Pentateuch; it does not appear how tradition can be an effective ground for such a belief; for, if the first person, who originated the assertion, could produce no proof of what he said, it is unimportant whether it has been repeated ten or ten thousand times, or whether one year or a thousand have since elapsed. We must therefore qualify the argument of tradition, and consider it to mean that in all ages since the time of Moses the Pentateuch has been admitted to have been written by his hand. To establish such an assertion, it becomes necessary to shew that a series of writers, beginning in the time of Moses or at least in the next generation, have ascribed to him the authorship of the book in question.

In support, then, of the claims of Moses, certain passages are quoted from the book of Joshua, which continues the Jewish History after the death of Moses, and it is thought that these passages allude to the Pentateuch, such as we now have it, proving thereby that this book was then in existence. Thus in Joshua ch. i, vv. 7, 8, we read the following exhortation addressed by the Lord to Joshua:

Only be thou strong and very courageous; that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This BOOK OF THE LAW shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein : for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Again, at Joshua xxiii, 6, we read :

Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left.

In another passage of the same book, chap. viii, v. 34, we are told that Joshua, the successor of Moses,

read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law there was not a word of

:

all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel.

From which passage, according to Bishop Tomline, "it is evident, that the Book of the Law, or Pentateuch, existed in the time of Joshua, the successor of Moses.*" But this inference is certainly more than is warranted by the premises. It may be readily admitted as an inference from the passage above quoted, that the Book of the Law existed in the time of Joshua, but that the Book of the Law was the Pentateuch as now exists, does not appear so clearly from the words of Joshua. In drawing this distinction, I would impress upon the reader's mind the necessity of his not confounding the authorship of a book with the truth of its contents. A book may be a true history, and yet not be the production of the author to whom it is ascribed. Further, it may contain the sentiments, laws, and deeds &c. of an eminent man, without having been written by him. Thus the Pentateuch may contain, and, I doubt not, does contain, the substance of all that Moses ever wrote-and is a correct account, as far as human things admit, of what Moses did and taught, but it does not follow from the words of Joshua above quoted, that the Book of the Law there mentioned is the very book which we now possess, called the Pentateuch, and subdivided into the five books called Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

An objection might indeed lie, as before observed, in conducting an enquiry like the present, which will extend to all the books of the Hebrew Canon, against receiving the testimony of Joshua at all; for we know the Hebrew Canon in no other form than as an undivided work, and the continuity of its contents, together with the sequence observed between each part of it and that immediately preceding, as shewn in a former Chapter, seems to

* Elements of Christian Theology, vol. i, p. 35.

favour the idea that it was compiled in one continuous narrative. If so, the testimony of its various parts is the testimony of that man only, who compiled it, and in a chain of chronological evidence forms one link only, and not a series of links. It might therefore be argued that no evidence of fact from one part of it should be admitted in support of another, at least in such a question as that which now lies before us, namely that of the concurrent testimony of ages; for it would be necessary, first, to prove that Joshua wrote the book which passes under his name or at all events that the book of Joshua was written in the age immediately succeeding that of Moses. If the book of Joshua was not written till some hundreds of years later, its testimony cannot be taken as contemporary or nearly contemporary testimony to the authorship of the books of Moses. But the weakness of the first link in the chain of universal consent is sufficiently apparent without breaking the chain altogether. I am content, at present, to rest my objection to the testimony of Joshua on the fact that the Book of the Law which he quotes is not proved to be the same as our Pentateuch and I think that it can be satisfactorily proved to have been a different book from that which we now possess.

In the mean time we may admit the statement in Joshua to prove that in his time there was a certain book called the Book of the Law: but from this point the continuity of the witnesses is entirely broken; for we in vain search the books of Judges,* Ruth, and the two books of Samuel for a continuation of the testimony not the most remote trace is to be found of the Book of the Law or its author.

If it be conceded that these four last-mentioned books

We read in JUDGES i, 20. "And they gave Hebron unto Caleb as Moses said: and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak." But this language is too vague to fix the identity of the book of the law with our Pentateuch; it does not necessarily imply that Moses write any book at all.

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were written about the time of David's death, which happened in the year B. c. 1015,- for this is the point at which the history contained in them terminates, and if it appears that these books, the only surviving records of those five hundred years, make no mention either of the book of the Law, or of Moses its author, it necessarily results that the chain of testimony is interrupted, fatally and hopelessly interrupted—and that we cannot, on the strength of it, prove the Pentateuch to be the Book of the Law, written by Moses.

But the whole drift and force of our argument will be made more clear by adducing whatever testimony can be found in the remaining Hebrew writers and others, after which we may take a general view of the information which they give us.

As the Second book of Samuel could not have been written before the reign of David, because it records the events of his old age, and some of the Psalms were written by David; the author of these Psalms, namely David himself, must be a little earlier in point of time than the author of the Second Book of Samuel; but neither does David, in the Psalms, nor his son Solomon, in the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles, make the most remote allusion to the Book of the Law, so that they furnish no link by which we may re-unite the broken chain of Universal consent. It is true that David, in the Psalms, mentions Moses. The following are all the passages in which his name occurs.

Ps. lxxvii. 20. Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Ps. xcix, 6. Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name.

Ps. cv, 26. He sent Moses his servant, and Aaron whom he had chosen.

Ps. cvi, 16. They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the Lord.

Ps. cvi, 28. Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them.

Ps. cvi, 32. They angered him also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes.

The facts alluded to in these verses, certainly are found in our Pentateuch; but many books exist, containing histories of the same facts, without ever having been thought to be the same books. In fact we have seen in chap. 5, that the writer of the Pentateuch quotes other books, about the same transactions which himself records.

The author of the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles, who is generally considered to be king Solomon, makes no mention either of the book of the Law or of Moses its author.

This observation brings us down to the year 1055 when Solomon began to reign over Israel, but with the exception of the poetical books, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles, generally ascribed to Solomon and his father David, we have no written records of any kind for nearly 300 years, until the time of Jonah who is supposed to be the earliest of the Prophets. But the book of Jonah makes no mention of either Moses or of the Law, and none of the other prophets have the most remote allusion to the subject, except Jeremiah and Malachi, in whose book of prophecies we find the following passages :

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and say thou unto them, Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel; Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt. JEREM. xi, 1—4.

Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people. JEREM. xv, 1.

Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. MALACHI, iv, 4.