to secure their integrity, than that reverence which afterwards displayed itself in the dispersed synagogues, and in the churches consecrated to the Christian faith."*

The language in which they were written, is a great evidence in their favour, as has been often observed by the best authors. It is that of an ancient people, who had but little intercourse with any of their neighbours; and even if they had, they generally spake languages similar to their own; of course, it was not in so great danger of changing, as modern languages which are mingled together by so many political, literary, and commercial relations.

Yet some changes must have passed between Moses and Malachi, a space of many hundred years. The Biblical Hebrew corresponds to this criterion. The style is too greatly diversified to have been the work of one jew, or any set of cotemporary Jews. If false, there must have been a succession of impostors in different ages, which is altogether inconceivable. The Hebrew language ceased to be spoken as a living language, soon after the time of the captivity, and therefore it was impossible to forge any thing in it, after it became a dead language.

There was no Hebrew grammar till many ages after, and it is impossible to write in a dead language

without a grammar. All the Jewish Scriptures must, on these principles, have been as old, at least, as the Babylonish captivity, and as all could not have been written in the same age, some must have been more ancient. The simplicity of their style; the delivery of the several narrations and precepts without hesitation; the authority with which the writers instruct the people; are all circumstances peculiar to those who have both a clear knowledge of what they deliver, and a perfect integrity of heart. These are sentiments on this subject, collected in substance from the Treatise on Man,* but they are so forcible and conclusive as to enitle them to the full consideration of every reasonable mind.†

How carefully and designedly does our author confound Jew and Christian, under the general name of church mythologists. He had objected to the Christian revelation, the want of the testimony of the Jews, “who were the only surviving witnesses of the original transactions relating to their religion:" and now, sensible of the weight of Jewish testimony with regard to the Old-Testament, he keeps them out of sight, and seems to suppose their origin to have been that of the church mythologists, whom he sets to vot

ing, which books of a collection made by them, should be the word of God. He may indeed have been so unacquainted with ecclesiastical history, as to have supposed Jew and Christian to have been cotemporary at their origin; or that they were the same church; but if so, he should have been the last man, to have undertaken to write on the subject.

No one at this day, not even our author, will deny that such a man as Moses did exist; or that he was the great leader and head of the Jewish commonwealth, at their departure from Egypt to the land of

Canaan.

This great people have it among them, handed down from generation to generation, as an indisputable fact, that this Moses was the author or writer of the pentateuch, which contains the first five books of the Old-Testament, and is the foundation and sum of all the rest.

If by this it is understood, that Moses himself wrote every word and letter, as now found in our Bible, it is not what is asserted. Moses, by command of God, kept an exact register of all the public transactions, “which was laid up before the Lord, under the care of the priests and Levites;" and this was continued throughout their generations, as appears from the whole tenor of their history. From this register, as the great source of all their historical facts, their judges, prophets, kings and priests, were to make copies for their instruction, to be read in their synagogues, and to be the rules of their conduct.*

These copies were made out, generally, by the priests and scribes, who were of the Levites, and sometimes by their prophets, as Samuel, Nathan, Gad, Ezra and Nehemiah, who had the chief hand in the government of the people, and that in all ages of the Jewish commonwealth; and this being always done by public authority, a few notes of explanation might have been added from time to time, no ways interfering with the original text-such as, "Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men upon the face of the earth.-Anditremaineth there to this day. -The place was called Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thence. And again, the Canaanite was then in the land;" together with the accounts of the deaths of Moses and Joshua at the end of the respective books, and the like. But as these were always done under public authority, and by their holiest men, who were prophets under divine inspiration, no injury was ever considered, as done to the integrity of these books, especially as the original was a sacred deposit in the ark of the covenant. Indeed Maimonides, the famous Jewish writer says, that Moses himself wrote out twelve copies of the law, with his own hand, one for each tribe, besides that which was laid up in the side of the ark; and the rabbins teach, that every Jew was obliged to have a copy of the pentateuch by him.* And Ezra and Nehemiah are said to have brought three hundred copies of the law into the congregation assembled, at their return from captivity.*

It was from this example, perhaps, that the practice among the eastern nations arose, of keeping public registers of all important transactions. This is mentioned in 2d Esther, xxiii. when Mordecai had saved the king's life: "It was written in the book of the Chronicles, before the king." And in the 6th chap. v. 1, it is said, "That on that night could not the king sleep; and he commanded to bring the book of records of the Chronicles, and they were read before the king."

God expressly enjoined it upon Moses to keep records of what he had commanded him, in 17th Exod. 14th ver. when Amalek and his people were beaten, in the first battle that the Israelites had, after leaving