tioned the Pentateuch. But the book of Joshua does mention the Pentateuch, declaring it also to have been publicly read to all the people. Therefore, if the Pentateuch were the work of Ezra ; the book of Joshua must likewise have been the work, either of Ezra, or of some one of his confederates. Exactly the same argument will apply to every other book, in which the Law is either mentioned or alluded to. It is perfectly clear, that a non-entity could not be mentioned: and, if the Pentateuch were written by Ezra, the Pentateuch was manifestly a non-entity before the days. of Ezra. Hence every book, which either notices it, or which even supposes its existence, must inevitably have been more recent than the Pentateuch itself. So that, if we ascribe the Pentateuch to Ezra; we must likewise, in order to prevent our theory from halting, ascribe to him nearly the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures: a conclusion, which bears a strong resemblance to the conjecture of the sagacious speculatist, who maintained the golden classics of Rome to have been composed by the monks of that leaden period usually denominated the middle ages.

Neither yet have we reached the end of the difficulty. By far the greatest part of the Pentateuch, by whomsoever it might have been written, professes to be the national law of the Israelites : that law, by which all their civil concerns were regulated; that law, which assigned its territorial limits to each tribe; that law, which fixed the descent of landed property; that law, under which

every man made good his title to the perpetually entailed, though temporaneously alienated, inheritance of his forefathers; that law, under which all the peculiarities of the temple-service were regularly and systematically prescribed. Such being the nature of the code, how was it possible, that it could have been forged either by Ezra or by any other person subsequent to the occupation of Palestine by the Israelites? No writer after that era could have produced a novel code of his own; and then have persuaded the people, not only to accept it, but to acknowledge that it had always regulated their concerns both civil and theological. As reasonably might we assert, that the whole code of the English law was forged by Blackstone and that it had no existence before him, as that the whole code of the Hebrew law was a mere novelty forged by Ezra. This learned scribe is in fact the only person, to whom such an extraordinary imposture can be ascribed with even a decent shew of plausibility: for it might be contended, that the Babylonian captivity, by the complete dislocation which it produced, gave to Ezra an opportunity of fraud, which none of his predecessors could have enjoyed. But such a fond notion is at once overturned, both by the shortness of that captivity, and by the internal evidence of the book of Ezra itself. Many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, says Ezra, had seen the first house, and were moved to tears when they had compared it with the second:' not one of these per

I Ezra iii. 12.

sons therefore could have been imposed upon by any novel code, which that scribe might seek to introduce; as they well remembered the first temple, they must likewise have well remembered whether they had or had not a written law prior to the captivity. If the English were deported for the space of seventy years, and if at the close of that period they were brought back to their own country: they could not return perfectly ignorant, whether they had ever been governed by a written law; they could not return liable to be imposed upon by a supposititious law, the author of which persuades them to accept it as the genuine and familiar code of their forefathers. So again: Ezra describes the cautious exactness, with which a register was kept of the genealogy of the priesthood through the whole period of the captivity, all those being degraded from the sacerdotal function whose names were not found in that public document: and he further remarks, that, when the second temple was dedicated, they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God which is at Jerusalem; as it is written in the book of Moses.' Now, if many remembered the first tenple, and if this book of Moses were all the while written by himself: how could he persuade the people, that he was arranging matters according to a well known ancient code, when, after all, that code had absolutely no existence until he first produced it subsequent to the Babylonian captivity?

I Ezra ii. 62. vi. 18.

As we have here then a direct attestation to the existence of a theological code by Moses anterior to the captivity so the book of Jeremiah affords an equally direct attestation to the existence of his civil code previous to the same era. The prophet buys a field from his cousin; on the express ground that the right of inheritance, and consequently that the right of redemption, was his. After the necessary forms have been complied with, he charges Baruch with the care of the evidences or title-deeds; stating, that, although the deportation of Judah was close at hand, yet houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. The whole of this business was transacted according to a regulation now subsisting in the written law of Moses and, by virtue of the deeds committed to Baruch as a trustee, the heirs of Jeremiah would, upon the return from Babylon, claim the property of their ancestors. But it is perfectly evident from the very nature of things, that no such transaction could ever have taken place, if the civil law of Moses had not existed in full force and in universally recognized vigour as the statute law, of the land previous to the Babylonian captivity.

(2.) I see not what can be further objected on this topic, save that Ezra or Samuel or some other unknown person largely interpolated the genuine Pentateuch written by Moses.

An objection of such a stamp must of course relate to the miraculous and historical part of the volume for, if it be conceded, as conceded it must

be, that the Israelites possessed a written code, bearing the name and authority of Moses, from their very earliest occupation of Palestine; no interpolation can be alleged with any shew of probability, except an interpolation of those passages which describe certain preternatural interpositions of the Deity. Let us then inquire, how far this hypothesis may serve the cause of infidelity.

If each account of a miracle be an interpolation, then of course that miracle was never heard of until the interpolation was made. At all events, the interpolation being subsequent to the original composition of the Pentateuch, there must have been a time when it first occupied a place in the genuine text. Now the contents of the Pentateuch, from the very time of its author, as both itself and the other successive books of the Hebrew Scriptures largely testify, were systematically made public to the whole nation; insomuch that, even from infancy, each individual was familiarly acquainted with them. Such being the case, as any interpolation whatsoever would be liable to immediate detection; so an interpolation of the marvellous kind would be peculiarly obnoxious to immediate discovery. A wonderful tale instantly arrests the attention both of young and of old: and, when once related, it rivets itself so firmly to the memory, that it never is forgotten. Hence every one, who first heard a tale of this description read out of the Pentateuch into which it had recently been inserted, would be perfectly sure that he had never heard it before: or, if he had heard it before as an unwritten

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