books of the Old Teftament; but we have, in fact, the teftimony of all the Jewish nation, who were in circumftances in which they cannot be imagined to have been impofed upon themfelves, or to have had any motive to impofe upon others. That the hiftory of the Jews, and of the miraculous interpofitions of God in their favour, fhould, from the earliest accounts of them, have been firmly believed by the whole body of that nation, and that, even in their prefent difperfed and calamitous fituation, which has continued for feventeen hundred years, they fhould retain the fame belief, cannot but be admitted to have the greatest weight. Suppofing the hiftory of the departure from Egypt, and all the miraculous circumstances attending it, to have been a mere fiction, it must have been fo notoriously falfe, that it could not but have been rejected, whenever it had been published. For things of fo extraordinary a nature, on which the authority of all their laws, their most folemn cuftoms, and religious rites, entirely depended, could not but have gained univerfal attention. The fabulous hiftories of other nations were always invented very late; and as nothing depended upon them, they may easily be supposed to have been introduced gradually, without much notice or alarm. Befides, none of them have ftood the teft of a rigid fcrutiny, but have fallen into univerfal contempt. It is true that the hiftory of the Old Teftament fets the Jewish nation in general in a very favourable point of light, and, on that account, it may be fuppofed that they would the more readily acquicfce in it, and wish to have it pafs for true with their neighbours; but in other refpects, alfo, it represents them, and their most diftinguished ancestors, in a very unfavourable light, leaving them under the imputation of fo many cruel and base actions, as no defcendant of theirs would have wifhed them to lie under. Among thefe is the hiftory of Abraham and Ifaac denying their wives, the the deceit of Jacob, and the abominable treachery of two of his fons, together with the very great faults, and even aggravated crimes of David, and others of their most illuftrious heroes and princes. The fabulous hiftories of the Greeks and Romans are written in a manner very different from this. Even Jofephus, the Jewish hiftorian, who had the Old Teftament to write from, and who had it not in his power to forge or alter much, endeavours to give the whole hiftory as favourable a turn as poffibly; intirely fuppreffing the story of the golden calf, and others which might tend to give foreigners a difadvantageous idea of his ancestors and nation. What kind of a history may we fuppofe that fuch a writer as this would have invented, if he had been fairly at liberty to do it; and what does a hiftory written upon fo very different a plan, as that of the Old Teftament, exhibit, but the face of truth, however difagrecable and mortifying. All All the most distinguished rites and cuftoms of the Jews are intimately connected with, and founded upon the most distinguished miraculous facts in their hiftory; and some of them, are fuch as we cannot fuppofe that any nation would voluntarily impofe upon themfelves, being exceedingly burdenfome, and feemingly hazardous. Among these we may reckon the rite of circumcifion, which was probably borrowed by fome other nations from them; a weekly day of reft from labour, not plowing their fields, or tilling their grounds, every feventh year, and the appearance of all their males three times in a year at one particular place, when the borders of their country must have been left defenceless, and they could have no dependence but upon an extraordinary providence for their fecurity, which was promifed in their law. Add to this that they were furrounded by powerful and enterprifing nations, who entertained an inveterate antipathy against them, and confequently could not be expected to neglect the fair opportunities VOL. I. A a which which their feftival folemnities afforded to attack their borders, had they not been reftrained by a fuperior influence. Yet their whole history affords not a fingle instance of any inroad being made upon them at thofe times. To this may be added their being forbidden to have any foreign' commerce, or to have many horfes, which was the great pride of their neighbours in time of peace, and a great advantage to them in time. of war. It has often been faid that Mofes him felf, without any divine inftruction, might have formed the body of laws recorded in his writings, and have given all the other directions which he pretended to have received from God. But, befides, that this fuppofition can never account for the whole nation having always believed that they had been led through the red fea, been fed with manna forty years, heard a fupernatural voice delivering the ten command ments |