Should I, for instance, invent a fiction, purporting, that a certain event took place a thousand years ago. I might, perhaps, prevail with some persons to credit it. But should I also affirm. that from the period of this event to the present day, every youth of a particular nation, at the age of twelve years, had suffered a dissection of a joint of a certain finger, and that, therefore, every man in the nation was now destitute of a joint of such finger; and that this institution was said to have been part of the matter of fact, done so many years ago; appealed to as a proof and confirmation of it, and as having been constantly practised, in memory of such matter of fact, to the present time: Let it be asked, whether, in such a case, it would be possible I should be believed? Should I not be contradicted by every man, of this nation, who should not thus have lost a joint of his finger? And the deprivation of which having been a part of my original matter of fact, would it not demonstrate the whole to be false ?

I proceed now to shew, that the matters of fact of Moses and of Christ, have all the rules or marks above-mentioned. With respect to Moses, it is imagined it will be granted, that he could not have persuaded six hundred thousand men, that he had brought them out of Egypt, through the red sea; sustained them with food, in a wilderness forty years, in a miraculous manner; and also, of divers other facts contained in his books, had they been false. He certainly must have imposed upon all their senses, if he could have prevailed with them to have given their assent to these things, had they been unfounded in truth.. Here then we perceive an agreement of the first and second of the four inarks.

For the same reason, it would have been equally impossible for him to have caused these people to have received his five books, as true, which declared, that all these things had been transacted in their presence, had they not been founded in truth. His language to them is very explicit. "And know you this day, said he, for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastise

ment of the Lord your God; his greatness; his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm; and his miracles; and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt, unto Pharoah, the King of Egypt, and unto all his land; and what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you; and how the Lord hath destroyed them unto this day; and what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came into this place; and what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Rueben; how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their housholds, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel; but your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord," Deut. xi. 2, 8.

Will it be said, that these books were written in some age subsequent to that in which Moses lived, and that they were published under the authority of his name? But such an imposition could not have succeeded; because mention is made, in these books, that they were written by Moses, and, by his command, deposited in the ark. "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites who bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying; take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee," Deut. xxxi. 24, 26. A copy also of this book, was to remain with the King. " And it shall be, when he siteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the Levites; And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them," Deut. xvii. 18, 19.

It is thus manifest, that this book of the law, declares itself to be, not only an history of the Israel

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ites in the days of Moses, but also the permanent and municipal law and statutes of the Jewish nation, obligatory upon the king as well as the people.

In whatever age, after Moses, it may be supposed this book was forged, it is impossible it could have been received as genuine; because it could not then have been found; neither in the ark, nor with the king, nor in any other place; and when first invented, all the Israelties must have known, that they had never heard of it before, and, therefore, could not have believed it to have been the book of their statutes, and the invariable law of their land, which soon after their departure from Egypt they had received, and by which they uniformly had been governed.

Could any man, at the present period, invent a book of statutes, or acts of parliament, for England, and cause it to be imposed upon the English nation as the only book of statutes they had ever known? As impossible would it have been to have caused the books of Moses, had they been invented in any age after him, to have been received for what they mention themselves to be; the statutes and muncipal law of the Jews; and to have persuaded these people, that they had owned and acknowledged these books from the days of Moses to the time in which they should have been invented. For such a deception to have obtained, the Israelites must have been brought to have believed, that they had owned books before they had the least knowledge of them! The whole nation also, must, in an instant, have forgotten their former laws and government, if they could have received these books as their former laws! Let it be asked, if ever there was a book of forged laws thus imposed on any nation? With what reason, then, can it be supposed, that the book of the jewish laws, if spurious, could have been imposed on the jews? Why will deists suppose an occurrence to have happened to these people, which, it is confessed could not have happened to any other nation.

But the books of Moses, it may be remarked, have a much greater evidence of their truth, than any other

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books of laws possess; for they not only contain the laws of the jewish nation, but also, an historical account of their institution, and mention that their laws were immediately reduced to practice; particularly, that the festival of the passover was observed, Exod. xii. that from the time it was ordained, all the firstborn in Israel were dedicated to God, Numb. viii. 17, 28; that Aaron's rod, which budded, was preserved in the ark, to commemorate the rebellion and destruction of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and also, for the confirmation of the priesthood to the tribe of Levi, Numb. xvii.; that the pot of manna was likewise preserved to perpetuate the fact, that the Israelites were sustained, by manna, forty years in the wilderness, Exod. xvi. 29, &c. that the brazen serpent was kept in memory of the miraculous healing of the people of Israel, on their beholding it when bitten by fiery serpents in the wilderness, Numb. xxi. 9; and also, that the feast of Pentecost was celebrated, Exod. xxiii. 16.

Besides these remembrances of particular actions and events; there were other solemn institutions to commemorate the deliverance of these people from Egyptian bondage; their sabbath; their daily sácrifices and yearly expiation; their new moons, and various feasts and fasts; so that there were yearly, monthly, weekly and daily remembrance and observances of certain things and occurrences.

The books of Moses likewise mention, that a particular tribe was appointed and consecrated by God, as his priests; by whom the sacrifices of the people were to be offered, and these solemn institutions to be celebrated, and that it was death for any other persons to sacrifice at the altar; that the high priest wore a mitre and magnificent robes, of God's own appointment, with the miraculous urim and thummim in his breast-plate, from whence the divine responses were given; that, at his word, the King, and all the people, were to go out and come in; that the Levites were the chief judges, even in all civil cases, and that it was a forfeiture of life to resist their sentence.

At what time soever it may be supposed, that these books were forged, after the death of Moses, it is impossible they could have been received by the Jews as genuine, unless they could have been induced to have believed, that they had received them from their fathers; had been instructed in them when they were children, and had taught them to their children; and also, that they had been circumcised, and did circumcise their children, in pursuance to what was commanded in these books; that they had observed the yearly passover, the new moons, the weekly sabbath, and all those various feasts, fasts and ceremonies enjoined in these books: And further, that they had never eaten any swine's flesh, nor other meat prohibited in these books; that they had a magaificent tabernacle, with a priesthood to administer in it, which was confined to the tribe of Levi, over whom was placed an high priest, invested with great prerogatives, whose death only could give deliverance to those who had fled to the cities of refuge. But altogether impossible would it have been to have persuaded a whole nation, that they had known and practised all these things, if the contrary had been the fact; or to have received a book as true that declared they had practised them, and, as a confirmation of the declaration, appealed to their practice! Here, therefore, is a concurrence of the third and fourth marks before mentioned.

Let us now descend to the utmost degree of supposition; that these things were practised before the books of Moses were supposed to have been forged; and that they imposed on the nation, in causing them to believe, that they had regarded these observances in memory of certain things inserted in these books. But will not the same impossibilities occur here, as in the former case? For we must conclude, that the Jews must have kept all these observances in memory of no object, or without having had any knowledge of their original, or any reason why they kept them; whereas these observances very particularly expressed the reasons why they were instituted; that the pass