away from you. So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto "Zebulun." 66 Now, can we conceive that such an attempt as this could have been made, if the Pentateuch, containing the Mosaic Code, had not been as certainly recognised through the ten tribes of Israel as in the kingdom of Judah? The success was exactly such as we might reasonably expect if it were so acknowledged ; for, though many of the ten tribes laughed to scorn and mocked the messengers of Hezekiah, who invited them to the solemnity of the Passover, from the impious contempt which through long disuse they had conceived for it; "Nevertheless," says the sacred narrative,‡ "divers of Asher, and Manasseh, and of Zebulun, "humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem. And there as"sembled at Jerusalem much people to keep the feast of "unleavened bread in the second month, a very great congregation. And they killed the Passover; and the Priests "and Levites stood in their places after their manner, ac"cording to the law of Moses, the Man of God. So there "was great joy in Jerusalem for since the time of Solomon, 66 * 2 Chron. xxx. 1. Ib. xxx. 6. &c. Ib. xxx. 11. "the Son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like at "Jerusalem ;* and when all this was finished, all Israel that 46 were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the "images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down "the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin in 'Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed "them all." Can any clearer proof than this be desired, of the constant and universal acknowledgment of the divine authority of the Pentateuch throughout the entire nation of the Jews, notwithstanding the idolatries and corruptions which so often prevented its receiving such obedience as that acknowledgment ought to have produced? Not less remarkable was the solemn recognition of the divine authority of the Pentateuch by king Josiah and the whole people of the Jews, whose pious monarch while he was "yet young be"gan to seek after the God of David his father,"† destroying idols and banishing idolatry throughout the entire extent of his dominions, and proceeding to repair the House of the Lord, that he might restore his worship with due solemnity. On this occasion, says the narrative, when they brought out the money that had been brought into the House of the Lord (to receive which they had probably opened the most secret and secure place for a deposit in the Temple) "the priests found. "a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses," (more accurately by the hand of Moses, possibly the Sacred autograph of Moses himself originally deposited in the Ark); "and Hilkiah said to "Shaphan the Scribe, I have found the book of the Law in the "House of the Lord, and he delivered the book to Shaphan, who "read it before the king." The passage read, seems to have been that part of Deuteronomy which contains the prophetic declarations of the Lawgiver against the future apostasies of his people, which were so awful and severe as to excite the utmost terror in the young and pious monarch,§ "for he rent his clothes, and sent to enquire of the "Lord concerning the words of the book that is found; for great is "the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our "forefathers have not kept the "that is written in this book." who was consulted, declared that * 2 Chron. xxxi. + Ib. xxxiv. 3. word of the Lord, to do all denunciations of that book; but yet that, in consequence of the humiliation and repentance of the king, "he should be gathered "to the grave in peace, neither should his eyes see all the evil "which God would bring upon Jerusalem. And the king,” continues the narrative,* "went up into the House of the Lord, "and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and "the Priests and the Levites, and all the people great and small, "and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the "Covenant that was found in the House of the Lord. And the king stood in his place and made a Covenant before the Lord, "to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his "testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his "soul, to perform the words of the Covenant which were written "in this book; and he caused all them that were present in Jeru"salem and Benjamin to stand to it: and the inhabitants of Jeru“salem did according to the Covenant of their God, the God of "their fathers." 66 The sacred history proceeds to detail the particular circumstances of the Levites being employed in their due courses,† and the solemn celebration of the Passover, "as it is written in "the book of the Covenant:" and there was no such Passover says the history, kept in Israel, from the days of Samuel the Prophet: probably because the recent captivity of the ten tribes awakened the fears and secured the universal concurrence of all Judah and Israel, who were present, as well as of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; who now concurred with the king,‡ "to perform the "words of the Law, which were written in the book that Hilkiah "the priest found in the house of the Lord." Which could not possibly have been any other than the Pentateuch of Moses; probably the very copy written by himself. These facts and arguments seem sufficiently decisive. They may be confirmed by another argument from the internal structure of the Pentateuch; which I do not recollect to have seen noticed; and which not only meets this objection, but goes further: and seems to prove it highly improbable, that the Pentateuch should have been compiled and received, if of a late date or doubtful authority, during any period of the regal government in Judah. The argument is this;-that the civil form of government which the Pentateuch exhibits, IS NOT REGAL. It is indeed 2 Kings, xxiii. 24. *2 Chron. xxxiv. 30. 2 Chron. xxxv. IS. |