attention. Great good might be effected by popularizing a subject, unacquaintedness with which is undoubtedly one of the chief advantages permitted to infidelity, of which it has but too effectually and too disastrously availed itself, to the irreparable injury of souls, and the deep disgrace of the Christian cause.

It shall be our endeavor to present as concise a view as possible of the manner in which the canon of the scriptures has been settled, with some prefatory observations on their authority.

The two testaments are placed in widely different circumstances both as to their integrity and divine authority. The separate existence of the Jewish people, as a nation, through the whole period of their history to the present time, affords a sort of selfperpetuating guarantee, a permanent living witness, both to the general integrity, and divine inspiration, of their sacred books. Let us divest ourselves of all ideas both of the genuineness and authenticity of the Mosaic writings, and just take them up as we should works which we receive for the first time, an ancient copy of which is well known to have been long preserved. On the perusal of this professedly sacred book, we should say, if this is a true history, and bears the name of its real author, we shall find ample means of ascertaining its veracity, arising out of the events and circumstances which it records for these profess to be national documents-a national theory of religion, a national code of laws-a national history, and all these so unique, so unlike every other thing of the kind, that, if false, nothing will be easier than the detection of imposture in matters of so public a nature; while, if true, their corroboration and establishment cannot be difficult. If the writer has composed a fabulous history, a fabulous code of laws, and theory of religion-or, if the whole be partly true and partly fabulous, then nothing could be more absurd than for the author to put this forth to his countrymen as veritable, because every one of them would be able to detect the imposture, while every surrounding nation would be able to confront it as mere fable. It would have been utterly impossible for such a complicated system as that contained in the Mosaic writings ever to have gained any credit, or to have preserved it, if gained, through a single generation, upon the supposition that it had wanted its counterpart in the existence, the history, the civil and ecclesiastical polity of a real people. Again, supposing the record in question not to have been made public at the time to which it relates, not during the generation that could alone have accredited or discredited its statements, but long after, then the total absence of all collateral testimony, the silence of contemporary writers upon the events it records, the complete unconsciousness among neighbouring nations of the facts it professes to relate, or even of its professed author, as the legislator and general of the people whose origin and history it pretends to recite-would go far to

prove it, either a mere fabrication of recent times, or, if really ancient, yet certainly fabulous. But if the document be incontestibly ancient, that is, of or near the very age to which it relates, then, from its peculiar nature as a public record, a national history, and a national code of law, and system of religion, there will be discoverable, without much labour of research, ten thousand collateral circumstances which will attest its credibility.

Now this book attributes itself to a certain person as its author, who represents himself as having been brought up in Egypt, though of a race distinct from the native inhabitants, that he was educated in the court of one of its kings, that at a certain time he emancipated himself with a vast multitude of slaves of his own race from the thraldom in which they were held, led them out of the country, kept them in a migratory state for about forty years, carried on certain wars during that period with various neighbouring nations, and at length settled his people, or was the means of causing them to settle, under his successor in a certain possession, which they continued to hold for many centuries, in defiance of all the hostile attacks of powerful enemies, and all the casualties incident to a small and semi-barbarous people. These few facts, to say nothing of the rest, and of the more extraordinary ones contained in the record, supply various points of contact with other sources of information, by which the general truth or falsity of the work may be ascertained. If this author was known at or about the time, as the leader and legislator of the Jews; if among the Jews and among other nations there remain traditions of these events accordant with the writings of Moses, if his name and character appear to have been familiarly known to his contemporaries of other nations, and if there is every internal as well as external evidence, that he was the author of the work ascribed to him, evidence at least equal to that on which we concede the genuineness of any other ancient writings, then we cannot reasonably refuse to accept these as the works of the Jewish legislator.

The Mosaic books profess to be a public record, and to contain mainly well known and public facts, though for a special religious purpose it extends its communication beyond the people to whom it particularly refers, and even beyond the sphere of tradition, to events and circumstances, concerning which no source but revelation could afford certain knowledge. But leaving what is strictly matter of revelation, we may find in that portion of its contents which related to the Jewish nation sufficient means of testing its credibility. We wish it to be particularly observed, that it did not first come to light as an ancient document; it did not come forth, professing to have been written at a certain remote period, and to detail extraordinary events, of which nobody had ever heard till it announced them; it had not remained buried, or locked up in some tomb, or cabinet, or in an unknown language,

through many centuries, till some discoverer brought it to light. But it was written and made public, and generally appealed to during the lifetime of its author, and in fact had become, long before his death, the law of the people over whom he ruled. The whole nation of the French are not more certain of the genuineness of the Code Napoleon, nor the English of their Magna Charta, than the Jews of that age, and of every succeeding age, of the genuineness of their Mosaic history, their civil and ecclesiastical code. From the time of its first promulgation, during the life of their founder and legislator, the whole nation were either in possession of the record, or fully informed of its contents; had read it, or were accustomed to hear it read, and recognized it, both as a true history of their public affairs, and an exact account of that peculiar religion which they had observed and practised from the date of their sojourn in the wilderness. At the time of their first reception of this work of Moses, there were alive a large proportion of the parties concerned in the history. It was in fact the history of themselves, and the main part, therefore, of the circumstances related in it, were as familiarly known to themselves as to their legislator. The publicity of the recorded events, as well as the publicity of the record itself-followed by its immediate reception by the whole people at the time, and succeeded by its unquestioned authority through all their future generations, afford to us an ample guarantee, both of its genuineness and authenticity. The whole nation of the Jews were the witnesses to the authenticity of the detail contained in the books of Moses, as well as to the authorship and they are accordingly often and openly appealed to, as the still living witnesses to the truth of the matters therein narrated.

The generations that immediately succeeded that first race, which witnessed the transactions and attested the truth of the public records, were competent judges of these two points, first, whether such a public document had been in existence before their time, had been spoken of by their fathers, and taught to themselves as containing both their law and their religion, or whether it had first been heard of in their own day. The total silence of their predecessors or elders upon the record or the matters contained in it would afford a convincing proof that it could not have had any previous existence, and certainly could not have been known as a public document, the only accredited standard of law and religion. It would be hard indeed to conceive that the first generation after that contemporary with Moses, could ever have been deceived into the belief, that their law had existed as a written document before their age, if it had only arisen to notoriety and been established in the times that themselves had witnessed. A nation may be persuaded to believe a thing on the credit of others-concerning which they could pretend to no

knowledge themselves. But no people, we suppose, were ever yet persuaded to believe that a law, enacted in their own days, was enacted before they were born, or that an event they had themselves witnessed, had really not taken place in their own age, but properly belonged to that of their ancestors. It would hence be impossible to gain general credit for any public document under such circumstances. The obvious fallacy of its statements would effectually preclude its reception. No nation would suffer itself to be imposed upon by a record so utterly false. Its authority never could be established, even among barbarians. The attempt to persuade them that they had received their religion from their fathers, and had heard them tell of a law, a religion, and a history, all of which had first been divulged and published in their own times, would be rejected as too absurd even for fable. But the Jews of the time of Moses did receive his writings, as containing an account of facts which themselves had witnessed, and of the religious observances which commenced in their own age, as well as of the national polity by which they were first incorporated.

But the case is greatly strengthened when we advert to the nature of the facts recorded; for their being extraordinary, and in some instances miraculous, and yet all alleged to have taken place openly and before the eyes of the whole people, it would become still more incredible to suppose that an immense number of persons who had never witnessed any of them, should be persuaded to believe and admit they had. Can any one believe it possible for a living writer to produce, and cause to be universally accepted as true, a history which should state that all the contemporaries of his own nation, and of about his own age, had formerly lived in a state of slavery to a neighbouring nation; and that about forty years since, he had delivered them in a certain manner from that vassalage, and brought them into the possession of the land they inhabited ;-that in their course they had witnessed the miraculous dividing of a large body of waters to admit their passage; that they had for a number of years been living on a peculiar kind of food, which fell in the night upon the ground, and was gathered every morning for their daily supply? Not only would it be found impracticable to persuade a whole people that they had seen and experienced things so strange, when nothing of the kind had really occurred, but the very attempt would be ridiculed, and if it did not bring upon its author the indignation of his people, it would at least defeat itself, by sinking into immediate contempt and forgetfulness. It is not in the nature of things that it could be respected as true, or that the law combined with it could have exercised any authority over the understandings and consciences of men. The whole must have been instantly scouted as a barefaced attempt at imposition. It

could have gained credit and permanence among no people. Many false records have no doubt been fabricated, and many fabulous narratives have been believed,-but never by the parties to whom they principally related, when their own consciousness supplied the evidence of that falsity. The detection of the imposture would be entirely in their own hands, and it is impossible to admit that a whole people could be brought to assent to the truth of a record essentially false, especially when its authority was employed to bring them under the restraints of a law, which the greater part of them loathed and complained of as an intolerable burden. The necessary inference is, that the Jews of that age must have known the truth of the Mosaic history, and have felt the divine authority of the code of law under which they were then placed, and that their successors of the next and of all following generations, must have found it impossible to shake the foundation of their great legislator's authority; or to shake off from their own shoulders the stringent obligations to obey it, and to transmit it unimpaired and unimpeached to their descendants age after age; or otherwise, had there been a flaw in his statements, or a want of authority in his law, they would gladly and long since have delivered themselves from the yoke, under which they have so often groaned, but which has held them, as with an adamantine fetter, to the law and religion of their forefathers.

Some general rules have been laid down by learned men as applicable to the belief of such matters of fact as are recorded in the Mosaic history. When these four criteria meet in reference to any alleged facts, those facts may be admitted as certainly true. 1. If the things recorded be such as the witnesses might judge of by their senses.

2. If the transactions or events were open and public.

3. If some public monuments and national observances were expressly appropriated to keep up the memory of them.

4. If such monuments are known to have been erected, and such national observances to have commenced, at the precise period of the facts which they were designed to perpetuate, or immediately after, while the memory and impression of them was strong and universal.

Dr. Middleton is said to have endeavored for twenty years to find out some pretended or fabulous narrative, to which these four rules should apply, but without success.

It may, therefore, be safely affirmed, that the genuineness and authenticity of the Mosaic records are substantiated by ample evidence, such as no other facts, no other records, of ancient history possess and that, if these be set aside, all history must be abandoned as fable. In the first place, the facts and circumstances were all public,-we speak of those which took place during the lifetime of Moses: secondly, they were of such a character that