are attributed to him, under the names of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

We are now to examine another kind of evidence, which will always have considerable weight in the establishment of any history; namely, the monuments, which it contains, of particular events, and the ceremonies, which have been instituted as perpetual memorials of remarkable circumstances. Among any people, if such monuments are received by the public voice, if such ceremonies are complied with and practised by all, it is admitted, that those events, which they profess to commemorate, must have actually taken place; more especially if they contain two very essential properties: the one, that they fix the time of the occurrences which they record; and the other, that they are acknowledged by the people generally, as memorials of those events: they are then, we cannot deny, to be considered as clear demonstrations of the truth of any history.

Now the monuments, which the Books of Moses refer to and describe, are of the same date with the events themselves, and have been acknowledged as having had undoubted existence, by the Israelites in all ages, in such a manner that it places their reality beyond every suspicion of fraud. It will be sufficient for our present purpose to bring a few of the most remarkable to the recollection of the reader.

I will not assert positively, that the ark, in which Noah and his family were saved, was in being for any length of time, after the awful calamity of the flood had subsided, as Moses does not mention it; but it is highly probable that such was the case.

I shall not argue on the altars, which were erected either by Noah or by Abraham; nor upon the wells of antiquity, which bore the names of those Patriarchs by whom they were formed; nor upon the name of Jehovah-Jireh*, given by Abraham to the place at which he prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac, in obedience to the command of God: but all these circumstances have very considerable weight.

The tower of Babel was, we know, in existence when Moses wrote; for he speaks of it in the present tense, and as then actually in being, in that passage, where he gives an account of the confusion of languages +, "Therefore is the name of it called Babel." Such an ancient and stupendous proof as this tower, of the wicked presumption of the descendants of Noah, was surely a monument of a most convincing kind of all the facts connected with it, and indeed of the whole history in which it is recorded. Moses relates to us, four hundred and fifty years after the event, the

terrible judgment of God on Sodom and Gomorrah*. The cinders and arid nature of the country, where these dreadful punishments were inflicted, as well as the miraculous effects of God's anger on the wife of Lot, became indisputable memorials of the awful fact.

The burying place of Abraham and Sarah, in the field which he purchased of the Canaanites †, became an enduring monument of the truth of God's promise respecting the future possession of that land. This tomb, in which the bodies of the other Patriarchs were laid, demonstrates also to every pious mind, not only that these men were far other than ideal heroes of the imagination, either of Moses or any other writer; but it teaches us their absolute reliance on the word of Jehovah, by their anxiety to receive, although in the dust, the investiture of that heritage which belonged to their posterity.

The burying place of Rachel was well known at the time of Moses, and for ages after, and was another lasting monument of the truth of his narrations.

Another considerable memorial which the Book of Genesis contains, is to be found in the institution of the rite of circumcision §. Moses teaches

* Gen. xix.

+ Gen. xxiii. xxv. l.

Gen. xxxv. 20.

§ Gen. xvii.

us, that this ceremony was commanded by God himself to Abraham; and it has been followed, we know, by all those of his descendants, who to the present day have continued under the bondage of the Law, while they blindly reject the freedom of the Gospel.

;

The wonderful recital of Jacob's wrestling with the Angel, is confirmed in a peculiar manner * first, by the imposition of the name of Israel upon him at the time; and, secondly, by the memory of the fact having been perpetuated to us most remarkably, by his descendants refusing to this day to eat of that part of any animal which answers to the sinew contracted in the thigh of Jacob by the touch of the Angel.

In this chapter we have confined ourselves to some of the most considerable monuments or memorials of the truth of holy writ, which are discoverable in the Book of Genesis. We will, in the next, follow up the subject, by bringing forward some instances of the same kind from the other writings of Moses. And the further we advance in the examination of holy writ, the more clearly we shall see, and the more powerfully we shall be convinced, that each fact speaks for itself, in loudly declaring the Divine authenticity of the whole Bible.

* Gen. xxxii.

G

CHAPTER XIV.

A CONTINUATION OF SIMILAR PROOFS, DRAWN FROM SOME OF THE MEMORIALS AND MONU

MENTS CONTAINED IN THE OTHER BOOKS OF MOSES.

SACRED history informs us, that during the Egyptian bondage the Israelites were employed in building two towns or treasure-cities for the king of that country, Pythom and Raamses *. These towns then were lasting memorials of the sojourn of the Jewish nation in Egypt; and of the slavery to which they had been reduced.

If we pay proper attention to the subject, we cannot but allow to that short but emphatic expression in Exodus, so full of Divine majesty, "I AM THAT I AM +," a weight, which carries with it the conviction, that God alone must have pronounced it. It is most accurately translated, expressly according to the original; and gives a Divine authority to the writings of Moses, which is beyond all contradiction. These few words