Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

record, is all that ought to be, and all that can be, expected from heathen writers. They could not know any thing of these circumstances but by tradition. ORPHEUS himself lived but one thousand years before Christ; HESIOD, nine hundred; HOMER, eight hundred and fifty. Orpheus himself, therefore, was only contemporary with Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. The settlement in Canaan took place one thousand four hundred and twenty-seven years before the birth of our Lord: that is, four hundred and twenty-seven years before Hesiod: and five hundred and seventy-seven years before the celebrated Homer. Is it a subject for wonder that obscurity should rest upon facts so ancient? We appeal to the unprejudiced-is it not rather extraordinary, that facts so remote should have evidences so strong and decisive? We wish to produce,

2. CONSIDERATIONS WHICH MAY BE DEEMED CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES.

When the law was given at Sinai, it was given publicly.. Nothing was done in secret. Peculiar glory, splendour, and notoriety, attended it's dispensation. It was not a meeting of the chiefs of the nation, who reported to the people that such an appearance had been manifested to them. No! the whole camp witnessed the magnificent scene. They were not asleep

when God descended in terrible majesty. They were awake to every transaction, when they prostrated themselves on the ground, and cried, "Let not God speak to us lest we die." Moses could not impose on their senses. Is it probable, had not the Israelites actually seen "this great sight," and had not they been completely convinced that Moses was forty days and forty nights upon Mount Sinai, and that he really did receive the law from the hand of God,-is it probable that they would have submitted to the moral, and especially to the ceremonial laws, many of which were opposite both to their opinions, and to their ancient customs? The adherence of the Jews to their law in every age, is an incontestible proof that they believe the fact of the manner in which it was given; and how was it possible for Moses to deceive their fathers, in those things of which they were eye and ear-witnesses? We say nothing respecting the morality, the equity, and the perfection of the moral law, which demonstrates that God alone could be it's author. Compared with it, all the admired codes of the wisest legislators of antiquity are barbarous. We wave this, and simply ask a question, which we challenge infidelity to answer, if it be able. A man may pretend to a revelation, without having it, as did Mahomet: but the case before us is widely

different. Here is no secresy, or concealment; here are no visions or dreams. The cloud, the fire, the trumpet, the darkness, were seen and heard by all the camp of Israel. They were prepared for the event by purification. Moses ascended in their presence, and descended before them. They saw his fears: they saw the tables of the law taken up, plain, ungraven stone: they saw them when they were brought down, filled. Events were recorded at the moment in which they took place: his history was in the hands of his contemporaries; and his law was publicly read at stated periods. We ask, how was it possible for him to impose, in the first instance, upon the Jews? We are reduced to this alternative. Either we must give up the history of Moses (corroborated as it is by foreign testimonies) altogether: we must believe this book a forgery from first to last: we must even deny the existence of the Jewish nation at that period: or we must admit his miracles as matters of fact; since he could no more impose the manner of the giving of the law, than the law itself, upon the Jews. Admit that the law was given, and that he is the author of these books, and you must, to be consistent, admit all its circumstances.

Respecting the manna, the pillar of cloud and of fire, and other miraculous circumstances

attending their journey, was it possible to have imposed the belief of these things upon the progenitors of the Jews (through whose hands these writings were transmitted from generation to generation) unless they really existed? Was it possible to persuade the multitude, that they were every day fed from heaven, for the space of forty years, had not this actually been the case? And without a miraculous supply, how could Moses march such an army, through such a country, except he possessed an enormous magazine of provisions? And from what sources could he derive it?

Whence arose the various customs of the Jews perpetuated to the present hour, if they did not originate in facts such as he records? What could give rise to the passover? What could have suggested the various ceremonies of the Jewish worship? Was not the brazen serpent in existence in the days of Hezekiah? What has preserved these singular institutions in every age, and in every country? They must have had some origin. We admire two things in the divine government: the one-the perpetuation of miracles till after the coming of Christ, so that every fresh miracle confirmed former ones: the other-the continuation of the rites of the Jews down to the present hour. Were it not from the circumstance of the rejection of the

Saviour by the Jews, and their consequent obstinate adherence to their ceremonial law, perhaps it would be denied that such rites ever existed. In this we cannot but perceive the wisdom of Providence, amid all it's obscurity. Could a whole nation, from first to last, be deceived? Impossible! I never see a Jew without feeling conviction of the truth of divine revelation.

The reservation of some of the Canaanites for several ages, and the total extermination of them having never been effected, was a decisive evidence to succeeding generations, who were not eye-witnesses of the entrance of their father's into Canaan, both of the existence, and of the manners, of it's former inhabitants; and, by consequence, a confirmation of all the records put into their hands. This doubtless was one important reason why they were not all destroyed.

Once again the reference which all the writings of Moses had to the Messiah, forms a part of that grand and unbroken chain, which runs through the whole volume of scripture, from first to last, and which renders it impossible to take away any part, without destroying the beauty, and affecting the existence, of all.

« AnteriorContinuar »