must be gradual, and slowly prepare our spirits for another and a higher state, where the vail of the flesh, which now dims our vision, being rent in sunder, the spirit of God shall shine upon us with all its brightness. Children as we are in knowledge in this our present temple, all our sacrifices are imperfect-the spirit only half contrite, the will but half resigned--and all the gifts of God, his grace, his peace and purity, are imperfectly accepted, although these sacrifices have a natural fitness to train us up to heaven, and are offered by our High Priest that sitteth at the right hand of God, and are but the foretaste and the earnest of the good things which he has prepared for them that love him, when that which is in part shall be done away, and we shall know even as we are known! Let us remember, therefore, that while we are passing on from life to death, while we dwell in the world of sense, the house not made with hands is rising up in regions beyond our ken! But into that house, into that heavenly Jerusalem, none can enter but the Israelite, whose heart has long been fixed upon it in faith-who has learned to see and discern its courts, its altars, its worship and its pleasures in the Church that is below! who has used the things that are seen only as his passage to those that are unseen, and things temporal only as his path to things eternal.

LECTURE II.

2 PETER I. 6.

We have not followed cunningly devised fables.

IN entering on the subject, which I propose to consider in these Lectures, it is necessary to remark, that the first enquiry that will occupy our attention, is of a purely historical character. The object of these Lectures is to ascertain the effects which the Law of Moses produced among the Jews, at various times during the seasons of its acceptance or neglect; and as the plain and simple narrative of the earliest parts of the Jewish History will form the groundwork of all the inferences I draw, all the views I espouse, it seems but right to place before you some of the reasons which induce me to believe that this plain and simple narrative stands undamaged by any of the late attempts to shake its credibility. But before we proceed to the discussion itself, let me remind you, that, although the origin of the Laws of Moses be a question which is here considered only on historical grounds, it is a question fraught with consequences of the deepest moment to the most vital doctrines of Christianity. The plain and

simple statements of the Pentateuch are the foundation of a large portion of the reasoning of St Paul; and if the Pentateuch be, as some would persuade us, the work of a later age than that of Moses, and if it be a collection of documents written at various times, by unknown authors, all our notions on these reasonings must be changed. Now, however this consideration might, in the first instance, bias my opinion, however it might dispose me to receive with the utmost possible caution any arguments which attempted to set aside the commonly received notions on the subject, I think historical arguments and historical evidence must always be attentively considered and fairly weighed'. I have, therefore, in the examination of this question, endeavoured to ascertain the value of the arguments brought against us, entirely abstracting from all consideration of the consequences to which they may lead; and I confess, that the longer I dwell upon the new hypothesis, or rather the new hypotheses, which have been proposed, the more strongly I feel convinced of the unsoundness of the grounds on which they are advanced, and of the truth of the one simple statement of Scripture.

The Scriptures fear no enquiry, they ask no fa

1 I must request my readers to compare this with a similar sentiment more fully expressed in the Preface to Keil's Apologetischer Versuch, &c. p. x. xI.

vour, but they demand from every man who attempts to investigate the historical evidence on which they rest, a promise that he will search as fully as he is able, never reposing on mere assertions against them, however strong, nor acquiescing in hypotheses, however specious, without the fullest examination of the foundations on which they rest, and a fair trial of the difficulties consequent upon their admission. It must be remembered, that the mere existence of difficulties, the existence of a few points which we may be unable to clear up, is no valid objection against the truth of our historical Scriptures. The very hypothesis, which is invented to avoid one difficulty, is, perhaps, chargeable with many others of a different and a far more formidable character. It would be easy to shew, that scarcely any two writers, who have departed from the common opinions on this subject, agree in all, or in most material points; that there are scarcely any wild opinions which have not found an advocate; and that the most contradictory positions have been maintained by writers who profess to enquire on the selfsame principles.

One writer, for instance, informs us, that the Law was composed by Hilkiah, and then improves upon his opinion by informing us, that he preserved the copies by him for seventeen years, and then issued a new edition of it, containing a small

He is

addition to the prophecies of Balaam'. followed in this extravagance by his translator and

A very full enumeration of the writers who have espoused the notion that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch, is given by Hartmann, Ueber den Pent. p. 4-71. He is himself one of the most strenuous advocates of its nonMosaic origin. Many of his reasons and opinions will be canvassed in the Notes and the Appendix to these Lectures.

From the chronological sketch of the controversies relative to the genuineness of the Pentateuch prefixed to Dr A. T. Hartmann's Historisch-Kritische Forschungen über die Bildung, &c. der 'Fünf Bücher Mose's,' it would appear, that (with the exception of Aben-Ezra) Spinoza was the first who advanced with any confidence the notion that Moses was not the author of the books usually attributed to him. (See Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' cap. VIII. IX.) The older writers on this question are too well known to require enumeration here; more especially as this task has been so fully performed by Hartmann. My remarks apply only, or chiefly, to arguments brought forward since the publication of Dr Graves's Lectures, or works not noticed by him. The passage in the text alludes to M. Volney, (Récherches Nouvelles sur l'Histoire Ancienne, ch. v-xI. From XI-XIX. he considers the Book of Genesis, which he supposes to be a Chaldean document retouched and arranged by Hilkiah, &c.) M. Volney sums up the result of his speculations in the following manner:

"Ainsi nous nous voyons sans cesse ramenés à nos deux propositions fondamentales, savoir:

"Que Moïse n'est point l'auteur du Pentateuque, et que Helqiah est cet auteur, indiqué par une foule de circon

stances!"

He finds internal and external proofs of these propositions. His internal proofs consist chiefly of some resemblances between the Book of Deuteronomy and the Prophecies of Jeremiah contained in his first six chapters, which he supposes to relate to an irruption of Scythians in the year 625

B. C.