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Egypt were miraculously destroyed till the present day, is unquestionable; so that the institution appointed to commemorate the miracle, as well as the explanatory comment in the Pentateuch, has always been, and continues to be, a standing memorial of the extraordinary interposition of God. "As the rite of circumcision demonstrates the making of God's covenant with Abraham and his posterity; so the rite of the passover equally demonstrates the miraculous death of the firstborn, and the triumphant exodus of Israel."

30. (III.) The feast of Pentecost, so called because it was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the passover, and consequently on the fiftieth day after Israel's departure from Egypt, was designed chiefly to commemorate the giving of the law from Mount Sinai; and, in connexion with this event, the fulfilment of God's promise in the establishment of his people in the land of Canaan. In the Old Testament it is called The Feast of Weeks, because it was celebrated seven weeks after the passover; and the Feast of Harvest and of First Fruits, because it was observed at that season of the year when the harvest usually closed, and when, in obedience to the law, each head of a family took some of the first fruits of the land and presented them to the Lord, in acknowledgment of the miraculous providences experienced by the nation. "And it shall be, when thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein; that thou shalt take of the first of the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring of thy land that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there. And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give it us. And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down

before the altar of the Lord thy God. And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous; and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression. And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders; and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me."*

31. (IV.) The feast of tabernacles was instituted in like manner as a memorial of the forty years during which the people of Israel dwelt in tents or booths in the wilderness. "Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine."

32. In the following words there is a repetition of the injunction regarding the observance of the three great festivals: "Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the Lord empty." These commemorative institutions were sacredly observed by the Jews, from the time of their appointment by Moses till the present day; and the perpetuity of their observance furnishes the most powerful evidence of the reality of the miraculous facts of which they are memorials.

33. Indeed, every part of the Jewish ritual had a direct

* Deut. chap. xxvi.

or indirect reference to these miraculous events, especially their deliverance from Egypt. The exhortations given to them to exercise kindness and mercy, are enforced by the consideration, that they were bondmen in the land of Egypt, and that God delivered them. The civil government of the Hebrews was founded upon the same miraculous facts. The moral law was prefaced by the consideration, that its author was the Lord God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. The appointment and observance of the laws of Moses could not have taken place without the continued exercise of miraculous power. The law of the Sabbatical year was a remarkable instance of this; as was also the year of jubilee, which was celebrated every fiftieth year. On these two occasions, it was appointed that the whole law should be read with peculiar solemnity. Did not the institution of these laws and ordinances proceed upon the ground of the miraculous deliverance of the people, and of the protecting power of God? Does not their continued observance show their belief of the miracles which their institutions commemorated, and which their law recorded? When they ask, What mean these statutes? Thou shalt say, "We were bondmen in the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought us out thence with a mighty hand."

34. We have now proved the genuineness and authenticity of the Mosaic record; the reality of the miracles of which that narrative gives an account; that they are attested by Moses, a man distinguished for integrity, wisdom, and piety, who was neither an enthusiast, dupe, nor impostor; that the miraculous facts are accompanied with frequent appeals to the people as witnesses of their reality, a proof which could never have been given, had not the truth of the facts been unquestioned and acknowledged; that the miracles are farther corroborated by the traditions related by heathen authors, which correspond with the facts related in the Mosaic history; that they

are supported by the uniform belief of the nation, from the time of Moses to the latest period of their history; and that they are established by public monuments, and the peculiar constitution and government of the Jewish nation.

35. We are now capable of estimating what degree of weight is due to the flippant remark of Hume, when he says that the Pentateuch is "corroborated by no concurring testimony;"-a remark probably made in entire ignorance of the great amount of collateral evidence by which the Mosaic record is accompanied; and a remark which is well adapted to the designs of those whose minds are biassed against the claims of divine revelation.

CHAPTER VI.

THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: MOSES, A PROPHET; OR THE DOCTRINES OF THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION ON THE DESIGNS OF THE

MOSAIC DISPENSATION.

1. MAN having fallen by transgression from the purity and uprightness with which he was created, and having, as is clearly proved by experience, entailed depravity on all his offspring, it was morally impossible, from the very nature of things, that the human race could, by their own efforts, extricate themselves from inevitable destruction. They could neither satisfy the justice of God, nor produce in their nature the holiness which had been lost. Deliverance, therefore, could come to them only from God.

2. The deliverance which he designed for them, as well as the mode of its accomplishment, he revealed to our

first parents immediately after the fall. This redemption formed the theme of the system of inspired truth from the beginning; though made known with different degrees of clearness, and under different successive modifications, severally fitted to three successive periods, and varying only in the mode of communication according to the peculiar exigencies of those three periods to which they respectively belong. It was the reconciliation, as founded in the sacrifice of the Redeemer, that connects together, as one genuine and inspired system of religion, the patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christian dispensations. The two first were so constituted as to look forward to the last, as the ultimate and most perfect revelation of the will of God to man. The same great and spiritual blessings were enjoyed by those who lived under them all, though possessed in very different measures.

3. The Mosaic dispensation was intended to answer several purposes, of which the two following were the chief: First, To preserve the knowledge and worship of the only living and true God, the Creator of all things, in purity among one people specially separated from the surrounding nations for that end. Abraham and his posterity were selected to be the depositaries of the doctrines of heavenly truth. With this view the descendants of that patriarch were miraculously conducted out of Egypt; taken into covenant with God; and ultimately fixed in Palestine, as the place of residence assigned to them by divine wisdom. All that they were there taught to believe, as well as to practise, was calculated deeply to impress their minds with the doctrine of the unity of God.

4. But, secondly, The Levitical dispensation was also specially intended to be preparatory to the gospel. It was founded on the doctrine of a mediator. It exhibited by typical and shadowy representations the Divine Redeemer, the sacrifice and death by which he was to make reconciliation for iniquity; and the blessings of accept

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