CHAPTER XVI.

Of the Evidence afforded to the authenticity of the Levitical Institutions, by the onerous Nature of its Ritual, and the present State of the Jewish People.

THE whole series of the Jewish records, then, if attempted to be accounted for by merely natural causes, presents a tissue of difficulties which it would be quite impossible to explain. The miracles, the history of which constitutes so large a portion of their subject matter, unlike those false prodigies, which usually crowd the annals of dark and superstitious periods, as has been already observed, so far from bearing the appearance of a gratuitous super-addition to common-place event, are absolutely necessary, as fundamental facts, to give consistence and probability to the whole narrative. The difficulty cannot be got over by supposing the documents in question to be a partial, much less an entire, forgery. The former hypothesis does not meet the case, the latter presents an absolute impossibility. It is contrary to all experience, as it would be contrary to all reason, that any considerable and ancient nation should exist, the whole of whose written annals should be false; and yet, in the case of the Jews, to stop short at the partial admission of the authenticity of their recorded transactions, to the exclusion of any preternatural agency in their production, would drive us into the admission of positions not one degree more tenable. The fact of the real occurrence of miracles, however, once granted, there appears no reason why we should attempt to set other limits to their extent than those which the Scriptures expressly assign to them. That this portion of history contains the records of a nation very far from advanced in civilization is,

indeed, obvious, from the slightest perusal. But, as has been already remarked, this circumstance only adds to our admiration of the awfully solemn theisti cal doctrines and the spirit of pure and benevolent humanity which pervades so large a portion of it. The exceptions to this indulgent spirit, where they occur, have, indeed, been admitted to be striking; but these very exceptions, as being directed, almost exclusively, against the abominations of idolatry, which nothing short of absolute extermination could have prevented from rendering the whole of these admirable enactments abortive, are themselves a strong internal evidence of the wisdom in which they were conceived, and of the high source from which they emanate. Admit the Mosaic law really to have been what it professes to be, and we see, at once, the absolute necessity of these seemingly harsh provisions; consider it to be the work of a mere human legislator, and we are at a loss to trace in them any purposes of policy, or any features of consistency. Bishop Warburton is of opinion, that the single fact of the silence of Moses, with regard to a future life of rewards or punishments, is a sufficient proof of his Divine legation. We may restate this argument more palpably and broadly by asserting that no legislator could, with the slightest chance of success, assert the bold theory of a theocracy extending its direct superintending care to the minutest circumstances of domestic life, and promising a special miracle for almost every deviation from the law of strict obedience, were not that assertion borne out by fact. Not only, however, does Moses repeatedly hazard this assertion, but he appeals, again and again, to the positive experience of his people for the proof of the reality of the miracles which he narrates. We cannot meet this argument, and thus get rid of the difficulty, by supposing that the books which bear his name were the production of a later period. Such an hypothesis has already been shown to be improbable

in the highest degree; and even if granted, it would create more perplexity than it would remove. The later books of the Old Testament not only pre-suppose the existence of the writings of Moses, such as they have descended to our times, but they also, in their turn, bear witness to other and subsequent miracles, for the truth of which they make their own appeal to the testimony of contemporary witnesses. To suppose these last mentioned compositions, again, to be forgeries, is still rushing deeper and deeper into impossibilities, for the sake of avoiding the one primary admission which explains the whole, namely, the Divine origin of the Christian, and consequently of the Levitical dispensation. It has been well observed, that the annual celebration of stated festivals and solemnities by any people is amongst the surest guarantee which can possibly be given to later times of the authenticity of the received traditions of their early ancestry. Such institutions are, in fact, a periodical reenactment of the most influential events in the history of nations; and from the actual identity of ceremonial which, for the most part, accompanies their repetition, they bring the usages of long extinguished ages more immediately, and more correctly, before the eye than any other human contrivance with which we are acquainted. But the whole political history of the Jews was that of the regular recurrence of religious festivals, all illustrating and confirming each other, but each also having its own respective and peculiar object of commemoration. Many of them also, it should be observed, were of an extremely onerous and costly character, such as no people would willingly adopt, for a long succession of ages, without some strong assignable reason, whilst some of their habitual institutions seemed almost to militate against their very existence as an independent people. Of the former kind was the necessity imposed upon all persons adopting the Mosaic ritual of repairing to Jerusalem annually, at

the season of the great festivals: as instances of the latter, may be mentioned the observance of the sabbatical year, which, from the remission of taxes, stated by Josephus to have been granted to the Jews, on that account, by Alexander, appears, if we are to give credit to that historian, to have been, in some degree, maintained so late as the time of that monarch; and the almost superstitious observance of the weekly Sabbath, of which Pompey and others, during the several sieges of Jerusalem, are said to have taken such pernicious advantage, for the purpose of urging their attacks.

Now surely, if we find a particular people, week after week, year after year, and period after period, with uniformity and precision, as well as with great personal cost and inconvenience, repeating again and again the same routine of social and religious ceremonies, it would seem as certain as certainty can make it, that some events must really have occurred, in the early history of that nation, which rendered such usages imperative upon their ancestors. No assignable reason can be suggested why the later Jews should be found annually celebrating their Passover, their Pentecost, their feast of Tabernacles, excepting the obvious one, that the recurrence of the stated season, in each successive year, brought with it the recollection of the important events to which

It must be confessed, that the observance of the sabbatical year seems never to have been very rigidly adhered to by the Jews; probably, because of all the Mosaic institutions it was the one which required the largest degree of faith in the special protection of Providence, and which militated most against the natural principle of covetousness. It should be remembered, however, that the disobedience of the nation on this point was expressly foretold, and a future judgment denounced against them, on that account, by Moses himself; (Leviticus xxvi. 34, 35.) and that this specific reason is assigned (2 Chronicles xxvi. 21.) for the infliction upon them of the Babylonish captivity. The force of the argument contained in the observation to which this note is appended is not, however, affected by this admission. The Jews, at all events, acknowledged their conscientious obligation to the observance of the sabbatical year as a Divine institution, which they certainly would not have done, had they not been convinced, in spite of their own wishes and apparent interests to the contrary, that such was really its character.

those institutions respectively referred, and to which they might be continuously traced back. The same course of argument, as demonstrative of the authenticity of the Mosaic narrative, will apply, if possible, with still greater force to the great standing miracle of the present condition of the Jews, as we find them scattered through almost every habitable portion of the globe. Striking effects must have had adequate cause. What, then, was the cause which placed, and retains, that singular people in their present peculiar and unparalleled circumstances? By what theory, if we discard that of a special Divine agency, and of that obstinate tenacity of political life, produced by the exclusive character of their traditional usages, are we to explain a fact so completely at variance with all our experience derived from other quarters? The name and traceable lineage of every other ancient nation, with whose history we are acquainted, and, amongst the rest, of the ten heretical Israelitish tribes themselves, have disappeared from the research of the antiquarian, at no long period after they have ceased to exist as a separate body politic. And yet, of the dynasties and nations which at the present moment advance their claim to the highest antiquity, not one was in political existence at the time of the extinction of the Jews as a constituted people. The Byzantine empire dated its birth nearly three hundred years after that period, and yet it is now nearly four hundred years since it has perished, with its long line of emperors, by the natural process of decay. The most ancient monarchy of Europe, that of France, had its origin more than four hundred years subsequent to the same epoch; and if we look elsewhere to the surrounding states, we find a similar spirit of change giving a new form, at different and successive intervals, to the language, habits, religion, and collective character of every portion of the civilized world. It is no answer to this remarkable peculiarity attaching to the Jews to assert that they owe their extra.