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disputations deciding on nothing. This was the true character of heathen philosophy; and what did they leave behind them? A few disciples; an inconsiderable number of followers, whose fame was of still shorter duration than their own. How is it, I ask the unbeliever, how is it, that from among these men not one is to be discovered, whose works can be brought in competition with the doctrines or laws of Moses? This appears to be an unanswerable argument; but the pride and obstinacy of the corrupt heart of man is such, and his natural blindness so like Egyptian darkness, that he, who affects to deny Revelation, will, in defiance of all reason, and all truth, persist in declaring Moses to have been an impostor. To this I would only reply, if such be the case, the imposture must discover itself in his doctrines, his laws, or his histories.

We have before pronounced it to be essential to true religion, that it should enjoin the worship of one only God; that it should instruct man in the obedience which he owes to his Creator, and that it should lead him to a well-grounded hope of everlasting happiness in a future life. If then there be imposture in the writings of Moses, reason herself assists in the deceit: for she perfectly sanctions the doctrines which he teaches, and the worship which he inculcates; and in them we find all

which has been already mentioned as consistent with true religion.

Another proof of the truth of religion consists in its perpetual duration. It commenced with the creation, and will exist to the end of time. It must do so, because it proceeds from certain and evident consequences; from those two incontestible truths, that there is a God, and that the soul of man is of a spiritual and immortal nature.

It is objected, that all nations do not practise this religion. I reply, it is true that there are many barbarous nations still in heathen darkness, but this does not destroy or shake the truth of real religion. One may as well deny the existence of learning, because a great part of the world is in ignorance. Let us not be disturbed by such absurd arguments; but let us remember our first axiom in this chapter, that what is true is not the less so, because unbelievers deny it. What is true cannot be more or less than true, though numbers should oppose it; and it will only remain the same, when admitted by the whole world.

Revelation was in the first ages preserved by tradition, and afterwards by writing; as, after the flood, God saw fit to shorten the lives of men, tradition alone would, in the course of a few ages, have become confused and uncertain.

Let the infidel muster his whole store of argu

ment; I defy him to overturn one of the principles which we have laid down for true religion.

First, That true religion, the religion of revela tion, is in perfect accordance with right reason. Secondly, That this religion is as ancient as the world.

Thirdly, That Moses is the only writer, who has taught such a religion to men.

All other religions of human invention have passed through a thousand changes, and have returned in a few ages into that nothingness from whence they sprung. Neither the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, nor the Romans have been able to preserve a Bel, an Isis, a Ceres, or a Minerva, a Jupiter, or a Mars. They all have been levelled by the destroying hand of time. Their names, together with their boasted honours, and pompous ceremonies, are scarcely heard of, except in seats of learning; and there they find place only in the declamations of the scholar or the effusions of the poet.

But the knowledge of the true God, the God of Moses, has subsisted from the beginning of the world. The revolutions of ages, the opposition of all the powers of the earth, the fury of idolatry, the bigotry of superstition, have never been able to destroy or darken the worship of Jehovah. In all ages the God of the Bible has had his faithful followers; while the religion, which it teaches, was

constantly receiving additional light and lustre from the numerous prophecies, which were from time to time added to the sacred volume; till, above all, the promulgation of the blessed Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, brought the types, symbols, and ceremonies of Moses, with the predictions of the Prophets, from under the cloud, which had partially enveloped them, into the glorious light of perfect day.

When we can thus trace religion, the religion of revelation, retaining throughout so many ages its original purity, it becomes us to conclude, that what has been so miraculously preserved against the power of time, and from all the vicissitudes, to which the productions of men are liable, must have received its derivation as well as its durability from the all-powerful Disposer of times and events.

CHAPTER VII.

REFLECTIONS UPON MOSES, THE AUTHOR OF THE FIRST FIVE BOOKS IN THE SACRED

VOLUME.

THOSE Who oppose revelation are so unjust and unreasonable, that there is no species of deceit, which they will not employ to establish their destructive tenets: from want of evidence, they use arguments which are calculated to confuse the simple, and mislead the weak; and, rather than be reduced to an ignominious silence, they will deny facts without proof, and against probability. Moses, if we were to listen to their assertions, is not the author of those books in the Sacred Volume, which have been attributed to him by believers in all ages: those books, they say, were not written at the time they profess to be; and they add, perhaps, that such a man as Moses never even existed.

Let us examine these denials and doubts, ridiculous as they are. Let us shew these unbelievers the absurdity of their conduct. I allow, that it is perfectly just, if any one asserts a circumstance

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