ration the pen of Moses was guided? We do not find that this special promise to Judah occasioned either rebellion or discontent on the contrary, the tribe descended from him, as well as the rest of their brethren, quietly awaited its accomplishment. And we see them take precedence of the other tribes, only by the order in which they entered the promised land, according to the direction of Moses; and until the establishment of David on the throne of Israel, the fulfilment of it does not appear to have been in any way conspi

cuous.

I ask the infidel to tell me at what time he places the publication of the Book of Genesis, together with these prophetic blessings by Jacob. He must allow one of three things: either that it was, as stated by Moses, long before the reign of David; or if, as he says, it was the work of an impostor, in the intermediate space between that time and David's coming to the throne, or during his reign, or after his death.

To say, that the Book of Genesis was composed after the death of Moses, or that this prediction appeared only just before or during the reign of Saul, would be equally absurd; for this king would never have permitted the circulation of a prediction, which so completely shut out his own family from the succession, had it not carried with it the force of Divine inspiration, together with the

weight of the clearest evidence as to the time of its publication.

If we suppose its utterance during David's occupation of the throne, or subsequently to it; in either case, the fraud would have been easily detected and absolutely useless.

:

But put the prophecy in its right place, according to the account given by Moses in the Book of Genesis let us listen to it as proceeding from the lips of the venerable Patriarch Jacob, and all is beautiful and in order, carrying on the face of it the stamp of Divine truth.

If, in this case, we turn our eyes on the descendants of Jacob occupying the throne of Judah in the posterity of David, we behold his " father's children bowing down" before him*. And we see the prediction in a measure fulfilled, while in the birth of the Messiah we view its complete accomplishment.

This is not the place to examine the prophecy as regards Him, to whom "the gathering of the people" was to bet. I only speak of it, as far as is necessary for the perfect establishment of the authenticity of the Book of Genesis.

We have now to consider those proofs of its Divine origin, which the Book of Genesis contains within itself, conjointly with the other books of

* Gen. xlix. 8.

+ Gen. xlix. 10. -

the sacred volume. It is beyond dispute, that the precise age of the world could never have been discovered by human science: this fact could not have been produced by any calculation of man: necessarily the knowledge of it must have proceeded at once from the Omnipotent Author of creation. Who saw the completion of the world, and all things therein, but He who formed the whole, and then pronounced it good? What other eye than that of their Maker beheld our first parents in innocence, and then witnessed their unhappy fall? Who, but He, in whose hands are all events, knew that Noah and his family were the only human beings preserved from the flood? Who, but He, who commands the organs of speech, beheld the daring plans of the sons of men in a moment overturned by a confusion of tongues? Whence then did Moses obtain these wonderful facts, if not from revelation; or from a clear and certain tradition, which must equally have had its origin in revelation? Thus, on which ever side infidelity turns itself, it will be met by the most powerful demonstration, that the Bible is the word of God; that it is Divine in its origin, as well as in its subject.

We have, in a former chapter, satisfactorily established the authenticity of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. If we allow these recitals to be actually the inspired word of God, we cannot for a moment assert, that Moses was

left to his memory alone, in the compilation of so important a book as Genesis. God speaks in it so often to men; to Abraham in particular, and also to the other Patriarchs;-there are such remarkable recitals as to Jacob and his children; such essential words in the predictions of that Patriarch;that it does not appear possible, that tradition alone could have continued for so many successive ages the safe repository of those interesting particulars with which the Book of Genesis abounds. this reflection we draw a further proof, that Moses must have been especially inspired for the correct recital of the important fact of the creation, and those subsequent events, which are there recorded.

From

The predictions, which regarded the Messiah, are so wonderful, and the harmony and consistency, which discover themselves in them are so beautiful, that they most emphatically declare the Book of Genesis to be no other than the production of Him, by whom the laws which Moses wrote were framed, by whom the wonders which he related were performed, and from whom no secrets are hidden. In a word, the very subject and style of the Book of Genesis proclaim its Divine authority, and determine its predictions to be the real, the everlasting, the immutable decrees of Jehovah.

CHAPTER XIII.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT FOR THE TRUTH OF HOLY WRIT, FOUNDED UPON THOSE MONUMENTS, OR MEMORIALS IN THE WRITINGS OF MOSES, WHICH PROVE THE MOST CONSIDERABLE FACTS.

THERE is such a multiplicity of abundant proof for the confirmation of the truth of the sacred volume, that it is necessary to reduce them into something like classes, to disengage them from the confusion, which so many different arguments would naturally produce, if indiscriminately mixed together. We have for this purpose divided them into several heads, trusting by those means that the reader will be more easily enabled to meditate on their general effect.

After having considered the religion and laws of Moses, each by themselves, as well as the proofs which sustain them, we have shewn the reader, that the Books of Moses were actually written at the time they purport to be ;-and that Moses was not only divinely inspired as to all he wrote, but that he was the sole author of those books, which