2. CONSIDERATIONS WHICH MAY BE DEEMED CIR

GUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES.

When the law was given at Sinai, it was given publicly. Nothing was done in secret. Peculiar glory, splendor, and notoriety, attended its 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 they not 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 incontestable 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 its author. Compared with it, all the admired codesof 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 dif

ferent. Here is no secresy, or concealment; her 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 his. tory of Moses (corroborated as it is by foreign testimonies) altogether: we must believe his 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 Savior 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 its 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 fathers into Canaan, both of the existence, and of the manners, of its 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.

III. WE SHALL NOTICE THE OBJECTIONS WHICH SKEPTICISM HAS RAISED AGAINST THIS PART OF THE SACRED WRITINGS.

1. THEY OBJECT TO THE CONDUCT OF THE ISRAELITES AS IMMORAL. They have compared the settlement of the Jews in Canaan, to the cruelty of the Spaniards in Mexico, and have asserted, that the one had as little right as the other, to dispossess the original inhabitants of these respective places, of their territories. Before the writings of Moses are condemned altogether on these plausible pretences, we shall interpose a series of propositions drawn up by a most able hand,* which we think are unanswerable, but upon which you will form your own conclusions. They are as follows: "That the Almighty has a sovereign right over the lives and fortunes of his creatures: That the iniquity of nations, may become such as to justify him in destroying those nations: That he is free to choose the instruments by which he will effect such destruction: That there is not more injustice or cruelty, in effecting it by the sword, than by famine, pestilence, whirlwind, deluge, and earthquake: that the circumstance of a divine commission entirely alters the state of the case, and distinguishes the Israelites from the Spaniards, or any other plunderers, as much as a warrant from the magistrate distinguishes the executioner from the murderer:

That men may be assured of God's giving such a com mission: And there is incontestable evidence upon record, and from facts, that the Israelites were thus assured." We think it will require no small degree of skill, to overturn propositions so reasonable, and so admirably dependant upon each other.

2. THEY OBJECT TO IT AS CRUEL: on account of the slaughter of children. This is an argument produced on every occasion in which the Bible records human desolation. We have again to remind them, that, on this principle, they ought to quarrel with famine, and earthquakes, and all the scourges of nature; and not only so, but with the natural stroke of death, by which thousands of children are destroyed every day. In a word, if the security and tranquillity of infants be the reasonable result of their freedom from actual offence, we must arrive at this point, that they ought in justice to be delivered from the infliction of all evil; and thus must we either deny the experience of every day, which exhibits children suffering pains and sorrows incessantly, or habitually dispute the justice, and the goodness, of God, in the government of the world.

3. THEY OBJECT TO IT AS IMPROPER. They assert, that God should not use instruments, who might be hardened by the execution of their commission. In every point of view the case was different with the Jews. It was not effected, said the text justly, by their "own sword," and by their "own bow:" but by the "hornet," and by a series of miracles, which plainly demonstrated the interposition of Providence. Moreover, the execution of their commission, was not calculated to harden their hearts against any thing but sin; and was designed as an awful lesson of caution to