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of their enterprise might be again attempted with probability of But how strange and unparalleled is the conduct of the Jewish leader! He denounces against this whole rebellious multitude the extreme wrath of God: instead of animating them to resume their enterprise, he commands them never to resume it instead of encouraging them to hope for success, he assures them they never shall succeed: he suffers them not to return to Egypt, yet he will not permit them to invade Canaan. He denounces to them, that they shall continue under lus command; that he would march and countermarch them for forty years in the wilderness, until every one of the rebellious. multitude then able to bear arms should perish there; and that then, and not till then, should their children resume the invasion of Canaan, and infallibly succeed in it. "Say unto them, as truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, SO will I do to you: your carcasses shall fall in this wilder"ness; all of you, from twenty years old and upward, which "have murmured against me. But your little ones which ye "said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall "know the land which ye have despised. And your children And "shall wander forty years in this wilderness, until your car"casses be wasted in it: I the Lord have said, I will surely do "it unto all this evil congregation that are gathered together "against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and "there they shall die. Joshua and Caleb, they shall come into "the land, for they had not joined to make the congregation murmur against the Lord."

Now let me ask in seriousness and simplicity of mind, can we believe that such a denunciation as this could have been uttered by any human being, not distracted with the wildest frenzy, if it had not been dictated by the clearest divine authority; or if uttered, whether it could have been received by an entire nation, with any other sensation than that of scorn and contempt, if the manifestation of the divine power from which it proceeded, and by which alone it could be executed, had not been most certain and conspicuous? But can we be sure, it is said, that it was ever uttered? I answer, yes; because it was assuredly fulfilled. And its accomplishment forms the last particular I shall notice in the history of this unparalleled expedition, as exhibiting a fact partly natural; (for the existence of a

whole nation in a particular country for a certain length of time, is an event of a natural kind,) yet inseparably connected with a continued miraculous interposition, which if not real, no human imagination could have invented, and no human credulity believed. I mean the miraculous sustenance of the whole Jewish nation of six hundred thousand men, besides women and children, for forty years, within the compass of a barren wilderness, where a single caravan of travellers could never subsist, even marching through it by the shortest route, without having brought with them their own provisions. Yet so long the host of Israel remained in it. They had first refused to obey their leader's order to invade Canaan; then when they heard the denunciation of divine vengeance, "all the people mourned greatly, "and early the next morning they rose up and said, Lo, we be here, and we will go up to the place which the Lord hath promised for we have sinned." But "Moses said, Where"fore now do you transgress the commandment of the Lord? "but it shall not prosper. Go not up, for the Lord is not among

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you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies. But they "presumed to go up unto the hill-top: nevertheless, the Ark of "the Covenant of the Lord, and Moses, departed not out of the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites which dwelt "in that hill, came down and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah." And they returned and wept before "the Lord; but the Lord would not hearken unto their voice, nor give ear unto them. And ye abode," says their leader, (recapitulating the history of this event†) "in Kadesh (where it took place) many days. And the space in which we came from Kadesh, until we came over the brook Zered, was thirty-eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were wasted from among the host, as the Lord sware unto them." Then,

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and not before, was the Jewish host permitted to invade the country in which they were to settle: then, and not before, were they permitted to combat and to conquer.

In the interval, they were fed with food from heaven, even with‡ manna, until in the plains of Jericho they did eat of the corn of the land; and the manna ceased the morrow after they had eaten the old corn of the land.

*Numb. xiv. 39, &c.

Deut. i. 45, 46. and ií. 14.

Vide Exod. xvi and Josh. v. 12.

Here then I close this argument. And I contend, that the existence of the Jewish nation in the wilderness for forty years, their submission during that period to the authority of their leader, without attempting either to return to Egypt or to invade Canaan, is a fact which cannot be accounted for, without admitting the uninterrupted and conspicuous interference of the power of Jehovah, miraculously sustaining and governing this his chosen people; and by consequence establishing the divine original of the Mosaic Law.

LECTURE VI.

Admitting the authenticity of the Pentateuch, the miracles recorded in the four last books of it are unquestionably true, and clearly supernatural. Leslie's four marks of certainty-Their application to the Mosaic miracles-First character, the facts public -Second, clearly supernatural—Various instances of this—Third and fourth, recorded by public monuments and commemorative rites, commencing at the time of the factsInstanced in the tribe of Levi-The three great feasts-The entire Jewish ritual—The form of government—The distribution of property, &c.—RecapitulATION and Con clusion of the FIRST PART.

DEUTERONOMY, vi. 20, &c.

"When thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the sta“tutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt "say unto thy son, We were Pharoah's bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of "Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon "Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes. And the Lord commanded "us to do all these statutes."

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SUCH was the injunction of the Jewish Lawgiver to his people. He addresses them as witnesses of the miracles wrought for their deliverance; and they were to hand down to their children the statutes and judgments of their Law, derived from the command of God, whose interposition these miracles proved. It shall be my object in this Lecture to show, that this appeal of the Jewish Lawgiver to his nation, as eye-witnesses of the miracles he had wrought, is just and conclusive; that the supernatural facts he alludes to, must certainly have taken place; the Law he established, being founded on the belief of these facts, and proving their reality.

This has been a topic frequently discussed; and it would but ill suit the importance of the subject, if, in a vain affectation of novelty, I were to decline adopting the clear and decisive mode of reasoning, which Dr Leslie has employea on this sub

ject, in his "Short Method with the Deists;" which seems to me to comprise the substance of every thing material which can be adduced on this argument. I shall therefore do little more than state his mode of proof, and show the justice of its application to the Mosaic miracles.

This celebrated Author establishes the truth of the Mosaic miracles, by applying to them four rules; which, whenever they can be truly applied to any events, exclude every reasonable doubt of their reality. These rules are; first, That the facts be of such a nature, as that men's senses can clearly and fully judge of them; and in the second place, That they be performed publicly. These two rules make it impossible for any such facts to be imposed upon men at the time they are said to take place, because every man's senses would detect the imposture. The third rule is, That not only public monuments be kept up, but that some outward actions be constantly performed in memory of the facts thus publicly wrought; and the fourth, that These monuments be set up, and these actions and observances be instituted, at the very time when those events took place, and continued without interruption afterwards. These two rules render it impossible that the belief of any facts should be imposed upon the credulity of after ages, when the generation asserted to have witnessed them, has expired. For, whenever such facts come to be recounted, if not only monuments are said to remain of them, but that public actions and observances had been constantly used to commemorate them, by the nation appealed to, ever since they had taken place; the deceit must be immediately detected, by no such monuments appearing, and by the experience of every individual, who could not but know that no such actions or observances had ever been used by them, to commemorate any such events.

The part of this argument which its able author places last, even that the books containing the account of the Mosaic miracles and institutions, were written at the time of the events, and by eye-witnesses, has been, I trust, sufficiently established. We are therefore, fully prepared to examine particularly the detail of the miracles themselves, and to enquire, how far the four marks of truth which have been enumerated, can apply to them.

We may perhaps, in applying these rules to miraculous facts,