5. The miracles which were wrought in attestation of Christianity were performed, not in favour of a religion already dominant, but of one that was new, and which was altogether opposed to the deep-rooted prepossessions of those to whom it was addressed. And the triumph of this religion over all the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the world wielded for its destruction, can only be accounted for by admitting that the numerous miracles said to have been wrought by the Founder and first teachers of Christianity, were the works which none but God can perform.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY.

THE other branch of the external evidence is prophecy, or the prediction of future events depending on the action of free agents. The teacher who tells us that he is commissioned by God, and acts under his direction, and who instantly performs a miracle in proof of the reality of his claim, must be received as a divine messenger. But it is obvious, that the same evidence would not be afforded by uttering a prediction in regard to some future event. The mere utterance of the prediction is no proof of the divine mission of the speaker apart from its fulfilment. Those only who witness its fulfilment have the evidence that its author was a prophet.

The completion of prophecy furnishes the most powerful evidence of the truth and divine authority of the revelation which it is designed to attest. For, if God alone can see the end from the beginning, so as to foreknow events which are future and contingent, it follows that he, who can foretell such events, must be under the inspiration of God. We shall find in the evidences by which divine revelation is attested a system of prophecy which extends from the beginning to the end of time.

BOOK III.

ON THE GENUINENESS, AUTHENTICITY, AND INTEGRITY OF THE SCRIPTURES OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: THE TERMS GENUINE AND AUTHENTIC DEFINED.

1. In order to establish the divine authority of the Old Testament Scriptures, we must previously prove them to be genuine and authentic. We shall now briefly adduce the evidence, or rather as much of it as is necessary to carry conviction to every mind, of the unquestionable reality of both. We shall direct our chief attention to the Pentateuch, because, if the authenticity of that be established, the genuineness and authenticity of the other books of the Old Testament will be readily admitted as also proved.

2. The question as to the genuineness and authenticity of the Old Testament Scriptures is of fundamental importance. As they profess to be of divine origin, every reflecting person will naturally inquire, Were they written by the authors whose names they bear, and at the periods to which the events narrated in them relate? Are they genuine? Are they authentic? A book may be genuine that is not authentic, and a book may be authentic that is not genuine. I understand the epithet genuine to signify that which is opposed to spurious or counterfeit; authentic, what is contradistinguished from fictitious.

The history which a novelist gives of an imaginary cha racter is genuine, because it is written by him and bears his name; but it is not authentic, being a mere effort of the author's invention in the production of fiction. An authentic narrative is the true account of events that really happened. A book is both genuine and authentic that has been written by the person whose name it bears, and when the information it contains is given on the best authority, and regards persons and events that had real existence.

3. The terms in question have been used in a different acceptation by Principal Hill and Dr John Cook. The latter, in his elaborate inquiry into the books of the New Testament, uses the term authenticity to signify, not the truth of the information contained in writings, but the fact of their having been written by the persons to whom they are ascribed, just in the sense in which I use the term genuine. I shall, however, continue to employ the epithet authentic to signify works that contain true information.

4. I may observe here, that some of the topics which I shall illustrate under the head of the Internal Evidence, might be fitly adduced in proof of the genuineness and authenticity of the Scriptures. But under this latter head I shall adduce all that is necessary to establish the very important positions which I have in view.

5. That Moses was the lawgiver of Israel, and that he gave them a written record of the laws which had been issued by him, and of the events which accompanied the earlier part of the dispensation of which he was the founder, are facts which all antiquity has acknowledged. That the Pentateuch was the record which was thus communicated, has also been universally owned, and admits of ample proof. We have indeed the strongest evidence in attestation of the fact, that the sacred books in our possession, which bear his name, were written by him; for, from the beginning of the Jewish history till the present day, in every age and country, these writings, by general

consent, are attributed to Moses as their author. At every step, as we travel backward through the intervening centuries, this point is most fully and incontrovertibly established.

6. If we begin this investigation at the Christian era, we shall find that two hundred years before that period, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, the Pentateuch, with the other books of the Old Testament, was translated into Greek for the use of the Alexandrian Jews; and from the almost universal prevalence of that language, it henceforth became very widely disseminated, and was thus made accessible to the learned and inquisitive of every country. That Greek translation, or the Septuagint, proves that the books of Moses, in common with the other books of the Old Testament, must have existed two hundred years before Christ, because there is that correspondence between the two which proves that the former is a version of the latter. But it is not more certain that the Pentateuch existed two hundred years before Christ, than that it must have been in existence in the days of Ezra at the time of the return from Babylon, in the year before Christ 536. That it was written before the time of Ezra, and that it was known to the people of Israel before that era, are points equally certain, for, in the Book of Ezra, the law of Moses, the man of God, is specifically referred to as a well-known written document then actually existing; and in the succeeding book of Nehemiah, we are informed of the manner in which that written document was openly read to the people under the name of the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel.

7. It claims our particular notice here, that it was the people themselves who called upon Ezra to read that book, as a work with which they had long been familiarly acquainted. All the people gathered themselves together as one man, and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded

to Israel.*

:

And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people: also, day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the Book of the Law of God. We find, also, the leading facts of the Mosaic narrative thus alluded to in prayer, in the hearing of all the people, as things with which they were familiar:-" Thou, even thou, art Lord alone thou hast made heaven the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all. Thou art the Lord the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham: and foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with him, to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, to his seed, and hast performed thy words; for thou art righteous and didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red sea: and shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land; for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them: so didst thou get thee a name, as it is this day. And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land: and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters. Moreover, thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go. Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, and statutes, and commandments: and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant: and gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the

• Nehemiah viii. ix. x.