deed, this very circumstance affords a strong presumption that the Pentateuch, because written in pure Hebrew, was composed before the Captivity; an almost irresistible confirmation of which arises from the concurrent testimony, as well of Jews as of Samaritans ; both of whom, we find, regulated their religion and policy, by reviving the old law of Moses, humbly venerating and submitting to it.

II. The Code thus revived was not a selection of what was only agreeable; but, on the contrary, it enjoined some most painful sacrifices. The Mosaic law, for instance, forbade their intermarrying with idolatrous nations. Now this prohibition, during the captivity, had been violated in numerous cases; and when the reading of the law by Ezra, discovered to the people their transgression, it excited amongst them, from the highest to the lowest, the greatest grief and alarm; for the Princes, and Chief Priests, and Levites were implicated, as well as the rest. Yet, notwithstanding, every one was required, at a solemn congregation, convened by Ezra, upon pain of excommunication and forfeiture of his estate, within three days, "to put away his wife, and the children born of them." We have a very touching narrative of this (Ezra, chapters ix. & x.); so many were implicated, that the investigation lasted three months; and as the Priests and Levites were amongst the offenders, and

had to submit to the severe penalty themselves, it clearly could not be a device of theirs to strengthen their influence. This fact, itself, might therefore well be taken as full proof that the Code, received by the Jews, after the Captivity was, in all points, the same as that they had been subject to before it. It was utterly impossible for a fabrication, under such circumstances, to have succeeded.

III. Another equally strong proof is derived from the conduct of the Samaritans. These were a colony planted by Esarhaddon, in the land of the enslaved Israelites; and they had been instructed in the Mosaic Code, by a priest sent from the captive Jews (2 Kings xvii. 27). When the Jews returned, these Samaritans wished to unite with them in rebuilding the Temple, and in social acts of worship, but were rejected; and in consequence, the most bitter and deadly hatred arose between them, which continued as long as the nations endured. Now the Samaritan Pentateuch, though written in different characters, is in all points precisely the same as the Jewish one; save an alteration or two, introduced to support the claims of precedence of their own Temple to that of Jerusalem. These two hostile nations thus receiving a code of laws, as of divine authority, is a clear proof of its being considered so before their hostility took place, i. e. before the Captivity, or 580 years before Christ.

IV. A similar process of argument carries the authenticity of the Pentateuch 377 years further back, viz. to the Separation of the kingdom of Israel from that of Judah, in the reign of Rehoboam. It was the manifest interest of the kings of Israel to alienate their subjects from the religion and Temple of the monarch of Jerusalem. But the Pentateuch presented a great obstacle to this; it sanctioned no separation ; and recognized only one mode and place of worship; --one High Priest;-one common Temple for sacrifice, &c. Had, therefore, its divine authority not been universally acknowledged, before the Separation, there would have been no difficulty in exposing and proclaiming the fabrication of a Code so injurious to their views. Whereas we find Jeroboam and his successors were obliged to have recourse to the expedient of deterioration and imitation. They made priests of the lowest of the people,-ordained feasts like those of Judah,-and set up calves of gold, saying "It is too much for thee to go up to Jerusalem; these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of Egypt." Had not their subjects been long habituated to reverence and obey the Code of Moses, this expedient would not have been at all necessary. authenticity of the Pentateuch is thus established to 970 years before Christ.

The

There are two remarkable events corroborative of

the argument, and proving the solemn homage paid to the sacredness of the Pentateuch; one, whilst the separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel existed in the reign of Hezekiah; the other, in the reign of his great grandson Josiah, subsequent to the captivity. In the former, King Hezekiah on his accession, held a solemn meeting (2 Kings ch. xviii.) for national humiliation before God, to open the House of God, (which his father had impiously shut,) and restore the regular service therein; moreover, by proclamation, he invited the ten tribes of Israel, under Hoshea, (who seems to have offered no opposition thereto) to come and "serve the Lord their God, that the fierceness of his wrath might be turned away." (2 Chron. ch. xxx.) And though many of the latter, from disuse, treated this invitation with contempt, yet divers of the tribes of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulon, came, and joining with the people of Judah, kept the solemn feast of the Passover. "So there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, there was not the like at Jerusalem." (2 Chron. xxx. 26.). And at the termination, those who attended (we read) went and brake in pieces the idolatrous images which had been set up in their respective tribes. In the latter, King Josiah, and the whole people of the Jews, made an equally public and solemn recognition of the Pentateuch, upon finding a copy thereof "given by

Moses," (more accurately by the hand of Moses, and possibly his very autograph originally deposited in the Ark). On this occasion all the particular ceremonies were observed (2 Chron. xxxv.); and the people of Judah and Israel united in solemn celebration of the Passover, such as there had not been since the days of Samuel; and concurred with the King Josiah, (2 Kings xxiii. xxiv.) "to perform the words of the law, which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the House of the Lord."

V. These decisive facts are confirmed still further by an internal evidence, which also goes to establish the authenticity of the Pentateuch up to a higher period, viz. before the establishment of the regal government. The Pentateuch exhibits the Jewish government as of a peculiar kind;—NOT REGAL-but a THEOCRACY; the people enacted; the senate or council advised; the Judge, (who was not a constant, but an occasional officer) presided. But the ultimate appeal was to JEHOVAH himself; without whose consent, as expressed by his oracle, there was no power to make new laws, or repeal old ones. This code, moreover, always speaks of the regal government as an innovation to suit the caprice of the people; extorted from Samuel, after much remonstrance, when they had lived four hundred years under their original form of government. And it lays their kings under considerable