which appears on the face of the book itself, is embarrassed by objections which I shall only briefly glance at. It professes to contain the law prescribed to the Israelites on their migration from Egypt, by Moses, under the divine direction; which direction had been manifested by their miraculous deliverance from slavery, and by many indisputable signs. But this, it seems, is incredible. When then did they receive the records of the law, and from whom?* It can make but little alteration in the difficulty, to whatever period or person we may be referred. It is not of much consequence at what time we suppose an impostor to have appeared, and to have furnished the Hebrews with a history of their ancestors, and of the origin of their laws. At some period or other, certainly, we must believe that the nation accepted a series of records, professing to acquaint them with the transactions of their pro * The argument arising out of this question is put in the strongest and clearest light by Leslie, in his unanswerable treatise," A short Method with a Deist." genitors, from their first settlement as a single family in Egypt, to their final settlement in the country they then enjoyed by conquest. That these records were false; or otherwise the miraculous interference they contain must be acknowledged; yet that no recollection or tradition of their real history remained to contradict the imposture, nor any individual existed in the country, with understanding enough to question its author as to the information he had thus suddenly acquired upon subjects, concerning which all had been hitherto equally ignorant; no one to demand the proofs of his history, or the credentials of his authority: that the people were not astonished at the miracles, pretended to have been wrought in favour of their ancestors, or incredulous as to the order of nature having been so often infringed without any record or memory of such facts; nor indignant at the injury offered to the character of their forefathers, by representing them as often rebellious against the clearest miracles and the kindest promises. Improbabilities like these are overlooked, when it is desired to undermine revelation; but it would be a heavy task to support it on similar grounds. Allowing, however, even all this to be granted; how shall we explain the existence of a law like that of the Hebrews, so strict in its articles and so peculiar in its nature, on any other principle than the foundation which it claims? To say nothing here of its sublimity and purity; how is it possible to account for such a code having been received and acted upon by such a people, except on the credit of the extraordinary circumstances under which it professes to have been established ?-a code neither suited to the customs, nor the prejudices, nor the passions of mankind; and in particular most opposite to those of the people who received it, as being contrary to the habits they had brought with them from Egypt, as well as to the practices of all the nations by whom they were surrounded:-a code encumbered with burdensome ceremonies, and entailing a variety of severe obligations; nay, nay, far ther, containing in itself, as I shall presently show, the seeds of its own destruction, unless its observers had really been supported by that divine assistance, which the words of the law promise, and the history records. It is not enough to answer all this generally, by saying, that a barbarous people are easily amused by miracles, and genealogies, and legends of antiquity. I should be much surprised, I confess, to learn that any people, however barbarous, had been imposed upon to this extent: but, in regard to the particular case of the Mosaic law, it must be observed, that the imposition itself requires a certain degree of civilization, far removed from stupid, and careless, and uninquiring ignorance. a state neither produces an impostor who could propose it, nor a people who could understand it. A nation must be advanced, or advancing, at least, beyond the lowest stage of barbarism, which could be the subject of a legislation such as that of Moses; entering so minutely into the details of civil life, providing often for Such transactions of a complicated nature, and supposing the existence of a regular police, priesthood, and magistracy. How it happened, that such a description should be applicable to the Israelites, just emerging from a state of servitude, the opponents of the divine commission of Moses are bound to discover: but it is a palpable contradiction to affirm, that they were barbarous enough to be deceived by any ingenious impostor, at the same time that they were civilized enough to be in possession of such a law. From the details of this Section, it has appeared that the object prevailing through the Hebrew polity, is entirely different from that which legislators have commonly proposed to themselves; and that antiquity furnishes no example of a state, the principal scope of whose laws was to maintain the belief of a Creator, or indeed in which that belief was at all inculcated with a confidence any way comparable to that expressed by Moses. This circumstance alone, it will be owned, gives rea VOL. 1. H |