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"Ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; “and the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, “and dwell therein in safety. But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; I also will set "my face against you, and I will bring the land into desolation, "and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at "it; and I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw "out a sword after you, and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your Sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it."*

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How incredible is it, that any legislator would have ventured to propose such a law as this, or any people have submitted to receive it, except in consequence of the fullest conviction on both sides, that a divine authority had dictated this law, and that a peculiar providence would constantly facilitate its execution. When this law, therefore, was proposed and received, such a conviction must have existed in both the Jewish legislator and the Jewish people. Since, then, nothing could have produced this conviction, but the experience or the belief of some such miraculous interposition as the history of the Pentateuch details, the very existence of this law is a standing monument, that when it was given the Mosaic miracles were fully believed. Now this law was coeval with the witnesses of the miracles themselves. If then the facts were so plain and so public, that those who witnessed them could not have been mistaken as to their existence or miraculous nature, the reality of the Mosaic miracles is clear and undeniable.

Let me now very briefly RECAPITULATE the process of the argument which I have adduced in this series of Lectures, to establish the certainty of the Mosaic miracles, and by consequence, the divine original of the Jewish religion. The relation of them is found in a work which contains the Religion and Laws of a numerous and not uncivilized nation; and which it has been shown they have ALWAYS RECEIVED as written by their legislator himself, at the time the facts took place, and as the only authentic code of their Religion and their Laws, as well as the only sure record of their history, and the authority fixing the tenure on which private property was held, and the regu

* Lev. xxv. xxvi. particularly xxvi. 34, 35,

Vide Lecture I.

lations affecting it established. Now I think I may venture to assert, that there occurs not in the history of mankind, a single instance of any nation being so grossly imposed upon, as universally to receive a forged book of Laws, and submit to its authority not only as genuine, but divine; especially when the tenor of these Laws is such (as I endeavoured to prove) that no period can be assigned in the history of the nation, when their introduction would not have been likely to excite great opposition; and that no body of men, nay, no individual, can be pointed out, whose interest it was to form such a fabrication, or gain it that universal credit it certainly acquired, with the divided subjects of the kings of Judah and Israel, and the hostile tribes of the Jews and the Samaritans.

*

To give further satisfaction on this important point, and to evince that the Pentateuch was not a compilation of Laws which were indeed acknowledged, but which were combined with a fictitious history and this implicitly received from the influence of national vanity, or party and personal interest; I have examined the INTERNAL STRUCTURE of the Pentateuch, and from this (the most unerring criterion, whenever it can be applied) I endeavoured to evince, that the facts it relates, so far at least as they were not miraculous, were undoubtedly true; and that the relation it delivers may be depended on, as exact and faithful even in the most minute particulars: because it is evidently written with the most perfect artlessness and simplicity; with such particularity of time and place, and person and circumstance, as none but an eye-witness can be reasonably supposed to have preserved; and with such strict impartiality, as leaves no room to doubt that it delivers every circumstance without any attempt to disguise or alter it. The relation may therefore be depended on, as faithfully drawn up by some EYE

WITNESS.

In the third Lecture I went further, and endeavoured to prove, that as the Pentateuch had been shown to be the relation of SOME EYE-WITNESS TO THE FACTS; so also it carried internal evidence, that this eye-witness was NO OTHER THAN MOSES HIMSELF, and that it was written with the strongest regard to truth: because on comparing the different books of it together, an exact agreement appeared in the different parts of the narrative, as

*Vide Lecture II.

well with each other as with the different situations in which Moses, its supposed author, is placed, and the different views and feelings which, would naturally arise from them; and this, discovering itself in COINCIDENCES SO MINUTE, SO LATENT, SO INDIRECT, AND EVIDENTLY UNDESIGNED, that nothing could have produced them but reality and truth, influencing the mind, and directing the pen of the legislator.

Further, lest it should be imagined the common facts were indeed related by Moses himself, but that the miracles may have been afterwards interpolated by some different and later hand, I endeavoured to prove in the Fourth Lecture, that the same exact suitableness of the sentiments and language of Moses to the situations in which he was placed, the same NATURAL AND UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES between the address to the people in Deuteronomy, and the direct narrative in the preceding books which had been observed as to the common facts, were equally apparent in the manner in which the miracles were related and alluded to; and that the whole series of facts, common and miraculous, are blended together in one uniform and consistent narrative; all related by the same writer, and with equal artlessness, fidelity, and precision, and equal regard to nature and truth.

Having thus far pointed out the general character of the Pentateuch; having evinced that its common facts are beyond all doubt true,* as well as inseparably connected with, and DEPENDENT ON THE MIRACULOUS; and shown, that the relation of all the facts both common and miraculous, is evidently the work of an eye-witness, bearing with it the strongest internal characters of simplicity, impartiality, and truth; also that it is next to a certainty, that this eye-witness could be no other than Moses himself having thus prepared the way; I have in this Lecture considered the particular detail of the miracles recorded in the Pentateuch, and the proofs on which they depend; and it has I trust appeared, that the four (I may venture to call them) infallible marks of truth, which the acute mind of the celebrated Leslie has pointed out, clearly apply to them; that they were, in the first place wrought most publicly; two nations affected by them, and above two millions of souls for forty years together witnessing them. Next, that they were of such a na

* Vide Lecture V.

ture, that men's senses could not be mistaken, either as to the existence of the facts, or their reason deluded in ascribing to them a supernatural original. They could not therefore have gained credit in any nation at the time they were said to have taken place, if they had not been real. And if we suppose any attempt to impose them on the credulity of after ages at any subsequent period, this also has appeared impossible; because, in the third place, the history of these miracles states, not only that sensible monuments of many of them, were set up from the very time of the events, but that, lastly, outward actions and observances, public rites and institutions, had been appointed to commemorate them, commencing at the very time of their existence, and afterwards uninterruptedly continued.

In a word, it has I trust appeared, that these miracles were the foundation of the entire frame of the Hebrew polity and religion, clearly and indelibly recorded in all their rites and institutions; expressly commemorated in the three great festivals of the Jewish ritual, and recognised as the principles on which the tenure and regulations of property were founded; a point the more important, because however cold and indifferent nations sometimes become about religion, they never become careless as to property. And finally, we have observed in the Hebrew laws and ritual, a connexion between the religion and government, of so close a nature, and regulations of so singular a kind, as evidently pre-suppose the expectation of a peculiar Providence an expectation which could be founded on nothing but the certainty of the Mosaic miracles, and which therefore forms the strongest proof of their reality, and the most authentic record of their existence. From all this we are, I think, warranted in concluding, That the MIRACLES ASCRIBED TO THE JEWISH LAWGIVER WERE UNDOUBTEDLY REAL; AND THEREFORE HIS

MISSION UNDOUBTEDLY DIVINE,

PART II.

ON THE THEOLOGICAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL
PRINCIPLES OF THE MOSAIC LAW.

LECTURE I.

Theology of the Mosaic Law. General subject and arrangement of this Part. Origin, nature, and effects of idolatry. Corruption of Patriarchal religion-By the worship of the heavenly bodies-The elements-Deified men. Egyptian hieroglyphics introduce the worship of animals and vegetables, &c. Connexion of idolatry with magic, &c.

Idolatry not to be checked by ordinary means. Vices attending it. Design of covenant with Abraham. Jewish scheme conducted according to the analogy of nature. Theology of the Mosaic Law-Declares the self-existence of God-His unity-His moral perfections-His providence. Such a Theology affords a strong presumptive argument of a divine revelation.

EXODUS, iii. 14, 15.

"And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the chil"dren of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt "thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the "God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; this is my name for ever, and this "is my memorial unto all generations."

In the series of Lectures which I am now called upon to deliver, it is my purpose to endeavour to illustrate and defend that part of revelation, which contains the scheme of directions and institutions promulgated from God to the Jews by the ministry of their celebrated Lawgiver.

In considering the Mosaic code as a system of religious doctrines and moral laws, it seems necessary, first, to review the doctrines which it delivers, as to the existence and attributes of God: next to develope the principles it lays down, and the precepts it inculcates, on the chief points of moral duty: thirdly,

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