style and title of royalty. This is the more remarkable; because, in those early days, the idea of a commonwealth under whatever modification was altogether unknown. The Egyptians, among whom the Israelites had long sojourned, and to whose customs they were notoriously addicted, were governed by a king; who, to secure the greater reverence to his person, and perpetually to remind his subjects of his boasted descent from the Sun, distinguished himself, as his stated title, by an appellation of the solar deity and every tribe, with which the people could have the least acquaintance, was uniformnly under the rule of its own petty regulus. No surprize therefore would have been excited, had Moses claimed to unite in his own person, like the successors of Mohammed in the Caliphate, the two offices of king and of prophet and the commanding influence, by whatever means acquired, which led the Israelites to acknowledge him in the one capacity, would have equally induced them to recognize him in the other. But no such ambition seems for a moment to have agitated the mind of the Hebrew lawgiver. He neither made himself king; nor did he seek to perpetuate his sovereign authority in the line of his sons or even of his tribe. His children, without a single effort in their favour, were consigned to the condition of obscure Levites, not in the least degree elevated above their ministering brethren and, for his successor in the supreme mili

'Diod. Bibl. Eclog. e lib. xl. p. 922.

tary and civil command, he nominated his servant Joshua of the tribe of Ephraim. Such disinterestedness bears no resemblance to the conduct of an artful political impostor: nor can it be accounted for on the principles, which must necessarily actuate every impostor as such.

On the whole, it will be found utterly impossible to reconcile any part of the behaviour of Moses with the theory of his being a mere impostor.

CHAP. IV.

THE EVIDENCE FROM AUTHENTIC HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS WRITTEN ABOUT THE TIME, WHEN THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF WHICH THEY TREAT WAS PROMULGATED; AND FROM COMMEMORATIVE ORDINANCES,

CERTAIN

WHICH COMMENCED AT THE PERIOD WHEN
THE EVENTS TO WHICH THEY RELATE WERE
TRANSACTED.

THE argument has hitherto been conducted hypothetically. Supposing the scriptural account of the exodus to be true in its great outlines, which is abundantly clear from the concurring testimony of gentile historians; and arguing from it, as we would do from any other history: we have found ourselves brought to the necessary conclusion, that Moses neither could have been deceived himself, nor could have had any design to deceive others. It will now be necessary to shew, that such account is true; and that, not merely in the great outlines such as the departure from Egypt and the

passage through the wilderness and the final occupation of Palestine, but likewise in all the most minute particulars. In thus speaking of the exodus, I take it in a large sense, as including both the emigration of Israel from the hand of Goshen and their progress to the country where they ultimately established themselves.

At present then we have to demonstrate, that authentic historical documents have been handed down to posterity from the time, when the theological system of Moses was promulgated: and that certain commemorative ordinances or monuments have existed from the period, when various events occurred which are mentioned in the history attached to that theological system; those commemorative ordinances or monuments being declared to have derived their origin from those identical events, which accordingly they profess to comme

morate.

I. The documents, which claim to have been thus handed down to posterity, are the five books, attributed to Moses himself, and usually denominated the Pentateuch. Now the question before us is, whether they were indeed written synchronically with the exodus, or whether they were composed in the name of Moses at a much later period.

1. That the Jews have acknowledged the authenticity of the Pentateuch, from the present day to the era of our Lord's nativity, a period of more than eighteen centuries, admits not of a possibility' of doubt. But this era is long posterior to that

of Moses himself: it will be necessary therefore, in order to establish the point under discussion, to travel backwards step by step, so far as we can safely penetrate according to the established rules of more evidence.

(1.) About 277 years before the Christian era, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus king of Egypt, the Pentateuch, with the other books of the Old Testament, was translated into Greek for the use of the Alexandrian Jews: and, from the almost universal prevalence of that language, it henceforth became very widely disseminated, and was thus rendered accessible to the learned and inquisitive of every country.

་་

Now that Greek translation, which is still extant and which is in the hands of almost every person, demonstrates, that the Hebrew Pentateuch must have existed 277 years before Christ: because there is that correspondence between the two, which amply proves that the former must have been a version of the latter. But, if it certainly existed 277 years before Christ, it must have existed in the days of Ezra at the time of the return from Babylon in the year before Christ 536: because there is no point between those two epochs, to which with a shadow of probability we can ascribe its composition. It existed therefore in the year 536 before the Christian era.

(2.) Thus we have gained one retrogressive step: let us next see, whether with equal certainty we can gain another.