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"tents, and unto the land of your possession, which Moses the "servant of the Lord gave you on the other side Jordan. But "take diligent heed to do the commandment and the Law, "which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you, to love "the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep "his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him "with all your heart and with all your soul." And, to close all, when Joshua was old, and was conscious of his approaching death, he "called for all Israel, and for their Elders, and "for their Heads, and for their Judges, and for their Officers;" he recounts the benefits of God, he recapitulates the history and the warnings of the Pentateuch, and commanded them, "Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is "written in the book of the Law of Moses, that ye turn not "aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left. And the "people said unto Joshua, the Lord our God will we serve, "and his voice will we obey: so Joshua made a covenant with "the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance "in Shechem; and Joshua wrote these words in the book of the "Law of God, and set up a monument of the transaction by the "sanctuary of the Lord."* Now what was this book of the Law? Undoubtedly the same of which it is said, that "when Moses had "made an end of writing the words of the Law in a book, until they were finished; he commanded the Levites, and said, take "this book of the Law, and put it in the side of the Ark of the "Covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be a witness against "you." That book which he commanded to be read before all Israel, at the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, at the feast of tabernacles. This surely must have been the same with that which the Jews have received, from the present hour back to the Babylonish Captivity: which must have preceded that event, because it is also received by the hostile Samaritans, who were planted in Judea at the commencement of the Captivity; which must have preceded the division of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, because it was acknowledged in both; which must have preceded the establishment of the kings, because it supposes no such form of government, but rather condemns it. In a word, that book of the Law, which every writer,

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* Joshua, xxii. 2, 6. xxiv. 24—26. Vide the entire twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters.

and every sect amongst the Jews have quoted and acknowledged, in every possible form of quotation and acknowledgment, from the present period, back to the immediate successor of Moses himself, who solemnly attests its authenticity and divine original. I trust, therefore, I have sufficiently established the introductory point I wished to prove; even that the Jewish nation has received the Pentateuch, as containing an authentic account of the conduct and institutions of their celebrated legislator, from the very æra when these institutions commenced.

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 circumstances, such as is natural if Moses were the writer, unaccountable otherwise— Impartiality-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 Lawgiver†) " 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.

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