But it is not merely in the more remarkable portions of Hebrew poetry, that we find conceptions which we can account for only by referring them to a divine revelation. The Jews have left us a large collection of books, most of them in existence five centuries before Christ, throughout which, with the exception of two (the Song of Solomon, so called, and the Book of Esther), there runs a constant recognition of the being, providence, and moral government of God. The Old Testament, so insulated from all other productions of the human mind in ancient times, presents a great phenomenon in the intellectual history of our race. We may explain it at once, if we admit the divine origin of the Jewish religion; and what other solution but this can be offered ?

THERE is another striking consideration. We can discern nothing but the fact, that the religion of the Jews had been confirmed to them by indisputable evidence, as a revelation from God, which could have wrought in their minds such an invincible conviction of its truth, as to have preserved them a distinct people from a period beyond any connected and authentic records of profane history to the present day. In maintaining their faith they were for more than twenty centuries exposing themselves to the outrages of Heathens and Christians; to a persecution which even now has not everywhere subsided. Driven from their native soil, scattered among enemies, insulted, trampled upon, cruelly wronged, they have still clung to their religion, the cause of their sufferings, with inveterate constancy. From an antiquity which would be shrouded in darkness, were not a dim light cast upon it by their own history, this small people has flowed down an unmingled. stream amid the stormy waves of the world. For a phe

nomenon so marvellous it is idle to assign any ordinary causes. One cause alone explains it. We must regard it as an inexplicable wonder, or we must believe, that this people were, as they profess, separated from the rest of men by God, and this in a manner so evident, solemn and effectual, that the ineffaceable belief of the fact has been transmitted from generation to generation, as an essential characteristic of the race.

Thus we perceive, that, beside the attestation of Christianity to its truth, the Jewish dispensation has independent evidence of its own; evidence, which, so intimate is the connexion between them, is reflected on Christianity itself.

If it be asked, what was the design of the Jewish dispensation, the answer seems to be, that its main, I do no say its sole, purpose was to serve as a groundwork for Christianity. Supposing that no nation like the Jews had existed, and that polytheism had prevailed throughout the world, a messenger from God, such as Jesus Christ, mus have had no small difficulty to encounter on the very threshold of his ministry, in making his character and offic understood by men ignorant of God. If he had appeared for instance, at Athens or Rome, the very annunciation of his claims to authority would have been a sudden an strange attack on the whole established system of religion A new and vast conception, that of God, must have bee formed in the minds of men, before they could have notion of the peculiar office of him who addressed them When we look at the state of either city, it seems scarcel possible that he should have been able to collect an au dience, except of such as might have flocked to him as a extraordinary magician or theurgist. If we imagine hi to have been listened to by some with deference, as

religious teacher, yet how large a portion of such hearers would have confounded the idea of the Supreme Being, to whom there is nothing similar or second, with that of Jupiter, to whom in a very limited sense, and in the language of poetical flattery, they had been accustomed to apply such expressions; and how many might have mistaken the messenger himself for Mercury, or some other god, come down in the likeness of a man.* There would have been no preparation for his advent, no expectation of it, no previous con. ception of its nature. It would have been an insulated, incomprehensible event, connected with nothing in their history or their former belief. The ground would not have been cleared for exhibiting before mankind the marvellous transactions of such a ministry as that of Christ.

THIS view of the important purpose of the Jewish dispensation may further tend to assure us of its divine origin. But to maintain that Moses was a minister of God is one thing, and to maintain that he was the author of the Pentateuch is another. So far is the truth of either proposition from being involved in that of the other, that, in order to render it evident that Moses was from God, it may be necessary to prove that the books which profess to contain a history of his ministry were not written by him, and do not afford an authentic account of it. Whether this be so or not, may appear in some degree from what follows, in which I shall examine the probability of the supposition that these books were written by Moses.

* Acts xiv. 11, 12.

SECTION III.

On the Historical Evidence respecting the Authorship o the Pentateuch.

IN determining whether an ancient work is to be as cribed to a particular author, we must begin with the his torical evidence.

"Ezra

Respecting the Pentateuch we will first consider t evidence that relates to its history subsequent to the retur of the Jews from their Captivity (B. C. 536). This ev dence is sufficient to render it probable, that it was existence somewhere about a century after that event. Th date that has been assigned for Ezra's reading "the La of Moses" to the people, as related in the eighth chapt of Nehemiah, is the year 454 before Christ.* says Prideaux, "reformed the whole state of the Jewis Church according to the Law of Moses, in which he w excellently learned, and settled it upon that bottom, upd which it afterwards stood to the time of our Saviour." This statement expresses what has been the common beli on the subject. Perhaps too much agency may be ascrib in it to Ezra alone. But it seems not improbable, th within his lifetime the Jews who had returned to Palesti were formed anew into a state on the basis, generally, the Levitical Law. Ezra, it is said, read the Book of t Law of Moses to the people. But there is nothing to ide

* That is, about a thousand years, as commonly reckoned, af the death of Moses, B. C. 1451.

+ Prideaux's Connexion of the History of the Old and New Tes ment. Part I. Book 5. Vol. II. p. 460. 10th Ed. 1729.

tify this Book of the Law with the whole five books of the Pentateuch. Admitting that the Levitical Law existed in all its extent in the time of Ezra, yet we cannot infer from this fact alone, that it was then incorporated with the historical portion of the Pentateuch. If this union, however, did not then exist, it was probably effected not long after. The Septuagint translation of the Pentateuch was made in the first half of the third century before Christ. The origin of the Samaritan Pentateuch (that which was used by the Samaritans, written in their own alphabetical characters,) we may, with Prideaux and others,* refer to the time when a temple was built on Mount Gerizim, and the temple-worship introduced among the Samaritans by Manasseh and his associates, as related by Josephus. This, according to Josephus,† was during the reign of Alexander, about 330 years before Christ. Some, however, have assigned to it an earlier date, namely, about the beginning of the fourth century before Christ. ‡

But, if the Pentateuch existed in the time of Ezra, or not long after, this fact alone does not afford any proof that it was then ascribed to Moses as its author. To this point we shall hereafter advert. But we may here observe, that the Pentateuch itself, while it assumes to be an authentic account of the deeds and laws of Moses, puts forward no claim to being considered as his work. Though he were

* Prideaux's Connexion, Part I. Book 6. Vol. II. p. 597, seqq. Simon, Histoire Crit. du V. T., Liv. I. c. 10. — Idem, Critique de la Bibliothèque et des Prolegomenès de M. Du Pin. Tome III. p. 148, ·Van Dale, De Origine et Progressu Idololatriæ, pp. 75– 82. p. 681, seqq. Gesenius, De Pentateucho Samaritano, § 2.

seqq.

Antiq. Jud. Lib. XI. cc. 7,8.

Compare Josephus with Nehemiah, xiii. 28, and see Prideaux's Connexion, P. I. B. 6. Vol. II. p. 588, seqq.