Angel's Work. In one of the letters of Robertson, 
 of Brighton, he tells of a lady who related to him 
 " the delight, the tears of gratitude which she had 
 witnessed in a poor girl to whom, in passing, I gave 
 a kind look on going out of church on Sunday. 
 What a lesson ! How cheaply happiness can be 
 given ! What opportunities we miss of doing an 
 angel's work! I remember doing it, full of sad 
 feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about it ; 
 and it gave an hour's sunshine to a human life, and 
 lightened the load of life to a human heart for a 
 time!" If even a look can do so much, who shall 
 estimate the power of kind or unkind words in 
 making married life happy or miserable ? In the 
 home circle more than anywhere else 
 
 " Words are mighty, words are living : 
 _ Serpents with their venomous stings, 
 Or bright angels, crowding round us, 
 
 With heaven's light upon their wings : 
 Every word has its own spirit, 
 
 True or false that never dies ; 
 Every word man's lips have uttered 
 
 Echoes in God's skies."

 
 TREATISE, 
 
 fyc. 
 ON THE RECORDS OF THE CREATION. 
 
 Mundum esse conspicimus, Deura esse credimtis ; quod autem Dens 
 mundum fecerit, nulli tutins confidiraus, quam ipsi Deo. 
 
 August, de Civ. Dei.
 
 A 
 
 TREATISE 
 
 ON THE 
 
 RECORDS OF THE CREATION, 
 
 AM) ON THE 
 
 MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE CREATOR; 
 
 WITH 
 
 PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE JEWISH HISTORY, 
 
 AND 
 
 TO THE CONSISTENCY OF THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION WITH 
 THE WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 
 
 BY JOHN BIRD SUMNER, D.D. 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 J. HATCH ARD AND SON, 187, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCXXXIII.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 IBOTSON AVI) I'AIMIU, I-IIIVIIIO, S 4 VO V M II I I'l , SI I! A VI).
 
 Stacfl 
 
 Annex 
 
 5017438 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 SEVERAL years ago, Mr. Burnett, a Scottish 
 gentleman, among other instances of distinguish- 
 ed munificence, which have rendered it imprac- 
 ticable to comply with his own earnest wish of 
 keeping his name concealed,* bequeathed pre- 
 miums of the sums of twelve hundred and four 
 hundred pounds, for two Treatises upon the fol- 
 lowing subject : " The Evidence that there is a 
 Being all-powerful, wise, and good, by whom 
 every Thing exists ; and particularly to obviate 
 Difficulties regarding the Wisdom and the Good- 
 
 * A more detailed memoir of this gentleman has been 
 prepared by Dr. Brown, Professor of Divinity, and Princi- 
 pal of Marischal College in Aberdeen ; and is prefixed to his 
 Treatise on the same subject, to which the premium of twelve 
 hundred pounds was adjudged.
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 ness of the Deity ; and this in the first place, 
 from Considerations independent of written 
 Revelation ; and in the second place, from the 
 Revelation < u i>**0: and from the 
 
 whole, to point out the Inferences most neces- 
 sary for, and useful to Mankind." The Minis- 
 ters of the established Church, and the Principals 
 and Professors of King's and Marischal colleges 
 of Aberdeen, and the Trustees of the Testator, 
 were appointed to nominate three Judges who 
 should decide upon the comparative merits of 
 the Treatises that might be laid before them with 
 sealed mottos, by the 1st of January 1814. 
 
 In this liberality the following Treatise origi- 
 nated, to which the premium of 400/. was 
 awarded by the judges chosen according to the 
 instructions of the Testator ; namely the late 
 Professor Gerard, whose death the university 
 has since had to lament, and Professors Hamil- 
 ton and (ilcnnic, <>f Aberdeen.
 
 PREFACE. Vii 
 
 The first view of the subject thus proposed 
 for consideration, presents the appearance of a 
 country, every spot of which is appropriated 
 and pre-occupied. The EVIDENCES of religion, 
 it is true, were not the earliest objects of British 
 theology. The great divines who led the Re- 
 formation, and those who followed their steps 
 during the first half of the succeeding century, 
 were chiefly employed in clearing the majestic 
 fabric of Christianity, from the weeds and rub- 
 bish by which it had been so long obscured. 
 Attention is first due to those within the 
 Church : it was, therefore, for some time a suf- 
 ficient labour to extricate the true doctrines of 
 the ' from the errors which had long 
 
 overrun them : and when a right faith had been 
 once laid as a foundation, and an Apostolical 
 worship established, to raise upon it that pure 
 and holy practice which is its fit and proper 
 ornament, instead of that lax and compromising 
 morality which is the decisive condemnation of
 
 viii PKEFACI.. 
 
 the church of Rome, and the inveterate scandal 
 of its professors. 
 
 When, however, the genius of this illustri- 
 ous age had set up the Protestant faith, and 
 the rule of life belonging to it on an immoveable 
 basis, the attention was naturally directed, in 
 the next place, to those without the pale of 
 Christianity. Accordingly its agreement in all 
 points, with the universal tenets of natural 
 religion ; the insufficiency, at the same time, of 
 natural religion both to inform and to sanction ; 
 the acquaintance we derive from reason with 
 the Creator and his attributes, and the confor- 
 mity of the appearance of the universe with 
 the conclusions at which reason arrives : these 
 subjects of perpetual interest have called forth 
 talents worthy of their importance, and have 
 received an accession of light from learning, 
 genius, and industry, through the successive 
 generations of Stillingfleet, Clarke, Butler, 
 Warburton, ;ni<l Palcv.
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 If it is hopeless to look out for a vacant spot in 
 a district so fully occupied, the next object is to 
 
 fix upon ground which stands most in need of 
 farther cultivation.* This view of the subject 
 determined me, among the various lines of ar- 
 gument which all tend to the same point, to rest 
 my principal evidence of the existence of the 
 Creator, upon the credibility of the Mosaic re- 
 cords of the creation. Neither does it appear 
 that the most unanswerable argument, or irre- 
 fragable demonstration, can produce a convic- 
 tion at all comparable to that which arises from 
 a firm belief that the fact in question has been 
 made known to us by revelation. 
 
 I am aware that it may be urged as an ob- 
 jection to this plan, that it carries us away 
 
 * When the plan of this work was arranged, and the first 
 part of it written, Dr. Graves's learned Discourses on the 
 Pentateuch had not appeared ; nor Dr. Ireland's equally able 
 Lectures on < .> Paganism compared.
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 from NATURAL theology. But, if it does so, 
 we are only following- the course to which the 
 subject itself must lead every reflecting mind. 
 That there is a Creator, 
 
 All Nature cries aloud in all her works ; 
 
 but Nature, though she always proclaimed the 
 same truth, yet spoke in vain to the sages of 
 antiquity, who either altogether failed to in- 
 terpret her language, or suffered the still whisper 
 of " Divine Philosophy" to be lost amidst the 
 various bustle of the world. It is true, we 
 understand astronomy better than Thales or 
 Pythagoras, and natural history and anatomy 
 better than Aristotle or Galen : the treatises 
 of Ray, or Derham, or Paley, could not have 
 been written two thousand years ago : but the 
 ancients, imperfect as their sciences were, knew 
 more than enough of the harmony and design 
 of the universe, to draw out an unanswerable 
 argument from final causes : and, in point of fact,
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 they did draw out both that and other argu- 
 ments so far as to leave us indisputable proof 
 that the God of NATURAL THEOLOGY will never 
 be any thing* more than the dumb idol of 
 philosophy : neglected by the philosopher himself, 
 and unknown to the multitude ; acknowledged 
 in the closet, and forgotten in the world. 
 
 The real use of Natural Theology to our- 
 selves, is to show the strong probability of that 
 being true which revelation declares. For, 
 when Natural Theology has told all her story, 
 the reasonable question presses us still, Has, 
 then, the Creator, whose existence you point 
 out so clearly, maintained no communication 
 with this visible emanation of his power ? Has 
 he revealed no commands, and prescribed no 
 worship to the human race ? Then he remains 
 the inactive deity of philosophic theism :* the 
 
 * The doctrine of Socrates affords the only material ex- 
 ception .
 
 XI 1 I'UEFACE. 
 
 indifferent spectator of the crimes, the virtue, 
 the cares, and the sorrows of mankind : 
 
 Who sees with equal eyes, as God of a 11 , 
 A hero perish, or a sparrow fall ; 
 Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd 
 And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 
 
 The truth is, however, that to descend from 
 the height to which we have been gradually 
 raised by Revelation, and argue still upon the 
 level of unassisted reason, would be impossible 
 if it were desirable, and unprofitable even if 
 it were possible. It would be impossible, be- 
 cause the rays of knowledge which Revela- 
 tion has generally diffused will imperceptibly 
 penetrate, however thick a veil we may choose 
 to spread before our eyes : and it would be un- 
 profitable, because, as I have already hinted, 
 philosophy may silence atheism, but will never 
 command practical obedience, or inspire prac- 
 tical devotion.* 
 
 * " The bounds of this knowledge are, that it sufficeth to 
 convince atheism, but not to inform religion ; and therefore
 
 PREFACE. Xlii 
 
 Where Reason, however, leaves us, Revela- 
 tion takes us up ; and furnishes us with a record 
 of the creation, preserved by the wisdom, and 
 authenticated by the power, of the Creator : 
 although it has sometimes been fashionable to at- 
 tack , as Paley expresses it, through 
 the sides of Judaism, it will, I trust, appear to a 
 candid inquirer, no less morally impossible for 
 the early Hebrew writings to have been forged, 
 than for the r , itself to have been fabri- 
 cated by its first teachers : and a difficulty no 
 less inexplicable to account for the existence of 
 the Jewish law and religion, independently of 
 the facts which are attested in the Penta- 
 teuch ; than for the promulgation of ' 
 
 , independently of the miracles and re- 
 there was never miracle wrought by God to convert an athe- 
 ist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess 
 a God ; but miracles have been wrought to convert idolaters 
 and the superstitious, because no light of nature exteudeth 
 to declare the will and true worship of God." Bacon's 
 Advancement of Learning.
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 surrection of the Messiah. To bring into 
 popular view the nature and extent of this ar- 
 gument, is the principal object of the first of 
 the following volumes. 
 
 In the second volume I have endeavoured 
 to obviate those difficulties regarding the 
 wisdom and goodness of the Creator, which 
 arise from the existence of physical and moral 
 evil. These difficulties have been deemed im- 
 portant by reflecting persons in all ages : 
 and some superficial writers, though professing 
 to acknowledge the Power and Intelligence 
 displayed in the creation, have ventured to 
 blaspheme the MORAL attributes of the Deity, on 
 the ground of the guilt and ignorance, the 
 poverty and wretchedness, with which the world 
 abounds. 
 
 But the subject has been made still more in- 
 teresting, since it has been recently and clearly
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 proved, that the greater part of these evils are 
 the necessary consequence of a cause universally 
 operating, viz. the natural tendency of mankind 
 to increase in a quicker ratio than their subsis- 
 tence. So that it becomes almost hopeless to 
 expect any material diminution of the degree of 
 evil actually existing ; and the imputation may 
 now appear to attach upon the divine ordi- 
 nances, which was formerly cast upon acci- 
 dental inconveniences, or human institutions. 
 On this account it seemed peculiarly desirable 
 to inquire, if possible, into the final cause of 
 that provision for replenishing the world, which 
 is known to be so universally active, and has 
 engaged of late years so much attention ; and 
 to show that the present and actual state of the 
 world is not only consistent with the wisdom 
 and goodness of God, but affords perpetual tes- 
 timony of both. 
 
 In the prosecution of this attempt, I have
 
 XVI 1'HKFACK. 
 
 not ventured to take the Christian Revelation 
 as the groundwork of my argument, because, 
 that being- granted, any treatise upon the 
 divine attributes would be superfluous : at the 
 same time I should consider it equally absurd 
 and unprofitable to argue in this age, and in this 
 country, as if we were really as much in the 
 dark respecting the counsels of God, or the ob- 
 ject of man's existence, as Socrates or Cicero. 
 The experiment of vindicating the moral ad- 
 ministration of the universe without the help 
 of a future state, has been sufficiently tried. 
 The necessity of general laws, or the inevitable 
 consequences of human liberty, or the degrees of 
 perfection of possible worlds, may serve by turns 
 to exercise, or amuse, or perplex the reasoning 
 powers of a few philosophers. But something 
 more satisfactory must confute the sceptic : 
 something more consolatory must soothe the nf- 
 flicted : something more irresistible must arm the 
 moralist. It i^ easy for a philosophical Emperor
 
 PREFACE. XV11 
 
 to exclaim " O world, all things are suitable to 
 me which are suitable to thee. Nothing is too 
 early or too late for me which is seasonable for 
 thee. All is fruit to me which thy seasons bring 
 forth. From thee are all things ; in thee are 
 all things ; for thee are all things." But the 
 voice of the multitude will still reply : Why 
 must our poverty contribute to another's pros- 
 perity ? Why must Epictetus be depressed, that 
 Epaphroditus may be elevated ? Cannot Omni- 
 potence provide general good, except at the 
 expense of individual misery ? 
 
 The truth is, that Reason and Revelation 
 mutually support and assist each other in con- 
 templating the justice and goodness of the 
 Deity, no less than in ascertaining the fact of 
 the creation. If we look to this world alone, 
 we see indisputable benevolence, and are con- 
 vinced ; we see indisputable evil, and are con- 
 founded. We argue, that, " if there's a power 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 Xviii PREFACE. 
 
 above us, he must delight in virtue ; and that 
 which he delights in, must be happy ;" but the 
 question still recurs, does not the actual ap- 
 pearance of the world disprove this rational 
 conclusion ? 
 
 On this account, it was a sound and excellent 
 judgment, which directed that the attributes of 
 the Deity should be treated of, " in the first 
 place, from considerations independent of writ- 
 ten Revelation ; and in the second place, from 
 the Revelation of Natural 
 
 reason conducts us to the doors of the temple ; 
 but he, who would penetrate farther, and be- 
 hold in their just proportions the greatness and 
 majesty of the Deity within, must consent to be 
 led by Revelation. No other guide can enter 
 the sanctuary in which he resides, or read the 
 book in which His counsels are written. In- 
 deed, I feel, that in pursuing those counsels 
 through the intricate paths of natural and moral
 
 PREFACE. XIX 
 
 evil, though with the light of Revelation before 
 me, I have sometimes ventured upon dangerous 
 ground. But wherever sceptics dare to tread, 
 the firm believer of Revelation need not be 
 afraid to follow ; in full confidence that every 
 just research into the laws by which the moral 
 man is regulated, as well as every fresh dis- 
 covery in the constitution of the natural world, 
 will tend eventually to illustrate the majesty of 
 that Being, whose eternal counsels direct the 
 whole, and from whom the will and the power 
 to search out those counsels ultimately proceed. 
 
 c 2
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 On the Opinion of the Eternity of the World. (Page 1.) 
 
 Preliminary Observations. 
 
 Statement of the Opinion of the Eternity of the World. 
 
 Metaphysical Objections of that Opinion, from the Nature 
 
 of universal Substance; from the existence of Motion; 
 
 and from the Nature of necessary Existence. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 On the Opinion which ascribes the Formation of the 
 World to Chance. (Page 21.) 
 
 Statement of Epicurus's Cosmogony. 
 
 Its Contradiction to Reason and Experience. 
 
 Chance never called in by natural Philosophers to account 
 
 for Phaenomena. Instance from the Strata of the Earth 
 
 and Saltness of the Sea, &c. 
 Conclusion as to the Effect of the Argument from final 
 
 Causes.
 
 XX11 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. III. SECT. I. 
 
 On the Probability that some Account of the Creation 
 would be revealed and preserved. (Page 32.) 
 
 Statement of the Reasons for that Probability. 
 
 Mosaic History. 
 
 Collateral Testimony to its Truth. 
 
 Its internal Evidence unobjectionable ; and therefore in- 
 sisted on in the following Argument. 
 
 Preliminary Inquiries as to the Nature of the History, and 
 its Origin from Revelation and Tradition. 
 
 Collateral Evidence in favour of original Revelation, from 
 the Nature of Language : from the slow Progress of the 
 Arts : from the agricultural State described by Moses. 
 
 Nothing improbable in the Idea of original Revelation. 
 
 CHAP. III. SECT II. 
 
 The Object of the Hebrew Polity. (Page 58.) 
 
 Its avowed Intention to maintain the Worship of the Creator. 
 Proof from the Decalogue ; and from the Institution of the 
 
 Sabbath. 
 Argument from the Establishment of such a civil Polity. 
 
 CHAP. III. SECT. III. 
 
 Peculiarity of the Design of the Hebrew Polity. ( P . 70.) 
 
 Plan of other Legislators. 
 
 Lycurgus and Solon : Romulus and Numa, compared with 
 Moses : their religious Rites the Effect of Policy.
 
 CONTENTS. XX111 
 
 Zaleucus : inferior to Moses in Tone of Authority. 
 
 Miraculous Interpositions appealed to throughout the Law. 
 
 Antiquity of the Law. Absurdity of the contrary Opinion, 
 from the Impossibility of assigning any period to its Intro- 
 duction, on other Grounds ; and from the Nature of its 
 Enactments. 
 
 Recapitulation. 
 
 CHAP. III. SECT. IV. 
 
 Peculiar Sanction of the Mosaic Law. (Page 100.) 
 
 Moses relies on divine Interposition. 
 
 Duration of the civil Polity dependent on the Allegiance of 
 the People to the Worship of the Creator. 
 
 Punishment of Slavery threatened to Disobedience. Mode 
 of averting that Punishment. 
 
 Contrary to the Course of human Affairs. 
 
 Rewards promised. 
 
 Comparison of Mahomet. 
 
 Extraordinary Providence necessary, under the Mosaic In- 
 stitutions ; as the Sabbath, sabbatical Year, 8cc. 
 
 Proved by subsequent Events of the History. 
 
 This Necessity foreseen by Moses. 
 
 Peculiar Provisions of the Jewish Law confirmed by colla- 
 teral Testimony. 
 
 Conclusion from the Peculiarity of its Design and Sanctions. 
 
 CHAP. III. SECT. V. 
 
 On the Religious Opinions of the Hebrews. (Page 134.) 
 
 Inquiry as to their Superiority over those of other Nations. 
 Universal Belief among the Hebrews of the Existence of one
 
 XXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 omnipotent Creator. Different Case of other ancient 
 People. 
 
 Hebrew Literature : confined to sacred Subjects ; and con- 
 taining sublime Descriptions of the Attributes, &c. 
 
 Comparison of these with heathen Hymns. Orpheus. 
 Isaiah. Fragment of Euripedes. 102d Psalm. Hymn 
 of Cleanthes. Extract from Book of Wisdom. Mytho- 
 logical Hymns. Carmina Ssecularia. 
 
 Concluding Remarks. 
 
 CHAP. III. SECT. VI. 
 
 On the national Worship of the Hebrews. (Page 161.) 
 
 National Worship an important Test. 
 
 General Errors of the ancient Philosophers, and Multi- 
 tude. 
 
 Idolatry. Forbidden to the Jews. 
 
 National Worship of Greece. Chorus from the CEdipus 
 of Sophocles. Roman Superstition. Serpent brought 
 from Epidaurus. Erection of the Statue of Jupiter dur- 
 ing the Catilinarian Conspiracy. Contrast of the Jewish 
 Worship. Solomon's Dedication of Temple. Heze- 
 kiah's Prayer. Belief retained throughout the whole Jew- 
 ish History. 
 
 CHAP. III. SECT. VII. 
 
 On the Principles of Hebrew Mora lily. (Page 184.) 
 
 I. Authority assumed by Moses as to Virtues of imperfect 
 Obligation. The Welfare of the State was the sole Ob- 
 ject of heathen Legislation. Consequent Purity of the 
 Jewish Morality.
 
 CONTENTS. XXV 
 
 II. Infanticide at Sparta, and generally in Greece, &c. 
 Forbidden to the Jews, in consistency with their Views of 
 the Creator. 
 
 III. Motives of Jewish Morality, the divine Favour or Dis- 
 pleasure 
 
 IV. Humanity prescribed by the Jewish Law, in Conformity 
 with the same Principles. Treatment of Slaves and Stran- 
 gers, compared with other nations. 
 
 Argument arising from this Difference. 
 
 CHAP. III. SECT. VIII. and IX. 
 
 On the Causes to which the Superiority of the Mosaic 
 Theology may be referred. 
 
 SECT. VIII. 
 
 Whether Moses could have invented the Doctrine he 
 taught concerning the Creation. (Page 217.) 
 
 Belief of a Creator agreeable to Reason, but not discovered 
 by it. Polytheism of the Ancients. Not dispelled by 
 the Philosophers. None of them taught a rational Sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Sublime Passages from Plato and others. Difference be- 
 tween the Philosophers and Moses examined. 1. Their 
 Ignorance of the Personality of the Deity. This De- 
 fect inherent in the System of Pythagoras and the Stoics : 
 and of Aristotle. Practical Consequences of such an Error. 
 II. Socrates. His Superiority. But his Doctrine not 
 applicable to an Account of the Creation. Plato's Belief
 
 XXVI CONTENTS. 
 
 of the independent Existence of Matter. The Clearness 
 of the Views of Moses compared. 
 
 No Arguments unknown to the Philosophers, which could 
 have convinced Moses of the Unity. Argument from final 
 Causes clearly understood by Socrates and his Disciples. 
 Argument from the Necessity of a First Cause used by 
 Aristotle. Positive Conviction of Moses. 
 
 Difference between the Doctrine of the Philosophers and of 
 Moses acknowledged by the Converts to Christianity. 
 
 Improvement in the Doctrines of Philosophy as the Scrip- 
 tures became known. 
 
 Concluding Remarks. 
 
 SECT. IX. 
 
 Moses neither received his Doctrine of the Creation from 
 the Egyptians, nor from the popular belief of the Is- 
 raelites. (Page 263.) 
 
 I. Egyptian Doctrines. Crossness of their Idolatry. Eso- 
 teric Belief of their Priests. Its inconsistency. Mistaken 
 Ideas of Egyptian Superiority. 
 
 Reserve of the Egyptian Priests, as to their Doctrine. 
 Immortality of the Soul. 
 
 II. Difficulty of accounting for the Existence of a pure 
 Belief among the Israelites, except from original Revela- 
 tion. 
 
 Their State Pastoral : that State unfavourable to Literature. 
 Proofs. Unhesitating Declaration of Moses. Couclusiv 
 Argument arising from it. 
 
 Recapitulation of the whole Evidence. Absurd Conse- 
 quences of rejecting it, deduced from the Peculiarities of
 
 CONTENTS. XXV11 
 
 the Hebrew History and Law. The Evidence amounts to 
 moral Certainty. 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 Conclusions from the foregoing Argument. (Page 297.) 
 
 Recapitulation of the demonstrative, analogical, and his- 
 torical Argument. Question considered, whether the 
 Evidence is such as ought to influence the Practice of Man- 
 kind. Nature of demonstrative Evidence. Its narrow Ex- 
 tent. Different Provinces of several Sorts of Evidence. 
 Their Application distinct. Question, as to the Liability to 
 Error. No Species of Evidence free from such Liability. 
 Probable Evidence of most general Importance in human 
 Life. Obligation it imposes. Our usual Confidence in it. 
 Instances ; as Voyage of Columbus. Conclusion. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 That the Mosaic History is not inconsistent with geological 
 Discoveries. (Page 321.) 
 
 Introductory Remarks, as to the Objections to the Autho- 
 rity of the Pentateuch. 
 
 Statement of the real Question as to Geology. 
 Character of the Mosaic Records. 
 Outline of the Mosaic Account of the Creation. 
 Results of geological Researches.
 
 XXV111 CONTENTS. 
 
 Evidence of the Deluge universal and indisputable. Mosaic 
 Account of the Extent of that Catastrophe. Subterra- 
 neous Fire, the probable Agent. Traces of such Agency. 
 
 Alternate Revolutions supposed by Cuvier. 
 
 Concluding Remarks on geological Hypotheses. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 On the Descent of Mankind from a single Pair. (P. 342.) 
 
 Statement of the Objection. 
 
 Question examined by Analogy. Varieties among brute 
 Animals ; the same in Degree and Kind as those in the 
 human Race. 
 
 Causes of them : Climate, Domestication, Food, &c. 
 
 The effect of these Causes on Man, considered. 
 
 Climate alone insufficient to produce the Varieties of Com- 
 plexion 
 
 Known Effect of local Causes : and Instances. 
 
 Effect of the Reverse of those Circumstances. Instances of 
 gradual Approximation towards the European Feature and 
 Complexion. On the Perpetuation of Varieties : how far 
 favoured in the early Ages of the World. 
 
 No Advantage gained by the Hypothesis of Different Species. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 On the Authenticity and Antiquity of the Pentateuch. 
 (Page 379.) 
 
 Proof from Style. 
 
 Brief View of the principal Objections. 
 
 Argument from the Samaritan Pentateuch.
 
 TREATISE, 
 
 PART I. 
 
 ON THE EVIDENCES OF A CREATION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On the Opinion of the Eternity of the World. 
 
 IT appeared to Hume that Milton has justly 
 represented Adam, when rising- at once, in 
 Paradise, and in the full perfection of his senses, 
 as astonished at the glorious appearances of 
 nature, the heaven, the air, the earth, his own 
 organs and members ; and led by the contempla- 
 tion of them to ask, whence this wonderful 
 scene arose?* And it is somewhat curious, 
 
 * Natural History of Religion, sect. 1. 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 ON THE ETERNITY 
 
 that an ancient philosopher, in a well-known 
 passage of similar tendency, has furnished us 
 with the answer which the scene would suggest 
 to him : " If it were possible that persons who 
 had long lived in subterraneous habitations, and 
 had enjoyed only a vague report of the existence 
 and power of the gods, should suddenly emerge 
 into the light and lustre of the world we inha- 
 bit, they would no sooner behold the earth, 
 and sea, and sky, or understand the regular 
 order of the seasons and the vastness of the 
 heavenly bodies, than they would at once 
 acknowledge both the existence of superior 
 powers, and that these wonders were of their 
 creation."* 
 
 This seems reasonable ; and yet if it is so, 
 whence comes Atheism? and why have not 
 these wonders uniformly had the effect of lead- 
 
 * Quoted by Cicero, Nat. Deor. ii. 37; as if from Aris- 
 totle. If the fragment were really from a work of Aristotle, 
 it could not originally have been intended to convey his own 
 sentiments.
 
 OF THE WORLD. O 
 
 ing mankind to the discovery and contemplation 
 of the Supreme Being-? 
 
 It may afford some explanation of this, to 
 observe, that mankind do not rise like Adam, 
 in Paradise, in the full perfection of their 
 faculties. The magnificent fabric of the uni- 
 verse which is before our eyes from our infancy, 
 and gradually comprehended as the intellect 
 expands, loses its effect upon the mind ; but 
 would strike us with irresistible conviction, if 
 all the beauty, variety, and regularity of the 
 world opened upon us at once, when the powers 
 of the understanding were capable of appre- 
 ciating them. To a certain degree, this may 
 account for the indifference with which mankind 
 in all ages have been apt to survey the wonderful 
 scene around them, and their relation to its 
 Author. 
 
 There are many ages during which we have 
 little record left of the progress of the human 
 mind. But according to the earliest writings 
 we have received from Greece, the country 
 
 B 2
 
 4 ON THE ETERNITY 
 
 with which we are best acquainted, it does not 
 appear that for a length of time, the beings 
 which were termed Gods were considered other- 
 wise than as parts of the general system ; or 
 that any notion had been attained of a Creator, 
 upon whose fiat the universe depended. Nor 
 ought we to wonder that men, in that rude 
 period of civilization, should not have been 
 led to form rational ideas of a Creator from 
 the works of the creation ; it is an inference 
 which the great mass of mankind would never 
 draw, if left to their own reflections. Simple 
 as the analogical reasoning from effect to cause, 
 from contrivance to a contriver, may seem, 
 still it is reasoning, and, as such, it is the busi- 
 ness of a mind in some degree improved, and 
 abstracted from sensible objects. In the first 
 stages of society there are no such minds ; and 
 it is no more surprising that, by the great 
 body of mankind in every age, the world 
 is seen and inhabited without exciting awe 
 and admiration, than that a peasant who finds 
 himself placed by the fortune of his birth in 
 any particular country, should be little solicit-
 
 OF THE WORLD. O 
 
 ous about its history, antiquity, or earliest 
 founders. 
 
 As soon, however, as the progress of civili- 
 zation had improved reason, and given oppor- 
 tunity for reflection, the existence and origin 
 of the world presented the first and most in- 
 teresting object of inquiry. The earliest sages 
 that we hear of as engaged at all in philoso- 
 phical speculation, turned their attention to 
 physics, and the explanation of the appearance 
 of the natural world.* It was then that the 
 question was first started, How, at whose order, 
 and to what end, this universe derived its form 
 and being : a question which proved the most 
 fruitful theme of disputation among the ancient 
 philosophers ; which even in the dark ages, 
 however frivolous the perplexities to which it 
 gave rise, still served to keep alive the spark 
 of ratiocination ; and which, since the revival 
 of literature, has employed alike the pen of 
 
 * See Adam Smith's account of this, Wealth of Nations 
 vol. iii. book v. chap. 1. Also Stewart's Essays, Prelim. 
 Dissert, xxiii.
 
 ON THE ETERNITY 
 
 authors most distinguished for wit and learning, 
 for genius and logical precision. 
 
 To this interesting problem, one of the three 
 following answers must necessarily be returned : 
 
 I. Either the world must have existed from 
 eternity the same ; 
 
 II. Or it was formed by chance, at some 
 unassigned period, out of pre-existing mate- 
 rials ; 
 
 III. Or it was created by an omnipotent 
 and intelligent Being. 
 
 The two first of these opinions it will be 
 enough to glance at very slightly. It seems 
 to be now both generally and justly considered, 
 that what can be done by metaphysics, upon 
 this great subject, has already been done so 
 completely, as to leave little for these later days 
 except the repetition of points which have been 
 long ago established, or the gleaning of argu- 
 ments which earlier disputants abandoned as 
 not worth taking. The great difference between
 
 OF THE WORLD. 7 
 
 metaphysical and moral reasoning is, that the 
 former is a mine that is quickly exhausted, while 
 the latter is continually deriving- fresh supplies 
 from the progressive advance of our physical 
 or historical researches. The question as to 
 the eternity of the world, however, is strictly 
 metaphysical, and can only be met by meta- 
 physical arguments ; as such, therefore, I should 
 leave it altogether in the powerful hands of 
 Locke, and Clarke, and Wollaston, if it did not 
 stand in the way of a more consistent and rational 
 belief, and on that account require some short 
 consideration. 
 
 Whether we adopt the Egyptian or Mosaic 
 chronology ; whether we suppose our globe to 
 be six million or six thousand years old, it is 
 of all truths that depend upon reason the most 
 obvious, that something must have existed from 
 eternity. Perhaps this is the only truth esta- 
 blished by metaphysics which no sophist has 
 been subtle or hardy enough to impugn. It is 
 not, therefore, surprising, that the apparent 
 simplicity of supposing the world itself to have
 
 8 ON THE ETERNITY 
 
 been that eternal thing, should have disposed 
 philosophers to the early adoption of such a 
 tenet. It was, in fact, an extensive opinion 
 among- the ancients, and has been the chief 
 resource of modern atheists. 
 
 In the statement of the system there are 
 some shades of difference. Aristotle, for exam- 
 ple, whilst he held that the world was neither 
 produced, nor is capable of corruption, but is 
 one and everlasting, acknowledged, at the same 
 time, the necessity of some intervening power, 
 to give motion to that which is itself inert and 
 immovable. The generality of the followers* 
 of this system, however, have maintained, in 
 the words of the ancient philosopher, that GW,t 
 t/w active and efficient cause, and matter, are so 
 essentially united, as to be one and the same ; or, 
 
 * Ocellus Lucanus, if his jargon deserves the name of 
 system: Zeno afterwards more clearly; who was followed, 
 with some shades of verbal difference, by the Eleatics and 
 i'< ripatetics : Pliny, lib. ii. cap. 1, very explicitly : and Spi- 
 noza, \vifh most of the modern atheists. 
 
 i Diog. Lacrt. lib. vii.
 
 OF THE WORLD. 9 
 
 according 1 to his modern disciple,* that there is 
 only one substance in nature, endued with infinite 
 attributes, and, amongst them, with extension 
 and thought. 
 
 The present age does not so much require 
 to be set free from error, as to be reminded of 
 truth. We should be ill employed in dragging 
 from their obscurity the doctrines of Spinoza, 
 in order to employ against them at any length 
 the arguments by which the reasoners of his 
 own time either demonstrated the falsehood of 
 his premises, or the absurdity of his conclu- 
 sions.-}- Professing to clear from its difficulties 
 the received system of theology, he introduced 
 his own with axioms which shock our reason, 
 and directly oppose our natural judgment. J 
 It will only be necessary to hint concisely at a 
 few of the absurd conclusions to which his 
 
 * Spinoza. See Bayle, vol. v. p. 299. 
 
 f Particularly Clarke, in answer to Spinoza ; and Sykes 
 on Natural and Revealed Religion, in answer to Toland, 
 who adopted the same system, under the title of The Pan- 
 theistic Scheme. 
 
 t Bayle, vol. v. p. 212.
 
 10 ON THE ETERNITY 
 
 principles lead, in order to show that we are 
 justified in looking farther than the hypothesis 
 of the world's eternity for a satisfactory explana- 
 tion of its present existence. 
 
 I. The notion which our senses present to 
 us respecting the world, leads us to consider 
 it as consisting of an infinite number of parts, 
 subservient, perhaps, to one another, and to 
 a certain degree mutually dependent, but still, 
 as existences, perfectly and essentially dis- 
 tinct; collected, as a number of individuals 
 may be collected together ; but not united, as 
 the members of the same individual. Those, 
 however, who argue for the eternity of the 
 world, comprehend all this infinite variety of 
 parts, in one sole, universal, and eternal substance. 
 If by substance they here understand merely 
 the imaginary support of the numerous attri- 
 butes and qualities which are found in the world, 
 substance is manifestly not a real existence, but 
 an abstract term ; of which, as it has no arche- 
 type in nature, it is impossible for us to form 
 any accurate or definite idea.
 
 OF THE WORLD. 11 
 
 But the system involves, at least, this ab- 
 surdity ; that whatever can be affirmed or 
 denied of any of the parts of this compound 
 substance, must be affirmed or denied of the 
 whole ; and, whatever can be suffered or felt 
 by any of the parts, must be felt and suffered 
 by the whole ; must equally effect God and 
 man, bodies organized or unorganized, animate 
 or inanimate matter. Such consequences could 
 never be admitted by any reasonable being ; 
 and such premises could never have been laid 
 down, except under shelter of the ambiguities 
 of language, which sometimes renders sub- 
 stance an abstract term, coined for the conve- 
 nience of the understanding, and sometimes 
 gives it a real existence as body.* 
 
 II. When, however, we have proceeded so 
 far as to conceive the universe as one individual 
 substance, the attributes with which it must 
 
 * This remark is sufficiently justified by the observation of 
 Hobbes so frequently quoted : " Incorporeal substance, are 
 words, which, when joined together, destroy each other." 
 An observation, solely founded on the ambiguity of the word 
 substance.
 
 12 ON THE ETERNITY 
 
 be endowed will be no less embarrassing than 
 its first existence. For, it is too plain to be 
 denied, that whatever we find to exist, must 
 be derived from the independent Being that 
 existed from eternity. It follows, that this 
 independent Being must either have possessed 
 in himself whatever exists, or must have had 
 the power of producing it. We find, however, 
 sense and motion to exist ; and if that eternal 
 thing is the world itself, there is no other 
 source to which we can refer the origin of sense 
 and motion. 
 
 Now, without attempting to define matter or 
 mind, and only taking the evidence of our 
 senses for the existence of the former, it is 
 surely safe to affirm that we find in ourselves, 
 and observe in other animals, in some in an 
 equal, in others in an inferior degree, a power 
 of sensation and reflection, and a power of 
 moving ourselves and other things. We find 
 in the world other bodies, which are to all ap- 
 pearance entirely without the sensitive or re- 
 flecting power, and are certainly incapable
 
 OF THE WORLD. 13 
 
 of spontaneous motion. It has, therefore, been 
 pretty generally concluded, that animals en- 
 dued with these qualities, owe their superiority 
 over the other bodies which are without them, 
 and which we term inanimate, to the exclusive 
 possession of an immaterial substance, which 
 philosophers have called spirit ; and that there 
 are, in fact, two sorts of being's in the world, 
 cogitative and incogitative, corporeal and spi- 
 ritual. 
 
 This difference is altogether denied by those 
 who assert the universe to be one substance. 
 " The same matter," they affirm,* " crystallizes 
 in the mineral, vegetates in the plant, lives 
 and is organized in the brute, feels, thinks, 
 and reasons in man. Thoughts and sentiments 
 proceed from peculiar distributions of atoms 
 in the human brain ; and as necessarily result 
 
 * Academical Questions, p. 251, et seq. : a book, of which 
 the precise object is not declared; but in which the old 
 atheistic and sceptical arguments are brought again into view, 
 according to their several systems, with considerable labour, 
 and placed in as popular a light as their nature allows.
 
 14 ON THE ETERNITY 
 
 from its organization, as the. forms and modes 
 of being", in inferior creatures, result from the 
 peculiar disposition and arrangement of their 
 component particles, and the properties inherent 
 in these. The reason why a stone falls to the 
 ground, and the reason why the globe of the 
 earth turns on its axis, are equally to be found 
 in the book of nature. In man, the machinery 
 is more wonderful, and the motion more com- 
 plicated, than in any other creature. Hence, 
 is his superiority in the scale of existence ; and 
 hence, too, result all his faculties of thinking 
 and acting." 
 
 It might be sufficient merely to ask, whether 
 these passages contain a more satisfactory ex- 
 planation of the phenomena of thought and 
 motion, than to suppose that the " first thinking 
 Being," namely, a God distinct from the visible 
 world, " should have communicated to certain 
 systems of created senseless matter, put toge- 
 ther as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, 
 perception, and thought."* But it is impos- 
 
 * Locke, Essay on Human understanding, vol. ii. p. 167.
 
 OF THE WORLD. 15 
 
 * 
 
 sible not to observe in addition, that the argu- 
 ment involves a confusion between the mechani- 
 cal laws of matter, and the spontaneous motion 
 of animate nature. In order to establish the pre- 
 tended analogy, the motion of a stone, and of 
 the globe of the earth, ought either to be volun- 
 tary^ or that of man, and other living animals, 
 to be necessary, and determined by prescribed 
 laws. Man is subject to the laws which govern 
 matter in the same way as other bodies are 
 subject to them, and is confined to the earth 
 by their influence ; but man is endued with a 
 faculty altogether distinct and separate, which 
 is totally wanting to unorganized matter. The 
 difference between the power of beginning mo- 
 tion, and passive inactivity ; between inward 
 consciousness and sluggish insensibility ; is not 
 such as to be hastily accounted for by the dif- 
 ferent situation of the primary atoms of the 
 same material substance. We are reduced, 
 therefore to the dilemma of supposing, either 
 that the whole universe is one cogitative, sen- 
 tient being, as some have affirmed, but, I 
 think, without much countenance from reason
 
 16 ON THE ETERNITY 
 
 and our natural apprehensions ; or of embra- 
 cing the manifest absurdity, that the one uni- 
 versal substance is endued with attributes 
 which are wanting 1 to many of the parts of 
 which it is composed.* 
 
 III. It will be sufficient to point out one 
 other inadmissible conclusion resulting- from 
 the hypothesis now under consideration. If 
 the universe itself is the first eternal Being, its 
 existence is necessary, as metaphysicians speak ; 
 and it must be possessed of all those qualities 
 which are inseparable from necessary exist- 
 ence. Of this nature are immutability, and 
 perfection. For, change is the attribute of 
 imperfection ; and imperfection is incompatible 
 with that Being, which is, as the hypothesis 
 affirms, independent, and therefore can have no 
 possible source of imperfection. To suppose, 
 therefore, of the first independent Being, that 
 
 * u As substance cannot exist without all its attributes, so 
 extension must always exist with thought." Ac. Quest. 237. 
 The necessary inference is no/ added, that thought must 
 always exist with extension.
 
 OF THE WORLD. 17 
 
 it could have existed otherwise than it is, is no 
 less contrary to the idea of necessity, with 
 which we set out, than to suppose it not to exist 
 at all. 
 
 Now, it is justly observed by Locke, that 
 " though our general specific conception of matter 
 makes us speak of it as one thing ; yet really 
 all matter is not one independent thing, neither 
 is there any such thing existing as one material 
 being, or any single body that we know or can 
 conceive." It is manifestly plain, as has been 
 already hinted, that what we term the material 
 world is made up of an infinite number of parts. 
 But as the whole is supposed eternal, inde- 
 pendent, self-existent, so must all the parts 
 exist independently^ And as it has been de- 
 clared a contradiction to suppose of the whole 
 that it should have existed different from what 
 it is, so is it no less absurd to suppose the dif- 
 
 {- Thus Ocellus Lucanus; "The world having been eter- 
 nal, it is necessary that the things existing in it, and the 
 parts of it, viz. the heaven, earth, and air, must have been 
 eternal: for, of these the world itself consists." 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 ON THE ETERNITY 
 
 ferent existence of any of the parts, " since all 
 variety of difference of existence must needs 
 arise from some external cause, and be depen- 
 dent upon it, and proportionable to the efficacy 
 of that cause, whatsoever it be." 
 
 How contrary the very form and appearance 
 of the world is to this notion of necessity, need 
 not be much insisted upon. Many parts of it 
 are, in fact, annually undergoing the greatest 
 changes. Probably no theorist can be found 
 hardy enough to assert of particular lakes or 
 seas, or mountains, even that they did exist, 
 much less that they must have existed neces- 
 sarily, and have borne the form they bear at 
 present, from eternity. Yet, if you take these 
 qualities away from individual parts of the uni- 
 verse, a Socratic disputant may stick close to 
 the concession, and gradually deny them of tho 
 whole.* Can we conceive it otherwise than 
 arbitrary, whether our earth should be attended 
 
 * Sykes has done this : " If the universe is God, every 
 part of him, except what constitutes space, may be conceived
 
 OF THE WORLD. 19 
 
 by a single moon, or be surrounded by as many 
 satellites as Jupiter or Saturn? But if the 
 world be necessarily existent, these things are 
 not arbitrary, but governed by the same im- 
 mutable necessity by which the world itself 
 exists : unless it can be denied that to suppose 
 the possibility of alteration in that which exists 
 necessarily, involves a contradiction, and is 
 absurd. 
 
 These cursory observations are sufficient to 
 show that the doctrine of the world's eternity 
 is embarrassed by objections which forcibly 
 urge us to seek some further explanation of the 
 phenomena by which we are surrounded. If 
 it be asked, what advantage can be expected 
 from bringing the subject back at all to meta- 
 physics ; a sort of argument which an Alci- 
 phron may say at last " he has always found 
 dry and jejune, unsuited to his way of thinking, 
 which may perhaps puzzle, but will never 
 convince him ;"* I would reply, that there is 
 
 not necessary, and yet the whole is necessary. Can any idea 
 be more self-contradictory than this ?" Ch. iv.
 
 20 ON THE ETERNITY, &C. 
 
 some advantage in showing that, to whichever 
 side we turn, insurmountable difficulties op- 
 pose us, till we admit the agency of an intelli- 
 gent immaterial Creator ; whose presence in 
 the system at once dispels the cloud, and dif- 
 fuses the only light which on a subject so far 
 removed from our comprehensions as the crea- 
 tion of the world, our minds are capable of re- 
 ceiving. It will not be denied, that if meta- 
 physical speculations were adverse to the ex- 
 istence of such a Being, the positive evidence 
 which asserted it would require extraordinary 
 strength and cogency. It is reasonable there- 
 fore to expect, that whatever historical or pro- 
 bable evidence we may hereafter find in favour 
 of the existence of a Creator, should derive at 
 least as much additional force from the concur- 
 rence of metaphysical arguments, as it would 
 be deprived of, if such researches terminated 
 in the contrary conclusion. 
 
 * See Berkely, Minute Philos. vol. ii. p. 445, quarto edit.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On the Opinion which ascribes the Formation 
 of the World to Chance. 
 
 WHILST the most reasonable* among the hea- 
 then philosophers who have left any record of 
 their opinions, asserted that matter was itself 
 eternal, but moulded into the form of our world 
 by the operation of an intelligent Deity ; and 
 others, (as we have seen,) deifying the world 
 itself, contended for the eternity of its visible 
 form ; the hypothesis of Epicurus and his fol- 
 lowers differed altogether from them all ; and 
 referred the existence of the world neither to 
 the necessity of its own nature, nor to the inter- 
 
 * I do not hesitate to give this character to Pythagoras 
 and Plato, notwithstanding the absurdity attending their 
 doctrine of the eternity of matter.
 
 22 ON THE FORMATION OF 
 
 ference of a Divine Architect,* but to the 
 fortuitous concurrence of eternal atoms. Atoms, 
 he affirmed, of an infinite smallness and in per- 
 petual motion, compose the universe : and Jail- 
 ing by chance into the region of our world, were 
 in consequence of their innate motion, brought 
 gradually together, and collected into an in- 
 digested mass. These atoms, according to their 
 size and weight, either subsided and settled into 
 earth, or formed themselves into air, or collected 
 themselves into stars ; and hence arose the ma- 
 terial globe : while the vegetable and animal 
 productions of the earth sprung from various 
 seeds intermixed with the first combination of 
 atoms, and being preserved and nourished by 
 moisture and heat, afterwards grew up into 
 organized bodies of various kinds. Such was 
 the mechanism of the world of Epicurus, t 
 
 It would be idle to enter upon the refutation 
 
 * The ^ftyuoupyoc of Plato. 
 
 f See Brucker's Historia Critica Philosophise, for the quo- 
 tations on which this arrangement is founded ; or the valu- 
 able abridgment of that laborious work, by Entield.
 
 THE WORLD BY CHANCE. 23 
 
 of an hypothesis which assumes without a shadow 
 of proof or probability, first, that the universe is 
 composed of space and atoms ; secondly, that 
 these atoms, without any assignable cause, being- 
 impelled from the right line in which they 
 should naturally have been directed, formed the 
 regular and harmonious order of the world ; 
 and thirdly, that the seeds of the plants and 
 animals which adorn and inhabit the earth, 
 sprung up spontaneously among the atoms of 
 which it is composed.* But as the word Chance 
 has been sometimes repeated in modern days 
 as if it were really something more than an 
 unmeaning and unphilosophical term ; it will 
 be proper very briefly to show how entirely we 
 must oppose all the deductions of reason and 
 daily experience, if we for a moment remove 
 from our system the operation and agency of 
 intelligent design. 
 
 It is received as an indisputable truth, and 
 
 * How much of the same censure is justly applicable to 
 the organic molecules of Buffon, has been observed by Paley, 
 Nat. Theol. chap. 23.
 
 24- ON THE FORMATION OF 
 
 argued and acted upon as such, in the com- 
 monest occurrences in life, as well as in the 
 highest researches of philosophy, that a regular 
 and certain effect must be referred to the ope- 
 ration of a definite and sufficient cause : that 
 whatever steadily acts to produce a particular 
 end, must be planned and directed by intelligent 
 contrivance. It results from this habitual con- 
 viction, that chance is never called in to explain 
 any of the extraordinary appearances of nature, 
 however much they may baffle the inquiries of 
 philosophy. We have a familiar instance of 
 this, in the strata which compose the earth. 
 These strata have been examined to a con- 
 siderable depth, and are found to lie sometimes 
 horizontally, as if they had sunk gradually and 
 regularly according to their specific gravity ; 
 but varying in other places from this regular 
 direction, they shoot perpendicularly or proceed 
 upwards, and incline at different angles to the 
 horizon. These strata, too, consist of metals, 
 minerals, stones, sands, earth, waters, and 
 matters of every kind, without the slightest 
 appearance of order : and those combinations
 
 THE WORLD BY CHANCE. 25 
 
 have been discovered which seem most per- 
 plexing, and irreconcilable with the usual laws 
 of mineral bodies. Accordingly, theories have 
 been ingeniously formed and eagerly defended ; 
 and whilst one party endeavours to account for 
 the phenomena from the effects of aqueous 
 solution, the Vulcanists have taken no less pains 
 to explain them by the hypothesis of subterra- 
 neous fire, and a state of fusion. Why all this 
 labour ? Throughout the natural world perhaps 
 we shall find nothing which bears so strong an 
 appearance of accidental concurrence j yet no 
 one is hardy enough to interpose chance as a 
 solution of the difficulty. 
 
 The properties of the sea furnish us with 
 another illustration. It is evident that unless 
 it were preserved by its motion and saltness 
 from putrefaction, it would abound with those 
 unwholesome exhalations which we find in the 
 neighbourhood of stagnant pools and waters. 
 We have here a reason, why it is desirable that 
 the sea should have saltness and motion j but 
 not why it becomes possessed of them. Nu-
 
 20 ON THE FORMATION OF 
 
 merous theories have therefore been devised, 
 though hitherto with little success, to account 
 for its saltness ; and notwithstanding many diffi- 
 culties which embarrass the explanation of the 
 tides from the moon's attraction, we readily 
 acquiesce in that account of their regularity.* 
 It is not enough to say, that the ocean must 
 either have been sweet or salt, and chances 
 to be salt ; that it must either have been in 
 motion or at rest, and chances to be in motion : 
 our inquiries prove our universal sense of 
 the necessity of some adequate cause. But 
 while we expect a reason to be assigned for 
 the regular movement and briny properties 
 of the sea, it would be the basest inconsistency 
 to attribute to chance alone the fact, that 
 it does possess those properties which it is 
 necessary it should possess, lest the atmosphere 
 should be rendered unfit for the respiration 
 of animals so constituted as the inhabitants of 
 .the world. 
 
 * Those at least who do not, think themselves bound to 
 propose a substitute; as St. I'ierre, Etudes de la Nature.
 
 THE WORLD BY CHANCE. 27 
 
 We scrutinize with accurate and attentive 
 research the secret process of evaporation, 
 rarefaction, and condensation ; and the admis- 
 sion of a latent power, or occult principle, is 
 reserved as the last refuge of our ignorance. 
 Accordingly an assignable reason has been 
 discovered, from the known properties of fluid 
 bodies, why the vapour from springs and seas 
 and rivers should ascend, till, having obtained 
 a certain height and a certain degree of con- 
 densation, it is precipitated again upon the 
 earth, which is thence supplied with a regular 
 accession of moisture, and consequent fertility. 
 He could not then be thought an enlightened 
 reasoner who would ascribe to chance the re- 
 gular correspondence between the various parts 
 of nature ; or, would deny that he sees any 
 proof of a designing cause, when plants are so- 
 formed as to be nourished by the moisture for 
 which there is this constant provision, and ani- 
 mals so constituted as to be nourished by the 
 plants thus regularly produced. In fact, every 
 research, nay every single experiment in philo- 
 sophy, is a practical testimony of our general
 
 ON THE FORMATION OF 
 
 conviction that there is contrivance at the bot- 
 tom of every phenomenon ; and is so far a con- 
 futation of the Epicurean atheist, that it shows 
 him to be at variance with the universal expe- 
 rience of mankind, on which that conviction is 
 founded. 
 
 It must not be altogether omitted, that in 
 the works of human art and labour, nothing is 
 ever left to chance. The most experienced 
 carpenter makes the most constant use of his 
 rule ; the oldest mason keeps his wall in the 
 perpendicular by his line. It is impossible, 
 ninety-nine times in a hundred, to make a com- 
 plete circle or a perfect square without the use 
 of instruments. The story of the painter, who, 
 when his art had failed, produced the foam 
 of his horse's mouth by the accidental dash of 
 his brush, has even found a place in history. 
 Why is this, but from our accumulated expe- 
 rience, that chance, in reality, does nothing at all 
 for us ? 
 
 This then is the outline of the argument from
 
 THE WORLD BY CHANCE. 29 
 
 final causes against the production of the world 
 from chance. It is the result of our uniform 
 experience, that no certain effect can be ob- 
 tained without some regular means of con- 
 trivance. But whatever part of the universe 
 we examine, from the minutest insect to the 
 noblest animal, from the meanest plant to that 
 magnificent system which the researches of 
 modern astronomers unfold, we trace the un- 
 doubted evidence of means corresponding to 
 their intended object, and attaining their end. 
 Therefore we conclude, by a natural and irre- 
 sistible analogy, that a world which exhibits 
 throughout an unbroken chain of contrivances 
 and means, is the effect, not of fortuitous 
 concurrence in its constituent parts, whether 
 termed molecules or atoms, but of their regular 
 disposition ; and is the work, not of chance, 
 but of an intelligent contriver. For, if we 
 should despise the philosopher, who told us 
 that even the rudest and most imperfect petri- 
 factions of vegetable or animal substances were 
 the work of chance : if this is so well acknow- 
 ledged, that no one has ever dared to supply
 
 30 ON THE FORMATION OF 
 
 the greatest desiderata in philosophy, such as 
 the cause of polarity in the magnet, by attri- 
 buting it to accidental inclination ; and that it 
 would be deemed legitimate proof of insanity 
 in an architect, if he undertook to produce the 
 meanest cabin by the fortuitous concurrence of 
 beams and tiles ; we must renounce all con- 
 sistency of principle, unless we infer that this 
 world, in which we see so many complicated 
 and various means all conspiring to accomplish 
 their prescribed purpose, so many springs of 
 action and motion all coinciding in the most 
 perfect order, was produced, and only could be 
 produced according to the regular design of an 
 intelligent Being.* 
 
 * If this Chapter had been intended as any thing more 
 than a brief statement of the nature of the argument from 
 final causes, it would have been necessary of course to detail 
 the chief marks of contrivance which the world exhibits, which 
 have here been only alluded to incidentally. But, in addition 
 to other numerous volumes upon this subject, the recent and 
 popular work of Dr. Paley seems to render any fresh enume- 
 ration of those instances quite superfluous. I do not mean 
 to say that the subject is exhausted ; nor indeed can it be, 
 till every part of the universe is laid open to our inquiry. JJut
 
 THE WORLD BY CHANCE. 31 
 
 perhaps there is some justice in the remark, that it already 
 labours under disadvantage from its unlimited extent. " A 
 single example seems altogether as conclusive as a thousand ; 
 and he that cannot discover any traces of contrivance in the 
 formation of an eye, will probably retain his atheism at the 
 end of a whole system of physiology." Edin. Rev. vol. i. 
 p. 289.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF THE 
 CREATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 SECT. I. 
 
 The Probability that some Account of the 
 Creation would be revealed and preserved. 
 
 THE preceding survey of two out of the three 
 accounts which have been at different times 
 proposed to explain the phenomenon of an ex- 
 isting- world, though brief and rapid, may be 
 sufficient to make it appear, that neither its 
 independent eternal existence, nor its fortuitous 
 production, furnish any thing- like a satisfactory 
 solution of the problem. In particular, the u n 
 deniable appearance of innumerable instances 
 of design throughout the universe in all its
 
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 SOME ACCOUNT OF CREATION PROBABLE. 33 
 
 parts, irreconcilable with our experience of ac- 
 cidental effect ; and the existence of sentient 
 beings, endued with a faculty of voluntary re- 
 flection and motion which does not belong to 
 unorganized or mere vegetable matter ; lead us 
 insensibly to the only solution which remains 
 to be adduced, the operation of an Immaterial 
 Intelligent Creator. I proceed, therefore, to 
 inquire more particularly into the evidence that 
 may exist of such actual creation, in addition 
 to the incidental probability arising from the un- 
 disputed existence of a world, and the difficulty 
 of ascribing its existence to any other origin. 
 
 Now, it cannot be denied that this proba- 
 bility would be counterbalanced by a formi- 
 dable objection on the opposite side, if, after 
 the diligent inquiry which an inhabitant of the 
 world might be expected to make concerning 
 the formation of the globe to which he belongs, 
 no records were found to have been left of its 
 author, or original constitution. Suppose it 
 granted, for the present, that a Creator exists ; 
 it is difficult to believe that such a world, and 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34- SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 such beings as it contains, were created with- 
 out any definite or assignable object : that 
 its intelligent inhabitants were summoned into 
 life, and then immediately abandoned by their 
 Maker, retaining no connexion with him, either 
 during the short period of their earthly exist- 
 ence, or after it. But if we reject this idea, 
 as inconsistent with all reasoning as to the pro- 
 bable operations of Divine intelligence ; then 
 it becomes natural and almost necessary to con- 
 clude that the Creator would leave some memo- 
 rial of himself in a world, which, as forming 
 a part in the comprehensive scheme of his pro- 
 vidence, he beholds with regard and interest. 
 It is evident, however, that as mankind alone, of 
 all the inhabitants of the earth, are gifted with 
 intelligence, mankind alone can hold any con- 
 nexion with an intelligent Creator.* To them 
 therefore we must look as the chief objects of 
 creation, and as the depositaries with whom the 
 records of it, supposing such an event to have 
 
 * TtVoc yap dXXov wou \//i/j| 
 
 yitrru cat /ca'XXtora avrratavrttiv , ijffOqrai on eiirt ; TI 
 uXXo r\ nv6pti)Troi Oeoi/c depairevovai ; Xen. IVlem. 1. 4. 13.
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 35 
 
 taken place, would be left, to be handed down 
 by them from age to age. 
 
 A history, however, does exist, by consent 
 of antiquity ascribed to Moses, the leader and 
 lawgiver of the Jews, a very singular and an- 
 cient people ; which relates, that at a certain 
 period not extremely remote, (when compared 
 with other conjectures,) our globe, and the 
 system to which it belongs, was created by an 
 Almighty and Invisible Agent, described by 
 the author as God. All necessity of argument 
 respecting the existence of a supreme Creator 
 is of course precluded, if this history is admitted 
 to be true. The Hebrew nation is there repre- 
 sented as enjoying proofs of the fact in question, 
 which were denied to the rest of mankind. Their 
 deliverance from Egypt, their subsequent wan- 
 derings, their battles, and ultimate establishment 
 in Canaan, were accompanied by a series of divine 
 interpositions which perpetually reminded them 
 of their relation to a Creator. 
 
 A history like this, containing an account of 
 
 D 2
 
 36 SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 an event in which we are so intimately con- 
 cerned ; not only pretending to be, but un- 
 doubtedly being, the most ancient record that 
 we know to exist, must interest every one who 
 thinks it important to inquire whether the 
 Creator has expressly revealed himself to the 
 knowledge of mankind, or left the relation 
 which they hold towards him to be discovered 
 by the exercise of their reason. If the subject 
 of such a history is transcendently important, 
 its evidence has a proportionate claim to a full 
 and impartial investigation, according to such 
 ules as we are accustomed to apply to those 
 other histories which furnish the only acquaint- 
 ance we have with the events of former ages ; 
 so far at least as the subject of the history in 
 question falls within the limits of human judg- 
 ment and experience. 
 
 Of the truth of this history, we have all the 
 proof which the nature of the case allows. 
 The early periods with which it is concerned 
 are involved in so much darkness, that even 
 the annals of the powerful kingdoms of Assyria
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 37 
 
 and Egypt present chasms, in the first of thirty 
 generations, in the latter of a thousand years, 
 if we except the fabulous reign of Sesostris, 
 and what is incidentally collected from Jewish 
 records.* But the Jews, as a nation, were 
 always in obscurity, the certain consequence 
 not only of their situation, but of the peculiar 
 constitution and jealous nature of their govern- 
 ment. Can it then reasonably be expected, 
 that we should obtain positive testimony con- 
 cerning this small and insulated nation from 
 foreign historians, when the most ancient of 
 these, whose works remain, lived more than a 
 thousand years posterior to Moses ?f Can we 
 look for it from the Greeks, when Thucydides 
 has declared, that even respecting his own coun- 
 trymen, he could procure no authentic record 
 prior to the Trojan war ? or from the Romans, 
 
 * Viz. from Ninyas to Sardanapalus ; and in Egypt, from 
 the invasion of the Shepherds, 2000, to Amosis, 1040, before 
 Christ. 
 
 f So Clemens Alexandrinus sarcastically but justly ob- 
 serves, Kat GEflN apa rwv TrXeiffruv Trap' ''EXX^ffij/, ov p.6vov 
 TU>V \eyopevb)v ao<f)tSy KOI TrotTjT&v, 6 Mw(77c irpetrfivrepoq. 
 L. 1. Strom, p. 323.
 
 38 SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 who had scarcely begun to be a people, when 
 the empire of Jerusalem was destroyed, and 
 the whole nation reduced to captivity ? 
 
 In the mean time, however, exactly such 
 collateral testimony is preserved as the na- 
 ture of the case allows, in which, as it has 
 appeared, there is not even the possibility of 
 positive confirmation. For instance, the Mo- 
 saic account of the deluge,* and the escape 
 of the ark with a single family, is so extraor- 
 dinary, that we might expect it to be com- 
 memorated by tradition ; and this traditional 
 evidence is found at large in Berosus and 
 Plutarch ; and researches into ancient mytho- 
 logy abundantly prove the existence of such 
 records as we might naturally look for, disguised 
 under the mistaken worship, and images, and 
 symbols of idolatry.-}- It was probable, also, 
 
 * It is as falsely as boldly remarked by Bolingbroke, " that 
 the tradition of Noah's deluge is vouched by no other autho- 
 rity than that of Moses, and that the memory of that catas- 
 trophe was known only to one people, and preserved in one 
 corner of the earth." Vol. iii. p. 224. 
 
 f I allude to Mr. Bryant's learned work on this subject.
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 39 
 
 that the dispersion from Babel would be pre- 
 served in memory, by the descendants of those 
 persons who set out from thence to people the 
 world ; and in fact it has been preserved in 
 traditional fables, and may be clearly traced in 
 profane writers, through the veil of poetical 
 imagery. It may be traced still more indis- 
 putably in the three separate and primitive lan- 
 guages, which still, as we are assured by the 
 most competent witness the world has yet heard 
 
 The first head of his argument is thus summed up by Sir W. 
 Jones, Asiat. Res. iii. 487. " If the deluge really happened 
 at the time recorded by Moses, those nations, whose monu- 
 ments are preserved, and writings accessible, must have re- 
 tained memorials of an event so stupendous ; and in fact, 
 they have retained such memorials. The reasoning seems 
 just, and the fact is true, beyond controversy." See also 
 Faber, Horee Mosaicae, chap, iv. Mr. Mitford's testimony is 
 to the same effect : " The traditions of all nations, and ap- 
 pearances in every country, bear witness, scarcely less explicit 
 than the writings of Moses, to that general flood, which nearly 
 .destroyed the whole human race ; and the ablest Greek au- 
 thors, who have attempted to trace the history of mankind to 
 its source, all refer to such an event for the beginning of the 
 present system of things on earth." Hist, of Greece, ch. i. 
 sect. 1.
 
 40 SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 upon this subject, attest the gradual replenish- 
 ment of the world from the progeny of Shem, 
 Ham, and Japhet.* 
 
 Besides these coincidences, which might be 
 greatly extended, it is remarkable, that the 
 farther we can go back in history, the nearer 
 approach we find to the pure worship of the 
 Creator, f and the more closely our accounts of 
 the creation agree with that of Moses. Recent 
 acquaintance with the ancient literature of 
 India has furnished memorials of many of the 
 events recorded in Genesis, expressed by sym- 
 bols very nearly similar. The Hindus, in par- 
 ticular, have allotted an entire Purana to the 
 detail of the deluge. J The account of the 
 oldest historian, Sanchoniatho, so far as its ob- 
 scurity has been pierced by the ingenious la- 
 bours of those who have considered it as im- 
 
 * Sir W. Jones on the Origin of Nations, Asiat. Res. 
 vol. iii. 
 
 -f- See Leland, advantages of Revelation, chap. xi. : and 
 Shuckford's Connexion, vol. i. p. 304. 
 
 I Asiat. Res. vol. iii.
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 41 
 
 portant, relates the Phoenician tradition of a 
 history, agreeing" in its chronology and gene- 
 alogy with that of Moses. The records like- 
 wise of Eratosthenes, succeeding those of San- 
 choniatho, give a series of profane history, 
 from the first man to the first Olympiad, agree- 
 ing with the Scriptures.* Many remaining 
 fragments of early historians, though in the cir- 
 cumstances involving various degrees of truth 
 and error, according to the different opportu- 
 nites of information possessed by their authors, 
 unite in corroborating the main facts of the so- 
 journing of the Jews in Egypt, of their sudden 
 departure, and final settlement in Syria, f 
 
 Whatever may be thought the value of this 
 
 * Cumberland's Preface to Sanchoniatho. 
 
 t Strabo, and Tacitus, 1. 5. Hist. The various corrobo- 
 ratious of Jewish history from heathen authors are collected 
 by Josephus, contra Apion : Eusebius, Prsepar. Evang. ; 
 Stillingfleet, in his Origines Sacrse ; Gale's Court of the 
 Gentiles; Stackhouse's Preparatory Discourse, Sac. &c: 
 more recently, and with the additions which our acquaint- 
 ance with America and India has furnished, by Faber, Horaj 
 Mosaicse, vol. i.
 
 VI SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 corroborating testimony, it must be remem- 
 bered, that the circumstances of the case ad- 
 mit of no other. The evidence may be less 
 than we desire ; it may be insufficient : but it 
 is not defective. Nothing is wanting, which 
 we can justly expect or demand. 
 
 The events of the Hebrew history, however, 
 as related by their own historians, involve a 
 series of miraculous interferences, of which there 
 is no other example ; and miracles, we are told, 
 being repugnant to our experience, cannot be 
 proved to the satisfaction of reason, or, at least, 
 should not be received " entirely and solely on 
 affirmation, the affirmation of the Jews."* I 
 should readily admit, that the more any event 
 is out of the regular course of nature, the 
 stronger is the evidence required to induce a 
 rational belief of it. But it may be affirmed 
 on the other hand, that the principal facts re- 
 corded by Moses, have more testimony, his- 
 torical or moral, positive or collateral, in their 
 
 * Bolingbrokc, Pliilos. Works, vol. v. p. 538.
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 43 
 
 favour, than any other events in the annals of 
 the world. 
 
 To avoid altogether objections like that of 
 Bolingbroke, arising from the questionable au- 
 thority of the Hebrew historians, I shall be con- 
 tented with appealing to the INTERNAL EVI- 
 DENCE of the Hebrew law and civil polity j 
 which, if it proves, as I think it does, to a 
 moral certainty, that Moses acted under a 
 divine commission, is a species of evidence which 
 precludes all similar cavil, and is in great mea- 
 sure independent of external testimony. 
 
 But, before we enter more particularly on 
 the proofs which appear to me to confirm the 
 divine origin of the Mosaic law, it will be neces- 
 sary to clear up some questions that meet us in 
 the outset, respecting the nature of the history 
 attached to it, and the sources from whence it 
 may be derived. 
 
 
 
 First, as to the nature of the history, it has not 
 been unusual for some real and some pretended
 
 44 SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 friends of Revelation, startled at the difficulties 
 which seem to oppose them in the early chap- 
 ters of Genesis,* (difficulties, it must be remem- 
 bered, which are commonly magnified to sup- 
 port their hypothesis,) to give an allegorical 
 interpretation to those parts of Scripture which 
 they cannot be persuaded to understand lite- 
 rally. Many passages of this tendency from 
 the Fathers are quoted by Middleton in his short 
 essay upon this subject, in which he seems in- 
 clined to give more weight to that ancient au- 
 thority, than he was accustomed to allow when 
 it interfered with his own argument. " It was 
 not the intention of Moses," Eusebius says,t 
 " to detail a philosophical account of the form- 
 ation of the world, but to signify only that it 
 did not exist of itself or by chance, but was 
 the production of an all-wise and all-powerful 
 Creator." To the same purpose Cyril, in reply 
 to the scoffs of Julian,t declares, " that Moses's 
 view was to accommodate his story to the igno- 
 
 * See Appendix to this volume, Nos. I. and IJ. 
 f Oracles of Reason, 1. 4, p. 186. Euseb. Praep. Ev. 2. 7. 
 I Jul. p 50 ed. Lips.
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 45 
 
 ranee of the Jews." Origen concurs with Philo 
 in a similar opinon, which will not surprise 
 those who are aware that the Fathers were, ge- 
 nerally speaking, as bad reasoners, as they 
 were pious and sincere Christians.* 
 
 It will hereafter appear, that the arguments 
 I shall propose will be very little affected by 
 the decision of this question. At the same 
 time I would premise, since it is a subject 
 upon which the Fathers had no clearer means of 
 judging than ourselves, that two unanswerable 
 reasons must prevent us, however pressed with 
 difficulties, from resorting to this explanation 
 of them. First, these passages are referred to 
 in other parts of Scripture, as of historical au- 
 thority.-}- Secondly, it would seem altogether 
 unjustifiable in an author professing to relate 
 matters of fact, and to sanction, on their autho- 
 rity, his legislative character, to introduce alle- 
 gory into the most important subject of his 
 
 * Or. Philocal. c. i p. 12, 13. See also Josephus, Prooem. 
 ad Antiq. 
 
 2 Cor. xi. 3. 1 Tim. ii. 14.
 
 4f) SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 narration.* My inquiry, therefore, supposes 
 the Mosaic account to contain not allegory, but 
 fact : fact, of which Moses derived his know- 
 ledge, either from inspiration delivered imme- 
 diately to himself, or from information origi- 
 nally revealed and preserved from the earliest 
 times, and afterwards incorporated with the 
 Hebrew law by the divine direction. 
 
 In respect to the original communication be- 
 tween the Deity and his newly-formed crea- 
 ture, man, I have already hinted at those moral 
 reasons which render such a communication 
 probable : other circumstances seem to point 
 out its absolute necessity. 
 
 First, it has been imagined by some of those 
 who have turned their thoughts to the theory 
 of language, that the use of intelligible speech 
 was a human invention, first suggested by the 
 
 * Sir W. Jones saw this in a strong light. " Either the 
 first eleven chapters of Genesis," he says (all due allowance 
 being made for an Eastern style) " are true, or the whole 
 fabric of our national religion is false." As. Res. i. 225.
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 47 
 
 wants, and afterwards improved by the experi- 
 ence of mankind.* It was the aim of Dr. 
 Smith's most agreeable Treatise upon this sub- 
 ject, to show how " savages who had never 
 been taught to speak, would begin to form a 
 language by which they might make their mu- 
 tual wants intelligible to each other, by utter- 
 ing certain sounds, whenever they meant to 
 denote certain objects." Modern observations, 
 however, have proved with sufficient certainty 
 that speech is purely imitative, and that men 
 would have remained without the power of 
 communicating their sentiments, as long as they 
 remained without the means of instruction. 
 It is well known that those, who, with their 
 organs of speech perfect have been unfortu- 
 nately deaf from their birth, are never brought 
 to utter articulate sounds by any efforts of their 
 own ; but, if taught at all to do so, effect it by 
 imitating the motion of the lips in others. 
 Whoever has watched the progress of speech 
 
 31 Voltaire, Condillac, 1'Abbe de Drosses, Sac. The au- 
 thorities on both sides have been studiously collected by 
 Archb. Magee on Atonement, vol. ii.
 
 48 SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 in children, will have found that it is not 
 dependent upon the gradual enlargement of 
 their ideas, since they always understand 
 much more than they can express ; but upon 
 the facility, acquired by degrees, of adapting 
 the organs of speech to the expression of cer- 
 tain sounds. A child which first begins to join 
 words together, shows manifestly, by its slow, 
 imperfect, and abrupt articulation, wherein the 
 difficulty lies ; and the knowledge recently ob- 
 tained from the benevolent exertions of the 
 Abbe Sicard, in France, has placed this matter 
 beyond all reasonable doubt.* 
 
 In fact, the difficulties which embarrass the 
 believers in the human invention of language, 
 may be imagined from the acknowledgment of 
 the Abb de Brosses, who examined the sub- 
 ject most profoundly, and with a sufficient at- 
 
 * See an interesting account in Yorke's Letters from France, 
 1804. In the school of that philanthropist was a girl of seven- 
 teen, who, having lost her hearing at six years of age, had a 
 vocabulary of such words and ideas as could be attained by 
 tliat time of life, but no farther.
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 49 
 
 tachment to his own system. He confesses 
 that men must have existed for a long time, 
 must have acquired general ideas, nay, must 
 have formed themselves into societies, and 
 have undertaken designs in common, before 
 they learnt to transpose inarticulate sounds and 
 cries, expressive of joy, fear, their passions, 
 and their wishes, into regular words. Now, 
 with regard to general ideas, it is agreed by 
 the soundest metaphysicians, not only that 
 they could not originally have been framed, 
 but that they can never become the subject of 
 our conception, otherwise than through the me- 
 dium of the terms in which they are expressed. 
 " Whether it might have been possible," says 
 Mr. Stewart, " for the Deity to have so formed 
 us, that we might have been capable of rea- 
 soning concerning classes of objects without 
 the use of signs, I shall not take upon me to 
 determine. But this we may venture to affirm 
 with confidence, that man is not such a be- 
 ing."* And surely nothing is incredible, if 
 it be not incredible that men could have 
 
 * Elements, vol. i. chap. 4. s. 3. 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 agreed upon a mode of civil polity, or un- 
 dertaken works in common, without any expres- 
 sive medium of communication.* So that it 
 approaches as high a degree of certainty as is 
 consistent with the nature of the case, that man 
 was originally indebted to his Creator, not only 
 for the organs of speech, but also for the power 
 of using them. 
 
 Secondly, the slow degrees by which man- 
 kind, when left to the progress of their own ex- 
 perience, are found to attain any of the arts 
 which contribute to the ornament and comfort 
 of civilized life, render it probable that in this 
 instance also they were not unassisted by their 
 Creator. The barbarous state of the inhabi- 
 tants of countries newly discovered, their ge- 
 neral ignorance of arts and deficiency in morals, 
 have naturally introduced a vague idea that man 
 
 * It is curious to find Rousseau (Ineg. des Hoinmes) at- 
 tempting to explain the origin of language ; till at last he 
 confesses himself " convaincu de 1'impossibilite, presque de- 
 monstree, que les langues aient pu naitre, et s'etablir par des 
 moyens purement Immains."
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 51 
 
 was originally, at his birth or creation, a savage. 
 But, according to the Mosaic account, which 
 agrees too with the suggestions of reason as 
 to the probable operations of a wise and bene- 
 volent Creator, this savage state was not the 
 primitive state of man. Even among the grand- 
 sons of Adam, we are told not only of the use of 
 brass and iron, but of the division of labour 
 into separate branches ; we read not only of 
 the arts which support life, but of those which 
 contribute to amuse and refine it, the harp and the 
 organ. When we consider in how rude a state, 
 compared with this, the Mexicans and Peru- 
 vians were found, though they had belonged for 
 some centuries to a settled and populous com- 
 munity, we shall have reason on our side in 
 concluding that mankind were not at first aban- 
 doned altogether to their own ingenuity in the 
 gradual invention of useful arts ; and that many 
 of them, under various circumstances of situation 
 and climate, sunk at different periods into a bar- 
 barism to which they were not originally created. 
 
 Thirdly, following the gradual progress of
 
 52 SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 improvement, Adam and his posterity would 
 have been hunters, supported by the produce 
 of the chase, till their increase of numbers 
 forced them first to the more regular occupa- 
 tion of shepherds, and afterwards, still farther, 
 to the higher improvements of agriculture.* 
 But one of the earliest occurrences related by 
 Moses, represents the occupations of a shep- 
 herd and a husbandman not only as known, but 
 as placed in separate hands. " Abel was a 
 " keeper of sheep, and Cain was a tiller of the 
 " ground."! If events had been left to their 
 natural course, their progress would have been 
 the same in primitive, as in later times. Nor 
 is it any answer to this' argument, to turn its 
 force against the truth of the history itself. If 
 Moses had imposed a forgery upon the world, 
 he would have studied its probability, by fol- 
 lowing the regular and acknowledged course of 
 improvement by purely human means. So that 
 we here seem to have obtained an additional, 
 though indirect proof, both of his veracity, and 
 
 * Smith, Wealth of Nations, b. 5. c. 1. f Cen. chap. iv.
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 53 
 
 of the Creator's interference for the good of his 
 creatures. 
 
 Indeed, it can only be ascribed to want of 
 due reflection upon the difficulties which op- 
 pose the other alternative, that we hear such 
 interference rejected by many, who would stre- 
 nuously maintain the divine agency in every part 
 of the creation. If it is a proof of benevolent 
 wisdom, that the minutest insect is provided 
 with the means of attaining its sustenance, and 
 with the instinct necessary for its preservation, 
 why would it not be equally a part of wisdom 
 to guard against the comparatively slow opera- 
 tion of human reason, by anticipating its results, 
 and providing mankind with that instruction 
 at. which their natural powers would enable 
 them very gradually to arrive? If it is wor- 
 thy of God to have created man, why should 
 it be held unworthy of him, to have enabled 
 his creature to perform at once the highest 
 purposes of his being ? 
 
 Concerning the mode in which these neces-
 
 .54 SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 sary interpositions may have taken place, it 
 would be idle to offer opinions or form con- 
 jectures. It is sufficient to observe here, that 
 it has in all ages appeared agreeable to reason, 
 to suppose a race of beings in the interme- 
 diate state between man and his Creator.* 
 Scripture, though by no means full or explicit 
 on a subject which is to us merely matter of 
 speculative inquiry, is not however silent : but 
 occasionally speaks of such superior beings, 
 employed in ministering between God and his 
 creatures upon earth.t And through their 
 means doubtless we are to understand those 
 communications > to have been made, which the 
 early chapters of Genesis are employed in re- 
 presenting. 
 
 The events there recorded, partly thus re- 
 vealed, as we must necessarily allow, to Adam, 
 
 * The ^m/iovec of many of the ancient philosophers. Locke, 
 1. 3. chap. xii. s. 6. 
 
 f Nehemiah ix. 6 ; Luke ii. 15, xv. 10, &c. &c. ; and 
 particularly, as connected with their supposed office, Heb. i. 
 14; Matt, xviii. 10 ; Acts xii. ; Eccl. v. 6 ; Tobit xii. 12.
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 55 
 
 and partly remembered, would be communicated 
 by him to his children, and probably rehearsed 
 and commemorated on certain days, set apart 
 for sacred purposes.* They would be pre- 
 served by traditional, if not by written history, 
 beyond the deluge ; and at that time the 
 length of human life rendered tradition both 
 easy and secure. Noah had lived some hun- 
 dred years with thousands of persons who had 
 conversed with Adam. Abraham lived with 
 Shem, the son of Noah. " So that from Adam 
 unto Abraham, is, comparatively speaking, no 
 greater length even for tradition than from our 
 father's grandfather to ourselves."f Joseph, the 
 
 * That the observation of the Sabbath formed part of the 
 patriarchal religion, seems probable from the past tense used 
 in the fourth commandment, The Lord blessed the seventh 
 day, and set it apart, or hallowed it ; and from the double 
 portion of manna provided ou the sixth day, previous to the 
 giving 1 of the law. Exod. xvi. See Horsley, Serm, xxii. 
 
 f Bishop Wilson from Isidore. See Shuckford's Con- 
 nexion. Allix on Genesis, chap. xvii. " From Adam to Noah 
 there is but one mail, viz. Methuselah, who joined hands with 
 both. From Noah to Abraham, but one, viz. Shem, who saw 
 them both for a considerable time. From Abraham to 
 Joseph, but one, viz. Isaac, Joseph's grandfather. From
 
 56 SOME ACCOUNT OF 
 
 great-grandson of Abraham, lived to see his 
 children and his children's children. Besides, 
 it is extremely probable that a surer mode of 
 conveying information than even such simple 
 tradition was not unknown to the antediluvian 
 patriarchs. What we learn of those times from 
 the only history that exists of them, by no means 
 leads us to suppose that mankind were ignorant 
 of letters, or in any respect rude and uncivilized. 
 However this may be, the most important of 
 those ancient records, in whatever way preserved, 
 would naturally be selected by Moses for the in- 
 formation of future ages ; so that, after the origi- 
 nal revelation declaring the creation of the 
 world, there would appear no necessity for in- 
 terposing farther any extraordinary degree of 
 immediate inspiration. 
 
 It seems, therefore, that there is nothing either 
 impossible, or improbable, in the idea that the 
 history of Moses was founded upon original re- 
 Joseph to Moses, but one, Amron, who might have seen 
 Joseph long. These characters of lime Moses has carefully 
 observed."
 
 CREATION PROBABLE. 57 
 
 velation. To preserve among the Hebrews a 
 knowledge of the principal event there recorded, 
 viz. the creation of the world, the Mosaic law, 
 and the civil government of that people, are de- 
 clared to have been expressly instituted by the 
 command of God himself. I shall endeavour to 
 show particularly that this was no vain pre- 
 tension ; and confine my proofs to the internal 
 evidence arising out of the nature of the law, 
 and the character it impressed upon the people 
 who lived under that peculiar administration.
 
 58 THE OBJECT OF 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 The Object of the Hebrew Polity was to main- 
 tain the JVorship of a Creator. 
 
 THE Hebrew nation, when viewed in contrast 
 with the rest of the ancient world, presents 
 a spectacle not less remarkable for the pure sim- 
 plicity of its theology, than for the singularity 
 of its political constitution. The familiarity with 
 their history, which we acquire in early infancy, 
 weakens the force of the impression which the 
 annals and civil government of the Hebrews 
 must infallibly excite in a philosophical mind, 
 if the account of them were conveyed to us at 
 a period of maturer judgment, and viewed in 
 sober comparison with the other records of anti- 
 quity. From the midst of darkness, error, and 
 dispute ; from a scene of licentious worship and 
 degrading superstitions, we turn to an unhesi-
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 59 
 
 tating faith, and a sublime devotion : all around 
 is a desert, a wilderness and gloom ; from the 
 centre of which, the Hebrew polity rises before 
 us, set up like a pillar to record the creation of the 
 world, and the God who demands the homage 
 of his creatures. 
 
 This, in fact, was the declared intention of 
 that polity. It is founded expressly on the 
 principle, that, in the beginning of the system 
 to which the human race belongs, the world 
 was created by one independent Being ; who 
 had selected the Hebrews to commemorate the 
 original of the universe, and to perpetuate the 
 important truth, that its Author, seen only by 
 his works, is to be worshipped without material 
 or visible representation, as the Creator and 
 Governor of the world. 
 
 To prove that the main object of the conse- 
 cration of the Hebrews, was to perpetuate the 
 records of the creation, * we need go no further 
 
 * I am not unmindful of the ulterior purpose accomplished 
 by the separation of the Hebrews, as preparing the way for
 
 60 THE OBJECT OF 
 
 than the decalogue.* The laws of the first 
 table assert the existence and unity of God ; 
 declare the reverence in which his name is to 
 be held ; and refute the belief, and condemn the 
 practice, of those nations who think that he, 
 the Creator, can be properly represented under 
 any visible form taken from the things he has 
 made. Blessings are promised to the Hebrews, 
 if they adhere to his prescribed worship ; and 
 severe punishment is entailed upon them, if they 
 abjure his authority, and prove unfaithful to the 
 trust reposed in them. 
 
 These declarations are followed up by a law, 
 appointing one day in seven for the worship of 
 God, and specifying the reason of that appro- 
 priation. It ordains, that as the work of the 
 creation, as detailed in Genesis, employed six 
 successive days, so six successive days should be 
 
 the corning of the Messiah : nor of the additional confirmation 
 which this law derives from the fact of its being a preparatory 
 dispensation. But to have insisted farther upon this would 
 have carried the 'argument into too wide a field : and the 
 object here stated, is borne on the face of the law. 
 * Exodus xxxi. 12, &c.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 01 
 
 allotted by the people who possessed the history 
 of the creation, to the ordinary labours and 
 business of life ; but that every seventh day 
 should be set apart and distinguished from the 
 rest, should be employed in no secular avoca- 
 tions, but held sacred for the commemoration 
 of that great event, and of the day when the 
 Creator having seen the world fit for the recep- 
 tion and support of the creatures to whose use 
 it was destined, ordered them to increase and 
 multiply, and enjoy their goodly habitation. 
 
 This regular return of a season, on which all 
 their usual employments were to be exchanged 
 for devotion, was appointed, say the Jews them- 
 selves,* " that, having no other business, they 
 might fasten in their minds the belief, that the 
 world had a beginning ; which is a thread that 
 draws after it all the foundations of the law, or 
 the principles of religion." For, we should 
 mistake in imagining, that the division of time 
 into working days and Sabbaths, was intended 
 
 * R. Levi of Barcelona ; quoted by Patrick on Exo- 
 dus xix.
 
 62 THE OBJECT OF 
 
 merely to secure a certain portion of the year 
 to the worship of the Deity. If that were all, 
 why every seventh, rather than every tenth or 
 fifth day, or, than any fifty days in the year ? * 
 But we find in this appointment a perpetual 
 memorial of the reason why the Deity requires 
 our worship : namely, as the Creator of the 
 world. It is not only prescribed, that a seventh 
 part of life should be appropriated to religious 
 duties, but it is especially provided that the 
 reason of such appropriation should be borne 
 perpetually in mind. " For, in six days the 
 " Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all 
 " that in them is, and rested the seventh day ; 
 " therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, 
 
 * " That men should assemble at stated seasons for the 
 public worship of God, all must perceive to be a duty who 
 acknowledge that a creature endowed with the high faculties 
 of reason and intelligence, owes to his Maker public expres- 
 sions of homage and adoration ; but that the assembly should 
 recur every seventh, rather than every sixth, or every eighth 
 day, no natural sanctity of the seventh, more than of the 
 sixth, or eighth, persuades. By keeping one day in seven, 
 we protest against idolatry, and acknowledge that God who 
 in the beginning made the heavens and earth." See Horsley's 
 excellent Sermons on the Obligation of the Sabbath.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 63 
 
 " and hallowed it : " therefore, that particular 
 day shall you consecrate to God, and distinguish 
 it by rest from labour, as it was originally signa- 
 lized by the cessation of the visible and imme- 
 diate exercise of the Creator's power. 
 
 This particular object of the solemnization of 
 the Sabbath is repeated, and explicitly assigned, 
 in a subsequent communication. " The Lord 
 " spake unto Moses, saying, Verily, my Sab- 
 " baths shall ye keep, It is a sign between me 
 " and the children of Israel for ever ; for in six 
 " days the Lord made heaven and earth, and 
 " on the seventh day lie rested"* And it may be 
 worth remarking, that the modern Jews have 
 preserved the original reason of the consecration 
 of the day, in the grace they use on the Sab- 
 bath : " Blessed be thou, O God our Lord, 
 King of the world, who hast sanctified us by thy 
 commandments, and given us thy holy Sabbath ; 
 and of thy good will and pleasure hast left it 
 to us an inheritance, the memorial of thy works 
 of creation "\ 
 
 * Exod. xxxi. -j- Patrick.
 
 64 THE OBJECT OF 
 
 It is not our concern to inquire, why the de- 
 scendants of Abraham were made the chosen 
 depositaries of a fact, miraculously preserved in 
 their knowledge, respecting which the rest of 
 mankind, through so many ages, were left to 
 the darkness in which their original apostasy 
 had involved them. This is among " the secret 
 " things which belong to God ; " and is lost 
 in a train of counsels, which we are not taught 
 to penetrate. Their positive selection, however, 
 for this purpose, and that they might become, 
 as it has been well observed, a standing con- 
 futation of idolatry, is declared with undoubted 
 clearness, and repeated with a solemnity suited 
 to the occasion. When they had reached Mount 
 Sinai, " the Lord called unto Moses out of the 
 " mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the 
 " house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel ; 
 " Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, 
 " and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and 
 " brought you unto myself. Now, therefore, 
 " if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my 
 " covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure 
 " unto )ne above all people : Jbr, all fhc earth is
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 65 
 
 " mine : and ye shall be unto me a kingdom 
 " of priests and an holy nation" * The same 
 idea pervades the law, and is given as a reason 
 for many special statutes. It is again enforced, 
 when the Hebrews, having nearly traversed the 
 wilderness, were upon the point of entering the 
 Holy Land. " Now, hearken, O Israel. Be- 
 " hold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, 
 " even as the Lord my God commanded me ; 
 " keep, therefore, and do them ; for this is your 
 " wisdom and your understanding in the sight 
 " of the nations, which shall hear all these 
 " statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a 
 " wise and understanding people. For what 
 " nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh 
 " unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things 
 " that we call upon him for ? " " Thou hast 
 " avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and 
 " to walk in his ways, and keep his statutes : and 
 " the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his 
 " peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and 
 " that thou shouldest keep all his command- 
 " ments ; and to make thee high above all 
 
 * Exodus xix. 3. 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE OBJECT OF 
 
 " nations which he hath made, in praise, and 
 " in name, and in honour : and that thou mayest 
 " be an holy people unto the Lord thy God, as 
 " he hath spoken." * 
 
 The original covenant is farther renewed in 
 very solemn terms by Joshua in a general 
 assembly of the people, when he found his end 
 approaching. After recounting the special se- 
 lection they enjoyed, and the special assistance 
 they had received, he calls upon them to declare, 
 whether they will take upon themselves their 
 part of the covenant, and bind themselves indi- 
 vidually to obey those laws which marked their 
 appropriation. " If it seem evil unto you to 
 " serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye 
 " will serve, whether the gods which your fa- 
 " thers served, that were on the other side of 
 " the flood, or the gods of the Ammonites, in 
 " whose land ye dwell ? but, as for me and my 
 " house, we will serve the Lord. And the 
 " people answered and said, God forbid that we 
 " should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods : 
 * Deut. xvi. 17.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. j 
 
 "for the Lord our God, he it is that brought 
 " us up, and our fathers, out of the land of Egypt ; 
 " therefore will we also serve the Lord, for he is 
 " our God."* 
 
 Four hundred years after, we find the dying- 
 admonition of David to the same effect, leaving 
 it as his last injunction to his son : " Keep the 
 " charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his 
 " ways, to keep his statutes, and his command- 
 " ments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, 
 " as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou 
 " mayest prosper in all thou doest, and whither- 
 " soever thou turnest thyself."* 
 
 But it is unnecessary to specify particular pas- 
 sages. The universal language of the law, and 
 of the magistrates who from time to time enforce 
 its observance, always tends to the same point of 
 diffusing and maintaining a general belief in God 
 as the Creator and moral Governor of the world, 
 and a particular belief that he had selected the 
 family of Abraham for his peculiar service. 
 
 * Josh. xxiv. -f- 1 Kings xi. 3.
 
 G8 THE OBJECT OF 
 
 Such was the design of the Hebrew polity. 
 Whatever was its origin, its professed object was 
 undeniably to render its members living- testi- 
 monies of the existence of one God, the Creator 
 of the world. The only inquiry therefore is re- 
 specting its origin. Had Moses, its founder, any 
 other light upon the subject than the light of rea- 
 son ? Did he, of his own purpose, appoint a 
 polity, and institute a civil government, to honour 
 the Creator, and commemorate the creation : 
 or, had he divine commission to perpetuate the 
 records of this fact among the Israelites ; and 
 had they themselves such undoubted evidence of 
 this commission, as induced them to receive him 
 as their legislator, and submit to the authority 
 of his laws ? That they had this evidence, I shall 
 endeavour to prove. For, though the miracles 
 in question, being contrary to the course of na- 
 ture, cannot, we are told, be received as true, on 
 the testimony of the Jews alone ; yet, in weigh- 
 ing the internal evidence of the law we are sub- 
 ject to no imposition. That a commonwealth 
 really existed, of which God, the Creator of the 
 world, was acknowledged as the founder and
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 69 
 
 protector ; that it abounded in laws providing 
 for his worship, and guarding- against the idolatry 
 of other nations ; are facts, upon which there is 
 no doubt, and there can be no dispute. Neither 
 do I despair of showing that the existence of such 
 a polity as that of the Hebrews, is in itself a 
 complete proof of the fact which it professes to 
 record.
 
 7<> PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Peculiar object of the Hebrew Polity. 
 
 THE leading object of the Hebrew polity being 
 evidently the worship of one God, as the Crea- 
 tor ; it becomes reasonable to inquire how this 
 speculative truth happened to be made the 
 leading object of civil government ; or how 
 Moses alone, of all legislators, came to select 
 this article of faith as the foundation-stone of 
 his legislation. 
 
 We must descend of course from all high pre- 
 tensions, and place Moses on a level with Minos 
 or Lycurgus, with Solon or Numa, with Zaleucus 
 or Charondas.* Let them stand on the same 
 
 * Josephus, in the opening of the Jewish Antiquities, 
 speaking of Moses, might be thought to countenance the idea 
 of his being a human legislator; and any person reading his
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 71 
 
 footing with respect to their opportunities, and 
 how shall we account for the extraordinary 
 difference which appears in the conduct of the 
 lawgivers, and the nature of their laws ? One 
 of the two principal tables of the Mosaic code 
 is solely occupied in providing for the right belief 
 and exclusive adoration of the Creator. A 
 great proportion of the other statutes relate to 
 the mode in which he is to be worshipped. He 
 is declared in a peculiar manner the king or head 
 of the state. A departure from the established 
 belief, and a refusal to worship God under the 
 character assigned to him in the law, is con- 
 sidered as treason, and punished as the most 
 heinous crime. Not to dwell too long on mat- 
 ters that cannot be disputed, it must be obvious, 
 to any one who reads the Hebrew laws, that 
 they all refer directly or indirectly to God, as 
 the actual Governor of that people: that the law- 
 giver seems to think he shall have done all that 
 he need be anxious to effect, if he can establish 
 
 account of Moses receiving 1 the law, might compare it with 
 the case of Numa or Mahomet. This is to be attributed to the 
 compromising spirit in which Joseplius wrote his History.
 
 7'^ PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 this belief; and that the whole community pro- 
 fesses to have no other bond of union than its 
 sacred observance. 
 
 Now, there is no doubt, that the profoundest 
 inquiries of reason terminate in the belief of 
 one God, as inculcated by Moses. But it is 
 notorious, and will be seen hereafter more par- 
 ticularly, that reason did not succeed in ascer- 
 taining this fact generally throughout the an- 
 cient world. That Moses then alone, without 
 any advantage denied to others, should pene- 
 trate the mists of ignorance, or, which are still 
 more perplexing, the mazes of error ; and ap- 
 prehend the Creator, and the spiritual worship 
 which is due to an immaterial Being ; nay, far- 
 ther, that, not contented with satisfying his own 
 mind of this rational belief, he should fix upon 
 this point as the basis of his legislation, and the 
 cement of his civil polity ; is a notion too im- 
 probable to be received, even with any common 
 authority in its favour ; how much more then 
 is it absurd to embrace it, in direct contradic- 
 tion to the only evidence we possess concern-
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. J3 
 
 ing the establishment of the Hebrew govern- 
 ment ? 
 
 It is true, indeed, that I may be here met by 
 an objection to this effect : that Moses, con- 
 sidered as a mere political legislator, and con- 
 sulting of course the welfare of his people and 
 the observance of his laws, would naturally be 
 led to prefix to his legislative code, a history, 
 declaring the dependance of mankind upon a 
 Creator. I am ready to acknowledge that such 
 was the practice of antiquity. It appears, not 
 only in the philosophical treatises of Plato and 
 Cicero,* but still more explicitly in the pre- 
 amble to the laws of Zaleucus,f legislator of 
 the Locrians. All lawgivers have been con- 
 vinced of the insufficiency of any sanctions which 
 
 * Cic. de Leg. ii. 6. 
 
 -f- Diod. Siculus, I. 12. " The first step which the legis- 
 lator took," says Warburton, Div. Leg. ii. 2, " was to pre- 
 tend an extraordinary revelation from some god, by whose 
 command and direction he framed the laws he would esta- 
 blish." Bolingbroke, who takes this ground, instances Zo- 
 roaster, Hostaues, the Magi, Pythagoras, and Numa.
 
 74 PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 they can employ, to obtain effectually their object 
 of encouraging virtue and repressing vice, with- 
 out a resort to some such principle of universal 
 obligation, as the dread of present divine ven- 
 geance, or future punishment, affords. All have 
 been convinced that the existence in their society 
 of a strong practical sense of divine government, 
 is more valuable towards restraining those dis- 
 orders which endanger the peace of a community, 
 than the most despotic authority or the severest 
 punishments. Thus much is willingly granted. 
 
 But it will set this point in a truer light, if 
 we refer to the legislators of antiquity, acting 
 in pursuance of these convictions, and making 
 the benefit of their people their object in en- 
 forcing the belief of superior powers. The dif- 
 ference will appear to be this ; that, among 
 other nations, the divine worship was introduced 
 for the sake of the civil polity ; but that by the 
 institutions of Moses, the civil polity was esta- 
 blished for the sake of preserving the faith. 
 
 It is probably true, that no civilized com-
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. J5 
 
 nmnity has ever existed without a sense of re- 
 ligion. That those ancient kingdoms, at least, 
 with which we are best acquainted, lived under 
 a consciousness of some divine power and go- 
 vernment, is fully proved by their frequent sa- 
 crifices and vows and festivals. The belief from 
 which these practices proceed, is so forcibly 
 natural, that it continues to operate in super- 
 stition, where it is too far perverted to excite 
 devotion. But the constitution of the Hebrew 
 polity is all along accompanied not by such vague 
 belief alone, but by a continued and superin- 
 tending sense of divine direction. It places 
 religion as the foundation of the whole edifice ; 
 which in other communities has been only added 
 as a prop to the building. 
 
 It is impossible to survey the books of Jewish 
 law at the same time with the codes of other 
 legislators, without an irresistible conviction of 
 the difference which I am here remarking. 
 Look at the laws of Lycurgus, as they are de- 
 tailed at length by Xenophon, an author who 
 cannot reasonably be suspected of omissions in
 
 76 PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 a subject of this nature. It is there observed, 
 " that the emulation of young men in feats of 
 agility and strength, is both agreeable to the 
 gods and useful to the state ; and that Lycurgus 
 did not promulgate his edicts, till he had first 
 inquired of the oracle whether his laws would 
 benefit the community."* This is the only re- 
 ference which is made to any superior power. 
 With respect to Athens, Maximus Tyrius goes so 
 far as to observe, that it would have been vain 
 for Socrates to appeal to the people in defence of 
 his innocence ; for, how were the Athenians to 
 understand what was the nature of virtue, or of 
 the Deity, or how he should be worshipped j 
 since these were not subjects into which the legis- 
 lators inquired, nor had Solon or Draco laid down 
 any laws respecting them.t Detached enact- 
 ments, it is true, appear, recommending religious 
 worship and sacrifice, both public and private :J 
 
 * Pag. 184 and 199, ed. Simson. 
 
 t Diss. 39. 
 
 J The fragment of a law of Draco is preserved to this 
 effect : Oeoi/c ripdv, KO.I "Hpwac ey\wpiove eV Koivif, 
 vot; VV/J.OU; Trarp/oic, iciy Kara OVVOUtV flfv evtyrm'iq wit 
 
 , Mit TreXdyoic eVerei'oif- Porph. de Abstiu. 1. iv.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 77 
 
 but the real fact is, as the philosopher means to 
 be understood, that these lawgivers left the opi- 
 nions of their country untouched ; or, at most, 
 prescribed only the continuance of the customary 
 religious rites ; but to establish new ones, or to 
 settle the popular faith on any solid or philoso- 
 phical foundation, never became their object, or 
 entered into their contemplation. 
 
 With regard to Rome we are more fully in- 
 formed, and able to institute a pretty exact com- 
 parison. Dionysius* acquaints us, " that Romu- 
 lus, aware how much good laws and worthy pur- 
 suits contribute to the piety, order, morals, and 
 free spirit of a political community, paid great 
 attention to these matters, beginning with the ve- 
 neration due to the superior and inferior deities. 
 He appointed, therefore, their sacrifices and 
 altars, images, and statutes, commemorating the 
 benefits which each had bestowed on mankind ; 
 prescribing the feasts which should be held to the 
 several orders of gods, and what sort of honour 
 and sacrifice they are respectively pleased with : 
 * Lib. ii. p. 9, Steph.
 
 78 PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 and instituting- assemblies and festivals and days 
 of remission from business, after the wisest cus- 
 toms of the Grecian states, but rejecting at the 
 same time those mythological fables which seem 
 unworthy of the nature of the gods ; and taking 
 especial care to admit none of those rites which 
 had been perverted in other countries to the 
 corruption of morals." Even the laudable 
 anxiety, we may see, to avoid the impurities which 
 attended the worship of Bacchus and Cybele, 
 was inspired by a sense of the public welfare, 
 not by zeal for the honour of the Deity. 
 
 Livy is no less explicit respecting the pre- 
 vailing object in the mind of Numa, whose pre- 
 tence to divine communication has so often been 
 set in comparison with Moses. The temple of 
 Janus, he says,* being closed, and peace being 
 established with all the surrounding states ; lest 
 those minds which military discipline and the 
 fear of the enemy had kept in order, should riot 
 in the wantonness of leisure and security, Numa 
 thought it desirable that a .sw/.sv <>//>/ <tirc. of the 
 * Lib. i. 19.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 79 
 
 divine power should be infused into them, a thing 
 of the greatest efficacy among a rude and igno- 
 rant multitude : and with this in view he pre- 
 tended to receive through the communications of 
 Egeria those laws and rites which were most 
 agreeable to the gods. The historian, after this 
 preface, proceeds to describe how, by the appoint- 
 ment of priests and sacrifices, the minds of the 
 people were at once occupied, and imbued with 
 piety. 
 
 It is evident from these passages, that the in- 
 stitution of religious ceremonies at Rome was 
 not the effect of belief, but of policy ; * and it 
 
 * Ovid speaks of this as generally acknowledged : 
 
 Principio uimium promptos ad bella Quirites 
 
 Molliri placuit jure, Ueumque metu. 
 Inde datae leges, ne firmior omnia posset, 
 
 Cseptaque sunt pure tradita sacra coli. FASTI. 
 
 Varro, in his books of antiquities, makes an express distinction 
 between natural and civil theology ; and confesses that his own 
 judgment does not lead him to follow the religious institutions 
 of the state ; and that, if he were regulating a community de 
 novo, he would institute gods and divine titles according to 
 nature. Jt is remarkable, that he gives this reason for treat- 
 ing first upon human things, before he touches upon the divine :
 
 80 PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 naturally followed, that the religious worship was 
 superstition, not devotion. How different this 
 introduction of a state religion appears from the 
 object so authoritatively professed by Moses, it 
 would be superfluous to prove from particular in- 
 stances. There is one God who created the 
 world, who revealed himself to our forefathers 
 and ourselves, who delivered us from slavery, 
 who selected our nation to perpetuate his wor- 
 ship, who appointed us laws, who superintends 
 our observance of them : this is the fundamental 
 principle and the uniform language of the He- 
 brew code ; a language acknowledged, as it every 
 where appears, by the hearts of the people, even 
 while their rebellious actions ceased to corres- 
 pond with it. The fact is not merely, that a 
 belief of the unity and power of the Creator ex- 
 isted among the Hebrews ; but that on this 
 
 because states existed first, and then instituted things relating 
 to the gods ; just as a painter exists before his picture, or an 
 architect before his building. Augustine very reasonably asks, 
 " Naturale a civili velle discernere ; quid est aliud, quarn 
 ipsum civile fateri esse mendosum?" De Civit. Dei, lib. vi. 
 s. 4, &c.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 81 
 
 belief their whole civil government was raised. 
 The fact is not merely, that God was worshipped 
 by them as the common Father of all mankind ; 
 but he was esteemed their own immediate ruler 
 and protector ; the king 1 of their nation, the au- 
 thor of the laws which bound them as indi- 
 viduals, and of the civil polity which united them 
 as a community. The majority of the enact- 
 ments of a voluminous ritual have the purity of 
 his worship for their object. To him they looked 
 for punishment of their violation of his com- 
 mands, and for the rewards of their obedience. 
 To him they referred their national as well as 
 their personal prosperity. Each individual took 
 home to himself the promise which concludes the 
 code : " If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of 
 " the Lord thy God, to observe and do all his 
 " commandments, blessed shalt thou be in the city, 
 " and blessed shalt thou be in thejield"* Under 
 this impression they consented to observances so 
 rigorous and so universally obligatory, as could 
 only have been proposed by a lawgiver conscious 
 
 * Deut. xxviii. 3. 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 of his divine commission, to a people equally 
 conscious of his supreme authority. 
 
 Undoubtedly it was common among- the an- 
 cients to dedicate their cities to some particular 
 deity, who was specially invoked in cases of pub- 
 lic danger, and whose supposed office seems to 
 have resembled that of St. Nicolas in the Greek 
 church, and the various tutelar saints of the 
 Romish calendar. Thus Athens was sacred to 
 Minerva ; Delos to Apollo : Ephesus to Diana ; 
 Argos to Juno. But we find nothing in the laws, 
 nothing in the customs, nothing- in the piety of 
 these states, which can carry us one step farther 
 in the comparison. Austerities are appointed by 
 Lycurg-us ; but they are directed to the strength 
 of the state. Austerities are enacted by Moses ; 
 but their object is the worship of the Creator. 
 Where shall we look for an institution similar to 
 that solemn ceremony among the Jews, by which 
 the firstborn were sanctified to God ? not only to 
 preserve the memory of their deliverance from 
 Egyptian tyranny, but to implant most strongly 
 a sense of the duties of religion in the head of
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 83 
 
 every family. " Thou shall set apart unto the 
 " Lord all that openeth the matrix ; the males 
 " shall be the Lord's. And it shall be, when 
 " thy son asketh thee in time to come, say- 
 " ing, What is this ? that thou shalt say unto him, 
 " By strength of hand the Lord brought us out 
 "from Egypt, from the house of bondage ; and it 
 " shall be for a token upon thy head, and for 
 " frontlets between thine eyes."* No room is 
 left among these strict injunctions, for a distinc- 
 tion between natural and civil theology, as if the 
 philosopher and the legislator had separate gods. 
 Faith is treated as a moral duty, and as uni- 
 formly required from all, as temperance or jus- 
 tice. And to what cause can we ascribe this supe- 
 riority, if we reject the one assigned by Jose- 
 phus ; f who observes, that the heathen lawgivers, 
 not being acquainted, like Moses, with the true 
 nature of God, and not defining any accurate 
 knowledge of him, even as far as they had it in 
 their power to attain it, for this reason established 
 their communities after a different form. 
 
 * Exodus xiii. 12. -j- Contra Apion. p. 1386, ed. Huds. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 The only exception to these remarks which 
 can be urged from antiquity, or thought to bear 
 the least comparison with the language of the 
 Mosaic code, occurs in the preamble to the laws 
 of Zaleucus ; who shows an evident anxiety to 
 introduce a philosophical belief in the existence 
 of the gods, excited indeed by a view of the 
 public welfare, but still far more explicit than 
 we find elsewhere. In the preface which opens 
 his system, he laid down,* " that first of all it is 
 necessary for the inhabitants of a state to be per- 
 suaded and believe the existence of divine beings : 
 that this belief must arise from a contemplation 
 of the heavens, and the universe, and their order 
 and arrangement, which cannot be the work of 
 chance, or man : therefore that the gods should 
 be worshipped and honoured, as the authors of all 
 our real blessings. Let each individual there- 
 
 * See Diod. Sic. 1. 12, p. 84; Rhod. 300, Steph.; and 
 Stobaeus, Serm. 42 and 37. The prooeni of Charondas, who 
 gave laws to the people of Catana, 8cc. is in the same spirit, but 
 more concise : Twc /3owXo^eVwc *cti Trprfrrorrac ri, aVo deuiv 
 %prj ro yap upiarov, TOV Qeov eif-iev atriov iravruv 
 ' ert tie <f>iiv\it>v Trpa^ewy dire'\eff6ut, Kal ^ta\0ra Sid raV 
 rdv OeoV rw///5ovX<a' ovcevof ydp dittov
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 85 
 
 fore cleanse his mind from every kind of pollu- 
 tion ; and labour to be virtuous according to his 
 power, in thought and deed, as he wishes to ren- 
 der himself acceptable to the gods : but should 
 the evil daemon haunt him, exciting him to wick- 
 edness, let him resort to the temples and altars, 
 and there entreat the gods to deliver him from 
 sin, the worst and most relentless of tyrants." 
 
 The spirit of this passage has been deservedly 
 admired.* But there is an obvious difference 
 between the tone of the Locrian and that of the 
 Hebrew lawgiver. If their conclusion is the 
 same, there is no resemblance between the steps 
 by which they arrive at it. Zaleuccus anxi- 
 ously impresses as a political consideration, what 
 Moses simply relates as a known historical fact. 
 Moses declares a naked truth, to which he fore- 
 sees no dissent among his hearers : In the begin- 
 
 * See Hume, Nat. Hist, of Relig. ; Warb. Div. Leg. ii. s. 3. 
 I have no concern with the controversy as to the authenticity 
 of these remains, in which Warburton maintains his ground 
 with equal skill, learning, and ingenuity against the criticism 
 of Bentley. It is enough for the argument here, that the 
 preface, at least, was considered ancient in the time of Cicero.
 
 80 PECULIAR OHJECT OF 
 
 ning, God created the heaven and the earth : and, 
 / am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have none 
 other Gods but me, Zaleucus, on the contrary, 
 enforces by argument, and by reference to the 
 signs of order in the world, a point which need 
 not have been proved, if it had not been disputed. 
 The positive language of authority which Moses 
 employs, is not the language assumed by one who 
 introduces a new and unacknowledged principle, 
 devised by his own reason. The certain con- 
 fidence with which he broadly and at once as- 
 serts the fact, that in the beginning God created 
 the world, can only arise from a consciousness 
 that this fact required no proof in the minds of 
 the people to whom it was addressed, but would 
 receive the immediate assent of the whole He- 
 brew nation.* 
 
 * Plato, who imitated the Pythagorean lawgivers, and 
 Cicero, who imitated Plato, both concur in proving the truth 
 systematically, which they wish to be generally believed. The 
 latter argues, " Quid est verius, quam neminem esse oportere 
 tarn stulte arrogantem, ut in se rationem et mentem putet 
 inesse, in coelo mundoque non putet? aut ut ea, quee vix 
 suiiima ingenii ratione comprehendat, nulla ratione moveri 
 putet ?" Then, by tlie conclusion which he deduces, ho betrays
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 87 
 
 I think it must be evident from these actual com- 
 parisons, that there is no similarity between the 
 tone of Moses, and that of other lawgivers placed 
 in his supposed circumstances : but that the dis- 
 tinction really exists which was at first remarked ; 
 viz. that they, for political purposes, introduced 
 into their laws religious considerations ; while 
 the Hebrew government has chiefly and almost 
 alone in view, the maintenance of the belief and 
 worship of the Creator. 
 
 It still, however, remains to be observed, 
 that Moses not only betrays no hesitation him- 
 self, and supposes no doubt on the part of the 
 people, but he addresses them in terms which 
 are quite unaccountable on the supposition of 
 his not being borne out by facts, and his hear- 
 ers' personal conviction of their truth. He 
 
 the political interest which inclines him to establish the exis- 
 tence of superior powers : " Utiles esse opiniones has, quis neget ; 
 cum intelligat quam multa firmentur jurejurando, quantae 
 salutis sint fcederum religiones ! quam multos divini supplicii 
 metus a scelere revocarit ! quamque sancta sit societas civium 
 inter ipsos, Diis immortalibus interpositis turn judicibus, turn 
 testibus?" De Leg. ii. 7.
 
 88 PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 called all Israel, and said unto them, " Hear, 
 " O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I 
 " speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn 
 " them, and keep them, and do them. The 
 " Lord our God made a covenant with us in 
 " Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with 
 " our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of 
 " us here alive this day. The Lord talked with 
 " you face to face out of the midst of the fire, and 
 " ye said, Behold, the Lord our God has showed 
 " his glory and his greatness, and we have heard 
 " his voice out of the midst of the fire."* These 
 appeals to their own knowledge of the divine 
 origin of their law, are frequently and confi- 
 dently made. So are they likewise, to the ex- 
 perience they had felt of the miraculous protec- 
 tion which God bestowed upon them, as a king- 
 dom of priests and an holy nation, whom he had 
 borne from Egypt " on eagles' wings."-f The 
 remembrance of this deliverance was to be handed 
 down to posterity, as an imperishable fact. 
 " When thy son asketh thee in time to come, 
 " What mean these statutes, and testimonies, and 
 * Dent. v. 1. f Exodus xix.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 89 
 
 " judgments, which the Lord our God hath 
 " commanded you ; then thou shalt say unto 
 " thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt, 
 " and the Lord brought us out from Egypt with 
 " a mighty hand : and the Lord showed signs 
 " and wonders, great and sore, upon Pharaoh, 
 " and upon all his household, before our eyes ; 
 " and the Lord commanded us to do all these 
 " statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our 
 " good always, that he might preserve us alive, 
 " as it is at this day."* 
 
 In the same manner their former experience 
 is appealed to, for the purpose of allaying an 
 apprehension which might seem at first sight 
 very natural : " If thou shalt say in thine heart, 
 " These nations are more than I, how can I dis- 
 " possess them ? thou shalt not be afraid of 
 " them, but shalt well remember what the Lord 
 ' thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all 
 " Egypt, the great temptations which thine eyes 
 " saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and 
 " the mighty hand, and the stretched-out arm, 
 * Dcut. vi. 20, &c.
 
 {JO PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 " whereby the Lord thy God brought tliee out : 
 " so shall the Lord thy God do unto all the 
 " people of whom thou art afraid." * Instances 
 without number might be adduced, if it were 
 requisite ; but such is the whole tenor of 
 the law. 
 
 This language is wholly incompatible with 
 the idea that Moses acted under a forged com- 
 mission. Suppose it admitted, that he considered 
 the agency of a Creator the most rational belief, 
 and that he abhorred idolatry as the parent of 
 cruelty and abomination ; suppose it granted, 
 that he deemed it most suitable to the character 
 of a rude and ignorant people, to declare in 
 positive terms, instead of proving by argument, 
 the sum of his own faith, and to profess himself 
 the instrument of Heaven in promulgating it ; 
 suppose, I say, all those concessions made, which 
 no rational person would agree to make in con- 
 tradiction to probability and experience : yet 
 still he must have acted on a different plan j he 
 would not have appealed to the senses, the con- 
 * Deut. viii. 17.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 91 
 
 sciousness, and the memory of the people, in 
 matters where every one of them could have 
 contradicted him. This has not been the prac- 
 tice of false pretenders to divine communication. 
 Minos had no witnesses to his conferences with 
 Jupiter on mount Ida ; those of Numa with the 
 goddess Egeri& were private and nocturnal. It 
 was in the cave of Hera, that Mahomet, in 
 secret retirement, " consulted the spirit of fraud 
 or enthusiasm."*" None of these challenged 
 the assembly of their nation, as able to bring 
 their testimony to the facts on which they founded 
 their pretensions ; none of them collected the 
 people to be witnesses of the miraculous appear- 
 ances which attested the delivery of the law. 
 Allusions to these supernatural facts on which 
 the law is professedly built, are closely inter- 
 woven with it, in a manner perfectly natural on 
 supposition of their truth and recent occurrence ; 
 but totally unaccountable on any other. 
 
 This point is, indeed, so unanswerably strong, 
 that it is impossible to believe the law to have 
 * Gibbon.
 
 92 PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 been introduced at the time it professes, and 
 by the reputed author, except on the conviction 
 of its divine appointment. Whoever denies 
 assent to the facts declared in the law, must 
 begin by refuting the authenticity and supposed 
 antiquity of the law. These are questions, 
 which it would carry me too far out of my 
 present line of argument to discuss at length. 
 Besides, it is quite unnecessary to tread over 
 again the steps of the many able writers who 
 have repeatedly answered, to the entire satis- 
 faction of any reasonable disputant, the few and 
 trifling objections that may be raised against the 
 age of the Pentateuch.* 
 
 One point must be particularly observed : that 
 it is not sufficient to object to the received date 
 of the law, without assigning some other spe- 
 cific period for its introduction. The history 
 it involves, and the statutes enacted in it, were 
 indisputably received by the conquerors of Pa- 
 lestine as the records of their ancestors, as the 
 authority by which they settled in a foreign 
 * See Appendix. No. III.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 93 
 
 country, as the foundation of their civil and 
 domestic institutions, and as the canon of their 
 religious belief and ceremonies. It becomes in- 
 cumbent, therefore, on those, who dispute the 
 professed account of its origin, to explain the 
 problem in some more credible manner. If the 
 law did not proceed, in all essentials, exactly as 
 we read it now, from Moses and Mount Sinai, 
 from whom, and whence, did it proceed ? The 
 building was undoubtedly raised : what then 
 was its support, if it was not founded on mira- 
 culous interposition ? This demand we have 
 a right absolutely to insist upon, though it im- 
 poses a task of no slight difficulty, and is seldom 
 voluntarily undertaken. 
 
 Any account of the Pentateuch, except that 
 which appears on the face of the book itself, is 
 embarrassed by objections which I shall only 
 briefly glance at. It professes to contain the 
 law prescribed to the Israelites on their migra- 
 tion from Egypt, by Moses, under the divine 
 direction ; which direction had been manifested 
 by their miraculous deliverance from slavery,
 
 94- PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 and by many indisputable signs. But this, it 
 seems, is incredible. When then did they receive 
 the records of the law, and from whom ?* It 
 can make but little alteration in the difficulty, to 
 whatever period or person we may be referred. 
 It is not of much consequence at what time we 
 suppose an impostor to have appeared, and to 
 have furnished the Hebrews with a history of 
 their ancestors, and of the origin of their laws. 
 At some period or other, certainly, we must 
 believe that the nation accepted a series of 
 records, professing to acquaint them with the 
 transactions of their progenitors, from their first 
 settlement as a single family in Egypt, to their 
 final settlement in the country they then enjoyed 
 by conquest. That these records were false ; 
 or otherwise the miraculous interference they 
 contain must be acknowledged ; yet that no 
 recollection or tradition of their real history 
 remained to contradict the imposture, and that no 
 individual existed in the country, with under- 
 
 * The argument arising out of this question is put in the 
 strongest and clearest light by Leslie, in his unanswerable 
 treatise, " A short Method with a Deist."
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 95 
 
 standing enough to question its author as to the 
 information he had thus suddenly acquired upon 
 subjects, concerning which all had been hitherto 
 equally ignorant ; no one to demand the proofs 
 of his history, or the credentials of his autho- 
 rity : that the people were not astonished at the 
 miracles, pretended to have been wrought in 
 favour of their ancestors, or incredulous as to 
 the order of nature having been so often in- 
 fringed without any record or memory of such 
 facts ; nor indignant at the injury offered to the 
 character of their forefathers, by representing 
 them as often rebellious against the clearest 
 miracles and the kindest promises. Improba- 
 bilities like these are overlooked, when it is 
 desired to undermine revelation ; but it would 
 be a heavy task to support it on similar grounds. 
 
 Allowing, however, even all this to be granted, 
 how shall we explain the existence of a law like 
 that of the Hebrews, so strict in its articles and 
 so peculiar in its nature, on any other principle 
 than the foundation which it claims? To say 
 nothing here of its sublimity and purity, how is
 
 J)G PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 it possible to account for such a code having 
 been received and acted upon by such a people, 
 except on the credit of the extraordinary circum- 
 stances under which it professes to have been 
 established ? a code neither suited to the cus- 
 toms, nor the prejudices, nor the passions of 
 mankind ; and in particular most opposite to 
 those of the people who received it, as being 
 contrary to the habits they had brought with 
 them from Egypt, as well as to the practices of all 
 the nations by whom they were surrounded : 
 a code encumbered with burdensome ceremonies, 
 and entailing a variety of severe obligations ; 
 nay, farther, containing in itself, as I shall pre- 
 sently show, the seeds of its own destruction, 
 unless its observers had really been supported 
 by that divine assistance, which the words of the 
 law promise, and the history records. 
 
 It is not enough to answer all this generally, 
 by saying, that a barbarous people are easily 
 amused by miracles, and genealogies, and legends 
 of antiquity. I should be much surprised, I con- 
 fess, to learn that any people however barbarous,
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 97 
 
 had been imposed upon to this extent : but, in 
 regard to the particular case of the Mosaic law, 
 it must be observed, that the imposition itself re- 
 quires a certain degree of civilization, far removed 
 from stupid, and careless, and uninquiring 1 igno- 
 rance. Such a state neither produces an impostor 
 who could propose it, nor a people who could un- 
 derstand it. A nation must be advanced, or advanc- 
 ing, at least, beyond the lowest stage of barbarism, 
 which could be the subject of a legislation such as 
 that of Moses ; entering so minutely into the details 
 of civil life, providing often for transactions of a 
 complicated nature, and supposing the existence 
 of a regular police, priesthood, and magistracy. 
 How it happened, that such a description should 
 be applicable to the Israelites, just emerging from 
 a state of servitude, the opponents of the divine 
 commission of Moses are bound to discover : but 
 it is a palpable contradiction to affirm, that they 
 were barbarous enough to be deceived by any in- 
 genious impostor, at the same time that they were 
 civilized enough to be in possession of such a law. 
 
 From the details of this Section, it has appeared 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 PECULIAR OBJECT OF 
 
 that the object prevailing through the Hebrew 
 polity, is entirely different from that which legis- 
 lators have commonly proposed to themselves ; 
 and that antiquity furnishes no example of a 
 state, the principal scope of whose laws was to 
 maintain the belief of a Creator, or indeed in 
 which that belief was at all inculated with a con- 
 fidence any way comparable to that expressed by 
 Moses. This circumstance alone, it will be 
 owned, gives reasonable grounds for a presump- 
 tion of its having a different origin from that of 
 other civil governments. And this presumption 
 is confirmed by the words employed to the per- 
 sons who were to observe the law : words ad- 
 dressing them as actual witnesses of the mode in 
 which it was conveyed to them, and by which its 
 divine appointment was proved to their com- 
 plete conviction : a confirmation, strengthened by 
 the reflection, that no period has been or can be 
 specifically assigned, when a fabrication so gross 
 as a forged history and fabulous archives could 
 be imposed upon them. 
 
 This sort of evidence is all that the case allows.
 
 THE HEBREW POLITY. 99 
 
 It is accumulated in favour of the Hebrew laws 
 in the highest conceivable degree ; and has been 
 drawn out at different times in a variety of ways, 
 any one of which might be justly deemed satisfac- 
 tory ; rendering it, upon the whole, a most im- 
 practicable task for any one who considers the 
 matter in detail, to maintain that Moses acted on 
 his own assumed authority. 
 
 Hitherto, therefore, I think it has been satisfac- 
 torily shown, that the peculiar nature of the He- 
 brew polity affords strong grounds for believing 
 that it was divinely instituted, for the purpose of 
 preserving the records of the creation ; inasmuch 
 as the worship and commemoration of the 
 Creator was the chief and primary object of the 
 Hebrew legislator, which, with other legislators, 
 is only made auxiliary and subservient to their 
 main object, the welfare of the state. 
 
 H
 
 100 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 Peculiar Sanctions of the Mosaic Law. 
 
 IT is not only by such a consideration of the ob- 
 ject of the Hebrew Polity, as was entered upon 
 in the preceding section, that we may derive an 
 irresistible argument for its divine institution : 
 but the peculiarity of its provisional sanctions, and 
 the deviations from the ordinary course of nature 
 on which they confidently rely, must bring us to 
 the same conclusion. I take it as an acknow- 
 ledged principle, that every lawgiver provides for 
 the observance of his statutes, by such penal 
 enactments as he has within his power ; and 
 would be more anxious to establish a belief of 
 the certainty, than even of the severity, of his 
 punishments. It was for this reason that the
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 101 
 
 terrors of future judgment were called in, as we 
 have seen, to assist the inadequacy of human jus- 
 tice, by some of the ancient lawgivers ; and to 
 assure offenders that the vengeance, which must 
 necessarily prove often tardy and uncertain on 
 this side the grave, will be sure and swift on the 
 other. 
 
 Moses, however, relies on this vengeance as 
 immediate ; and employs the sanction of a retri- 
 butive providence as confidently, as if he held the 
 lightning in his own hands, and wielded the go- 
 vernment of the world. All his enactments im- 
 ply that sort of dependance on divine interposi- 
 tion, which could not be derived from any expe- 
 rience of the usual course of events. Obedience 
 to the commandments is not only enjoined as a 
 positive duty, but as the sure source of all pros- 
 perity, both national and individual. " And it 
 " shall come to pass, if thou shall hearken dili- 
 " gently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to 
 " observe and to do all his commandments which 
 " I command thee this day, that the Lord thy 
 " God will set thee high above all nations of the
 
 102 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 " earth. The Lord shall cause thine enemies 
 " that rise up against thee to be smitten before 
 " thy face ; they shall come out against thee one 
 " way, and flee before thee seven ways. The 
 " Lord shall command a blessing upon thee in thy 
 " storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine 
 " hand unto ; and all people of the earth shall see 
 " that thou art called by the name of the Lord, 
 " and they shall be afraid of thee."* On the other 
 hand, disobedience, and particularly in the mat- 
 ter of idolatry, is threatened with the severest 
 chastisements that can befal a nation ; with pri- 
 vate distress, and public calamity ; with the an- 
 nihilation of the government, and the captivity 
 of the people. " See, I have set before thee this 
 " day life and good, and death and evil ; in that I 
 " command thee this day to love the Lord thy 
 " God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his com- 
 " mandments and his statutes and his judgments, 
 " &c. But if thine heart turn away, so that thou 
 " wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and 
 " worship other gods, and serve them ; / de- 
 " nuance unto you this day, that ye shall surely 
 
 * Dtut. xxviii.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 108 
 
 " perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days 
 " upon the land, whither thou passest over Jor- 
 " dan to go to possess it. The Lord shall scatter 
 " thee among- all people, from the one end of the 
 " earth even unto the other ; and among 1 these 
 " nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall 
 " the sole of thy foot have rest." * 
 
 Thus the duration of the whole civil polity is 
 made dependant on the adherence of the people, 
 not to the established form of government by ma- 
 gistrates and elders, but to the established wor- 
 ship : and its dissolution is represented as conse- 
 quent, not on a violation of the political ordi- 
 nances, or moral code, so much as on a departure 
 from that allegiance which was due to God, as 
 the author of the whole, and on a dereliction of 
 the worship which he had appointed as suited to 
 the immateriality of his essence, and as calculated 
 at the same time to inspire an habitual conviction 
 of his superintending power. 
 
 Again, the case is supposed of the crime of dis- 
 * Deut. xxx.
 
 104 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 obedience, and of the infliction of the consequent 
 penalty, defeat and captivity : and it is positively 
 declared, that repentance and an acknowledg- 
 ment of the Creator, and a return to his worship, 
 shall be rewarded by his forgiveness of their 
 transgressions, and the re-establishment of their 
 temporal power. " And it shall come to pass, 
 " when all these things are come upon thee, the 
 " blessing and the curse which I have set before 
 " thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among 
 " all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath 
 " driven thee ; and shalt return unto the Lord 
 " thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to 
 " all that I command thee here this day, thou and 
 " thy children, with all thine heart and with all thy 
 " soul ; that then the Lord thy God will turn thy 
 " captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and 
 " will return and gather thee from all the nations 
 " whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee ; 
 " and thou shalt return and obey the voice of 
 " the Lord, and do all his commandments which 
 " I command thee this day." ' 
 
 * Dcut. xxx. 18.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 105 
 
 Throughout this, there is a total defiance of 
 the ordinary process of human affairs. I do not 
 allege it as remarkable, that the lawgiver should 
 represent the observance of his laws as essential 
 to the interests, or even to the existence, of his 
 community : we know that Lycurgus attempted 
 to provide by a stratagem, for the perpetuity of 
 his institutions ; and that Charondas suffered a 
 voluntary death, to show the sanctity in which 
 he held his own edicts : but what is remarkable, 
 is the nature of the laws, to which Moses at- 
 taches such great importance. The laws which 
 common experience proves to be the safe-guards 
 of a nation, and which patriotic legislators have 
 desired to sanction, even at the expense of their 
 own lives, relate to the national defence, the 
 political economy, the frugal dispensation of the 
 revenues, or the social duties of the citizens. 
 But in the Mosaic code, all these bulwarks of 
 security are either totally unprovided for, or 
 comparatively neglected. The Hebrews were 
 preparing to take possession of a country by 
 conquest, and might reasonably expect to be 
 surrounded with implacable enemies j yet no
 
 106 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 pains are taken to secure or discipline a national 
 army. It does not enter into the contemplation 
 of the legislator, that his people, however sud- 
 denly assembled as occasion might require, could 
 ever fail of success, either in attacking a foreign 
 territory, or in defending their own, as long as 
 they continued true to their invisible Head and 
 Governor. Neglecting all human means, such 
 as national treasures, or military exercises, he 
 promises his people victory, and assures them of 
 security, as long as they continue to " obey the 
 " voice of the Lord their God, and do his com- 
 " mandments and his statutes."* Let them only 
 be faithful to the worship of the Creator, " the 
 " Lord," he says, " shall cause thine enemies that 
 " rise up against thee to be smitten before thy 
 " face : and all people of the earth shall see that 
 " thou art called by the name of the Lord, and 
 " they shall be afraid of thee."t " Ye shall 
 " chase your enemies, and they shall fall before 
 " you by the sword. And five of you shall 
 " chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall 
 
 * Deut. xxvii. 10. f Dcut. xxviii. 7, 10.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 107 
 
 " put ten thousand to flight ; and your enemies 
 " shall fall before you by the sword."* 
 
 If, on the contrary, they will not observe the 
 words of the law, " to fear this glorious and 
 " fearful name, the Lord their God," they are 
 threatened with destruction as a people in a man- 
 ner as particular and confident, as if the future 
 event were present to the eye of the legislator. 
 " The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king 
 " which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation 
 " which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; 
 " and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood 
 " and stone ; and thou shalt become an asto- 
 " nishment, a proverb, and a by-word among 
 " all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee."f 
 
 Still farther, that he might influence those as 
 individuals who were careless of the public 
 welfare, Moses not only presumes upon a power 
 of directing foreign armies and future political 
 events, as in the passages already cited ; but 
 
 * Lev. xxvi. 7, 8. f Deut. xxviii. 36.
 
 108 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 he speaks as if pestilence and famine, and all 
 the hosts of diseases, were placed under his au- 
 thority. The Lord, he says, to punish your ido- 
 latry, " will make thy plagues wonderful, and 
 " the plagues of thy seed : moreover, he will bring 
 " upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which 
 " thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto 
 " thee."* " If ye will not hearken unto me, 
 " and will not do all these commandments, I 
 " will do this unto you ; I will appoint over 
 " you terror, consumption, and the burning 
 " ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause 
 " sorrow of heart ; and ye shall sow your seed 
 " in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. / will 
 " bring a sword upon you that shall avenge the 
 " quarrel of my covenant ; and when ye are ga- 
 " thered together within your cities, I will send 
 " the pestilence among you ; and ye shall be 
 " delivered into the hands of the enemy. "f 
 
 Lastly, should they hereafter, in despite of 
 the promises held out to them on the one hand, 
 and the threats denounced on the other, rush 
 * Deut. xxviii. 59. f Lcvit. xxvi. 14, 15. 25.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 109 
 
 into the forbidden sin, and incur the captivity IX 
 appointed as the punishment of their rebellion ; 
 they are not led to expect deliverance through 
 the interference of friendly powers, or by train- 
 ing- up their youth to arms, or by the gradual 
 multiplication and increase of strength among 
 those that may have been left at home j or by 
 any of those means, in short, by which a legis- 
 lator, under common circumstances, might be 
 conceived likely to provide a remedy, for some 
 foreseen contingent evil : but their restoration 
 is to be effected, if at all, by a return to that 
 inward faith and pure worship, to their deser- 
 tion of which their calamity is ascribed. " If 
 " they shall confess their iniquity, and the ini- 
 " quity of their fathers, with their trespass 
 " which they trespassed against me, and that also 
 " they have walked contrary to me ; and that 
 " / also have walked contrary to them, and have 
 " brought them into the land of their enemies ; 
 11 if then thsir uncircumcised hearts be hum- 
 " bled, and they accept of the punishment of 
 " their iniquity ; then will I remember my cove- 
 " nant with Jacob, and also my covenant with
 
 110 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 " Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham 
 " will I remember ; and I will remember the 
 " land."* 
 
 \/ Now the object, I conceive, which a person 
 would naturally prescribe to himself, having 1 the 
 design attributed to Moses of imposing a code of 
 laws upon his countrymen, would be, in the first 
 place, to create a favourable impression of those 
 laws with the people to whom they were ad- 
 dressed, by making them agreeable to their rea- 
 son, and their experience of the common course 
 of human affairs. But it cannot be pretended 
 that the blessings and the curse with which Moses 
 sanctions his code, are framed in any degree 
 upon the model of the usual law of God's moral 
 government. That vice, upon the whole, is 
 detrimental to the temporal prospects and success 
 of an individual, cannot certainly be denied ; and 
 examples may even be found of the collective 
 vices of a nation leading to such a degradation 
 of the national character, as to render a country 
 
 * Lev. xxvi. 40. See also the passage already quoted 
 from Deuteronomy xxx.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 1] 1 
 
 an easy prey to foreign enemies. But it is not 
 this distant and gradual effect of immorality 
 which the language of Moses points at : neither 
 is the crime which he specifically threatens with 
 captivity, one that can be at all supposed to lead 
 to it in the way of natural consequence. He 
 denounces national destruction as the immediate 
 punishment of national idolatry, just as a legis- 
 lator in ordinary circumstances threatens treason 
 with banishment or death, while he holds the 
 means of inflicting them in his hands. No 
 pains are taken to enforce the probability of this 
 judgment, considered as a natural proceeding. 
 For who, after all, were to execute the punish- 
 ment ? Not the more virtuous and more pure 
 worshippers, as might have been expected on 
 the general principle of retribution ; but it is 
 declared as an additional degradation to the 
 Hebrews, that their overthrow should be effected 
 by idolaters, and they themselves be brought 
 to " serve other gods, wood and stone."* 
 
 Again, Moses is not contented, as other law- 
 * Deut. xxviii. 36.
 
 112 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 givers are forced to be, with threatening punish- 
 ments, but he also promises rewards. And his 
 rewards it would be as absurd for a person in 
 ordinary circumstances to offer, and for a people 
 under no peculiar dispensation to expect, as we 
 have seen the punishments to be : since the pros- 
 perity which is to be the consequence of their 
 obedience, must arise from the course of the 
 seasons, and depend upon the winds and clouds 
 of heaven : being no other than the fruitfulness 
 of the land, and the increase of their flocks and 
 herds. " If ye walk in my statutes, and keep 
 " my commandments, then I will give you rain 
 " in due season, and the land shall yield her 
 " increase, and the trees of the field shall 
 " yield their fruit. And your threshing shall 
 " reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall 
 " reach unto the sowing-time : and ye shall eat 
 " your bread to the full, and dwell in your land 
 " safely. And I will give peace in the land, and 
 " ye shall lie down, and none shall make you 
 " afraid ; and I will rid evil beasts out of your 
 " land."* 
 
 * Levit. x\vi.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 113 
 
 It would seem an idle waste of time if I were 
 to set about proving- systematically, that this is 
 not a skilful adaptation of the regular laws of 
 Providence, deduced from an attentive observa- 
 tion of the general course of divine government, 
 and applied to the sanction of a code pretending 
 to divine authority. No one, indeed, admitting 
 the agency of a Creator, can doubt that a general 
 providence ordains the series of events, and that 
 a particular providence superintends the inferior 
 agents by whose instrumentality they are brought 
 about : but no one can follow the path, or trace 
 the steps of its operation. Look through a body 
 of individuals ; who will venture to assign their 
 success to their moral virtues, or their misfor- 
 tunes to their guilt? Still more, survey the 
 nations of the world : is it possible to estimate 
 the degree of their idolatry by their comparative 
 barrenness, or to find any proportion preserved 
 between the natural fertility of the land and the 
 moral merits of the people ? The result of ob- 
 servation and experience is, that the good and 
 the bad, the wheat and the tares, grow up toge- 
 ther till the harvest, and that the sun shines and 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 1 14 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 the rain falls on the just and unjust without discri- 
 mination : this inequality being in fact essential to 
 a probationary state, which supposes all exactness 
 of retributive justice to be reserved for another. 
 
 If then such is the actual and undeniable 
 course of things, no rational impostor, intending 
 to devise a constitution for an infant people, 
 would have rested its stability on a violation of 
 that course, or sanctioned his laws upon a pre- 
 sumption of supernatural interference, unau- 
 thorized by the order of nature, and contradicted 
 by every day's experience. It is indeed possible 
 that he might, in general terms, have instructed 
 his people to depend upon the divine blessing, 
 whilst they obeyed the laws proposed to them, 
 and to dread divine vengeance, as the certain 
 consequence of disobedience. He might have 
 gone as far as Zaleucus, in saying that " every 
 one ought to labour all he can to become good, 
 both in practice and principle, whereby he will 
 render himself acceptable to the Deity."* But 
 he never could have proposed this invisible arm 
 
 * Tdv ueXXotra Zirai 6eo(jn\f).
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 115 
 
 as the primary instrument of success, or minister 
 of punishment ; or have rested such entire de- 
 pendance on the divine agency, as to expect it to 
 supersede the usual means of victory, or national 
 defence. Let us refer to the example of Maho- 
 met : no one with more confidence, or apparent 
 enthusiasm, assured his followers of the assist- 
 ance of Heaven : and without hesitation, in the 
 moment of danger, " he demanded the succour 
 of Gabriel and three thousand angels/'* But 
 however he might endeavour to inflame by re- 
 ligious feelings the national valour of his Ara- 
 bian followers, we do not find that he neglected 
 any of the known means of success : he first 
 inured his troops to perfect discipline ; and then, 
 with consummate address, he brought in en- 
 thusiasm, not as a substitute for the common in- 
 struments of victory, but as an additional incite- 
 ment to their courage, by assigning the highest 
 rewards of a future state to the most heroic 
 warrior. " The sword," says the Koran, " is 
 the key of heaven and of hell : a drop of blood 
 shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, 
 Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 299. 
 
 I 2
 
 116 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 is of more avail than two months of fasting or 
 prayer : whosoever falls in battle, his sins are 
 forgiven : at the day of judgment his wounds 
 shall be resplendent as vermilion and odoriferous 
 as musk ; and the loss of his limbs shall be sup- 
 plied by the wings of angels and cherubims."* 
 This is not the language of Moses : who calmly 
 says, " ye .shall walk in all the ways which the 
 " Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye 
 " may live, and that it may be well with you"\ 
 Mahomet argues, Pursue the most decisive 
 measures to secure success, and then trust that 
 the divine aid will accompany the defenders of the 
 faith ; while Moses, in a tone directly opposite, 
 dissuades his people from trusting to themselves, 
 or to any other security than their obedience to 
 the commandments, and abstinence from idolatry.^ 
 
 As yet, however, we have touched upon only 
 half the argument. The Hebrew leader not 
 only overlooks human means, and substitutes 
 heavenly protection for the usual and experi- 
 
 * Gibbon, chap. 1. f Deut. v. 32. 
 
 \ Deut. vi. 24 ; viii. 11, to the end of the chapter ; &c.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 117 
 
 enced instruments of national success and sta- 
 bility ; but he superadds enactments which must 
 actually render the Israelites, in every human 
 view, an easy prey to their enemies. 
 
 The first institution trenching- upon the 
 strength and security of the state is that of the 
 Sabbath : an institution which, when observed 
 in its original strictness and austerity, was not 
 merely calculated to produce the effect which we 
 now derive from its more limited obligation, of 
 increasing- the powers of a people, by sparing 
 their exertion ; but afforded an easy opening for 
 the destruction of the whole nation by any 
 enemies who should become acquainted with the 
 Hebrew law. So severe was the appointment, 
 that no work could be undertaken, either abroad 
 or at home, on the Sabbath ; not only the active 
 operations of war were forbidden, but all the 
 preparations for them : nor was there even any 
 indulgence, permitting a regard to the business 
 of self-defence. 
 
 There is no occasion for argument to point out
 
 118 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 the difficulties which must arise from such an in- 
 stitution : the examples of the later ages of the 
 Jewish state furnish a sufficient proof that the 
 evil is not imaginary. In the first place it ap- 
 pears from the history of the Maccabees, that the 
 troops of Antiochus Epiphanes attacked a body 
 of Jews, belonging to Mattathias's party, on the 
 Sabbath ; who would neither repel their assault, 
 nor defend the cavern in which they had taken 
 refuge ; * " but said, Let us die in our inno- 
 " cency : heaven and earth shall testify for us, that 
 " ye put us to death wrongfully." This seems 
 to have been the first calamity into which the 
 nation had been suffered to fall, in consequence 
 of their strict adherence to the words of the 
 Mosaic law : for the experience of this event 
 having satisfied Mattathias that the extraordi- 
 nary providence by which such misfortunes had 
 hitherto been averted, was now withdrawn, a 
 general determination was made, with respect to 
 the future, to proceed as far as self-defence, 
 
 and repel force by force on the Sabbath.t 
 
 * 1 Mac. ch. ii. 
 
 -f- 1 Mac. v. 40,41. The account is confirmed by Josc- 
 phus, xii. 6.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 119 
 
 Subsequent events, however, prove, that even 
 such modified observance of this particular day, 
 if unaccompanied by the divine interference, was 
 quite inconsistent with the public safety. When 
 Pompey attacked Jerusalem, the inhabitants ad- 
 hered to the determination proposed by Matta- 
 thias. Pompey, therefore, perceiving that he 
 could carry on his works with impunity on the 
 Sabbath, the Jews making no effectual opposition 
 provided he did not actually force them to en- 
 gage, employed that seasonable opportunity for 
 raising his towers and battering-engines, and 
 proceeded in the attack on the following day by 
 means of this advantage :* a stratagem which 
 soon ended in its natural consequence, the cap- 
 ture of the city. From that time the institution 
 of the Sabbath seems to have been considered, 
 what it really was, a regular advantage to any in- 
 vader of Judaea.-{- 
 
 * Joseph. Antiq. Jud. 1. xiv. p. 614, ed. Huds. 
 
 -j- The governor of Babylonia, J osephus acquaints us, at- 
 tempted to surprise Asinseus on the Sabbath, oto^evoq ov 
 roXftrjaeiv dvTiara.rr\aaL dvrtf roue TroXe^t'oue, a'AA' apaj^f 
 Aa/Seiv dvrovg ciecJo/ieVove. This plot, however, was counter- 
 acted by the vigilance of the Jewish leader. Jos. xviii.
 
 120 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 It is worth remarking, too, that other nations 
 were so well convinced of the necessary effect 
 of this institution, as to judge at once that it ren- 
 dered the Jews unfit for any of the operations 
 of war. In the year of Caesar's death, the consul 
 Dolabella exempted them from military con- 
 scription, on their pleading that it was against 
 their laws to act on the Sabbath, and also that 
 they were precluded from the use of customary 
 food. And afterwards, under Nero, when the 
 seeds of rebellion against the Roman authority 
 were first beginning to appear, Agrippa endea- 
 vours to check the spirit of discontent, by warn- 
 ing the Jews how little prospect of success they 
 could entertain against a powerful enemy, who 
 possessed a decided advantage over them from 
 this very peculiarity of their religious laws. 
 " If, " he argued, " you observe the duties of the 
 Sabbath, and abstain from labour on that day, 
 you become an easy prey to the enemy, as your 
 
 p. 828. Frontinus enumerates among his stratagems, that 
 Augustus Vespasianus Judseos, Saturni die, quo netas erat 
 ([iiirijuam sense rei agere, adortus superavit, quia noluerunt 
 arma attingere.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 121 
 
 ancestors in the siege under Pompey. If, on 
 the contrary, you transgress your law to avoid 
 the consequences which must result from its 
 observance, then you defend a religion which you 
 yourselves are violating, and have nothing to 
 hope from the divine protection."* 
 
 It is evident then, that the actual events of his- 
 tory confirm the suggestions of common sense, 
 as to the natural effects to be expected from the 
 rigid attention to the Sabbath prescribed by 
 Moses. No one therefore can reasonably sup- 
 pose that any legislator acting upon his own au- 
 thority, would have endangered his state by such 
 a suicidal ordinance. This, however, is by no 
 means the only enactment which must have in- 
 flicted a death-blow upon any such polity of mere 
 human institution. It was positively appointed, t 
 that three times a year all the men of the coun- 
 try should appear together for the purpose of 
 worship at the place that should be appropriated 
 to the peculiar manifestation of the divine pre- 
 sence, viz. originally the tabernacle, and after- 
 * Jos. tie Bello Jud. 1. ii. p. 1089. f Exod. chap, xxxiv.
 
 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 wards the temple at Jerusalem. What was this, 
 but to provide as it were for leaving- a frontier 
 exposed, which was surrounded on all sides by 
 inveterate enemies ? Moses therefore accompa- 
 nies the enactment by a divine declaration which 
 was to quell alarm : " I will cast out the nations 
 " before thee, and enlarge thy borders : neither 
 " shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt 
 " go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice 
 " in the year"* The objections which in a hu- 
 man view oppose the appointment and attend the 
 observance of such an ordinance, are so clear 
 and evident, that when Jeroboam dreaded the ef- 
 fect of a meeting between his revolted tribes and 
 their brethren, he had a ready plea at hand for 
 abrogating the usage ; and urging that it was too 
 much for his people to go up to Jerusalem,! he 
 prescribed two places where they might more 
 conveniently assemble. 
 
 The appointment of the Sabbatical year is 
 more extraordinary still : still less agreeable, if 
 possible, to the idea of human invention. It is 
 * Exod. xxxiv. 24. -j- 1 Kings xii.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 123 
 
 conceived in these terms : " When ye come into 
 " the land which I shall give you, then shall the 
 " land keep a Sabbath unto the Lord, Six years 
 " thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou 
 " shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the 
 " fruit thereof : but in the seventh year shall be 
 " a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for 
 " the Lord : thou shalt neither prune thy vine- 
 " yard nor sow thy field."* This is a point, 
 which never could have been insisted on by any 
 lawgiver, having only in view the usual conside- 
 rations of the wealth and security of his nation. 
 It strikes at the root of political economy, and 
 proceeds on a defiance of every object which a 
 legislator has most at heart, by legalizing idleness, 
 and causing an intermission of the regular avo- 
 cations of the people. Any such intermission is 
 calculated to inflict a twofold injury ; not only 
 by the immediate loss of time and its products, 
 but by the consequent loss of habit and inclina- 
 tion. No man therefore could of his own 
 accord have devised such an appointment ; 
 which was indeed only suited to a nation hav- 
 ing a peculiar office, independent of the com- 
 
 * Levit. xxv. 2.
 
 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 mon business of life, and enjoying a peculiar pro- 
 tection, independent of the usual sources of pros- 
 perity. The disadvantages attending it could 
 only have been compensated by the paramount 
 necessity of preserving among the Israelites a 
 constant sense of the power and faithfulness of 
 God, and of the providence with which he se- 
 cured to them the possession of their land, as 
 long as they adhered to the conditions on which 
 they held it.* 
 
 That the nation, in point of real fact, could 
 not maintain its ground against these rigid insti- 
 tutions without this extraordinary providence to 
 correspond with them, we have here, as before, 
 the testimony of actual history. The regulations 
 of Moses, with the veneration which naturally 
 adhered to the authority by which they were ori- 
 ginally prescribed, were strictly followed on the 
 re-establishment of the nation after the captivity 
 at Babylon : though that signal accomplishment 
 of the denunciations contained in the law from 
 the beginning, might have satisfied the Hebrews 
 that the terrors of punishment had not been 
 * See Lowman on the Hebrew Ritual, p. 186, &c.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 
 
 vainly threatened, but that, as they had with- 
 drawn their allegiance, God had withdrawn his 
 protection. The natural consequence was soon 
 perceived. Under Antiochus Eupator Jerusalem 
 and the fortress of Bethsura were besieged in the 
 " year of rest," and after a spirited but useless 
 defence the former was taken, it having been im- 
 possible to procure provisions : and the latter 
 was quickly surrendered, from the same distress 
 of famine.* When Antigonus also had sought 
 refuge in Jerusalem from Herod, who was sup- 
 ported by the Romans, they suffered dreadfully 
 from scarcity, the event having fallen upon the 
 Sabbatical year.f 
 
 Could any one, let me ask, possessed of under- 
 standing to devise the Hebrew law, have failed 
 to foresee these inconveniences ; and having 
 foreseen them, have proceeded to encumber his 
 people, unnecessarily it would seem, with such dif- 
 ficulties, and have proposed to them to subscribe, 
 in a manner, to their own destruction, by vowing 
 obedience to laws so big with danger ? To this 
 * Mac. i. 6, 48, &c. Jos. Ant. p. 661. + Joseph. 637.
 
 126 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 question let the legislator furnish his own reply. 
 He does not propose these observances blindly and 
 ignorantly, and with no regard to the objections 
 arising from them ; but he overrules the objec- 
 tions, by the importance of his views in their es- 
 tablishment, and trusts to the power under 
 which he acted, for a security against the evident 
 danger to be apprehended. " Keep my judg- 
 " ments," he declares in the name of the Al- 
 mighty, " and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. 
 " And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the se- 
 " venth year f behold, we shall not sow nor ga- 
 " ther in our increase : then I will command 
 " my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it 
 " shall bring forth fruit for three years. And 
 " ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of 
 " old fruit until the ninth year ; until her fruits 
 " come in shall ye eat of the old store.'** 
 
 Moses therefore appoints the observance of 
 customs, which it is plain from reason, and 
 which he undoubtedly foresaw, required super- 
 natural protection ; and upon this supernatural 
 * Levit. xxv. 20, &c.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 127 
 
 protection he instructs his people to rely. Whe- 
 ther they actually received this assistance, it is 
 not necessary to discuss : but the question is, 
 can we believe that he would have promised it 
 in these confident terms, upon his own autho- 
 rity ; or even if we suppose he might have been 
 so insane an enthusiast, was the whole nation 
 infected with his insanity in such a degree as to 
 trust his promises, and pay him implicit obe- 
 dience ? Can we imagine that the Israelites, if 
 they had not really been in the habit of seeing, 
 in their deliverance from Egypt and their pro- 
 gress through the wilderness, continual evidence 
 of divine interference, would have trusted the 
 safety of their families, the liberty of their 
 country, and their existence as a nation, to a 
 deviation from all the known laws of nature, 
 and the course of all former experience ? Yet 
 this they were in the continual custom of doing, 
 not theoretically but practically three times every 
 year, when they left their families and homes to 
 " appear before the Lord" in the place specifi- 
 cally appointed, and when they allowed their 
 lands to lie uncultivated, and gave up all the
 
 1*28 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 produce of their possessions one year in seven. 
 Sudden acts of desperation, or of valour ap- 
 proaching to desperation, have arisen from the 
 immediate impulse of enthusiasm upon a people : 
 but the calm and regular and formal observance 
 of the Sabbath and stated sacrifices, and the 
 habitual confidence in superior power, implied 
 by a Sabbatical year, it is impossible to attribute 
 to any such unsound influence : and it would be 
 a waste of words to argue upon the subject, or 
 bring the case to the test of practicability, with 
 any supposed impostor now. For what had the 
 Israelites seen, to corroborate any enthusiastic 
 promise of an immediate providence, in the 
 history of their ancestors for many generations ? 
 They had long been an injured and an un- 
 redressed people ; who had settled in Egypt by 
 invitation of its monarch, had increased its 
 strength by their labour and numbers, and at 
 last had been reduced to most abject slavery, 
 and treated with unexampled cruelty : from 
 which they had now rescued themselves through 
 the greatest difficulties and dangers, but only 
 on the hard conditions of leaving the country
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 
 
 of their nativity, to seek another, through a bar- 
 ren wilderness, by the exertions of their own 
 valour. Take away all miraculous interpo- 
 sition from their departure out of Egypt, 
 and from the promulgation of the law at Mount 
 Sinai, and this is the tale that remains ; no 
 good foundation, it would appear, on which to 
 build the doctrine of an extraordinary Pro- 
 vidence punishing oppression and vindicating 
 innocence, and accommodating the national 
 prosperity to the national morals, in the exact 
 proportion of retributive justice. Yet it was to 
 a people who had this history fresh in their 
 memories, that Moses proposed a law, which 
 not only presumed, but declared, the constant 
 superintendence of divine power, for the protec- 
 tion of the chosen nation : and it was a people 
 who had suffered so much for want of an in- 
 terposing Providence, who received a book of 
 statutes, which, if they were not supported by a 
 deviation from the common laws of things and 
 seasons, made them the voluntary instruments 
 of their own destruction. 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 130 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 If, then, any faith is to be placed in our ex- 
 perience of the human mind, the peculiar pro- 
 visions of the Hebrew polity afford as strong 
 an evidence of its divine appointment, and mark 
 as strong- a contrast between it and all human 
 institutions, as was deduced in the former Sec- 
 tion from the peculiar object it professes to 
 have in view. The same conclusion must be 
 drawn from both : for, as nothing could account 
 for the object of the polity, except the truth of 
 the accompanying history, so the peculiar pro- 
 visions can only be explained by admitting that 
 they were really established by the command of 
 the Creator, and supported by his power. Nor 
 is any preliminary fact assumed to establish the 
 argument, or required to confirm it, except the 
 real existence of the polity itself. The certainty 
 of this we derive, not only from the original do- 
 cuments, which furnish the surest attainable au- 
 thority in all cases relating to domestic and civil 
 institutions, but from the incidental remarks of 
 profane writers ; which either plainly indicate, 
 or expressly declare, that the Jewish people were 
 understood to possess a system of government
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 131 
 
 and religious worship, totally different from those 
 existing- among 1 other nations. The observations 
 arising from the cursory acquaintance of these 
 writers with the Jews, ascertain their confidence 
 in miraculous interposition ; * their devout at- 
 tachment to their religious belief; their scrupu- 
 lous observance of the Sabbath ; their abhor- 
 rence of idolatry ; -f~ their disdain of foreign na- 
 
 * This is to be collected from the supercilious remark of 
 Horace, Credat Judseus Apella, Non ego. 
 
 -f- Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem, 
 
 Nil praeter nubes et coeli numeii adorant. Juv. xiv. 96. 
 In the succeeding- lines he specifies all their most remark- 
 able peculiarities : see, too, Mr. Gifford's note on the passage. 
 Lucan, in a concise allusion, points at the peculiarity of their 
 faith : 
 
 " Dedita sacris 
 Incerti Judaea Dei." Phars. lib. ii. 1. 593. 
 
 Dion Cassius's account is specific, as to many points of their 
 disagreement from the rest of the world, 1. xxxvii. p. 41. 
 Tacitus confirms the observance of the Sabbatical year : Sep- 
 timum quoque annum ignavise datum. He expressly men- 
 tions that they held images as profane ; and worshipped only one 
 God, seen by the eye of the mind(menta sola unumque Numen, 
 iritelligunt). He declares, too, that Moses instituted rites 
 contrary to those of all other nations. The foundation of 
 bis account, which is a curious perversion of real history, 
 exists in an e\-\oy?? of Diod. Sic. p. 901. That author gives
 
 132 PECULIAR SANCTIONS OF 
 
 tions, and unsociable aversion to all who did not 
 profess their own religion. These are the only 
 points to which we can possibly require the col- 
 lateral evidence of foreign testimony : and to 
 these most ample testimony is supplied. The 
 profane historians and satirists, in the true spirit 
 of polytheism, ridiculed the Jews as a superstitious 
 people ; and by that ridicule have confirmed the 
 truth of the Jewish history, and thrown upon 
 it the only additional light which the original 
 records and documents we possess could re- 
 ceive. 
 
 us a general account of the Jews, reported to the inquiries of 
 Antiochus Eupator, that they, after their establishment iu 
 Judea, -rrapalofft/biov Troifjaai ro/it<roc irpoc roue dvQpvirovc. 
 
 Of their abhorrence of images, a curious instance, among 
 many others, occurs in Josephus. The inhabitants of that 
 part of the country through which Vitellius was passing in 
 his route against the Arabians, anxiously besought him to 
 forbear introducing among them their ensigns with the eagles 
 attached to them : ov ydp elvai dvrolq -rrdrptov ireptopdv EIKOVCH; 
 etc \wpav ^epoyueVctc. Antiq. \\iii. c. 6. s. 3, A still stronger 
 resistance was made to the introduction of the image of Tibe- 
 rius as an ensign into Jerusalem ; and the threatened erection 
 of Caligula's statue iu the temple was the occasion of the 
 greatest apprehension and despair. Jos. de Bel. Jud. xi. 
 ch. 10.
 
 THE MOSAIC LAW. 133 
 
 Had the appearance of the Jewish rites and 
 polity presented nothing- extraordinary to the 
 Romans, when the progress of their arms and 
 commerce introduced such a nation to their 
 knowledge, some colourable presumption might 
 perhaps have been raised against the actual or 
 literal observance of the Mosaic institutions. 
 We learn, however, that their civil customs and 
 religious tenets, as soon as they met the eyes 
 of foreigners and polytheists, did appear ex- 
 clusively peculiar. Whence then, let me finally 
 ask, did this peculiarity arise ? We may confi- 
 dently affirm, that the singular tendency of the 
 Mosaic economy, as laid down in the preceding 
 Sections, and its peculiar provisions, as detailed 
 in this, are inexplicable, except on the admission 
 that the Jewish polity was really established for 
 the purpose of preserving the knowledge and 
 worship of the Creator, and supported by the 
 national experience of miraculous interposi- 
 tion.
 
 134 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 SECTION V. 
 On the religious Opinions of the Hebrews. 
 
 IT is important to inquire, whether the general 
 opinions prevalent among the Hebrew people, 
 respecting the high matters declared to them in 
 their law, furnish a corroboration of the conclu- 
 sion derived from the tone in which that law is 
 conceived. Was the belief of a Creator and 
 Ruler of the universe maintained in any purity 
 amongst them ? Was their worship, with their 
 hymns and addresses to the Deity, conformable 
 to the belief which it was the object of their 
 national institutions to inculcate ? Was their 
 superiority over other nations in these respects, 
 at all proportioned to the peculiarity of their in- 
 stitutions ? The result of this inquiry must fur-
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 135 
 
 nish either a material confirmation, or a strong- 
 objection to the divine appointment of the Mo- 
 saic law. For, if a rational and sublime belief 
 of an omnipotent Creator and independent Go- 
 vernor of the world, be once impressed upon an 
 infant people with the solemnity which accom- 
 panied the promulgation from Mount Sinai, it 
 will naturally be supposed that its effect would 
 not be confined to the devotions of the anchoret 
 or speculations of the philosopher, but would 
 display itself in the national worship of the 
 people, and become interwoven with the whole 
 texture of their morality and literature. Just 
 views and sure conviction are at least to be ex- 
 pected, even though they should fail to produce 
 undeviating 1 obedience. The firmest conviction, 
 we know experimentally, does not always tend 
 to practical obedience in the progress of an indi- 
 vidual through the difficulties and temptations of 
 life ; much less then should it be expected in a 
 nation placed under such singular circumstances, 
 and standing alone in the midst of a surrounding- 
 host of evil examples. Still, however, if it 
 appeared that the Hebrew people were no more
 
 136 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 pure or fervent in their piety, and no more con- 
 sistent in their religious belief, than other an- 
 cient nations, an argument might be justly 
 raised against their having really received a di- 
 vine revelation, from the absence of its natural 
 practical consequence. But it will be seen on 
 examination, that the declarations and provisions 
 contained in the Mosaic law were not only in- 
 trinsically good, but practically efficient ; and 
 that there was as much superiority in the reli- 
 gious opinions actually entertained by the He- 
 brews, as peculiarity in the means appointed to 
 preserve them. This superiority is visible in 
 their public worship, and displays itself re- 
 markably in the notions of the Supreme Being 
 which occur in their writings. 
 
 It is first to be observed, that a general belief 
 in the existence of one spiritual, omnipotent, 
 and omnipresent Being, the Creator of the world, 
 was diffused throughout the Hebrew people. I 
 shall hereafter take an opportunity of showing, 
 that, even among the most learned and philo- 
 sophical heathens, this belief did not prevail,
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 137 
 
 to any purposes of practical devotion. The 
 language of Moses and of Plato, in extent 
 and confidence, no more admits of compari- 
 son, than the conjectural reasoning of Galileo 
 resembles the demonstrative conclusions of New- 
 ton. But a far more remarkable difference 
 occurs as we descend in the scale of learning 
 and civilization. The sublime opinions respect- 
 ing the Deity which originate in the Mosaic 
 account of the creation, and which are enforced 
 and preserved by the law established to com- 
 memorate that fact, were not confined to any 
 superior sect or philosophical part of the nation, 
 but were alike familiar to the highest and 
 lowest of the people. All worshipped the same 
 God, according to the same form, in the same 
 temple. No Peripatetic disputed, no Academic 
 doubted, no Epicurean denied the truth of the 
 national faith. It was justly pointed out by 
 their learned countryman, that all held the 
 same opinion, and agreed with the law in af- 
 firming that one God overruled the world : 
 and it might be heard as the sentiment even of 
 the vulgar and illiterate, that all should propose
 
 138 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 to themselves piety towards Him, as their prin- 
 cipal object in the various pursuits of life.* 
 
 Few readers require to be reminded how 
 different a picture from this the other nations 
 of the ancient world present. Detached pas- 
 sages indeed may be produced, particularly from 
 the writings of Plato and Xenophon, which 
 contain very sublime conceptions of some su- 
 preme artificer of the universe ; but these doc- 
 trines were not only heard with no general 
 effect, and converted few proselytes even among 
 the instructed orders of society, but from the 
 vulgar they were altogether withheld, as un- 
 suited to their comprehensions. The difference 
 between the esoteric and exoteric philosophy 
 is universally acknowledged : and appears to 
 be founded in a notion like that which made 
 Plato declare, in a passage which has been 
 often brought forward, that it was difficult to 
 discover the father of the universe, and that, 
 
 * Joseph, contra Apion. " Of servants and women," in 
 the original. The low rank which they held in ancient times, 
 is notorious.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 139 
 
 when discovered, it was impossible to make him 
 generally known.* 
 
 Superstitious polytheism had struck its roots 
 so deeply before Plato lived, that he probably 
 had reason to apprehend all endeavours to era- 
 dicate it would be vain. But the consequence 
 was, as might be expected, that the popular 
 faith of the heathen vulgar was equally repug- 
 nant to reason and inapplicable to devotion. 
 Instead of the unanimous confession andadoration 
 of the same supreme Governor, which the 
 Hebrews avowed, the people who set out to 
 the festival of one deity, returned home to ce- 
 lebrate another ; every element had its appro- 
 priate guardian, and every profession its pecu- 
 liar patron. Perhaps no error is more natural 
 to ignorance, than to suppose that particular 
 deities preside over the various elements, or, 
 influencing the powers both of body and mind, 
 direct the several arts which exercise the in- 
 genuity of man ; but nevertheless it is error, 
 
 Tim. p. 28. Tom. iii. ToV /ueV ovy 7rotjjr/;>' KOI -rrarepa 
 TovZe TOV TTtt'jToc, evpelv re epyov, KO.I cvpovru, eiQ 
 a$vva.TQV \eyetv.
 
 M-0 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 however natural ; it is the error of ignorance ; and 
 flies from the test of reason as well as revelation. 
 
 No such inconsistency is to be found in the 
 belief of the Hebrews. Instead of a general 
 consciousness of some unseen powers, superior 
 to themselves, united to a vague idea of some 
 one particular power, superior to the rest, which 
 may be considered as a loose outline of the 
 popular faith of the heathen world ; God was 
 honoured among the Hebrews, under one con- 
 sistent character : as a Being so spiritual, that he 
 cannot be either represented, or properly wor- 
 shipped, under any sensible image ; and yet at 
 the same time as constituting the fit object, and 
 the only fit object, of human worship, inasmuch 
 as he is the independent Creator and sole 
 Governor of the universe. 
 
 It results from this sublime idea of the Di- 
 vine unity and attributes, established by the 
 writings of Moses, that we find an equal supe- 
 riority over the rest of the ancient world, in 
 the abstract conception* on the subject of the
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 141 
 
 Divine essence* which exist in the Hebrew 
 Scriptures, and in the public devotional wor- 
 ship which prevailed among- the Hebrew peo- 
 
 * This superiority is strongly exemplified by the Nomen 
 Tetragrammaton rendered Jehovah ; and derived from a root 
 signifying essence, or existence, TO eivai, or virdp^iv. It is 
 well known that the Jews commonly applied, and still apply, 
 other titles to the Deity, as Shaddai, the rock, or powerful 
 one, Adonai, or dominion, and Elohim, lords, i. e. so- 
 vereignty. The name Jehovah they hold in veneration, 
 which makes them deem it ineffable, as not expressing the 
 attributes only, but the essence of the Deity. It was well 
 understood and preserved by the Septuagint translators, who 
 render it /cuptoe a Kvpw, sum, a word not classically used to 
 signify God, as appears from Julius Pollux, who gives the 
 words deal and Sainoves, but not Kvptoe. It appears, from 
 various sources, that this was understood to be the title un- 
 der which the Hebrews worshipped their Supreme (see Park- 
 hurst Hebr. Lex. Pearson on the Creed, p. 147) ; and St, 
 Hilary says, that meeting with the words (before his con- 
 version to Christianity) which express the same idea, in Exo- 
 dus, chap, iii., he was struck with admiration, there being 
 nothing so proper to God, as to be. It was well suitable to 
 the Divine dignity, when the Hebrews were the depositories 
 of his being and attributes, and were surrounded on all sides 
 by gods worshipped under various appellations, that the 
 Creator should distinguish himself by a name signifying his 
 independent essence, from which all other things derive 
 theirs.
 
 142 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 pie.* To set this matter in a true light, it 
 will be necessary to institute an actual compa- 
 rison between the Jews and other ancient na- 
 tions ; and as national worship takes its tone 
 from the ideas of supreme power which pre- 
 vail antecedently to its establishment, I shall 
 first consider the nature of these ideas, as de- 
 veloped in their sacred compositions. 
 
 The Hebrews, as far as we know, seem to 
 have cultivated general literature less than most 
 nations who have attained, in other respects, 
 an equal degree of civilization ; far less, cer- 
 tainly, than the rivals with whom we are able 
 to compare them, the inhabitants of Greece 
 and Italy. Poetry, which usually branches 
 out into a thousand various courses, following 
 
 * Ft was pretended by Tyndal and Collins formerly ; that 
 the Jews refined their old doctrines concerning the Deity, and 
 invented new ones, just as the priests improved in know- 
 ledge, or the people advanced in curiosity, or as both were 
 better taught in the countries to which they were led captive. 
 The proper answer to this is, that they could no where learn 
 such theology as that of Moses, or such devotion as that of 
 David.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 143 
 
 every variety of genius and national manners, 
 is, with them, confined to the single channel of 
 morality and religion. The battles and sieges 
 they had known, furnished subjects to no epic 
 poet ; we hear no mention of dramatic repre- 
 sentations : and their history, which has since 
 proved so fertile a source of poetry, is recorded 
 in concise and unambitious annals. 
 
 Inferior, however, in every other species of 
 composition to the writers of other nations, the 
 Hebrews abound with poetical addresses to the 
 Supreme Being which infinitely surpass any 
 similar attempts that can be brought into com- 
 parison. They contain ideas of omnipotence 
 and omnipresence, disgraced by no sensible 
 images ; they concur in representing the same 
 invisible and spiritual Being, to be the guar- 
 dian of mankind, and the Creator of the whole 
 universe : above all, they excel in describing 
 the moral attributes of God, justice, and good- 
 ness, and mercy, existing together, and not 
 counteracting each other. Almost the whole 
 beauty of the Hebrew poetry may be traced to
 
 144 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 that union of the natural and moral sublime, 
 which was inspired by their belief of the majesty 
 of the Creator. But this beauty is at once of 
 the highest importance and of the most difficult 
 attainment. It proves that these opinions re- 
 specting the moral attributes, as well as the 
 unity, power, and majesty of the Creator, ex- 
 isted generally among the Jews : that the ac- 
 count of the creation, on which the legislation 
 of Moses was founded, did not remain as a dead 
 letter on the records, but influenced the belief 
 and filled the conceptions of the people collec- 
 tively considered. A poet indeed, choosing, 
 like Milton, a sacred subject, may describe God 
 as a wise and powerful Creator, and as a just 
 and good ruler of the universe, who has no ef- 
 fectual belief that he deserves these appellations. 
 But such a description proves at least that such a 
 belief exists somewhere. The absence of similar 
 conceptions from the heathen writings, affords a 
 negative proof that no such belief existed among 
 them : so that their poetry, however excellent 
 in all subjects where the actions and characters 
 of men are concerned, and however superior in
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 145 
 
 the arts and graces of composition, is nevertheless 
 devoid of all dignity of style, or sublimity of sen- 
 timent, wherever it relates or is addressed to the 
 superior powers. 
 
 It would be an injustice to the argument not 
 to illustrate its truth, by comparing with those 
 hymns which the ancient authors have left us, 
 some of the effusions of Jewish devotion. And 
 as the passages of this nature which remain 
 from the wreck of heathen literature, being 
 chiefly fragments, are less familiarly known 
 than other ancient writings, I shall not he- 
 sitate to place them by the side of those Jewish 
 compositions that may be most similar in subject. 
 
 The supremacy of Jupiter is described by 
 Orpheus : and though much of that collection 
 which passes under the title of the Orphic 
 Hymns is confessedly interpolated, the follow- 
 ing verses may be safely quoted, being pre- 
 served in pagan writings.* 
 
 * Proclus on the Timeeus. Auctor de Mundo. Vide 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 " Jupiter, who commands the thunder, was 
 first and last j Jupiter is the head and the midst : 
 all things were formed from Jupiter ; Jupiter 
 is immortally both male and female ; * Jupiter 
 is the foundation of the earth and starry heaven ; 
 Jupiter is the breath of all things ; Jupiter is the 
 force of invisible fire ; Jupiter is the root of the 
 sea ; Jupiter the sun and moon ; Jupiter is the 
 ruler ; Jupiter himself the first origin of all. 
 There is one power, one deity, one great ruler 
 of all." 
 
 Cudworth, vol, i. p. 301. On the Orphic hymns there have 
 been various opinions. In Origen's judgment, contra Cel- 
 sum, 1. 7, they are far inferior to Homer's. On the other 
 hand, Pausaniae judicio, 1. 9, Orphei hymnis elegantiores 
 existimantur Homerici, Orphei BcoXoyiKwrepoi. et forte, se- 
 cuudum Allatii opinionem, compositi ab Onomacrito, ad 
 Homeri iraitatiouem. Meminit hymnorum Orphei Plato, 8. 
 de Legibus : et Pausanias in Boeoticis, qui paucos et breves 
 fuisse refert; unde non alios habuisse videtur quam nos 
 hodie legimus. Fabric, Bib. Gr. i. 18. 
 
 j- This idea is expressed in some verses of Valerius Sora- 
 nus, quoted by Augustiu from Varro, Civ. Dei, 1. 7. 
 
 Jupiter omnipotens rcgum, rerumque deumque 
 Progenitor, genitrixque deum : deus unus et omnis.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 147 
 
 To this description, in which the idea of a 
 Supreme Governor is confounded with that 
 adopted by the stoics, &c. which identified the 
 Deity and the world,* I would oppose the ex- 
 postulation of Isaiah, ch. xlv. ver. 5 : " I am 
 " the Lord, and there is none else ; there is 
 " no God beside me : I girded thee, (prophe- 
 " tic of Cyrus,) though thou hast not known 
 " me ; that they may know from the rising of 
 " the sun, and from the west, that there is 
 " none beside me : I am the Lord, and there is 
 " none else. I form the light, and create 
 " darkness ; I make peace, and create evil ; I 
 " the Lord do all these things. Drop down, 
 " ye heavens, from above, and let the skies 
 
 * This error, which, 1 shall afterwards observe, pervaded 
 the most specious systems of the ancient theology, is still 
 more evident in the opening to Aratus's Phenomena, a sen- 
 tence of which is quoted by St. Paul. 
 
 'EK Atoc dp%u)/j.effda' rdv ovleiror ti^peg eu/Jej' 
 "Apprjrof jLteorat $e Atoc Trdarat fj.ev dyvial, 
 ndo-cu <T dvdptairiijy dyopal' peart} c>e QdXavaa, 
 Kcu X/^evcc' iravTrj If Atoc Ke^prjpeda 
 Tov ydp teal yevoc
 
 1 18 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 " pour down righteousness ; let the earth open, 
 " and let them bring- forth salvation, and let 
 " righteousness spring up together ; I the Lord 
 " have created it. Thus saith the Lord, the 
 " Holy One of Israel, and his maker ; Ask me 
 " of things to come, concerning my sons, and 
 " concerning the works of my hands command 
 *' ye me : I have made the earth, and created 
 " man upon it ; I, even my hands, have 
 " stretched out the heavens, and all their host 
 " have I commanded." 
 
 A fragment of Euripides affords us an interest- 
 ing specimen of rational devotion struggling 
 against the uncertainty of corrupt belief: * " To 
 thee who governest all things, I offer the liba- 
 tion and sacrificial cake, whether thou preferrest 
 the title of Jove or Hades. Receive thou my 
 plenteous offering of various fruits. For, di- 
 recting among the celestial gods the sceptre 
 of Jupiter, thou partakest also with Hades, the 
 
 * Fr. 155. There arc many various readings throughout 
 this fragment : I give the general sense, according to the text 
 in Musgrave's edition.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 119 
 
 kingdom of the gods below. Send the light of 
 the soul to those of men who desire to know 
 beforehand whence their labours spring, what 
 is the source of evils, and whom of the gods 
 they should appease by sacrifice, to receive a 
 respite from their toils." 
 
 With this I would compare the lO2nd of the 
 Hebrew Psalms, of which the author is uncer- 
 tain ; it is supposed to implore the assistance of 
 God for Jerusalem, either during the period of 
 the Babylonish captivity, or soon after the deli- 
 verance of the Jews. It thus concludes, from 
 verse 15 : " When the Lord shall build up Zion, 
 " he shall appear in his glory. He will regard 
 " the prayer of the destitute, and not despise 
 " their prayer. This shall be written for the 
 " generations to come, and the people which 
 " shall be created, shall praise the Lord ; for 
 " he hath looked down from the height of the 
 " sanctuary ; from heaven did the Lord behold 
 " the earth ; to hear the groaning of the pri- 
 " soner ; to loose those that are appointed to 
 " death ; to declare the name of the Lord in
 
 150 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 " Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem ; when the 
 " people are gathered together, and the king- 
 " doms to serve the Lord. He weakened my 
 " strength in the way, he shortened my days. 
 " I said, O God, take me not away in the 
 " midst of my days j thy years are throughout 
 " all generations. Of old hast thou laid the 
 " foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are 
 " the work of thy hands ; they shall perish, 
 " but thou shalt endure, yea, all of them shall 
 " wax old like a garment ; as a vesture shalt 
 " thou change them, and they shall be changed ; 
 " but thou art the same, and thy years shall 
 " have no end. The children of thy servants 
 " shall continue, and their seed shall be esta- 
 " Wished before thee." * 
 
 Nothing, however, among the heathen devo- 
 
 * If I had any heathen relic which could be contrasted 
 with it, I might here add the 103d Psalm, which is attributed 
 to David, and in the grateful manner of thanksgiving con- 
 tains a beautiful acknowledgment of the mercy and provi- 
 dence of God extended to individuals. Half of the Psalms 
 indeed have an equal claim to selection with that I have taken ; 
 particularly Ps. cxxxviii. cxxxix.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 151 
 
 tional pieces, is equal in consistent grandeur 
 of ideas to the hymn ascribed to Cleanthes the 
 Stoic, which candour requires me to cite at 
 large.* 
 
 " Hail, O Jupiter, most glorious of the im- 
 mortals, invoked under many names, always 
 most powerful, the first ruler of nature, whose 
 law governs all things ; hail, for to address 
 thee is permitted to all mortals. For our race 
 we have from thee ; t we mortals who creep 
 upon the ground, receiving only the echo of 
 thy voice. J Wherefore I will celebrate thee, 
 and will always sing thy power. All this 
 universe rolling round the earth, obeys thee 
 wherever thou guidest, and willingly is go- 
 verned by thee. So vehement, so fiery, so 
 immortal is the thunder which thou boldest 
 subservient in thy unshaken hands : for, by the 
 
 * Brunck, Gnomici Poetae, p. 141. 
 
 -J- Fabricius thinks it possible that St. Paul may have 
 had this passage in view, as well as Aratus : 'E/c crov yap 
 
 | 'Irjc fic
 
 152 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 stroke of this, all nature was rooted ; by tins, 
 thou directest the common reason which per- 
 vades all things, mixed with the greater and 
 lesser luminaries; so great a king art thou, 
 supreme through all ; nor does any work take 
 place without thee on the earth, nor in the 
 ethereal sky, nor in the sea, except what the 
 bad perform in their own folly. But do thou, 
 O Jupiter, giver of all blessings, dwelling in 
 the clouds, ruler of the thunder, defend mortals 
 from dismal misfortune ; which dispel, O father, 
 from the soul, and grant it to attain that judg- 
 ment, trusting to which thou governest all 
 things with justice : that, being honoured, we 
 may repay thee with honour, singing continually 
 thy works, as becomes a mortal ; since there is 
 no greater meed to men or gods, than always 
 to celebrate justly the universal law." 
 
 Though I am ready to confess that if this 
 hymn had not stood alone among the heathen 
 writings, my present argument* would have 
 
 * This hymn first occurs in Stobseus, who lived at the end 
 of the fourth century. Cleauthes died 240 years before
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 153 
 
 lost much of its force ; I think it will be found 
 to yield both in distinctness of conception and 
 
 Christ. Diogenes Laertius, in his catalogue of Cleanthes' 
 writings, makes no mention of it. What seems remarkable 
 supposing it genuine, is, its escaping the notice of Clemens 
 Alexandrinus and Eusebius : who were so anxious to adduce 
 every thing ancient that might seem parallel to the Scripture, 
 that they even quote from Homer's shield of Achilles ; 
 
 Et> p.ev yalav erfv^e, KO.I ovpuvov, ev Se QuXaaaav, 
 'Ev e TO. relpea irdvrd TU T ovpat'OQ e 
 
 as similar to Moses's account of the creation. Praep. Ev. 
 1. 13. p. 674. 
 
 The fact is, that, from a mistaken earnestness of the early 
 Christians to recommend, as they hoped, Scripture, by con- 
 firming it from writers of classical estimation, the most obvi- 
 ous interpolations were introduced into any old writings upon 
 sacred subjects. In the hymn which Warburton quotes 
 from Orpheus, as the very hymn sung by the hierophant 
 in the Eleusinian mysteries, there occurs this manifest 
 forgery : 
 
 "Ou yap Kei' nc tt/ot QvrfTuv pepoTruJv xpaivovra, 
 'E< prj povro-yet'tjQ TIQ cnropput^, fyvXov avtoQf.v 
 
 Nothing can deserve much stress, which is not quoted before 
 or about the Christian era. 
 
 With regard to Cleanthes it should be observed, that, 
 whatever be the language of his hymn, those who possessed 
 his philosophical writings ascribe to him the general opinions
 
 154 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 confident devotion, to the following extract from 
 the Book of Wisdom : " O God of my fathers, 
 " and Lord of mercy, who hast made all things 
 " with thy word, and ordained man through 
 " thy wisdom, that he should have dominion 
 " over the creatures which thou hast made, and 
 " order the world according to equity and righte- 
 " ousness, and execute judgment with an up- 
 " right heart : give me wisdom, that sitteth 
 " by thy throne, and reject me not from among 
 " thy children. For I thy servant, and son of 
 " thy handmaid, am a feeble person, and of a 
 " short time, and too young for the understand - 
 " ing of judgment and laws. For though a man 
 " be never so perfect among the children of 
 " men, yet if thy wisdom be not with him, he 
 " shall be nothing regarded. And wisdom was 
 " with thee, which knoweth thy works, and 
 " was present when thou madest the world, and 
 
 of his sect* " Cleantlies ipsum mundum Drum dicit esse, 
 turn totius iiainiM menti atque animo hoc nomcn tribuit." 
 Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1.1. "Cleauthes mentem modo animum, 
 modo aethera, plerumque ratiouem Deum disscruit." Minuc. 
 Felix, 1. xix.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 155 
 
 " knew what was acceptable in thy sight, and 
 " right in thy commandments. O send her out 
 " of thy holy heavens, and from the throne of 
 " thy glory, that being present, she may labour 
 " with me, that I may know what is pleasing 
 " unto thee. For she knoweth and under- 
 " standeth all things, and she shall lead me so- 
 " berly in my doings, and preserve me in her 
 " power. For what man is he that can know 
 " the counsel of God ? Or who can think what 
 " the will of the Lord is ? For the thoughts of 
 " mortal men are miserable, and our devices are 
 " but uncertain. For the corruptible body press- 
 " eth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle 
 " weigheth down the mind that museth upon 
 " many things. And hardly do we guess 
 " aright at things that are upon the earth, and 
 " with labour do we find the things that are be- 
 " fore us : but the things that are in heaven, 
 " who hath searched out? And thy counsels 
 " who hath known, except thou give wisdom, 
 " and send thy Holy Spirit from above ? For 
 " so the ways of men which lived on the earth
 
 15G ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 " were reformed, and men were taught the 
 " thing's that are pleasing unto thee, and were 
 " saved through wisdom."* 
 
 Extracts, after all, fail in doing justice to the 
 subject. The passages which I have selected 
 from the Hebrew writings, are taken from a 
 volume, which if a hundred persons were to 
 read it with the same object in view, would 
 probably lead each of them to fix upon different 
 instances of beauty : but those which I have 
 cited from ancient pagan writers, are the most 
 important which the indefatigable Cud worth 
 could discover for the purpose of supporting 
 his overstrained hypothesis : nor am I aware 
 of the existence of any remains superior to 
 those I have adduced, since the general tenor 
 of ancient poetry is altogether contradictory to 
 them. The hymns of Homer and Callimachus, 
 and those collected in the book of Hebrew 
 Psalms, form a contrast of irresistible force. 
 
 * Wisdom, chap. ix. entire excepting three verses relating- 
 to the ;tssuincd character of Solomon.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 157 
 
 What deserves to be kept particularly in view, 
 is the important fact, that in the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures there is no drawback of inconsistency, no 
 passages which militate against the general im- 
 pression of the rest. It would be quite dis- 
 gusting, on the contrary, to quote at length the 
 absurdities of the heathen hymns. That of Cal- 
 limachtis to Jupiter, which concludes with an air 
 of grandeur, " Hail, O supreme Jupiter, the 
 giver of blessings, the author of safety : who 
 can sing thy works ?" has this unworthy intro- 
 duction : " What can we better sing at the 
 festival of Jove, than the god himself, always 
 great, and perpetually governor, the conqueror 
 of the earth-born Titans, who gives laws to the 
 inhabitants of heaven ? How shall I celebrate 
 him, as Cretan or Arcadian ? I am doubtful, 
 since his origin is disputed. They say, O 
 Jupiter, that thou wast born on Ida's mountain : 
 they say also, in Arcadia : which, O father, has 
 been false ? The Cretans are always false, for 
 they, O king, have raised a tomb to thee : but 
 thou diedst not, for thou livest always." This 
 is followed by a long account of the birth of 
 Jupiter from Rhea.
 
 158 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS 
 
 It may be observed, that nothing- has been 
 quoted from any Roman poet. Rome, in fact, 
 has left us nothing applicable to the purpose. 
 The Carmina Saecularia, or occasional hymns 
 of Horace and Catullus, contain nothing supe- 
 rior to the gross superstitions of the vulgar. 
 Of these, indeed, ancient poetry was the ge- 
 neral repository ; and instead of being devoted, 
 as among the Hebrews, to the noble purpose 
 of addressing or celebrating the Creator, is 
 justly prohibited from his Utopia, by Plato, as 
 inculcating ideas unworthy of the gods, and 
 pernicious to mankind : and is condemned by 
 Varro to the purposes of dramatic representa- 
 tion.* 
 
 The difference, therefore, which existed be- 
 tween the Jews and other nations in their civil 
 institutions, continues farther, it has appeared, 
 so as to impart a peculiar complexion to their 
 literature. Their writings treat of the Creator 
 in the same sublime tone and language as that 
 which is inculcated in the law. And this with- 
 * Apud Augustin. d& Civ. Dei, 1. vi. c. 5, 6.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 159 
 
 out exception. From the earliest to the latest 
 of the Hebrew authors, there is an interval of 
 at least 1200 years. Yet from the first to the 
 last there is no contradiction. All their writers 
 seem to have imbibed from the same fountain 
 the same idea. Some parts may labour more 
 than others under the disadvantage of transla- 
 tion scrupulously literal from a language im- 
 perfectly understood : but all agree in describ- 
 ing the unity, superintending power, and good- 
 ness of the Creator. To this spirit so univer- 
 sally diffused, the few gleams of genius which 
 I have exhibited from heathen authors, and 
 which occasionally break out from the heaviest 
 clouds of error and obscurity, will no more bear 
 comparison, than the blaze of a meteor to the 
 steady light of the sun. 
 
 This too, as far as it goes, is surely import- 
 ant. It proves, that the impression made upon 
 the people, in the infancy of their state, was 
 both vivid and permanent. It proves that there 
 was nothing contradictory between the state 
 religion, and the popular sentiments. There
 
 160 ON THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS, &C. 
 
 was not one system of theology for the poet, 
 and another for the philosopher. And this is 
 all uniform, and consistent with what was ob- 
 served in the opening of this Section as a legi- 
 timate demand. It might be expected, that as 
 the leading object of the Hebrew polity was 
 different from any other known institution, simi- 
 lar traces of peculiarity might be found in the 
 general sentiments and even habits of the nation. 
 And there is this peculiarity. It was to be 
 desired also that there should exist throughout 
 the Hebrew writers, the same clearness of views, 
 the same superior intelligence as to the creation 
 and the unity of God, which it was so remark- 
 ably the purpose of the legislator to establish. 
 And there is this decided superiority.
 
 161 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 On the National Worship of the Hebrews. 
 
 THE consideration of the devotional worship of 
 the Israelites is of similar nature and import- 
 ance to that pursued in the preceding Section. 
 If we were to make a comprehensive survey, 
 we should find the public worship of the vari- 
 ous nations of mankind to be no inaccurate 
 transcript of their abstract conceptions of the 
 divine nature. Theoretical errors as to the cha- 
 racter of the Deity, have uniformly led to cor- 
 responding errors in the popular religion. The 
 worship of the ancient heathens was not only 
 gross and licentious in general, as might be ex- 
 pected from the adorers of deified men ; but 
 was more or less licentious in pretty exact pro-? 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 portion to the supposed nature of the indivi- 
 dual deity, in whose honour the particular fes- 
 tival might be held. The national worship, 
 therefore, may be considered as the practical 
 test to which we can bring the religious feel- 
 ings and popular opinions of a nation. As in 
 addressing a superior in our intercourse with 
 mankind, we adapt our language to the dispo- 
 sition of the individual ; so a religious address 
 will itself partake of the character, whether 
 real or imaginary, which it is intended to pro- 
 pitiate or honour. 
 
 If we look into the ideas of the ancients re- 
 specting the worship of the Deity, we shall 
 find that they fall generally under one of two 
 comprehensive heads of error. The few who 
 saw beyond the reigning superstitions, and 
 either rejected the popular worship as absurd, 
 or only complied with it as established by law 
 and usage, went far into a contrary extreme ; 
 and maintained the plausible though mistaken 
 argument, that it was unnecessary to apply to 
 the Deity, who already knew our wants, and
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 163 
 
 was a better judge than the petitioner of the 
 expediency of granting 1 them.* This was the 
 philosophical error ; and, by restraining all 
 communion between man and his Creator, was 
 calculated to check his best and purest feel- 
 ings, and to render him incapable of attaining 
 that tranquil frame of mind, that pious con- 
 fidence, which arises from well-directed de- 
 votion. 
 
 * This is the tenor of Socrates' discourse with Alcibiades. 
 His conclusion is, 'E^ot fjLkv ovv $OKel Kpariffrov etfai rfav\iav 
 e\eiv. Maximus Tyrius enlarges still farther upon Plato's 
 idea, and has a dissertation professedly to dissuade from 
 prayer, in which he employs a number of subtle and some- 
 what plausible arguments, to show how useless it must needs 
 be for mortals to attempt to change either the course of 
 providence or of destiny ; and also, how unworthy it would 
 be of the divine nature to be moved by entreaty. These are 
 his conclusions : Merarideffdai Kai fjLerayivwffKeiv Tr 
 urj ori 6ey, a'\X' ov'^e aVrpt a'ya6w and, 6'vre ovv e 
 w<ret irapd rrjv atav, cure OVK ew^o^eVoic ov Swcrei Kard rr\v 
 d^iav. See the whole of the 30th Dissertation. This autho- 
 rity is the more valuable, because the arguments are exactly 
 such as might be expected from natural reason on the sub- 
 ject. Apollonius Tyanseus and Porphyry held nearly the 
 same opinion. See Leland, p. i. p. 375. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 Far worse, however, was the popular error, 
 inasmuch as inactivity, though an evil, is a less 
 evil than positive crime. The majority, who 
 must always, in all countries, be led by the 
 practice of their ancestors, zealously embraced, 
 without hesitation or inquiry, that polytheism 
 and idolatry, the details of which are no less 
 disgusting than degrading ; and practised a 
 religious worship, to which the Bacchanalian 
 feasts, the Lupercalia, the Floral games, the 
 rites of Cybele, the Aphrodysia, the Dionysia, 
 and Thesmophoria belonged.* 
 
 The antiquity of idolatrous worship, what- 
 ever was its origin, appears from the law of 
 Moses, which forbade it ; its universality is 
 generally acknowledged. Both its universality 
 and its antiquity show that it is the natural 
 error of the human mind, which, being too 
 conscious of its own weakness not to recur to 
 superior power, and also too much enchained 
 to the world with which it is conversant, to 
 
 * Tin 1 enormities of these festivals arc sulliciently 
 hy Leland, in liis " Advantages of Revelation."
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 165 
 
 abstract its attention to a spiritual object of 
 adoration, fixes and addresses itself to a sensi- 
 ble image of its God.* That this is natural, 
 appears not only from the practice of all unin- 
 structed nations, but from the frequent relapses 
 of the Jews into the custom of the countries by 
 which they were surrounded, and even from 
 the present habits of a large part of the Chris- 
 tian world; while the earnestness of the Ro- 
 man Catholic devotions, however mixed with 
 error, and the solemn awe of their religious 
 processions, are a sufficient testimony of its 
 effect. Experience, however, has proved, that 
 in the rapid progress of evil, what was at first 
 the emblem, soon becomes the object ; and the 
 sanctity due only to the unseen original, is 
 transferred to the visible representation. Thus 
 we find, that the images of departed ancestors 
 
 * The ancient Romans afford a melancholy instance. 
 What idolaters they became is familiarly known. Yet, ac- 
 cording to Plutarch and Dionysius, Numa prohibited the 
 erection of statues in the temples, which law was obeyed 
 for 170 years, till Tarquiuius Priscus introduced Etrurian su- 
 perstitious. Plut. in Vit. Numse, p. 141. August, de Civ. 
 Dei, iv. xxxi.
 
 166 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 become objects of worship, where departed 
 ancestors are considered as tutelar deities : 
 where the sun, or other heavenly bodies, are 
 looked upon as the gods of this world, there, 
 as in Persia and Peru, veneration will be paid 
 to emblematic fire ; and in still ruder commu- 
 nities, the unmeaning work of human art, even 
 an ancient stone or figure of unnatural propor- 
 tion, will claim an hereditary title to vulgar and 
 senseless superstition. 
 
 This prevalent error was at once foreseen 
 and guarded against by the simple precept of 
 the Jewish lawgiver, which forbade his people 
 " to fall down and worship any graven image." 
 In pursuance of this precept, while the disci- 
 ples of Confucius and Zoroaster, the people of 
 Lycurgus, of Solon, and of Numa, differed only 
 in the degrees of grossness of their idolatry, 
 the community of Moses renounced it ; and 
 practised, in the earliest times, a purity of 
 worship, as unknown to the other ancient na- 
 tions, as the God who was the object of it.* 
 * Varro, when lamenting the corruptions which attend
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 
 
 The religion of Greece and Rome (to which 
 countries I confine myself, as being both most 
 advanced in civilization, and best known to us) 
 consisted chiefly in public festivals, which bore 
 the name of the deity to whom they were con- 
 secrated, and usually began with a sacrifice, 
 and ended in an exhibition of games and spec- 
 tacles.* Though it may be affirmed with truth, 
 that the religion of few among the ancients ex- 
 tended farther than the celebration, sometimes 
 vicious and always licentious, of these festivals, 
 
 idolatry, is obliged to have recourse to the Jewish nation 
 to prove the superiority of a contrary practice. Aug. ubi 
 supra. 
 
 * It seems clear, from Homer's account, that the games 
 originated in the honours paid to the memory of deceased 
 warriors, and the performance of gymnastic exercises at 
 their tomb. The scenic games were instituted at Rome, for 
 the express purpose of averting the anger of the Gods. Quum 
 vis morbi (according to Livy, 1. 7. c. 2.) nee humanis cou- 
 silliis nee ope divina levaretur, victis superstitione animis, 
 ludi scenici inter alia coclestis irae placamina instituti dicun- 
 tur. It was impossible that celebrations of this kind should 
 not introduce a spirit of irreligion and profaneness : as Au- 
 gustin says, very pointedly, Non alii dii ridentur in theatris, 
 quam qui adorantur in templis ; nee aliis ludos exhibetis, 
 quam quibus immolatis. De Civit. Dei.
 
 168 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 it may perhaps be thought that we can no more 
 consider them a specimen of ancient national 
 worship, than we could judge of the Roman 
 Catholic religion from a description of the car- 
 nival. It is desirable, therefore, and in this 
 case possible, to penetrate farther, and draw a 
 closer parallel. 
 
 All religion implies an acknowledgment of 
 weakness, and a dependence on superior power ; 
 and as the hour of sickness, and approach of 
 death, have always been considered as the 
 surest trial of the religion of an individual, a 
 season of public danger and calamity is the most 
 proper test of the religion of a state. But, 
 at Athens, the usual resources in cases of ge- 
 neral alarm, was an extraordinary embassy to 
 Delphi ; which commonly terminated in the 
 disturbance of the dead from the sacred island 
 Delos, a removal of whose bodies and sepul- 
 chres was called its purification.* The national 
 
 * Thuc. 1. 3. s. 104. Once, during the Peloponnesian 
 war, the fancy arose that this purification had bci-n I'.rlici- 
 ently performed, and it was proposed to secure the favour
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 1 69 
 
 religion prescribed an abundance of sacrifices, 
 and favoured the frequent consultation of ora- 
 cles ; nor does it appear that this superstition 
 was superficial only, or that any thing more 
 sound and rational remained below so unpro- 
 mising an exterior. Few of the hymns, which 
 may have been recited in the temples on these 
 and other solemn occasions, have survived the 
 wreck of literature. But a passage, which may 
 give a fair representation of the ideas accom- 
 panying the public worship of Greece, exists 
 in the CEdipus of Sophocles, and introduces 
 the Thebans imploring a respite from the pes- 
 tilence drawn upon them by the unconscious 
 incest of their king. In this supplication,* 
 
 of the god by an act of cruel injustice. The whole Delian 
 people were expelled from their island without having any 
 other settlement provided for them. Thuc. v. 11. Mitford, 
 iii. 325. 
 
 * The chorus is thus translated by Franklin : 
 
 Minerva, first on thee we call : 
 
 Daughter of Jove, immortal maid, 
 
 Low beneath thy feet we fall ; 
 
 O bring thy sister Dian to our aid. 
 
 Goddess of Thebes, from thy imperial throne
 
 170 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 Diana and Apollo, Jupiter and Bacchus, are 
 severally invoked, and besought to appear armed 
 with the weapons in which they particularly 
 excelled and delighted, in order to drive away 
 the pestilence which depopulated Thebes. As 
 far as can be judged from the remains that have 
 been preserved to us, this is the general strain 
 of the hymns which were recited in the Grecian 
 temples, in which there is nothing satisfactory 
 
 Look with an eye of gentle pity down, 
 
 And thou, far-shooting Phoebus, once the friend 
 
 Of this unhappy, this devoted land, 
 
 O now if ever, let thy hand 
 
 Once more be stretch'd to save and to defend. 
 
 Drive hence this baneful, this destructive power, 
 
 To Amphitrite's wide-extending bed ; 
 
 O drive him, goddess, from thy favourite land, &c. 
 
 Father of all, immortal Jove, 
 
 O now thy fiery terrors send ; 
 
 From thy dreadful stores above 
 
 Let lightnings blast him and let thunders rend. 
 
 And thou, O Lycian king, thy aid impart, 
 
 Send from thy golden bow th' unerring dart ; 
 
 Smile, chaste Diana, on this lov'd abode, 
 
 While Theban Bacchus joins the madd'ning throng ; 
 
 O god of wine, and mirth and song, 
 
 Now with thy torch destroy the base inglorious god.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 
 
 to reason or piety, except a confession of de- 
 pendence. 
 
 Again, if we subject the religion of Rome to 
 a similar criterion, its application to a period of 
 public calamity, we shall find it by no means 
 better able to abide the test : on the contrary, 
 the current of superstition, instead of becoming 
 clearer as it proceeds farther, is marked with the 
 folly both of the country in which it arose, and of 
 that through which it flowed. In the pestilence 
 which occurred during the siege of Veii, the 
 feast called Lectisternium was first devised ; 
 and eight days were devoted to appeasing at 
 their respective temples the anger of Apollo, 
 Latona, Diana, Bacchus, Hercules, and Nep- 
 tune.* On another occasion, it is recorded in 
 history, that when a continued pestilence ren- 
 dered it necessary to have recourse to every expe- 
 dient, it was recollected that a plague had been 
 formerly checked by the fixing of a nail in a par- 
 ticular part of the Capitol ; and a dictator was 
 appointed for this very purpose. But the most 
 
 * Liv. 1. 7 ; 1. 3.
 
 17*2 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 distinguished instance of Roman superstition is 
 to be found in the year of the city 462,* when, 
 in consequence of a pestilence which had for 
 three years defied all assistance, human and 
 divine,- the Romans, according to the account 
 of the historian, commissioned an embassy of 
 ten persons to bring ^Esculapius from Epi- 
 daurus, his supposed birth-place. On their 
 arrival, .^Esculapius favoured them ; and, assum- 
 ing his usual form of a serpent, took his station 
 in the bark of L. Ogulnius, the chief of the 
 embassy, and was thus conveyed in great state 
 to Rome ; where, as the bark proceeded along 
 the river, all the city came together to enjoy a 
 sight so extraordinary ; altars were built, incense 
 was burnt, and victims were slain upon the 
 banks. At length, on an island of the Tiber, 
 where the serpent disappeared, a temple was 
 built by order of the senate to jEsculapius, and 
 the pestilence ceased to rage. 
 
 It is curious to observe from this specimen, 
 how low superstition may sink a great and gal- 
 
 * Frcinsli. Snppl. ad Liv.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 173 
 
 lant people, when human fancy alone is em- 
 ployed to raise the structure of religion. 
 
 Lest, however, it should be thought that this 
 presents a single instance, or is drawn from a 
 period when Rome had not attained a compe- 
 tent state of civilization, we have a picture not 
 less remarkable from the pen of the most ac- 
 complished Roman, at the brightest sera of the 
 Roman annals. Cicero has recorded, that, in 
 the year of the city 688, many of the towers of 
 the Capitol had been struck by lightning, which 
 had melted many of the statues, and even that 
 of the infant Romulus : which having alarmed 
 the state, the soothsayers were summoned from 
 Etruria, who unanimously declared that a civil 
 war and the destruction of the state was thus 
 betokened, and would occur, unless the gods 
 were so appeased as to avert the destiny. Re- 
 course was therefore had to scenic games, as 
 usual, which were continued for ten successive 
 days : and the diviners farther ordered that the 
 statue of Jupiter should be made larger than 
 before, and placed on an eminence, and turned
 
 174 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 towards the opposite quarter, the rising 1 sun : 
 in hopes that, if that statue should look towards 
 the east, and the forum and senate-house, it 
 might bring 1 to light the hidden plots then con- 
 triving against the republic. The designed al- 
 teration of the statue was accidentally delayed 
 for two years, and the work was completed by 
 Cicero on the very day when the discomfiture 
 of the Catilinian conspiracy took place ; so 
 that at the same time when the workmen were 
 employed in fixing the statue, the conspirators 
 and witnesses were conveyed into the temple 
 where the senate was assembled : an unde- 
 niable proof, says the Consul,* that to the om- 
 nipotence and foresight of Jupiter, we owe the 
 preservation of the state. 
 
 The public worship of the Israelites presents 
 a remarkable contrast to the errors into which 
 the ancient heathens fell both on the right hand 
 and the left : being free alike from the uncer- 
 tainty of the philosophers, and from the immo- 
 ralities which disgraced the worst of the popu- 
 * Catil. Orat. iii. prope finem.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 
 
 lar services, or the superstitions which de- 
 formed the best. The doctrine of the Israelites 
 maintained, as was before observed, that the 
 Deity was to be worshipped and addressed as 
 the Creator and Governor of the world, and as 
 the father of his people : but that, as a spiritual 
 Being 1 , he could not be represented or adored 
 under any visible form. This latter truth was 
 so strongly impressed upon them, that they 
 held every sort of image in the greatest abhor- 
 rence j and the first they so firmly believed, as 
 to have recourse to prayer, and to pour their 
 distresses into the unseen ear of the Creator, 
 in every private misfortune ; and in all public 
 calamities they implored pardon and assistance 
 in language which always appears sublime, 
 but never more remarkably so, than when 
 opposed to the absurdities of heathen suppli- 
 cation. 
 
 No more impartial specimen can be selected 
 than the prayer used by Solomon at the dedi- 
 cation of the temple. It was extraordinary, it 
 was public ; and is, therefore, calculated to fur-
 
 176 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 nish a just idea of the principles possessed ge- 
 nerally by the Hebrews concerning the Deity, 
 to whom they were now consecrating a magni- 
 ficent building. 
 
 " Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord 
 " in the presence of all the congregation of 
 " Israel, and spread forth his hands toward 
 " heaven : and he said, Lord God of Israel, 
 " there is no God like thee, in heaven above or 
 " on earth beneath, who keepest covenant and 
 " mercy with thy servants that walk before thee 
 " with all their heart. And now, O God of 
 " Israel, let thy word, I pray thee, be verified, 
 "which thou spakest unto 'thy servant David 
 " my father. But will God indeed dwell on 
 " the earth ? Behold the heaven of heavens 
 " cannot contain thee ; how much less this house 
 " that I have builded ? Yet have thou respect 
 " unto the prayer of thy servant and to his sup- 
 " plication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto 
 " the cry and to the prayer which thy servant 
 " prayeth before thee to-day : that thine eyes 
 " may be opened towards this house night and
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 177 
 
 " day, even towards the place of which thou 
 " hast said, My name shall be there : that thou 
 " mayest hearken unto the prayer that thy servant 
 " shall make towards this place."* 
 
 It is evident from the whole of this sublime 
 hymn, that the ideas impressed by Moses at the 
 first institution of the Jewish polity, had lost 
 none of their clearness by the lapse of five hun- 
 dred years. It is evident that the belief im- 
 planted in them of the immediate presence of 
 God with their armies and in the ark or taber- 
 nacle, had in no degree produced an erroneous 
 notion of his attributes ; that they could believe 
 the immateriality and omnipresence of the Crea- 
 tor, notwithstanding 1 the peculiar character he 
 had condescended to assume, as going forth with 
 the armies of Israel. 
 
 This, then, was the language of prosperity, 
 
 " Blessed be the Lord that hath given rest 
 
 " unto his people Israel :"t and if we turn to 
 
 the language of adversity, we find it continuing 
 
 * 1 Kings viii. 22, et seq. -f- 1 Kings viii. 56. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 unchanged in tone, and unshaken in confidence. 
 The Old Testament abounds with proofs in 
 point, and the book of Psalms, in particular, 
 contains alone a series of overwhelming evi- 
 dence ; but on a subject so familiar and indis- 
 putable it will be sufficient simply to adduce 
 the prayer composed by Hezekiah at the time 
 when Jerusalem was endangered by the invasion 
 of Sennacherib. 
 
 " Hezekiah received the letter from the hand 
 " of the messengers, and read it ; and Hezekiah 
 " went up into the house of the Lord, and spread 
 " it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed 
 " before the Lord, and said, O Lord God of 
 " Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, 
 " thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the 
 " kingdoms of the earth : thou hast made heaven 
 " and earth. Lord, bow down thine ear, and 
 " hear ; open, Lord, thine eyes, and see ; and 
 " hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath 
 " set him to reproach the living God. Of a 
 " truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have de- 
 " stroyed the nations and their lands, and have
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 179 
 
 " cast their gods into the fire : for they were no 
 " gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and 
 " stone ; therefore they have destroyed them. 
 " Now, therefore, O Lord our God, save thou 
 " us from out of his hand, that all the kingdoms 
 " of the earth may know that thou art the Lord 
 " God, even thou 
 
 It is evident, from these comparisons, that the 
 superiority of the Hebrews in their practical 
 worship of the Supreme Being is no less decisive 
 than their abstract conception of his essence. 
 Hezekiah neither consults an oracle, nor appeals 
 to a variety of discordant deities ; but with equal 
 consistency and confidence, resorts, on the sudden 
 appearance of danger, to the aid of that God 
 whom he had learnt from his forefathers to vene- 
 rate as both the Creator of the world, and the 
 peculiar protector of his nation. 
 
 In this respect, again, all is conformable. 
 What was the prevailing sentiment concerning 
 the divine character was seen in the former 
 * Isaiah xxxvii. 14. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 Section , and it appears from this, that the 
 practice did not contradict the theory. Indeed, 
 from the whole account which we possess of the 
 Jewish history, which for the most part is suffi- 
 ciently minute, it appears that that people never 
 lost sight of the peculiar relation in which they 
 stood towards the Creator. Their national 
 prosperity is the divine blessing ; their national 
 misfortunes are the judgments of Heaven upon 
 their disobedience.* Had there been no closer 
 connexion or no stronger appearance of con- 
 nexion between national faith and national 
 
 * See the whole history : and particularly Judges ii. 22 ; 
 where the preservation of a remnant of the idolatrous nations 
 is expressly attributed to the necessity of keeping a check 
 upon the people who had " transgressed the covenant com- 
 " manded unto their fathers." Aliijah's denunciation against 
 Jeroboam is in this strain : " The Lord shall root up Israel 
 " out of this good land which he gave, to their fathers, and 
 " shall scatter them beyond the river, because they ht/n- 
 " made their groves, provoking the Lord to anger." 1 Kings 
 xiv. 15. The same spirit prevades the prophecies made to 
 Manasseh: " / will forsake the remnant of mine inlnrilance, 
 " and deliver them into the hand of their enemies, and they 
 " shall become a prey and spoil to all their enemies ; because 
 " they have dam- that which was evil in nnj sight," &c. 
 2 Kings \\i. 15.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 181 
 
 success, than we may suppose established by the 
 fictitious assertions or vague promises of a legis- 
 lator ; misfortune, it is probable, would have had 
 the contrary effect, would have diverted them 
 from dependence on their law, instead of reviving 
 their obedience. Such has been the case in 
 other instances. Thucydides relates that during 
 the plague which desolated Athens, the people 
 finding no advantage from the public worship 
 and ceremonies to which they had commonly re- 
 sorted, at last abstained from them altogether, 
 and gave themselves up to a desperate and unre- 
 strained lawlessness.* But so effectually was 
 the belief of divine interference impressed upon 
 the Hebrew nation, that any general distress or 
 remarkable calamity always served as a sort of 
 signal to rally them round the faith of their fore- 
 fathers. This is the outline of their whole 
 history. And at the close of the theocracy, 
 when the threatened vengeance upon repeated 
 rebellion was accomplished by the destruction 
 of the temple and captivity of the people, this 
 event, which must have proved the confutation 
 * Lib, ii. s. 47.
 
 182 ON THE NATIONAL WORSHIP 
 
 of any unfounded reliance upon divine support, 
 was deemed by the nation itself a confirmation 
 of their whole history and peculiar covenant. 
 The captive people saw, in the humiliation of 
 their country, only the accomplishment of pro- 
 phecy and the punishment of their transgressions, 
 and looked forward for their restoration to re- 
 pentance alone. Such is the confession of Ezra ; 
 " O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up 
 " my face to thee, my God ; since the days of our 
 " fathers have we been in a great trespass unto 
 " this day ; and for our iniquities have we, our 
 " kings, and our priests, been delivered into 
 " the hand of the kings of the lands, to the 
 " sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to con- 
 " fusion of face, as it is this day."* Such also 
 is the solemn humiliation of the people after 
 their return to Jerusalem, exhibiting as strong a 
 conviction as language can express of the cause 
 of their national misfortunes, and showing that 
 their faith in the author of their law had been 
 violated, but not destroyed. " Thou, even thou 
 " art Lord alone j thou hast made heaven, the 
 
 * Ezra ix. 6.
 
 OF THE HEBREWS. 183 
 
 " heaven of heavens, with all their host, the 
 " earth, and all things that are therein, the seas 
 " and all that is therein, and thou preservest 
 " them all ; and the host of heaven worshippeth 
 " thee."* This sublime declaration, to which 
 it would be vain to look for a parallel beyond 
 the pale of revelation, is followed by a circum- 
 stantial review of the selection, the transgres- 
 sions, and the punishment of the Hebrew nation ; 
 and whoever can read this confession, and still 
 believe that the faith it expresses, which remained 
 unimpaired through so many centuries and sur- 
 vived such heavy calamities, was originally 
 grounded on a false assumption of legislative 
 power, must have, to say the least, a very inade- 
 quate idea of the nature of moral evidence. 
 * Nehemiah ix. throughout.
 
 184 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 On the Principles of Hebrew Morality. 
 
 I HAVE hitherto traced the superiority of the 
 Mosaic law, in the principles it inculcated, and 
 the practical worship it enjoined towards the 
 Supreme Being. There is another light in 
 which it remains to be viewed, viz. as a system 
 of relative duties. It is probable, that from a 
 consideration of this point also we may obtain 
 some assistance to our inquiries. For although 
 it is true that the great rules of morals, being 
 necessary to the existence of human society, can 
 be in no communities wholly unknown, and in 
 civilized states have been generally well under- 
 stood ; yet it is likewise to be acknowledged, that 
 a nation professing, like the Israelites, to live
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 185 
 
 under the immediate direction of divine Intelli- 
 gence, would be expected to enforce a purer 
 morality, to practise duties unknown to others, 
 and to avoid errors admitted elsewhere. That 
 this was the exact case among the Jews, many 
 authors have made it their peculiar object to 
 prove : and it would require a discussion evi- 
 dently inapplicable to the business of the present 
 Treatise, to elucidate the subject at large. It 
 will be more to my purpose to point out an 
 instance or two, in which there is not only a 
 difference between the Jewish and other institu- 
 tions, but precisely that difference which a sense 
 of the immediate superintendence of the Deity 
 would occasion.* 
 
 First, the authority which Moses exercises, 
 and exercises to all appearance unconsciously, 
 is of a sweeping and extensive nature unat- 
 tempted by other legislators. In all other ci- 
 
 * The punishment of idolatry as a capital crime, is con- 
 formable to the general tenor of the Hebrew law, as a theo- 
 cracy : in any other view, unaccountable. This has been 
 treated at large by Warburton.
 
 186 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 vilized communities the moralist and the law- 
 giver have had a separate character and pro- 
 vince. The lawgiver forbids the overt act, and 
 says, Thou shalt not steal ; the moralist lays a 
 restraint on the secret intention, and his lan- 
 guage is, Thou shalt not covet. The lawgiver 
 issues his decrees against such open vice as is 
 injurious to society ; the moralist does not stop 
 there, but inculcates virtue. The lawgiver 
 threatens punishment ; the moralist goes farther, 
 and holds out such rewards as are within his 
 view ; whether the approbation of conscience, 
 or of good men, or of an all-seeing God ; 
 whether the elevation of the noblest faculties of 
 the soul, or the certainty of future retribution. 
 The laws of Solon and of the twelve tables 
 established the rights of individuals, and pro- 
 vided against their open infringement ; but it 
 remained for Socrates and Cicero to prescribe 
 personal duties j and to point out the many 
 cases in which the morality of an action might 
 be eminently defective, even whilst the letter 
 of the law was precisely obeyed. Our modern 
 statutes issue such enactments as the rights of
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 187 
 
 persons and of property require ; but they leave 
 it to the divine to enforce charity, and to re- 
 press covetousness or avarice on other, and 
 widely different considerations. 
 
 If we analyze the matter, the reason will 
 appear no less evident than the fact is notorious. 
 The legislator is himself essentially the subject 
 of the community ; and the jealousy of the body 
 whose minister he is, though it allows, or even 
 invites his interference to restrain that ferocious- 
 ness of individual liberty which would endanger 
 peace or property, forbids his exercising any 
 jurisdiction in cases where these are not con- 
 cerned, or extending his power beyond absolute 
 right to moral duties. The authority delegated 
 to the lawgiver for the public good emanates 
 from the public itself : but no man gives another 
 a title to regulate his thoughts, or prescribe the 
 moral virtues which he shall exercise. This 
 jurisdiction must originate elsewhere. It is a 
 matter of certainty, for example, that no one can 
 be privileged to take forcibly another's property ; 
 but it cannot be so plainly determined, whether
 
 188 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 he is bound to give his own in charity. You 
 have a right, it will be argued, to forbid my 
 robbing my neighbour ; but you have no right 
 to insist on my relieving him. The same argu- 
 ment holds true with regard to gratitude, 
 humanity, &c. ; which on that very account have 
 been termed virtues of imperfect obligation, 
 since they depend upon a nice balance of circum- 
 stances, and cannot be rendered imperative by 
 the letter of any general law : it also holds true 
 of the personal duties which concern the regu- 
 lation of the heart ; they are an affair between 
 man and his own conscience, and their essential 
 or non-essential obligation is left to the private 
 judgment of the individual. 
 
 But, on the other hand, if we imagine the 
 case of the Deity, as moral Governor of the 
 world ; prescribing a system of laws to any of 
 his creatures, the difference between laws of 
 perfect and imperfect obligation vanishes at once. 
 Anew principle isintroduced of paramount autho- 
 rity. The public safety is no longer the professed 
 object of legislation, and the natural rights of
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 189 
 
 mankind are no longer the limit of the legisla- 
 tor's power, who appears invested with other 
 sovereignty than that which the people have in- 
 trusted to him, and with a higher title to his 
 office than the consent of the community. 
 
 Supposing, therefore, the fact to be as pre- 
 tended in the preamble to the Hebrew code, 
 it were to be expected beforehand that the dis- 
 tinction usually preserved between rights and 
 duties should be thrown down j that the empire 
 of the legislator should be exerted over the 
 conscience, and that the same authority which 
 prohibited vice shall command virtue. 
 
 In the provisions of the Hebrew law this 
 antecedent expectation is completely answered. 
 Moses is at the same time moralist and lawgiver: 
 and in virtue of this double office united in his 
 own person, he extends his jurisdiction to a 
 variety of cases which are confessedly beyond 
 the reach of other legislators. He prescribes 
 charity and benevolence as required by the Crea- 
 tor, in the same tone with which he forbids
 
 190 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 murder, theft, and false witness, crimes acknow- 
 ledged to be injurious to the community. Nay, 
 he even proceeds to regulate the thoughts.* 
 Of this we have a familiar instance in the tenth 
 commandment, which comprehensively lays an 
 interdict against the very coveting or desiring 
 any of the possessions of another ; and issues 
 this wise but singular injunction, philosophically 
 wise as corning from a moralist, but exclusively 
 singular as delivered by a legislator, with the 
 same consciousness of undisputed authority as 
 when he forbids the overt acts of theft or 
 adultery, of which a covetous desire is the 
 original germ. 
 
 Relying on the same support and instructed 
 by the same oracle, the legislator of the Hebrews 
 imposes a restraint upon the passions, which was 
 not attempted in any other ancient country :t 
 
 * The reader will observe that I represent as the pecu- 
 liarity in Moses, his making the thoughts tJie subject of a 
 law, not his declaring the guilt to consist in the intention ; a 
 truth which reason seems very early and universally to have 
 discovered. 
 
 f Joseph, contra Apion. ii. 30, &c. : and Eusebius, Praep. 
 Evang. xiii. 20.
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 191 
 
 and which is equally striking 1 , whether contrasted 
 with the habits of the civilized Greeks, or the 
 general libertinism of Asiatic nations. Moses 
 proscribes, under the sanction of legislative au- 
 thority and penalties, practices which we un- 
 doubtedly are taught by the light which Christi- 
 anity has shed over our moral view to detest as 
 criminal : but which few, even of the moralists 
 of antiquity, and none of their lawgivers, either 
 condemned by their sentence or discountenanced 
 by their lives.* To enter into particulars on 
 this head would be superfluous to those who are 
 conversant with the defective morality of the 
 heathen world, and to those who are not, unne- 
 cessarily disgusting. 
 
 Perhaps it may be supposed that the corrup- 
 tions which had increased to so great a height 
 before the sera of our acquaintance with ancient 
 history, were the gradual progress of vice, and 
 unknown to the earlier and purer age of the 
 
 * This subject has been treated at great length by Leland, 
 Advantage of Revelation, part xi. chap. 3, &c. ; also in 
 Clarke's Evid. Prop. vi.
 
 192 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 Hebrew legislation. This, however, is a favour- 
 able supposition to which human nature has no 
 claim. On the contrary, the people are expressly 
 warned that the vicious customs in which they 
 are forbidden to indulge, are familiar both in 
 the countries they had left and by which they 
 were surrounded. Still further, they are assured 
 that they are commissioned as the ministers of 
 divine vengeance against the people of whose 
 lands they took possession, because those nations 
 were stained with those very enormities 
 " Defile not ye yourselves in any of these 
 " things ; for in all these the nations are defiled 
 " which I cast out before you, and the land is 
 " defiled : therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof 
 " upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her 
 " inhabitants."* 
 
 * Lev. xviii. 24. This seems a proper occasion to notice 
 an objection which has been raised against the employment 
 of the Israelites, " men, and moral ag-ents," in destroying 
 the Canaanites, when, " as moral agents, they ought not to 
 have been unjust, cruel, or rapacious ; but to have believed 
 that God cannot delight in rapine, bloodshed, and robbery." 
 This objection has been from time to time repeated, in defi- 
 ance of the reasons stated on the very front of the narration
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. IQ3 
 
 Indeed, many of the peculiar institutions of 
 the Jews were ordained for the purpose of dis- 
 playing- to the peculiar people of divine choice, 
 the real heinousness of that vicious indulgence 
 of the passions, which scarcely seems to have 
 troubled the conscience of the other nations 
 of antiquity. " Ye shall be holy unto me : for I 
 " the Lord thy God am holy> and have severed 
 
 itself, for which the guilty nations were extirpated : viz. their 
 gross immoralities, and their idolatry, a vice which included 
 (as Lowman has largely and successfully shown) many hein- 
 ous species of wickedness. The Israelites, therefore, living 
 as they did under the immediate direction of the Supreme 
 Being, when they were specially employed to wield (he sword 
 of divine justice against a guilty race, would see in the dis- 
 pensation of which they were the appointed ministers, not 
 the violation, as is rashly insinuated, but the fulfilment of 
 moral justice; and the practical lesson they would imbibe, 
 would be an awful conviction of the severity with which the 
 moral Governor of the world, who is uniformly represented 
 in their Scriptures as just as well as merciful, treats wicked- 
 ness and punishes idolatry. It was a fearful example of 
 the destiny inpending over themselves, should they fall into 
 the practices, and commit the abominations, which they had 
 been specifically enjoined to avenge in others. And their 
 subsequent history proved the intention of the lesson, though 
 its effect was too often lost upon their conduct. 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194- ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 " you from other people that ye should be 
 " mine."* This is the spirit of the code, and 
 preserved by particular provisions with the 
 minutest care, and an intimate knowledge of 
 the human heart, which requires that the 
 root of vice should be extirpated, and not its 
 branches lopped ; that impurity should be 
 checked at its source, before it begins to flow. 
 Knowing too, as we are happily taught to know, 
 the effect of sensuality in alienating the heart 
 from all that is most dignified in human nature, 
 we cannot but admire the rigour with which 
 Moses opposes it, and the barrier which he 
 raises in that unimproved and infant state, be- 
 tween the practice of those that have the Lord 
 for their God, and those who follow the de- 
 vices of their own hearts. But the authority 
 which he employs for this salutary purpose, 
 and the union of moral and civil duties which 
 his code contains, together with the superior 
 tone of virtue which it inculcates, are evident 
 proofs that his power was neither self-assumed, 
 nor delegated by the people, and that his coni- 
 * Lev. xx. 26.
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. IQ5 
 
 munity were well aware that he acted as the 
 vicegerent of Him whose will alone was to be 
 the standard of their law. 
 
 Secondly, it is strictly natural, that legisla- 
 tors professing only that general notion of some 
 superior power, which I have all along consi- 
 dered as common to every civilized people, 
 should, in enacting their laws, make the pro- 
 bable welfare of the state their leading object ; 
 and imagine themselves bound to keep this 
 alone in view, even setting aside, in particular 
 cases, the general rules of morals, and rights 
 of individuals. Whoever reads the first chap- 
 ter of Xenophon's treatise on the Polity of 
 Lacedsemon, or the fifth book of Plato's Re- 
 public, will find this professed as the sole prin- 
 ciple of legislation. By the laws of Lycurgus, 
 the free choice of love was subject to the re- 
 straint of the lawgiver's ordinances, that a strong 
 and hardy race might be ready to defend the 
 state.* Modesty was banished from the female 
 sex, lest any weakness should be perpetuated 
 * Xen. Laced. Pol. p. 169, Simson. 
 
 02
 
 196 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 among their offspring- ;* and even chastity was 
 annulled, and the rights of husbands violated, 
 that disparities of age might cause no dege- 
 neracy in the progeny of Sparta.-j- Nor was the 
 philosopher more delicate than the statesman. 
 Plato recommends the attainment of the same 
 object by similar means. 
 
 These infringements of morality have been 
 often censured. I would direct more particu- 
 lar attention to the custom of exposing such 
 
 * Id. 368. Apo/Jou cat iaxyoG, wffTrep Kai ro?c dVopaertv, oi/'rw 
 Kai rate Sf/Xe/'atc aywvac Trpoc a\\/\ac e-rroirjare, vo^i'^uv e 
 ap0ore'pwv Iff^vptSv Kai rd etcyova eppw/meveffrepa ylyreaOat. 
 This is well censured by Eusebius, Praep. Evang. xiii. 19. 
 
 -} Id. 170. "Et ^e rig yvvaiKi pev avvotKeiv fjitj /3ov'\otro, 
 TKKVdiv II dZtoXoywv eTTtdv/JiotT), Kai rovrif voptpov eiroi 
 i')V Tiva dV e.vTKvov (cat yevrdiav 6pw?j, ireiaavra TOV e 
 CK Tavrrjv rcKvoTroieiffdai. This is farther enlarged upon by 
 Plutarch in his life of Lycurgus, p. 105, 1. Mr. Mitford 
 describes this with his usual fidelity : " His morality ( speak- 
 ing of Lycurgus) was always made subservient to kit political 
 purposes. To be unmarried and without children for the com- 
 monwealth, he caused to be accounted shameful ; but it was 
 indifferent who was the father, provided the child were a fine 
 one." Vol. i. 305.
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 197 
 
 children as the parents thought themselves un- 
 able to maintain, or who were oppressed by bo- 
 dily infirmities, which was admitted as legitimate, 
 and practised without remorse both in Greece 
 and at Rome. But the Spartan legislator, con- 
 sidering the state as a common mother, and in- 
 dividuals as comparatively without a right, would 
 not even leave the decision to the parents. In 
 Sparta, all new-born infants were examined by 
 public officers appointed for the purpose ; the 
 well-formed and vigorous only were preserved : 
 those who appeared unlikely to be service- 
 able to the state, owing to any defect in bodily 
 shape or constitution, were buried in a cavern 
 of mount Taygetus.* Custom had so far re- 
 conciled the consciences of men to this practice, 
 however barbarous, that Plato, even where he 
 is describing an imaginary republic, which he 
 might therefore have moulded to his will, makes 
 exposure the express provision for those chil- 
 
 * Plut. Vit. Lye. i. 106, ed. Br. (This law is not men- 
 tioned by Xenophon.) Suet. Aug. c. Ixv. Vit. Cal. vii. De 
 illustr. Gr. xxi. Juven. vi. 601. Cicer. de Leg. 1. 3, ch. viii.
 
 198 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 dren, whose parents' ages did not conform to 
 the period appointed by the laws.* 
 
 A priori, no nation was more likely to have 
 admitted this usage than the Hebrews. They 
 married early. When their laws were enacted, 
 they were an unsettled people, nor were they 
 at liberty to provide in other countries for the 
 redundant population of their own. Had the 
 circumstances of the state alone been consi- 
 dered, nothing would appear more probable 
 than the introduction of a custom which per- 
 mitted the intercourse of marriage without re- 
 quiring the burden of domestic poverty ; which 
 provided for the indulgence of the passions, 
 without oppressing the state with useless and 
 
 * Plautus, in the Cistellaria, of which the scene lies in 
 Sicyon, speaks familiarly of the practice. In the Andria of 
 Terence (the scene of which lies at Athens) it is ridiculed 
 as extravagant folly, that Pamphilus was determined to bring 
 up his child by Glycerium : 
 
 Quiequid pepererit, decreverunt tollere. 
 
 Incepfio est amentium, haud amantium. 
 
 See Hume, Populousness of ancient Nations; Malthus, i. 
 288 ; Philopatris Warwicensis, vol. ii.; Millar's Origin of 
 Ranks, 125. 134.
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 
 
 hungry mouths. If Moses, therefore, like 
 other legislators, had considered his people 
 as existing for themselves, and as permitted 
 to consult in their civil code their own interests 
 and strength alone, we may reasonably suppose 
 that he would have countenanced a practice, 
 which other more civilized states admitted, and 
 philosophers did not think unworthy of their 
 sanction.* 
 
 But when it is understood that an infant is 
 born subject to the will and disposal, not of 
 the state, but of God, and belonging not only 
 to an earthly parent, but to an heavenly pro- 
 tector 5 it becomes clear that any ordinance 
 which legalizes the destruction of an innocent 
 human being, is not less impious than barbar- 
 
 * Aristotle, Polit. 7, c. 16, after observing, that Sid 
 7r\7/0oc reKvuv, edv 17 ra'ic rwf e'0wv KwAvj; f*r)Sev drrorideffQai 
 rSiv yiyvo/aej'wv, (apiadai rai del rfjs reKvoTrouae TO ir\fjdoQ' 
 adds, under certain circumstances, epTroieiadai Set r^v ap.- 
 /3\wfftv. Romulus and Lycurgus, like Aristotle and Plato, 
 the two real as well as the two imaginary legislators, assume 
 the right of determining the number of each family. Dion. 
 Halicar. ii. 88, Sylburg.
 
 '200 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 ous. This was apparent to Plato himself on 
 another occasion, when he required an argu- 
 ment against suicide j and it is curious to ob- 
 serve from such an instance, how little even 
 the most philosophical mind is able to follow a 
 consistent line of steady practice through the 
 various bearings of human action, if the founda- 
 tion of authoritative rules is wanting. " Man," 
 says Socrates by the pen of Plato, "is in the 
 possession of the gods." * A conviction of this 
 truth, not occasional and speculative, but effec- 
 tive and habitual, will alone account for the su- 
 perior morality of the Jewish law.f If an infant 
 
 * Phacdo. From him Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 30, Vetat do- 
 minans ille in nobis Deus, injussu hinc suo nos demigrare, 
 &,c. Vide et Somn. Scip. 
 
 {- 'O vofjLoq yvvaiQv direifrev /i?}r' dp.fl\ovv TO airapev, p.tJTe 
 $ia<f>6eipeiv a'XXd rjv tyavfir], TCKVOKTOVOQ av elrf ^v^v dfyavi- 
 tovffa, Kill TO yeVoc eXarrovaa. Joseph, contra Apion. ii. 24. 
 Vide et Phil. Jud. ii. 318. It appears clearly from the lan- 
 guage of these two authors, as well as from the national prac- 
 tice, that the Jews gave a just interpretation to the seventh 
 commandment, and extended its obligation to infanticide. 
 Doubtless, the expectation of the Messiah had its influence 
 as well as the general law against murder. But the sacred 
 importance in which human life is invariably held throughout
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 201 
 
 is born for his country only, and his parents 
 submit to live under the established laws ; it is 
 for his country to dispose of him, according to 
 the legislator's notions of his utility.* But if 
 there is a supreme Creator, as was believed 
 and acted upon by the Jews, according to 
 whose will each individual is ushered into the 
 world, and to whom he is accountable, human 
 existence rises inestimably in value j and a new 
 law becomes obligatory, paramount to the sup- 
 posed necessity of confining the level of popu- 
 lation within the standard of subsistence. The 
 practice, therefore, of infanticide may be consi- 
 dered to a certain degree as a test of national 
 faith ; t since it is impossible, wherever it pre- 
 
 the history, shows that this alone would be an insufficient ex- 
 planation of the fact. 
 
 * ITpwrov /Jiev nvv OVK ISiovs /yeiro TU>V Trarepuv rove iraiSae, 
 a'XXa KOIVOVQ r;G TroXew? o Av/cou/oyoc. Plut. Vit. Lye. 105. 
 
 -}- A negative indeed, rather than a positive test. The 
 Thebans, with a religion no purer than the other Grecians 
 possessed, punished infanticide with death. Julian. Var. 
 Hist. ii. 7. And Tacitus records of the ancient Germans, 
 numerum liberorum finire, aut quenquam ex agnatis (forte, 
 natis) necare flagitium habetur. The custom was first for-
 
 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 vails, that the belief of a Supreme Disposer 
 of events should exist in any distinctness or 
 purity. 
 
 Thirdly, whoever enacts or sanctions a law, 
 is offended when it is broken. If God has ap- 
 pointed rules by which mankind are to be go- 
 verned, God will avenge the infringement of 
 those rules j if the state has the sole direction 
 of moral actions, the violation of her commands 
 is only cognizable by the state.* We must 
 expect, therefore, among a people professing 
 a sense of a superintending Deity, not only 
 a purer morality, as has been already shown, 
 but different motives to the practice of morality. 
 And, in fact, offences which with other 
 nations are treated merely as hurtful either 
 to the society, or the offender himself, were 
 considered by the Jews as committed against 
 
 bidden in the Roman empire by an express law by Valens 
 and Gratian. Reimar on Dio Cass. b. i. par. 16. This differ- 
 ence between the practice of the Jews and other nations is 
 also remarked by Tacitus : augendac multitudini consulitur ; 
 necare quenquam ex agnatis (forte, natis) nefas. Hist. 1. 5. 
 * Plato argues this point, de Rep. 1. 4.
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 203 
 
 God ;* while obedience to his will was also 
 enforced as the proper motive of virtue, his 
 favour as its proper reward. 
 
 I would not be understood to deny that there 
 existed among 1 the ancients a sort of vague and 
 general feeling 1 , that justice, patriotism, and 
 some of the other virtues were agreeable to the 
 superior powers, and the contrary vices the ob- 
 jects of their displeasure. This notion, how- 
 ever received, whether the result of enlightened 
 reason, or the remains of original revelation, 
 appears as the ground of some of the arguments 
 attributed to Socrates by his disciples ; t and 
 
 * u Those who believe that God overlooks their lives, 
 cannot venture to sin." Jos. contra Apion. 11. 16. See Lev. 
 xix. 2. 
 
 -j- Crito, pag. 54, ad fin. Phaedo, 84, do. In the treatise 
 de Repub. Cephalus says, that when a man finds his end 
 approaching, he begins to feel an alarm, which had never 
 come across him in the former part of his life ; for, the fables 
 concerning the dead, that one who has done wrong here, 
 must be called to account below ; fables laughed at till then ; 
 begin to aifect his mind lest they should possibly be true. 
 1. i. p. 330, St. This passage is of the same character 
 with the remarkable one in the preface to Zaleucus's laws ; 
 enjoining those who have evil inclinations, " to set before
 
 201 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 is more familiarly observable in the vague and 
 undefined belief of future rewards and punish- 
 
 their eyes the season of their departure from life ; since re- 
 pentance is wont to come upon all when they are on the 
 point of death, and recollect the instances of their injustice 
 with a wish that they had acted uprightly." Stob. Sem. 42. 
 Upon this subject the later philosophy is very inferior to the 
 earlier. The Latin writers were corrupted by the prevalence 
 of the Stoic doctrines, according to which, it was beneath 
 the Deity to take cognizance of human transgressions. Ci- 
 cero says, " Hoc quidem commune est omnium philosopho- 
 rurn, nunquam nee irasci Deum, nee nocere. Quod affirm- 
 ate, quasi Deo teste, promiseris, id tenendum est : jam enim 
 non ad iram deorum, quae nulla est ; sed ad justitiam et ad 
 fidem pertinet." De Off. iii. 28, 29. His familiar opinions 
 in his epistles, tend to the same point, 1. v. 12, vi. 3. Epic- 
 tetus and Seneca argue decisively in the same strain. The 
 latter says, " No man in his senses would fear the gods, as it 
 is folly to dread beneficial objects." Late as Marcus Anto- 
 ninus wrote, he speaks of the resurrection of the soul as a 
 matter of great uncertainty, and of very inconsiderable in- 
 terest. " You have made your voyage, and arrived at your 
 port. Go ashore : if into another life, the gods are there ; 
 if into a state of insensibility, you will be no longer dis- 
 tracted by pains and pleasures, nor be in subjection to this 
 mean vessel." De Rebus suis, 1. iii. c. 3. It is needless to 
 add, that the opinion concerning the nature of the soul as 
 making a part of a celestial substance to which after the 
 dissolution of the body it was to be restored, is entirely de- 
 structive of a belief of future rewards and punishments, be-
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 
 
 merits which made a part, at least, of the poetical 
 creed. And this belief, however inconsistent 
 and obscured by fable, may be supposed to have 
 checked in some degree the glaring and indis- 
 putable crimes of fraud, violence, and rapacity. 
 But its effect did not at all extend to the personal 
 virtues. Respecting these, the ancients univer- 
 sally considered themselves as free from any 
 obligation or restraint, except that which their 
 own prudence or inclination might impose. Thus, 
 Plato speaks of drunkenness as a crime from 
 which the guardians of his republic must abstain, 
 not as a crime in itself, but " because it suits 
 any one rather than a guardian of a country, 
 to forget the land he is in, through intoxica- 
 tion."* And, generally, the best of the ancients, 
 
 cause it removes all idea of individuality. These are the 
 probable grounds of Aristotle's opinion, who makes death 
 the boundary, beyond which neither good nor evil is to be 
 looked for. Qepac yap' KOI ovfiev eV T<3 redreijjri doKei ovre 
 iiyaQov tivre KUKOV eirai. Ethic, lib. iii. 
 
 * De Rep. 1. iii. p. 218, Massey. The same line of argu- 
 ment is pursued through the other vices, 1. iv. 311, &c. It 
 appears, from another passage in the same treatise, how little 
 the favour of the superior powers was supposed to depend
 
 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 if they acknowledge a branch of moral duty, 
 speak of it as an offence against themselves. 
 In the celebrated advice, where he recommends 
 his disciples to review the actions of the past 
 day, Pythagoras says, " for what you have done 
 ill, be sorry : rejoice for the good you have per- 
 formed."* On the contrary, in a passage which 
 keeps up a continual strain of high morality, 
 Jobf is represented as asking, " If I despise 
 " the cause of my man-servant, or of my maid- 
 " servant, when they contend with me ; what 
 " shall I do when God riseth up, and when he 
 " visiteth, what shall I answer him ?" 
 
 So also in his Proverbs, Solomon enforces 
 chastity on a principle as unknown to the an- 
 cients, as the virtue itself, namely, " that the 
 " ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord ; 
 
 upon morality, and how little practical influence any idea of 
 the pleasure or displeasure of the deities exercised over the 
 actions of the best heathens. See Glaucon's argument, 
 Rep. 1.2. 
 
 * AeiXd 2e 2KTrpijas, cTrtirXijooeo' xpjjora e, repirov. Aur. 
 Carm. 
 
 f Chap. xxxi. 13.
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 207 
 
 " and he ponder eth all his goings"* Where 
 shall we find a parallel to the advice of Tobit 
 to his son ?f " Fear not, my son, that we are 
 " made poor ; for thou hast much wealth, if 
 " thou fear God, and depart from all sin, and 
 " do that which is well pleasing- in his sight. 
 11 Be mindful of the Lord thy God all thy days, 
 " and let not thy will be set to sin, or to trans- 
 it g ress his commandments" These were prac- 
 tical enforcements of the words of Moses : who 
 uniformly represents the divine will as the 
 standard, and the divine purity as the motive 
 of moral duties ; who says to the nation at 
 large, Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord thy God 
 am holy : who prohibits fraud, because all that 
 commit it, " and do unrighteously, are an abo- 
 " mination unto the Lord thy God :" and who 
 sanctions civil punishments, on the ground that 
 the soul " which doeth aught presumptuously, 
 " whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, 
 " the same reproacheth the Lord."$ This su- 
 periority, peculiar to the Hebrew nation, was 
 
 * Chap. v. 21. f Tobit iv. 525. 
 
 t Lev. xx. 26. Deut. xxv. 16. Num. xv. 30.
 
 208 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 at the same time observed and explained by 
 Josephus : who remarks, that Moses differed 
 from other philosophers in not making piety a 
 distinct virtue, but all virtues, as temperance, 
 patience, justice, a part of piety : all our actions, 
 pursuits and discourses, having- a reference to a 
 right deportment towards God.* 
 
 Fourthly, the grounds on which humanity 
 both towards strangers and countrymen is sanc- 
 tioned in the Mosaic law, belong to the same 
 principles which pervade the other ordinances. 
 That hostile spirit which several ancient writers 
 attribute to the Jews, had no other foundation 
 in the code of laws under which they lived, 
 than as far as those laws forbade their inter- 
 course with idolaters. The principles on which 
 they were enjoined to practise humanity and 
 charity, while they recognise the facts of their 
 early history, derive a moral lesson from them 
 to which the other nations of antiquity furnish 
 a contrast instead of a counterpart. " Thou 
 " shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him ; 
 * Contra Apiun. ii. 16.
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 209 
 
 "for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. 
 " Thou shalt not pervert the judgment, of the 
 " stranger nor of the fatherless, nor take the 
 " widow's garment to pledge. But thou shalt 
 " remember that thou wert a bondman in the land 
 " of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee 
 " thence ; therefore I command thee to do this 
 " thing."* 
 
 The practice of antiquity towards those 
 strangers, whom the chance of war or the hard- 
 ships of fortune had reduced to dependence, 
 was in strong opposition to this benevolent 
 spirit which considers the common relation 
 borne by all mankind towards a Creator, and 
 founds the social duties on that universal basis. 
 By the Romans, and throughout Greece, slaves 
 were considered as absolute property, and the 
 supposed interest of the master was the sole 
 law which regulated the usage they received.^ 
 
 * Deut. xxiv. 17. 
 
 f " The custom of exposing old, useless, or sick slaves 
 in an island of the Tiber, there to starve, seems to have been 
 pretty common in Rome. It was the professed maxim of the 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 The laws respecting them assumed, that they 
 were an inferior order of beings, and provided 
 
 elder Cato, to sell his superannuated slaves for any price, 
 rather than maintain what he esteemed an useless burden. 
 The ergastula, or dungeons, where slaves in chains were 
 forced to work, were very common all over Italy. Columella 
 advises that they be always built under ground. A chained 
 slave for a porter was usual in Rome." Hume, Essay xi.; 
 where much more is to be found to the same purpose. " Le 
 Senatus-Consulte Sillanien et d'autres loix etablirent que 
 lors qu'un maitre seroit tue, tous les esclaves qui etoient sur 
 le merue toit, ou dans un lieu assez pres de la maison pour 
 qu'on put entendre la voix d'un homme, seroient sans dis- 
 tinction condamnes a la mort." Mont. xv. 15. The treat- 
 ment of slaves in Greece was, if possible, worse. They were 
 forbidden by the laws to practise any liberal art. Even at 
 Athens, where their situation was reckoned comparatively 
 secure, Demosthenes says, that where it was possible to pro- 
 duce for the same fact either freemen or slaves as witnesses, 
 judges always preferred the torturing of slaves, as a more 
 certain evidence. Hume, Ess. xi. The institutions of Ly- 
 curgus, however, are the most abominable in this respect. 
 " Never was human nature degraded by system to such a 
 degree as in the miserable Helots. Every imaginable method 
 was taken to set them at the widest distance from tlieir 
 haughty masters. Even vice was commanded to them ; they 
 were compelled to drunkenness, for the purpose of exhibiting 
 to the young Lacedaemonians the ridiculous and contemptible 
 condition to which men are reduced by it. They were for- 
 bidden every thing manly, and they were commanded every
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 
 
 that they should remain so ; nurtured the 
 younger citizens in the belief that their morality 
 was of no account, and their lives of no higher 
 value than that which their master or the state 
 attached to them. What a contrast does the 
 Syllanian law at Rome, or the legalized Crypteia 
 at Sparta present to the commandment of Moses ; 
 " Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that 
 
 thing humiliating, of which man is capable, while beasts are 
 not." As to the Crypteia, " the most active and intelligent 
 young Lacedaemonians were occasionally sent into the country, 
 carrying provisions, and armed with a dagger. They dis- 
 persed, and generally lay concealed during the day, that 
 they might with more advantage in the night execute their 
 commission for reducing the number of the Helots, by mur- 
 dering any they met, but selecting in preference the stoutest 
 men, and those in whom any superiority of spirit or genius 
 had been observed." Mitf. Greece, i. 317. On the other 
 hand, " the penal code of the Jews guarded the person of 
 the servant and the slave, as well as of the freeman : and the 
 injunction, ' Whosoever smiteth a man, that he die, shall 
 ' surely be put to death,' equally protected all." Dr. Graves, 
 i. 270. Montesquieu blames as severe one of the laws of 
 Moses, Ex. xxi. 20. But it appears evidently from the con- 
 text, that the law previously quoted was of universal extent, 
 v. 12; and the special law which succeeds it only applied to 
 those who inflicted just punishment, and without evil inten- 
 tion, but with blameable and punishable severity. 
 
 P ^
 
 212 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 " is poor and needy, whether he be of thy 
 " brethren, or of the strangers that are within 
 " thy gates, lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, 
 " and it be sin unto thee.* 
 
 It must be observed, that the right claimed 
 by Moses to direct his people and prescribe their 
 conduct in matters which might seem to belong 
 only to private obligation, is founded on the as- 
 sumption that the bounty of God, peculiarly 
 extended to the Hebrews, was the origin of all 
 their prosperity, and entitled his vicegerent to 
 require what terms he chose in return. " If thy 
 " brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay 
 " with thee, then thou .shaft relieve him : take 
 " thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy 
 " God. I am the Lord your God, which brought 
 " you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give 
 " you the land of Canaan."^ A similar exhor- 
 tation in Deuteronomy is enforced on similar 
 
 * Ex. xxii. 31. The same spirit is to be seen Deut. xv. 
 throughout : and the impression it fixed on the character of 
 fhe people may be traced as tar as Nehemiah, chap. v. 
 
 -j- Lev it. v.
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 213 
 
 considerations: " If thy brother, an Hebrew man 
 " or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and 
 " serve thee six years ; then in the seventh year 
 " thou shalt let him go free : and thou shalt not 
 " let him go away from thee empty : thou shalt 
 " furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out 
 " of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press ; of that 
 " wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee 
 " thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt re- 
 " member that thou wast a bondman in the land 
 " of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed 
 " thee ; therefore I command thee this thing 
 " to-day."* 
 
 Here it is material to remark, that in the 
 points of difference between the Hebrews and 
 other nations, there is not only an actual supe- 
 riority, but precisely that superiority which might 
 be expected to result from the cause in question. 
 The morality is purer in itself; and its advantage 
 is exactly on that side where the origin it claims 
 would lead us to expect it : in the rules pre- 
 scribed for the government of the passions, and 
 * Deut. xv. 12.
 
 ON THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 in what concerns the relief and treatment of our 
 fellow-men, and the value of their lives in the 
 eye of their Creator. This is the superiority we 
 should look for in a code which professes not to 
 proceed from the fallible reason of man, deducing 
 rules from the apparent advantage of society, 
 and squaring his moral enactments according to 
 his views of utility ; but to be derived from a 
 moral governor, who is holy, and demands the 
 service of a holy nation. Accordingly, in the 
 vices that are forbidden, and in the duties that 
 are enjoined, we find the same object kept in 
 sight, and a reference perpetually maintained to 
 God, as the legislator and judge from whom 
 every thing emanated, and to whose will every 
 thing ought to conform. The morality is con- 
 formable to the purity of belief; and the purer 
 belief accounts for the peculiar excellence of the 
 morality. 
 
 All the collateral circumstances, therefore, 
 belonging to the Hebrew character, into which 
 I have successively inquired, tend to the same 
 conclusion. From the opinions respecting the
 
 OF HEBREW MORALITY. 215 
 
 Creator prevalent among- the Hebrews, and 
 from the peculiar relation he was believed to 
 bear towards them, resulted a species of litera- 
 ture almost exclusively their own in its nature, 
 and entirely so in its excellence. The same 
 belief accompanies and spiritualizes their national 
 worship, and inspires their personal devotions ; 
 the same belief pervades and regulates their mo- 
 rality. If no account existed of the introduction 
 and reception of this belief, not forming- the 
 opinion of the philosophers, or a detached sect 
 of philosophers, but the settled faith of the whole 
 people ; its singularity would offer a reasonable 
 subject of wonder and inquiry. The account, 
 however, given by the Hebrews themselves, is 
 sufficient to explain, not only the existence of 
 their peculiar belief, but its universality and 
 effect. Unless we give up all claim to reasonable 
 consistency, we must either admit the recorded 
 account of the phenomenon, or suggest some 
 other means, by which Moses might have been 
 rendered different from all other legislators, and 
 the Hebrews distinguished in their faith beyond 
 all other nations. It will be a proper conclu-
 
 216 ON THE PRINCIPLES, &C. 
 
 sion of my argument, if I can succeed in showing-, 
 in the following sections, the difficulties which 
 encounter those who, on any grounds they may 
 choose to select, dispute the divine commission 
 of Moses, or deny that he had the advantage of 
 a revelation.
 
 217 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 
 TVhether Moses could have invented the Doc- 
 trine he taught concerning the Creation. 
 
 IF the history of the constitution of the world, 
 on which Moses laid the foundation of his law, 
 were not derived from the authentic source to 
 which it pretends, there are three several ways 
 in which its appearance may be accounted for : 
 it must either have been devised by himself, as 
 the most clear and rational ; or secondly, bor- 
 rowed by him from the Egyptians, and em- 
 bodied in his own legislative code) or, lastly, 
 must have been adopted and reduced into form 
 from the generally prevailing opinions of his 
 own nation. It will be proper, therefore, to 
 consider attentively each of these possible ex-
 
 218 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 planations ; especially as none of them exhibit 
 at first sight, that appearance of improbability, 
 which we shall find, on inquiry, belonging to 
 them all. 
 
 I have already admitted the likelihood, that 
 Moses, considered as a mere political legislator, 
 should be anxious to impress upon his infant 
 people the belief of a Creator, whose omnipo- 
 tence formed and whose providence maintains 
 the universe, supposing him convinced of it 
 himself. But it may justly be doubted whether 
 the resources of his own or of any human rea- 
 son, unassisted by traditional history originally 
 derived from revelation, could ever have fur- 
 nished Moses with that distinct proposition 
 which first arrests our attention in the opening 
 of the book of Genesis : u In the beginning 
 " God created the heaven and the earth." 
 
 It may indeed appear probable to those, 
 who, from the fortune of their birth and educa- 
 tion, have been accustomed to draw the habi- 
 tual inference of a Creator from his visible
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 
 
 works, that a declaration equivalent to that of 
 Moses, would be the spontaneous result of a 
 reasonable and reflecting mind. It is true 
 that such a result seems insensibly to arise 
 from the appearance of a world, which in every 
 part displays proofs of an omnipotent Intelli- 
 gence, incalculably exceeding the limits, not 
 merely of our comprehension, but even of our 
 imagination. That atheism, properly so called, 
 is an error chiefly of speculative minds, appears 
 clearly from the fact, that when we attempt to 
 disseminate the purer doctrines of our religion 
 among uncivilized tribes, the difficulty consists 
 rather in unteaching prior false notions con- 
 cerning superior beings, than in proving their 
 existence. 
 
 But although it cannot be denied, that the 
 being of one intelligent Creator is a proposition 
 so congenial and satisfactory to our minds when 
 offered to them, that for many ages it was be- 
 lieved innate ; and that it bears so well the test 
 of reason, as almost to seem its unpremeditated 
 result ; yet we are by no means warranted by
 
 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 experience in saying-, that the human mind, 
 when left to itself, has generally been found to 
 embrace it, or human reason to ascertain and 
 establish the discovery. In arguing- concerning 
 the natural capacity of the human understanding, 
 we should act very erroneously in assuming the 
 present state of our knowledge as a criterion. 
 A close acquaintance with the ancients, both in 
 their philosophical and moral writings, and also 
 in their familiar and practical opinions, can alone 
 enable us to judge how much has been added 
 to the first principles of religious belief by the 
 diffusion of Christianity.* In fact, however, 
 we have no other sure mode of appreciating 
 the powers of human reason to form or dissemi- 
 nate sublime ideas on the relation between the 
 
 * A regular attempt to prove the claims of natural religion 
 has been made by Wollaston, though with no intention to 
 discredit revelation. But Dr. Ireland very truly observes, 
 that" notwithstanding all his efforts on the side of unassisted 
 reason, Wollaston could not descend to (he level of nature. 
 He was too well instructed by Christianity, not to feel its in- 
 fluence even against his own purpose. The suggestions of 
 his reason are tinged with revelation ; and the standard 
 which he establishes for the religion of nature, is of a height 
 which Plato never reached." Lcct. vii.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 
 
 world and its Creator, between God and man, 
 than by examining- what in former ages reason, 
 when confessedly unassisted, was actually able 
 to perform ; and the close acquaintance with 
 the most civilized states of antiquity which we 
 derive from their writings, enables us to make 
 this examination, both with respect to the phi- 
 losophical and the popular belief, with less chance 
 of error than would arise from reasoning a priori. 
 
 It appears from history, both sacred and pro- 
 fane, that, within a few centuries after the de- 
 luge, idolatry had become very general among 
 mankind ; either to the total exclusion of a purer 
 worship, or in that milder form which added 
 the veneration of fictitious deities to an acknow- 
 ledgment of a Supreme Creator. The neces- 
 sity of seeking habitations, and settlements, and 
 subsistence, soon depressed, it is probable, what- 
 ever degree of cultivation may be supposed 
 antecedent to the flood : the barbarous mode 
 of life which accompanies an unsettled state, 
 and the vices which deform it, would soon de- 
 grade that clear view of justice which is ne-
 
 222 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 cessary to the notion of a moral governor ; 
 while stupid ignorance could not long retain 
 the conception of an immaterial Creator. At 
 the same time, among the more reflecting and 
 enlightened, the wonders of the creation ; among 
 the uninformed and illiterate and guilty multi- 
 tude, the terror which attends storms and earth- 
 quakes, and the various phaenomena of nature, 
 combine to preserve an idea, if not of an over- 
 ruling providence, at least of more than human 
 power. It is in this state of man, and of the 
 human mind, that all those superstitions and 
 various forms of idolatry arise, which were 
 once nearly universal through the known 
 world ;* which still remain in full force over a 
 
 * Not only Clarke and Leland, who considered this sub- 
 ject without hypothesis ; but even Cudworth agrees, that 
 " the pagans in general, even the most refined of them, con- 
 curred in these two things : first, in breaking and crumbling 
 the one simple Deity, and multiplying it into many gods, or 
 parcelling it out into several particular notions, according to 
 its several powers and virtues ; and then in theologizing the 
 whole world, and deifying the nature of things, accidents, 
 and inanimate bodies: they supposing God to pervade all 
 things, and himself to be in a manner all things." p. 532. 
 To which I add, that, as the worship of these several parts,
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 
 
 large part of it, and of which the traces and ves- 
 tiges in every country are continually exciting 
 the research of the learned and curious. The 
 idea of spiritual worship, such as is paid to a 
 being known only to the imagination, not only 
 requires a considerable advance in religion, but 
 in cultivation also ; we cannot, therefore, won- 
 der, that unenlightened minds, more timid from 
 their ignorance, retaining or acquiring the no- 
 tion of super-human power, but utterly unable 
 to comprehend an immaterial God, should fall 
 into gross idolatry : not, as I conceive, believing, 
 or, at least, not generally believing, that the 
 images which they themselves had formed were 
 either sensible or powerful ; but proposing to 
 themselves a visible object, to which they might 
 fix their attention and direct their prayers. 
 
 Some of the ancient nations, more fortunate 
 than the rest, found this visible object in the 
 
 powers, and virtues, was consequent upon abstracting them, 
 a confusion was immediately introduced, sufficient to obscure 
 altogether the originally pure theology.
 
 224 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 sublime parts of the creation :* and we may 
 observe, that in the Asiatic kingdoms, which 
 appear to have arrived earliest at civilization, 
 the sun and heavenly bodies formed the sole 
 objects of worship. 
 
 The polytheism of the Greeks and Romans 
 took a different turn ; its foundation was laid 
 in the supposed elements of the universe, and 
 the strongest passions or qualities of the human 
 mind ; over all which a particular deity was 
 believed to preside, and to excite or control 
 them according to the various purposes of his 
 dominion. Among these Jupiter, being ruler of 
 the air, was represented as possessing superior 
 power.t Upon this original divine synod (the 
 
 * Eusebius (Prae. Evang. 1. i. p. 307) asserts, that this 
 was originally the universal worship, and that idols, and the 
 various heathen divinities, were a subsequent invention. 
 
 -} The apparent regularity of this system has induced 
 some great authorities to explain the whole of the heathen 
 mythology by allegorical interpretation ; and this was the 
 resource of the pagans themselves when they were pressed 
 by the absurdities of their faith upon the advance of philo- 
 sophy and truth, as may be seen in Eusebius, passim. This
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 
 
 dii majores) was engrafted the race of heroes, 
 who from time to time became illustrious in 
 the world, or useful to their own nation ; whose 
 qualities and exploits being- delivered to posterity 
 by tradition, were magnified by the zeal of 
 their countrymen, or the fancies of poetical 
 imagination. 
 
 ^ 
 
 A national religion which accidental circum- 
 stances, concurring with superstitious ignorance, 
 have thus once contributed to establish, is pow- 
 erfully defended by that tide of prejudice which 
 always opposes the change of popular and an- 
 cient customs, but sets particularly strong in 
 favour of religious habits. When, therefore, 
 civilization increases, and more enlightened un- 
 derstandings begin to pierce the mist which en- 
 velopes all that relates to superior powers, they 
 
 is, however, to ascribe philosophy to a period when philoso- 
 phy was unknown. Similar superstitions in many parts of 
 Britain may acquaint us that men in a very rude state are 
 likely to conceive the air, or the sea, or the earth, to be 
 haunted or governed by a fiend or god ; and attribute their 
 danger, or remarkable phenomena, to his anger and in- 
 fluence. 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 226 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 have to encounter not only the clamours, but 
 often the weapons, of prejudiced ignorance, 
 which treats every deviation from the popular 
 superstitions as apostacy.* 
 
 * 
 
 * Much has been argued about the toleration of the an- 
 cients. It seems now very generally agreed, that this to- 
 leration was a readiness to admit any new deity into their 
 catalogue. Socrates and Aristotle afford a decisive proof 
 that their toleration was by no means unlimited. They al- 
 lowed private opinions, and were not scrupulous with regard 
 to the notions held by philosophical sects : but even the 
 Epicureans, whose doctrines were openly hostile to all the 
 sacrifices and public offices of religion, obeyed their coun- 
 try's rites, and abstained from attempting to abrogate esta- 
 blished ordinances. Though the death of Socrates may be 
 partly ascribed to political motives, and the banishment of 
 Aristotle to the " rancorous malignity" (as Dr. Gillies says) 
 of private enemies, the punishment of Stilpo and Diagoras 
 sufficiently shows that the state guarded vigilantly her religi- 
 ous belief: and it must be remembered by those who repre- 
 sent the ancient toleration as complete, that, whatever was 
 the cause of the fate of Aristotle and Socrates, a non-com- 
 pliance with their country's laws was the plea employed 
 against them ; (see Diog. Laert ;) and that the accusation 
 under which the latter was indicted of impiety, was rebutted, 
 not by an appeal to his rational sentiments on religion, but 
 to his conformity with the senseless worship of his country- 
 men. Xen. Mem. 1. 1. This subject is discussed at large by 
 Taylor on the Civil law, and Bentley, Philel. Lips.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 
 
 This may be considered as, in part, the rea- 
 son why those philosophers of antiquity, whose 
 good sense discovered to them the absurdity 
 of the national worship, conformed in public 
 to what they privately condemned ; so that 
 the licentious festival of a popular deity some- 
 times gave occasion to those refined discourses, 
 in which sublime truth was approached at least, 
 if not attained, and disclosed to a select party 
 of disciples. But another and a still stronger 
 reason is to be found in the obscurity and con- 
 tradictory nature of their own opinions. Even 
 if prudential motives had not withheld them 
 from disturbing the established faith, this uncer- 
 tainty must have prevented them either from 
 undertaking the attempt at all, or from succeed- 
 ing in it, if undertaken. Those who have most 
 studied the perplexities of ancient philosophy 
 will be most forward to agree with me in as- 
 serting, that it is vain to seek there for a declara- 
 tion, express and positive, like that of Moses, of 
 the independent existence and unity of the 
 Creator. Among the various sects into which 
 philosophers were divided, and the still more 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 opposite opinions which they maintained, no 
 one proposed this as their distinguishing tenet, or 
 appropriated such a doctrine to themselves.* 
 
 It is, no doubt, true, that very sublime con- 
 ceptions of the divine nature have been trans- 
 mitted to us, from some of the theistical philo- 
 sophers, and, sparkling as detached sentences 
 from the obscure metaphysical speculations by 
 which they are surrounded, form the most in- 
 teresting relics of antiquity. It was a saying of 
 Thales, according to Diogenes Laertius, " that 
 God is the most ancient of all things, for he is 
 unbegotten ; the world the most beautiful, as 
 being the work of God." In the Phsedo of 
 Plato, Socrates gives this sublime opinion : " I 
 conceive that there is something independently 
 and by itself excellent, and good, and great, and 
 
 * Even Socrates cannot be excepted. In the account which 
 Xenophon gives of his discourse with Aristodemus, where he 
 is asserting a providence, the expressions 0eoc and 9eol are 
 used promiscuously ; and in the 'AiraXoyta, where Plato pro- 
 fesses to declare his master's sentiments, he acknowledges 
 the sun, and moon, and stars, as gods, condemning, in strong 
 terms, the contrary doctrine of Anaxagoras.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 
 
 all thing's else ; and if there is any other thing- 
 excellent besides this excellence itself, that it 
 is in no other way excellent, than either by 
 the presence or participation, or by some as- 
 sistance, of whatever nature, of that excel- 
 lence." 4 Aristotle has left us this among many 
 similar sentences : " God possesses every thing 
 that is good, and is self sufficient ;"t and his 
 scholar, Theopompus, defines the Deity as 
 " that first and divinest being-, which willeth 
 every thing- that is best."J " God can only be 
 understood by us (says Cicero) as some mind, 
 unconnected and free, separated from every 
 mortal admixture, perceiving- and moving every 
 thing." Plutarch]] has preserved to us the in- 
 scription of an Egyptian temple at Sais, which 
 declared of the Deity, " I am whatever has been 
 and is, and shall be : and my veil no mortal has 
 ever drawn aside." 
 
 * P. 100, Steph. This being, he elsewhere in the same 
 dialogue calls, the one the, good, and wise God. 
 
 f IlaVra r' e^et ayaflu 6 Oeos, (cat ianv djra'p/o/c. Mag. 
 Mor. ii. 15. 
 
 1 To TrpiSrof KOI fletoVaroi/, irdvra ret dpiarra flov\ofjievo<;. 
 
 Tusc. Quaist. 1. De Osiride et Jside.
 
 230 HEBREW THEOLOGY. 
 
 These and similar passages (though I have 
 introduced the clearest of those whose anti- 
 quity can be depended upon, which have fallen 
 in my way) are surely valuable as displaying the 
 efforts of superior reason to expand itself, while 
 labouring under the weight of an absurd my- 
 thology. Considered separately, they might 
 seem to justify an opinion which has been 
 rashly asserted, that some of the enlightened 
 Greeks were pure monotheists.* These sen- 
 
 * I am well aware that Cudworth, Stillingfleet, Prideaux, 
 and Warburton, (in his dissertation on the Mysteries,) in 
 order to do imaginary homage to religion, took this ground, 
 which is now chiefly maintained by those who wish to de- 
 preciate the internal evidence of the Mosaic law. But I am 
 convinced, that, however truth might occasionally break out, 
 or transpire through tradition, so that single passages may 
 be found to give colour to such an opinion ; yet it was no 
 where so distinctly understood, as to be applicable to a sys- 
 tem, or furnish a rational account of the creation. The con- 
 trary opinion has been sufficiently refuted by Leland. 
 
 Eusebius, PraDp. Evang. asserts the peculiarity, and at the 
 same time the rationality, of the Hebrew faith, as to the 
 creation, which he allows to have been approached by Plato 
 alone. He ridicules Diodorus for not even introducing the 
 name of a Deity in his Cosmogony ; and Thales and others, 
 $ CTffjuovpyov, } Troitirtjv riva TUV oXwv ffvaTrjaa^fvovq. L. 1. 
 . t 15.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 231 
 
 tences, however, only shine when separated 
 from the dross that surrounds them ; united 
 to the parts from which they are here detached, 
 they led to no practical result, and conveyed 
 no distinct idea. All the discourses of the 
 ancients on the subject of the Deity want that 
 clearness and positive tone of authority which 
 we see, at one view, in the declaration of 
 Moses, and which arising from the conscious 
 certainty of the author, can alone communi- 
 cate the same certainty to others. This dif- 
 ference I shall proceed to point out more par- 
 ticularly. 
 
 I. The leading excellence of the Mosaic system 
 consists in its declaring at once to mankind 
 their relation to an individual Creator. The 
 existence of such a Being, far from remaining a 
 theoretical speculation, ought to be kept in view 
 through all the various pursuits of life ; and 
 our dependence upon him, to become the chief 
 spring of human actions. The fear of offending 
 him is the strongest preventive of vice ; the 
 desire of pleasing him the noblest incitement
 
 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 to practical virtue. But in order to our becom- 
 ing thus affected by the existence of an invisible 
 Being, we must necessarily conceive, that, al- 
 though inaccessible to our senses, he is intimately 
 conversant with all our actions, not merely as 
 an animating power, but as an all-seeing 
 witness ; and that, although universally diffused 
 throughout the whole creation in the effects of 
 his power, he himself possesses an individual 
 and essential existence, separate from any of his 
 creatures. Impossible as it is for us to compre- 
 hend the nature of a Being purely spiritual, it is, 
 nevertheless, most congenial to a mind in- 
 structed in the wonders of the universe, to con- 
 ceive the existence of some one intelligent 
 Supreme, possessed of infinite power, infinite 
 wisdom, and infinite goodness, as displayed in 
 the visible world, which has its being from him, 
 not as the emanation of his nature, but as the 
 creation of his will. 
 
 To a large proportion of those who hold a 
 distinguished rank among the ancient theistical 
 philosophers, viz. the disciples of Pythagoras,
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 233 
 
 Aristotle, and Zeno, this idea of the personality 
 of the Deity was in a great measure unknown. 
 The Deity, by these philosophers, was consi- 
 dered not so much an intelligent Being, as an 
 animating power* diffused throughout the 
 world ; and was introduced into their specula- 
 tive system to account for the motion of that 
 passive mass of matter which was supposed to 
 be coeval, and, indeed, co-existent, with himself. 
 " God is not," according to a disciple of Py- 
 thagoras,! " exterior to the world, as some 
 conjecture ; but entire in himself, pervades the 
 universal sphere ; superintends all productions, 
 is the support of all nature ; eternal ; the 
 source of all power ; the first simple principle 
 of all things ; the origin of celestial light ; the 
 father of all ; the mind and animating princi- 
 ple of the universe ; the first mover of all the 
 spheres." The air of apparent sublimity con- 
 
 * 1 ! r v'x w eio' ry o\ti) KVK\W. Clem. Alex. 
 
 -f- Supposed to be a quotation from the work of some 
 ancient Pythagorean, being found in the Doric dialect, in 
 Justin Martyr's Address to the Gentiles (p. 18, Paris ed. ) 
 See Enfield's Hist, of Phil.
 
 231< HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 veyed by passages like this, when viewed in- 
 dependently of the system to which they be- 
 longed, has attached a greater credit to those 
 systems than, on a closer examination, they will 
 be found to deserve. 
 
 The fairest test of a theory is its application 
 to the solution of a phenomenon. The curious 
 treatise of Ocellus the Lucanian, one of the 
 earliest Pythagoreans, enables us to try by this 
 test the principles in question ; and is the more 
 interesting, as the author appears on the same 
 ground with Moses, professing to account for 
 the visible appearance of the world ; and has been, 
 in fact, by infidel writers, expressly opposed to 
 the authority of the sacred historian.* Instead 
 of acknowledging the agency of a Creator, he 
 asserts the eternity of our system and its inhabi- 
 tants in these explicit terms :f " The original 
 birth of man, of other animals and plants, was 
 
 * He lived in the age preceding Plato. Diog. Laert. 
 viii. 80. His authority is opposed, by Blount, to that of Moses. 
 See Clarke on the Heing and Attributes, Dem. 2. 
 
 j Opuscula Mylholog. Gale, iii. 29.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 235 
 
 not from the earth ; but the arrangement of the 
 universe having- been eternal, the things existing 
 in it, and belonging to it, must have been eternal 
 also ; namely, the heaven, earth, and air. The 
 parts, therefore, of the universe, having been 
 eternal, it follows, that the things they contain 
 were co-existent with them : the sun, the moon, 
 the fixed stars and planets, with the heaven ; ani- 
 mals, plants, and metals, with the earth ; winds, 
 and the vicissitudes of heat and cold, with the 
 region of the air. Since, then, in each divsion 
 of the universe, some race superior to the earth 
 is constituted, as, in the heaven, that of the gods;* 
 in earth, that of men ; in the region of the air, 
 that of daemons ; it is necessary that the race of 
 men should have been eternal ; and reason clearly 
 concludes, that not the divisions of the world 
 only, but the things contained in those divisions, 
 must be co-eternal with the world.'* 
 
 * The gods here spoken of are separated from the su- 
 preme principle, or Deity, which animates the whole. Py- 
 thagoras supposed four orders of subordinate intelligent be- 
 ings ; gods, demi-gods, heroes, and men. Laert. viii. 23.
 
 236 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 Those, therefore, have been misled by terms, 
 considered without reference to the system to 
 which they belong, who imagine, from the cele- 
 brated Monad of Pythagoras, that he or his fol- 
 lowers entertained any clear conception of one 
 only Creator, himself independent of his crea- 
 tion ; the universe itself was their monad, arid so 
 called, because it consisted, according to the 
 doctrine we have seen, of one indivisible whole. 
 To this purpose it is expressly declared, in another 
 part of the same treatise,* " that the things con- 
 tained in the universe have a connexion with the 
 universe, but the universe with no other thing, 
 but only with itself." 
 
 The theological tenets of Zeno resemble closely 
 those of Pythagoras, and are liable to the same 
 objections. Although no part of ancient philo- 
 sophy contains more elevated descriptions of the 
 divine nature than the Stoical writings, we find, 
 on a careful inspection, that the Supreme Deity 
 of Zeno was considered as a pure ethereal fire, 
 the active principle that pervaded and informed 
 * P. 10.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 237 
 
 the passive material mass, " the substance of 
 which was the world and the heaven."* In con- 
 formity with this description, the Stoic is repre- 
 sented by Cicero to affirm, " that the universe 
 must of necessity be intelligent" and that the 
 nature which holds all things together must excel 
 in the perfection of reason : that the " universe, 
 therefore, is the Deity, all the power of which is 
 sustained by a divine nature."t " The universe," 
 says Manilius,^ " is animated, is moved by reason; 
 since one spirit dwells in every part, and, pre- 
 vading universally, cherishes the world, and gives 
 its form to the embodied animal." In these 
 passages, which faithfully, though briefly, re- 
 capitulate the sum of the Stoical creed, instead 
 of a real Father of mankind, who, from his 
 heavenly throne, overlooks and protects his 
 creatures, we discover only what may be called 
 an infinitely extended soul : we discover not the 
 object of adoration or prayer, but the philoso- 
 phical agent, invented by reason, to explain why 
 
 * Laert. vii. 148. f Nat. Deor. ii. 11. 
 
 t Lib. 2. See also Plutarch de Placitis Philosoph. 
 c. 7. 1. 1.
 
 238 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 " the sensible warm motion should animate the 
 kneaded clod." 
 
 That the doctrine of Aristotle is exposed to a 
 similar censure is more immediately obvious, 
 and more generally acknowledged ; since this 
 philosopher, both in his own age, and in later 
 times, has been exposed to the imputation of 
 atheism. There are, however, no ancient 
 writings,* in which a more elaborate proof of an 
 agency distinct from inanimate matter, can be 
 found. " The first heaven,"f Aristotle asserts, 
 " is eternal ; there is also something that gives 
 it motion : since, then, there is a thing moved 
 and a mover, there is some middle thing which 
 moves that which is itself inert, which is eternal, 
 substance, and energy." This substance, he pro- 
 ceeds to prove by a string of subtleties, " is 
 
 * Of other systems he expressly declares, ovcev \eyei 
 
 KIVOVV iroiei. 
 
 f Meaning the universe: "Universum, mundus, coelum, 
 sunt saepe ovvwvpa apud Platonem." Serranus.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 239 
 
 without parts, indivisible, without passions, and 
 unchangeable."* 
 
 But as the Deity of Zeno and Pythagoras 
 is resolved into a vital principle, or ethereal 
 fire, that of Aristotle is merely an external 
 moving- power : not the creator or even the di- 
 rector of the world, which is equally eternal 
 with himself: an energy, in fact, which, ex- 
 cepting in the constant exercise of its nature, 
 as the cause of motion, resides unconnected 
 with our world, and happy in the contempla- 
 tion of himself, in the celestial sphere. Such a 
 deity, it need scarcely be urged, is purely phy- 
 sical, and bears a part in the author's peculiar 
 system of natural philosophy, but is totally 
 without that personal interference in human 
 affairs, which would be necessary to render 
 him the natural object of religious reverence. 
 Indeed, this general result of ideas, such as 
 those which have been hitherto developed re- 
 
 * Met. 1. vi. cap. 6, 7, &c. Also de Coelo, ii. 3. Geoj? 
 eVepye'icr, dQdvaaid eariv TOVTO e eVrtv Zwi} didio? wore 
 ru deih) diStov Kivr\air v
 
 240 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 specting the Supreme Being-, is evident, as soon 
 as the principle is exposed. The numerous 
 philosophers who embraced them, frequently, 
 without doubt, in their popular precepts admitted 
 the popular language, and enjoined, that worship 
 should be offered to the gods ; and some ex- 
 pressly taught, that to the inferior deities, of 
 whom mention was made in the extract from 
 Ocellus, adoration was due ; but unless their 
 theological system has been here misrepresented, 
 it will be a true inference, that such conceptions 
 of the divine nature could lead to no results of 
 practical piety. It was impossible that Aristotle 
 should address \\isjirst mover, who had no con- 
 cern in the existence of the world, eternal like 
 himself, and whose situation in the remotest 
 sphere, the supposed centre of motion, removed 
 him as much as the indolent deities of Epicurus 
 from the knowledge of human affairs. Nor 
 could the mind of a Stoic or a Pythagorean 
 when torn with anxiety and affliction, turn from 
 the distractions of life to the contemplation of 
 an Almighty Disposer of events. They had 
 arrived at no idea of a Creator, whose relation
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 
 
 to his creatures might induce him to regard their 
 distresses with commiseration.* The very mind 
 that suffered was a portion of the supreme 
 deity they acknowledged, and, at its dissolution 
 from the body, was about to return to it again. 
 These are the natural conclusions to be drawn 
 from such theories as have been already brought 
 under consideration ; nor do any facts remain 
 to us which invalidate, in the main, the truth of 
 such a deduction. 
 
 II. That indistinct veil which, according to 
 the doctrines of these numerous philosophers, 
 overspread the greatness of the Deity, and ob- 
 scured him from the homage of human wor- 
 ship and contemplation, seems to have been 
 penetrated by the mind of Socrates alone. The 
 voice of the oracle, which pronounced this sin- 
 gular philosopher the wisest of mankind, is sanc- 
 
 * It is justly remarked in Cicero, (de Nat. Deor. i. 11,) Py- 
 thagoras, qui censuit animum esse per naturam rerum ornnem 
 intentum et commeantem, ex quo nostri animi carperentur, 
 non vidit distractione humanorum animorum discerpi et la- 
 cerari Deum, et cum miseri animi essent, quod plerisque 
 contingeret, turn Dei partem esse miseram. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 tioned by the writings of antiquity and the 
 judgment of more enlightened times. But it 
 has not been explicitly observed, that his merit 
 is due to his avoiding the very subject, in which 
 his rival theists failed ; to his declaring the de- 
 pendence of matter upon mind, without confound- 
 ing their existence : so that his supreme deity is 
 not a mechanical agent, but a separate being : 
 not the mover only, but the maker of the uni- 
 verse. His superiority consists in the correct 
 conceptions which he formed of the personality 
 of the Deity ; whose actual superintendence of 
 human affairs, and intimacy with human ac- 
 tions, was his favourite theme in those sublime 
 discourses, in which he appears to have fixed the 
 mark of moral eloquence, and shown the actual 
 height to which unassisted reason can attain. 
 
 Socrates, however, was not less admirable 
 for the discoveries at which his reason arrived, 
 than for his abstinence from those topics which 
 reason cannot successfully pursue. He did not 
 inquire, as we are assured by Xenophon, con- 
 cerning the nature of the universe, or constitu-
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 243 
 
 tion of the world : this, and other metaphysical 
 speculations, he left to the sophists of his time, 
 and applied himself to the more useful inquiry 
 into the principles of morals. The theological 
 doctrine which he enforced, and contented him- 
 self with enforcing, was that of a providence, 
 and of an immaterial agent separate from the 
 visible world ; and there can be no doubt, that 
 if any practical sense of the unity and personality 
 of the Supreme Being existed at all among the 
 ancient philosophers, it is to be found in the 
 sentiments of Socrates.* 
 
 Have we, then, in this singular ornament of 
 ancient philosophy, a rival of Moses, who, if 
 it had been his business to declare a cosmogony 
 to an infant community, could have attained the 
 same consistency and precision ? We have no 
 reason to make this favourable conclusion. He 
 
 * The agency of inferior deities, and the superiority of the 
 Stiftiovpyoc, is expressly admitted in his dialogue with Euthy- 
 demus. "O re yap a\Xot (0eot), he says, rifJ.lv TO. iiya&a. SiSdv- 
 rec, ovSev rovrwv el? Tovp.tya.veq toyrec Cu^oaaiv, KCLL 6 rdv o\ov 
 Koap.ov avvTa.TT(i)v re (cat awe-^uv, eV w TraVra /caXct *rat aya0a 
 e'ori, ouroc r<z yue'ytora Trpa'rrwi/ ojoa'rat, rae ^e 
 ao'paroc n^ v eanv. Mem. 1. iv. c. 3. 
 
 R
 
 244 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 himself avoided all system, and this was his se- 
 curity : he despised the inquiry, (as we are ex- 
 pressly assured by the most faithful recorder of 
 his sentiments,) " whether the universe was a 
 single substance, or made up of a multitude of 
 parts, whether all things were generated and 
 perishable, or eternal and indestructible ;"* and 
 thus showed what he judged attainable by mere 
 reason, in the subjects on which his own reason 
 was employed. But when Plato subsequently 
 began to reduce his master's doctrines into an 
 actual system, and attempted to explain the con- 
 stitution of the universe, he fell into an error 
 opposite to that already exposed, and instead of 
 confounding the immaterial mind with matter, 
 maintained the equally independent existence of 
 each principle. Thus, concurring in the almost 
 universal opinion of antiquity, and degrading 
 the attributes of his deity, by supposing him 
 unequal to the original creation of matter, he 
 concluded it to have existed from eternity, *)" 
 
 * Xen. Mem. c. i. 1. 11, 13, 14, 16. 
 
 -j- Without dwelling upon the obscurities of the Timanis, 
 where a third eternal principle is added to the two held by
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 215 
 
 independently of the divine power, which was 
 only employed to bring it into order and form. 
 
 Anaxagoras, and where it is laid down, that the operation of 
 the Demiurge, acting upon eternal matter through the me- 
 dium of self-existent ideas, concurred in the formation of 
 the world ; it is sufficient to state Plato's doctrine in the ge- 
 neral terms of Diogenes Laertius, (iii. 69,) who, in his ac- 
 count of this philosopher, declares him to have taught " that 
 there were two principles of the universe, matter and Deity ; 
 which last he also calls the mind, or cause ; and that matter 
 was without form and infinite. God, therefore, as Plato pro- 
 ceeds, wishing all things good, and, as far as his power extends, 
 nothing evil, having received visible matter in a disordered 
 state, brought it from disorder into order, judging this to be 
 altogether preferable." And in this way was his doctrine 
 understood by Cicero. See also Plut. de Gen. Anim. iii. 78. 
 The absurdity of this system, alluded to in the text, appears 
 from the following dilemma : Matter, supposed to exist in- 
 dependently, and of itself, must either have existed in the 
 best possible state, or in a state which might be improved. 
 If we affirm the latter, why was not that originally perfect 
 which, being independent and self-existent, could have no 
 possible cause of imperfection ? If we affirm the former, 
 why does another independent being interpose his power, to 
 alter that which is already excellent? The just notion of 
 creation is expressed by Moses alone, as Eusebius observes, 
 T(3v 'E/SpctiKtov Soyfjidrwv 'idtov ijv, TO ei'ct TUIV diravruv iroirjTtjv 
 vopieff8at TOV eVt iravrtov Qcov, dvrfjs re r?je viroKf.i^evrjq rofc 
 ffw/uaariv overlay, i]V vXrjv Trpoffayopevovoriv EXX^yee. Praep. 
 Evang. 1. vii. c. 18. This subject has been exhausted by
 
 246 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 The absurdities to which this system leads can 
 only be avoided by the doctrine of Moses ; assert- 
 ing 1 , that the same Being which organized the 
 universe, created the matter out of which it 
 was organized. This is the distinguishing fea- 
 ture of his narration, in which he retains a 
 consistency peculiar to himself, and raises his 
 account of the existence of the world, not only 
 above that of the philosophers who supposed 
 it eternal in its present state and form, but be- 
 yond those also who, with respect to the per- 
 sonality and agency of the Deity, approached 
 nearest to his own conception. 
 
 This concise, though, I hope, faithful inquiry 
 into the principles of the ancient philosophers, 
 gives us no warrant for supposing that the doc- 
 trine of Moses was the inference of his unas- 
 sisted reason. It is easy to affirm generally, 
 that some of the ancients were monotheists ; 
 that it is probable the doctrine of the unity 
 
 Mosheim, De Creatione Mundi ex Nihilo; Barrow, 12th 
 Serm. on the Creed ; and lately in the seventh of Dr. Ire- 
 land's able Lectures on Paganism and Christianity com- 
 pared.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 24/7 
 
 was taught in the mysteries ; to conclude 
 that, whatever might be publicly inculcated, 
 the esoteric precepts were purer ; and to quote 
 single passages of obscure meaning, or even of 
 acknowledged sublimity, in proof of a devia- 
 tion from the popular creed. But where is the 
 philosopher who could boldly teach, Believe in 
 the existence of one God, and worship no 
 other ? or whose was the system which admitted 
 the^ creation of matter, and could lead its fol- 
 lowers to a sentiment like this ? " Thou, O 
 " God, hast laid of old the foundation of the 
 " earth, and the heavens are the work of thy 
 " hands : they shall perish, but thou shalt en- 
 " dure ; yea, all of them shall wax old like a 
 ' garment : as a vesture shalt thou change them, 
 " and they shall be changed : but thou art the 
 " same, and thy years shall have no end." 
 
 * Ps. cii. 25. See also Jeremiah, c. x. 11, 12. And it 
 is worth while to observe, from a passage in one of the books 
 of Maccabees, that, after inspiration had ceased, the Jewish 
 writers retained the original meaning of creation : " I beseech 
 thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all 
 that is therein, and consider that God made them of things 
 which were not : and so was mankind made likewise." 2 
 Mace. vii. 28. Ireland, p. 312.
 
 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 Nothing, I repeat, in the tenets or doctrines of 
 the ancients, can justify our believing-, that 
 Moses, unassisted by revelation, from some 
 source or other derived to him, could have con- 
 ceived so distinctly, or declared so expressly, 
 or have imprinted so indelibly upon his people, 
 that account of the creation which is contained 
 in the Pentateuch, and was implicitly received 
 by the Hebrews. 
 
 Should it be still urged, that allowing the 
 founders of the Greek philosophy not to have 
 made the proper conclusion from the arguments 
 which prove the existence and unity of a Crea- 
 tor, yet there are arguments which demonstrate 
 it, which might have occurred to Moses, though 
 they did not occur in the same force to them : 
 it may be farther shown, in reply, that this is 
 no less untrue in fact, than improbable in ap- 
 pearance. There are no arguments which can 
 ascertain the existence of a Creator, which may 
 not be referred either to the necessity of a First 
 Cause, which is the method Clarke has followed ; 
 or to the appearances of design in the construe-
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 24>9 
 
 tion of the world, irresistibly indicating- a con- 
 triver ; which is the ground which Paley, after 
 a multitude of predecessors, has so ably taken 
 and maintained. 
 
 I. Neither of these trains of reasoning was 
 unperceived by the Grecian masters of philo- 
 sophy. The very process pursued by Socrates 
 is detailed at large. To his solid understand- 
 ing, says Xenophon, it appeared contradictory 
 and absurd to honour the painter and the sta- 
 tuary, because their senseless and inert imita- 
 tions resemble the form of man, and not to 
 honour the unseen maker of man himself, en- 
 dued with sense and motion. It seemed con- 
 tradictory to admit design in the works of 
 human art, which are seen to correspond with 
 their intended use, and at the same time to 
 suppose that the sensitive faculties of man 
 proceed from chance ; to allow to the mind of 
 man the power of governing the body, and to 
 deny to the mind of the universe the power of 
 ruling the world.* 
 
 * Mem. c. iv. 1. 1.
 
 250 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 By these and similar steps of analogy, to the 
 force of which even the reasoners of these later 
 times have made little addition, except that 
 arising from cumulative evidence, Socrates per- 
 suaded his hearers of the intelligence, the con- 
 stant presence, and the superintendence of the 
 gods ; and seems to have stood alone among 
 the ancients, as was before observed, in apply- 
 ing his speculative belief to the practical pur- 
 pose of regulating the lives and conduct of his 
 disciples.* Yet did he arrive at a distinct con- 
 clusion, or inculcate a simple belief of the 
 unity, like Moses? To say nothing invidiously 
 upon the obscurity which hung over his own 
 mind, and which many of his habits betray ; 
 (" for he was constant in sacrificing both in 
 private and at the public altars, and often ap- 
 plied to divination ;"f) Xenophon, even whilst 
 he is relating the successful arguments of So- 
 crates, speaks commonly of a plurality of gods : 
 and we find it openly asserted by Plato, in a 
 strain the most opposite to that of Moses, that 
 
 * Mem. c. iv. H. 19. 
 
 f Xen. i. I, 2. Cicero de Nat. Deor. i. 12.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 251 
 
 " to discover the Artificer and Father of the 
 universe, is indeed difficult, and that, when 
 found, it is impossible to reveal him through 
 the medium of discourse to mankind at large."* 
 Accordingly, in an oration supposed to be held 
 in public, we find Plato reasoning to the peo- 
 ple with every appearance of seriousness, on 
 the certainty of their having sprung from the 
 soil of their own country.t 
 
 II. The other course of argument, viz. the 
 necessary existence of an eternal Being, as the 
 prime mover of the material part of the crea- 
 tion, was first insisted on, as far as I am aware, 
 by Aristotle. The following passage, how- 
 ever, is sufficient to prove that it was well 
 understood by that philosopher : " I affirm," 
 he says, " that the Deity is an animate Being, 
 immortal, excellent ; since life and an uninter- 
 rupted eternity belong to God ; for this is God. 
 But they are in error, who think with the 
 Pythagorians and Speusippus, that what is most 
 
 * Timaeus, Taylor's translation, vol. ii. p. 475. 
 f Dial. Menen.
 
 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 excellent and perfect is not the original ; reason- 
 ing 1 in this way, that the causes of plants and 
 animals exist first in their seeds, from whence 
 afterwards their perfection proceeds. For the 
 seed of which they speak, comes itself from 
 others that were before perfect ; and the real 
 original is not the seed, but the perfect plant or 
 animal. It is plain, therefore, that there is some 
 Being eternal and unchangeable, and separate 
 from the objects of our senses."* 
 
 Here we seem to have discovered the truth 
 for which we are searching ; and might expect 
 that the author of the sentences above cited, 
 had established a system of pure theism. Yet 
 in the same treatise which contains this sublime 
 argument, we find, to the humiliation of rea- 
 son, that this first moving Deity was incorpo- 
 rated by Aristotle with the world, which is sup- 
 posed equally eternal and incorruptible wit Ji him- 
 self. So that it has even been a question, whether 
 he who first saw the metaphysical necessity of 
 
 * Metaph. vii. 14.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 53 
 
 a First Cause, ought not to be reckoned among 
 the atheistical philosophers. 
 
 Had there not been preserved to us passages 
 of this nature, enabling us to judge of the effect 
 produced by analogical and demonstrative argu- 
 ment, upon the mind which has no other in- 
 struction ; it might not have been safe to deny 
 that Moses could have been led by the mere 
 force of such reasoning to assert the existence 
 of one God, the Creator of heaven and earth. 
 But knowing, as we thus do, the insufficient 
 result both of analogical proof and systematic 
 demonstration, we surely are bound to believe 
 that some more sensible evidence lay before the 
 writer, who, without stopping to argue, seizes 
 the conclusion at which argument painfully 
 arrives, with an effect which mere argument 
 has never attained. For, even if we were to 
 affirm that a train of reasoning, like those we 
 have considered, was present to the mind of 
 Moses, of which he published only the conclu- 
 sion ; that he declared the theorem, but with- 
 held the steps of demonstration which led to
 
 254- HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 it : what justice could there be in imagining 
 that its effect would have proved more general 
 than that of Socrates, or produced a system 
 less embarrassed and inconclusive than we have 
 found in Plato or Aristotle ? Can it be con- 
 tended, that the Jews, in the time of Moses, 
 were in such a state of improvement, as to see 
 intuitively the process of argument which ended 
 in the inference proposed to them ? It may 
 rather be affirmed, that no man could have 
 proposed such an inference so nakedly and gra- 
 tuitously, unless it were supported in the minds 
 of his hearers, by familiar and indisputable 
 testimony. Had Newton simply asserted that 
 the planets perform a regular course round their 
 centre, the sun, and are retained in their ap- 
 pointed paths by a general law of attraction, 
 keeping back in the mean time the gradual de- 
 monstration which guided his belief; in spite 
 of the rational probability of his opinion, he 
 would have had no more prospect of establish- 
 ing a permanent system than Ptolemy or Co- 
 pernicus. Yet Moses, while he combats no 
 doubts, and provides against no possibility of
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 255 
 
 scepticism, perpetuates among his people a 
 pure and rational theology. How did he effect 
 this, unless, because invested with plenary 
 power, he declared at once the truth which he 
 was charged to deliver to posterity, with a 
 voice of authority which the dogmas of philo- 
 sophy cannot assume, and imposture is unable 
 to imitate ?* 
 
 I shall conclude this discussion with two col- 
 lateral arguments, which seem to fix incontro- 
 vertibly the point I have endeavoured to esta- 
 blish. For, first, if there be a wide difference 
 between the doctrines taught by the philoso- 
 phers and those derived from the Hebrew into 
 the Christian scriptures, respecting the nature 
 of God and the original of the universe, we may 
 expect to find this difference remarked by those 
 who, having been long conversant with the 
 one, became at last acquainted with the other. 
 
 * So Justin truly characterizes the old Hebrew writers : 
 ov fiera airo^ei^ewq TreTron/vrcu Tore rovq Xo'yovc, are 
 
 Cum Tryphone Dial. xxv. ed. Jubb.
 
 256 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 To this purpose we have the most explicit de- 
 clarations from the early converts to Christi- 
 anity. 
 
 Justin Martyr* details his progress through 
 the various philosophical sects, in search after 
 a knowledge of the Supreme Being, and relates 
 the inconsistencies which successively dis- 
 gusted him in them all : till his venerable in- 
 structor pointed out to him the Hebrew writers, 
 who being much earlier in age, and speaking 
 by divine intimation, had alone seen the truth, 
 and declared it to mankind. f Eusebius, after 
 giving a diffuse account of the numerous dis- 
 cordant and absurd opinions which prevailed in 
 different countries and sects concerning the 
 divine nature, breaks out into a just description 
 
 * Lucian, with less gravity, though equally in earnest, 
 points out the contradictions of the philosophers, and the 
 impossibility of discovering the truth through their means. 
 NeKvcytaJT/u, ch. iv. Cicero's Treatise de Natura Deorurn, 
 was even reckoned favourable to Christianity, from the un- 
 certainty and vanity of the existing system which it exposed. 
 See Arnob. 1. xxiii. p. 103. 
 
 t Dial. p. 24.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 257 
 
 of the contrast which the doctrine he had 
 espoused opened to his view. " I have rea- 
 son," he declares, " to profess myself relieved 
 from a long- and inveterate error, and feel as if 
 recovered from a most severe and dangerous 
 disease."* Augustin too, in his remarkable 
 confessions, describes the wavering uncertainty 
 which hung over his mind till he at last became 
 thoroughly imbued with a knowledge of God 
 from the Scriptures.t 
 
 And yet the sincere searchers after truth in 
 those later times had great advantages over the 
 immediate disciples of Pythagoras, Plato, or 
 Zeno, from the improvements introduced into 
 their system, and the clearness communicated 
 to their views, from other sources than those of 
 unassisted philosophy. This leads me to my 
 second observation, in which I would remark 
 
 * Prsep. Ev. ii. 6. 
 
 -j- In the dialogue Philopatris, attributed, as is thought 
 erroneously, to Lucian, the account of the creation given by 
 Moses is spoken of as new, and with particular mention 
 of the Creatio ex Nihilo, and the observation of human 
 actions. Luc. Hist. v. iii. 599 and 603. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 how strongly the superiority of the Mosaic doc- 
 trine is confirmed, from the subsequent history 
 of those philosophical opinions which I have 
 employed this Section in discussing. 
 
 For, if it be true that the cosmogony of 
 Moses is more rational, and his ideas of the 
 Deity are more consistent and sublime than 
 those of the philosophers with which they have 
 been compared, it must be naturally expected 
 that the language and sentiments of philosophy 
 would be somewhat altered and improved, 
 when the Jewish system became gradually 
 known, first through the Greek translation, and 
 the increasing connexion of the Jews with other 
 countries ; and afterwards more extensively, 
 through the medium of the Christians. It is 
 remarkable, that such an alteration is undoubt- 
 edly dicernible ; and is discernible particularly 
 in those two instances, in which the fathers of 
 the Stoical and Platonic system were open to 
 confutation. The later Stoics,* through whose 
 writings we are most accustomed to judge of 
 
 * See Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 7, s. 2.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 259 
 
 their whole sect, adopt the Socratic language 
 concerning the Deity, even with improved dis- 
 tinctness and sublimity. " Honour," says An- 
 toninus,* " that which is most excellent in the 
 universe ; this is that Being that uses all things, 
 and administers all things." Here he describes 
 the personality of God ; and accordingly, in 
 common with Epictetus, attributes not only 
 the general course of his fortunes, but even the 
 minutest circumstances of his life, to a super- 
 intending Providence.f 
 
 The later Platonists too, as Maximus Tyrius, 
 Jamblichus, Proclus, and Hierocles, perceived 
 the inconsistency of allowing two independent 
 principles : and, availing themselves of the 
 obscurity of their master's language, denied 
 that this doctrine, notwithstanding the consent 
 of antiquity, was inculcated or believed by 
 Plato :t till by degrees the advocates of Plato, 
 
 * Medit. v. 21. Compare v. 26. 
 
 f Medit. i. 17. 
 
 | That Plato intended to inculcate this doctrine, is vir- 
 tually proved by his introducing Timaeus the Locrian, as the 
 speaker in his dialogue upon the origin and nature of the
 
 260 HEBREW THEOLOGY 
 
 who also called themselves Christians, endea- 
 voured to introduce a consistent system of uni- 
 versal philosophy, in which the errors of the 
 learned and the folly of the vulgar were pro- 
 fessedly corrected by the light of the Scrip- 
 universe ; when Timaeus had laid down his opinion so clearly 
 and openly, irpiv ovpavov yevetrdai, X6yy rjffrtjv idea Kal v\a. 
 The fact is, that almost any thing, except a clear and con- 
 sistent system, may be educed from the various and volumi- 
 nous works of Plato and Aristotle. An opinion which they 
 and the other ancient philosophers are very far from deserv- 
 ing, might be formed by a person who took his idea of their 
 doctrine from summaries or abstracts. In these, one general 
 view is given of sentiments which were originally scattered 
 not only through various pages, but even through many dif- 
 ferent treatises: collected, they appear perspicuous, and 
 even sublime ; but in their original state are usually incon- 
 sistent and unintelligible. For instance; Dr. Gillies, in his 
 Analysis of Aristotle's Works, arranges what he terms " a 
 system of theology, not less satisfactory than sublime ;" p. 
 138. But when we trace this system to its source, we find 
 it collected in pail from the fourteen books of Metaphysics, 
 in part from the Physical Auscultations, in part from the 
 Treatise on the Heaven : scarcely two sentences taken from 
 the same chapter, and oi'ten one sentence composed from 
 chapters originally detached. Not to mention, that (he pa- 
 raphrastic form adopted in abstracts of this kind gives a 
 clearness to what in its literal interpretation scarcely conveys 
 any intelligible idea.
 
 NOT INVENTED BY MOSES. 26 1 
 
 tures. The diffusion of philosophical truth is 
 slow and gradual ; but where the intercourse of 
 conflicting opinions is free, those arguments 
 which have their foundation in reason, will ulti- 
 mately take the lead. It is not surprising, 
 therefore, that the majority of theistical philo- 
 sophers should coincide at last in opinions con- 
 sonant to those of Moses, respecting the attri- 
 butes of the Deity, and the formation of the 
 world :* but it must be remembered that these 
 authorities can no more convey to us a just idea 
 of the confusion before existing, than the order 
 of the universe represents the previous chaos. 
 
 Hume has justly observed, that " were men 
 led into the apprehension of invisible, intelli- 
 gent power, by a contemplation of the works 
 of nature, they could never possibly entertain 
 any conception but of one single Being, who 
 bestowed existence and order on this vast ma- 
 chine, and adjusted all its parts according to 
 
 * lu the same way the absurdities of tiie popular faith be- 
 came more generally avowed, and more boldly exposed. 
 This is very observable in the open sarcasm of Juvenal, Se- 
 neca, and Lucian : language like theirs was not ventured 
 before the Christian sera. See in particular Lucian's Timon.
 
 . HEBREW THEOLOGY &C. 
 
 one regular plan or connected system."* To 
 this unbiassed testimony may be added that of 
 Lord Bolingbroke ; who has declared, that 
 '.' the idea of an all-wise and all-powerful Being, 
 the first cause of all things, is proportionable 
 to human reason ; and that the whole universe 
 bears witness to his existence." This rational 
 doctrine, as it is most justly characterized, 
 was the doctrine of Moses, and was explicitly 
 taught by him alone of all the ancient philoso- 
 phers who attempted to give any account of 
 the existence of the world. It is a fact which 
 can be no otherwise explained, than by admit- 
 ting the truth of the history itself, that Moses, 
 in a very early age, and in an unphilosophical 
 country, taught and established a system which 
 philosophers gradually approached, as the cul- 
 tivation of the human mind advanced : and 
 which appeared most agreeable to reason, when 
 reason was most improved. 
 
 * Hist, of Nat. Religion.
 
 MOSAIC THEOLOGY, &C. 263 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 
 Moses neither received his Doctrine of the Crea- 
 tion from the Egyptians, nor from the popular 
 Belief of the Israelites. 
 
 IF it is thus morally improbable, that Moses 
 should have been the inventor of the sublime 
 theology he established among the Hebrews, 
 we come now to consider the second explana- 
 tion that may be proposed. The Hebrews, it is 
 said, during some centuries preceding the age 
 of Moses, had been a settled people in a civi- 
 lized nation j and Moses being " learned in all 
 " the wisdom of the Egyptians," it is pretended 
 that he imbibed from that fountain the opinions 
 he promulgated concerning the creation of the 
 world.* 
 
 * Fa a sentence of Simplicity's Commentary on Aristotle, 
 (1. 8, p. 268,) this is affirmed, but merely at random. Speak-
 
 MOSAIC THEOLOGY NOT 
 
 I. What the Egyptian philosophy or religious 
 worship might be in the days of Moses, we 
 have no certain means of collecting except from 
 the Scriptures. These, it must be confessed, 
 do not favour the idea under consideration. 
 They represent the God of the Hebrews, as 
 altogether unknown to the Egyptians. When 
 Moses prefers his request to Pharaoh in behalf 
 of the people of Israel, Pharaoh answers, " Who 
 " is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let 
 " Israel go ? I know not the Lord, neither will 
 " I let Israel go." Many of the peculiar rites 
 and ceremonies which distinguished the Hebrew 
 worship, were pointed against the idolatry of 
 the Egyptians, into which the Jews were wont 
 to relapse when they swerved from their alle- 
 giance to the God of their fathers : and it was 
 on this account a familiar custom with their 
 writers, when condemning idolatrous practices, 
 to speak of the abominations of the Egyptians. 
 
 ing of the Mosaic account, he says, evvocirw (Grammaticus, 
 against whom he is arguing) on fjLvdiKrj rt<; eanv rj TrapdSoffts, 
 Kaidiro fivOwv AtyvTrriwv e'tAxvoyneyj;. See Huet. Dem. Evang. 
 Prop. 4. c. 4.
 
 BORROWED FROM EGYPTIANS. 265 
 
 Josephus * expressly attributes the hatred of that 
 nation against the Jews to their religious diffe- 
 rences ; there being, he says, as decided an op- 
 position between the respective habits of wor- 
 ship, as between the nature of God and that 
 of irrational animals. And Tacitus,t after re- 
 marking some customs which the Jews had de- 
 rived from Egypt, observes, that there was a de- 
 cided contrast in their theology. 
 
 It certainly appears at first sight rather im- 
 probable, that the only people among the an- 
 cients who were not polytheists, should have 
 borrowed their faith from a nation which was 
 ridiculed, even among polytheists, for the gross- 
 ness of its idolatry. J Thus much at least must 
 
 * Contra Ap. i. 25. 
 
 t Hist. 1. v. c. 5. 
 
 t Ausa Jovi nostro latrantem opponere Anubin. 
 
 Prop. 3. 11.41. 
 
 Accepimus Isin, 
 
 Semideosque canes. Lucan. 8. 831. 
 Quis nescit, Volusi Bithynice, qualia demens 
 jEgyptus portenta colat ! Juv. Sat. 15. 
 Herod. 2. 42. Minuc. Pel. 284.
 
 266 MOSAIC THEOLOGY NOT 
 
 be acknowledged : that if there were, at the 
 period of which we are now speaking, any sub- 
 lime notions of the Deity to be learnt in Egypt, 
 no people ever more fatally degenerated from 
 the wisdom of their ancestors than this had 
 done before the date of pagan history. Not 
 content with the worship of the heavenly bodies, 
 or with deifying heroes and ancestors, and 
 the attributes of supreme power, the Egyptians 
 shocked the common sense even of idolaters, 
 by the promiscuous adoration which they paid 
 to the irrational, and even to the inanimate 
 parts of the creation ; an infatuated superstition 
 in which they were far behind any people 
 having the pretence of civilization. It is surely 
 too incredible to require serious refutation, 
 that a nation which carried its idolatrous prac- 
 tices to such an extreme length, as to ransack 
 for deities their fields, their gardens, and their 
 deserts, should have taught the Israelites to 
 worship one God, the Creator and Father of all. 
 
 It being allowed, however, that the outward 
 doctrine of the Egyptians was polytheism, ido-
 
 BORROWED FROM EGYPTIANS. 267 
 
 latry, and the mysteries of magic, there was 
 also, we are informed, an esoteric doctrine of na- 
 tural religion ; and Moses, through the in- 
 fluence of his royal protectress, might be let into 
 a knowledge of both. It certainly appears that 
 there was a mysterious doctrine professed by the 
 priests, and concealed from the people : and 
 indeed it is in itself incredible, that the edu- 
 cated part of the nation should not have seen 
 the popular worship in its real absurdity. From 
 what we know, however, of the esoteric doc- 
 trine of the philosophers, of which Plutarch 
 gives an account which seems to be derived 
 from Greek, rather than Egyptian sources, we 
 shall find nothing to justify our accounting in 
 this way for the consistency of the Mosaic history. 
 Our knowledge upon this subject is confessedly 
 imperfect, as coming to us at second hand, 
 through Grecian interpreters ; which has in- 
 creased the perplexity in which all the ancient 
 philosophy is more or less involved, in conse- 
 quence of its inconsistency. It appears, how- 
 ever, that the Egyptians concurred with the 
 other ancient philosophers in believing the
 
 268 MOSAIC THEOLOGY NOT 
 
 eternity of matter,* as a first principle from 
 which the four elements were separated, and 
 animals formed. Whether they added to this 
 material principle an active intelligent principle, 
 is doubtful, being- asserted by Plutarch, and de- 
 nied by Porphyry and others. If they did, 
 their doctrine will resemble the Platonic ; will 
 be equally different from that of Moses, and be 
 liable to the objections which embarrass Plato. 
 If they did not, the account which Diodorus f 
 gives of the Egyptian cosmogony must have 
 been derived from their philosophers : it being 
 the common assertion of the people, that the 
 human race first sprung up in Egypt, on ac- 
 count of the excellent temperature of that re- 
 gion, and the fertilizing influence of the Nile. 
 That Moses should have derived a just idea of 
 the creation from this confusion and obscurity, 
 is not less improbable than that he should have 
 invented it. 
 
 * Diog. Laert. Prowm. 10, says, 
 
 ** twf" Ttjt> v\r)i>, eirct ru 
 i uit.(n()>iyiii, /cat wc/ TIVO. diroT\ffti>)vat. 
 -j- L. 6. See also Euseb. Pracp. Ev. ii. J.
 
 BORROWED FROM EGYPTIANS. 
 
 Besides this, however, it is agreed on all sides 
 that this imperfect philosophy was rendered 
 still more imperfect by the belief which was 
 united to it, of inferior deities residing in the 
 heavenly bodies. The planets were worshipped 
 under the title of Cabiri, the moon by the name 
 of Isis or Bubastes, the sun by that of Ammon, 
 Horus, and Osiris.* 
 
 The most favourable opinions, therefore, that 
 we are warranted in forming as to the Egyp- 
 tians will amount to this, and no more : that, 
 as the people were infinitely deeper plunged in 
 idolatry, so the priests or philosophers f were 
 in no respect purer from error than the rest of 
 the ancient world. Indeed it might reasonably 
 excite our wonder to find the Egyptian learning 
 in such high estimation, did we not know from 
 experience, how often antiquity passes for excel- 
 
 * Diog. Laert. ubi supra. Jablonski Panth. Egypt. 
 
 f Diogenes Laertius speaks of the whole nation promis- 
 cuously as idolatrous. Prooem. 1. 10. Juneval seems to have 
 written his 15th Satire, to show that the Egyptians, who 
 were usually held in such high veneration, were really among 
 the most barbarous of nations.
 
 MOSAIC THEOLOGY NOT 
 
 lence, and mystery for wisdom. The nation of 
 which we are speaking, seems to have earliest 
 attained that degree of civilization,* which first 
 produces a regular scheme of polity, and is after- 
 wards farther improved by its effects : so that 
 the account left us by the ancient historians of 
 the Egyptian laws and customs is in many 
 respects calculated to excite our applause. When, 
 therefore, some of the early Greeks f left their 
 rude and uncivilized countrymen, to whom the 
 barrenness of their soil scarcely afforded a sub- 
 sistence, and found in Egypt a land abounding 
 in fertility, and a regular government and laws, 
 the contrast naturally filled them with admira- 
 tion ; and the useful inventions which they 
 carried back as trophies of their travels, perpetu- 
 ated the memory and fame of the country from 
 which they were originally derived, even to a 
 period when the Egyptians were no more to be 
 
 * Diod. Sic. p. 64, Rhod. 
 
 -}- Homer, Lycurgus, Solon, Thales, Melampus, Pytha- 
 goras, &c. Much is to be learnt on this subject from Wood- 
 ward's posthumous Treatise ou the Learning of the Egyptians, 
 Archaeolog. vol. iv.
 
 BORROWED FROM EGYPTIANS. 271 
 
 compared with the Greeks themselves, than 
 their Anubis with the Grecian Jupiter. The 
 rude principles of geometry, astronomy, and 
 the mathematics, existed among- them, but were 
 afterwards improved by the ingenuity of the 
 Greeks j for we find it was Eudoxus who first 
 explained the motions of the heavenly bodies, 
 by the application of mathematical science, 
 and that Thales was the first whose astrono- 
 mical knowledge enabled him to predict an 
 eclipse.* 
 
 It may be farther remarked, that if there 
 were any good reason to believe that what are 
 called the doctrines of natural religion could 
 
 * Brucker, Hist. ant. Phil. " If Pythagoras sacrificed a 
 hecatomb upon finding out the 47th proposition of Euclid, 
 and Thales an ox on having discovered how to inscribe a 
 rectangled triangle in a circle, after having studied mathe- 
 matics in Egypt, the parent of geometry ; what opinion does 
 it give us of the knowledge of their masters in that science ! 
 Thales having shown them how to measure the heights of 
 their pyramids by their shadow, is a proof of their little pro- 
 gress in trigonometry." Wood on the Genius and Writings 
 of Homer. This writer will not allow that Egypt could have 
 furnished even Homer's mythology.
 
 272 MOSAIC THEOLOGY NOT 
 
 have been learnt by Moses in Egypt, which is 
 not the case ; there are other decided objec- 
 tions against attributing his theology to any 
 such origin. Had he borrowed his doctrine 
 from those priests, would he not have imitated 
 the priests in withholding the purer belief from 
 the vulgar ? What right have we to conclude 
 that he who had seen the pretended mysteries 
 concealed by hieroglyphics, and reserved with 
 the most scrupulous care from the general eye, 
 would suddenly and at once seize on the pro- 
 priety of declaring them to the people at large ?j 
 Why should we imagine, that he who had wit- 
 nessed only the general practice of idolatry, and 
 left this the universal worship of his supposed 
 instructress Egypt, would immediately proscribe 
 it under pain of death in his own nation ? 
 Had Moses received his ideas from the educa- 
 tion given him by the priests, it is far more 
 probable, that he would have imbibed and acted 
 upon the same notions, as to the expediency 
 of keeping the people in utter ignorance, than 
 that he should have struck out a plan di- 
 ametrically opposite to the whole practice,
 
 BORROWED FROM EGYPTIANS. 273 
 
 not of his instructors only, but of all the an- 
 cient philosophers, who agreed in little else 
 than in the necessity of perpetuating the vulgar 
 superstitions. 
 
 In addition to these considerations, if Moses 
 derived his theology from Egypt, and thought 
 himself at liberty to alter it according to his 
 own views of utility, it is impossible to ex- 
 plain his having omitted to sanction his law by 
 inculcating the belief of the soul's immortality.* 
 Though the precise tenets of the Egyptians 
 upon this subject have not been transmitted 
 to us, it seems very evident that they taught 
 the existence of the soul after the dissolution 
 of the body, though veiling it, probably, under 
 the fable of a metempsychosis.! Now, this 
 doctrine is equally useful to the philosophic 
 theist, and to the practical statesman ; useful 
 to the theist, as removing the only plausible 
 * Warburton, Div. Leg. iv. s. 6. 
 
 -j- I quality the assertion, though commonly believed, be- 
 cause some have questioned Herodotus's account, who is 
 express on the subject. Euterpe, s. 123. Vide Cudworth, 
 i. 313. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 MOSAIC THEOLOGY, &C. 
 
 objection against the moral government of God 
 in the world ; and to the statesman, as hold- 
 ing out a stronger terror to the wicked, than 
 any punishment he is able to threaten ; and 
 affording an universal incitement to virtue, 
 which it is totally out of his power to reward. 
 This advantage was well understood by the an- 
 cients, as was formerly observed ; and Zaleucus 
 and Plato both inculcated the belief, the one 
 in his real, the other in his imaginary republic. 
 But whatever may have been the opinion of 
 the Hebrews upon this point, derived from the 
 history of their ancestors, it is impossible to 
 deny that the sanctions of the Mosaic law are 
 altogether temporal. This circumstance has 
 been even alleged as a charge to discredit his 
 legislation.* It is indeed one of the many 
 
 * Since Bolingbroke, who first touched this string, the 
 omission of the doctrine of a future state from the Jewish 
 law has been "seen n-it/t surprise" by every sceptical essayist. 
 I am well aware that the knowledge of a resurrection and 
 future state was familiar to the patriarchs ; which is proved 
 by the translation of Enoch, the faith of Abraham, the vision 
 of Jacob, &c. beyond fair controversy. This has been often 
 shown, but no where more clearly than by Sir H. Moncrielf
 
 POPULAR BELIEF OF THE ISRAELITES. 
 
 facts which can only be explained by acknow- 
 ledging that he really acted under a divine 
 commission, promulgating a temporary law for 
 a peculiar purpose to a single nation. But if 
 it is believed, that Moses had sufficient skill to 
 frame the admirable system which he delivered 
 to his people, out of the mixture of idolatry 
 and mystery with which Egypt abounded, it is 
 incredible that he should not have united with 
 it, as the firmest support of his precepts and 
 laws, their opinions, alike useful and popular, of 
 the immortality of the soul. 
 
 II. It only remains to suppose that Moses 
 received that doctrine which the Egyptians 
 were unable to teach him, and which he can- 
 not possibly be thought to have derived from the 
 powers of his own mind, from the religious sen- 
 timents and traditions which prevailed among 
 
 Wellwood, in his recent volume on the evidence of the Jewish 
 and Christian revelation, Discourse 2d ; in which that able 
 writer adduces the various passages of the Old Testament 
 which bear upon this point, and shows the corroboration they 
 receive from allusions in the New. 
 
 T Q
 
 276 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 the Hebrew people.* If this account is held 
 to be true, the difficulty which it creates is no 
 less formidable than that which it is intended 
 to explain. 
 
 The people of Israel, for some centuries pre- 
 ceding- the time of Moses, had been pastoral. 
 Their chiefs, or patriarchs, were shepherds ; 
 their riches consisted in flocks and herds. 
 Jacob is described as " increasing 1 exceedingly, 
 " and having- much cattle, and men-servants and 
 " maid-servants, and camels and asses." His 
 presents to his brother Esau consisted of " two 
 " hundred she-goats, twenty he-g-oats, two hun- 
 " dred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milch 
 " camels, with their colts, forty kine and ten 
 " bulls, twenty she-asses, and ten foals."| His 
 sons are represented as feeding- their cattle from 
 place to place. At the invitation of Joseph, 
 
 * I do not, of course, intend to deny that the belief of a 
 Creator existed among the Israelites in Egypt, but to show 
 the improbability of such a belief prevailing among llu-m, 
 < \ttpt by original revelation. 
 
 j (Jtii. xxxii. 13.
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 277 
 
 his family seem to have changed their place 
 of abode, with all the ease that characterizes 
 the removal of a shepherd's riches. " They 
 " took their cattle, and their goods which they 
 " had gotten in the land of Canaan and came 
 " into Egypt, Jacob and all his seed with 
 " him."* 
 
 The people whose manners most closely re- 
 semble this description at the present day, are 
 the Bedouin Arabs and the Tartarian hordes. 
 Accordingly, this correspondence has struck 
 the most intelligent travellers into those coun- 
 tries. " A Bedouin Shaik," says Volney, " who 
 has the command of five hundred horse, does 
 not disdain to saddle and bridle his own, nor to 
 give him barley and chopped straw. In his 
 tent, his wife makes the coffee, kneads the dough, 
 and superintends the dressing of the victuals. 
 His daughters and kinswomen wash the linen, 
 and go with pitchers on their heads, and veils 
 over their faces, to draw water from the foun- 
 tain. These manners agree precisely with the 
 * Gen. xlvi. 6.
 
 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 descriptions in Homer, and the history of Abra- 
 ham in Genesis."* 
 
 In the same way, the inhabitants of the im- 
 mense plains of Tartary have never attained 
 that degree of civilization which incorporates 
 a community in towns or cities, and is, in its 
 turn, promoted by a settled residence. This 
 uniformity of life has naturally produced a uni- 
 formity of manners.'f " All their wealth is 
 their flocks ; like those who lived in the early 
 ages of the world, they have camels, horses, 
 cows, and sheep. Of their religion (proceeds 
 the same author) I can say little : they are 
 downright heathens."t This, it seems, excited 
 in him no surprise. But if the same sensible 
 observer had found a nation so unimproved and 
 rude, possessing a clear and rational account of 
 the creation of the world, and its Creator, 
 
 * Travels in Syria, i. 405. 
 
 t Gibbon (vol. iv. p. 341) considers "the uniform stabi- 
 lity of their manners as the natural consequence of the im- 
 perfection of their faculties." 
 
 J Bell's Travels, vol. i.
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 279 
 
 would he have recorded the fact with the same 
 indifference, and concluded that such a doctrine 
 had been inculcated among them by some phi- 
 losopher or lawgiver of their own ? Should 
 we not rather have expected him to inquire 
 from what communications of other more civi- 
 lized countries, a belief so pure and rational had 
 been introduced ? Why, but because reason 
 and experience alike deny the probability, that 
 a nation in so uncivilized a state could have 
 devised the idea of an immaterial Creator. 
 For, after the errors have been exposed by which 
 the greatest philosophers were bewildered, when 
 adventuring upon a theme so lofty, it will not 
 be disputed that the notion of one omnipotent 
 Being, who formed all things out of nothing by 
 his own individual will ; who cherishes them by 
 his goodness and upholds them by his power ; is 
 the most grand and sublime which the imagina- 
 tion of man can attain. He cannot have raised 
 his opinions of the powers of the human mind 
 upon experience, who supposes that the dis- 
 covery of such a Being, even if attainable at all 
 by reason, can be any thing but the final result
 
 280 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 of long- abstraction, the profound acquisition of 
 an improved and philosophic mind. 
 
 Now, the pastoral life, even that peaceable 
 state of it which the Israelites seem to have 
 enjoyed, though it is considerably raised above 
 that lowest condition of human society which 
 subsists on the produce of the chase, is never- 
 theless entirely unsuited to the arts which adorn 
 civilized communities, and to the sciences which 
 it is the business of philosophy to cultivate and 
 improve. It is in towns, which are almost 
 unknown to shepherds ; not under the tent, or 
 in the plain, that the collision of various in- 
 tellects has been universally observed to strike 
 out the most useful discoveries. Their unsettled 
 mode of life admits of no sedentary employ- 
 ment ; nor of that frequent recurrence of the 
 mind to the same object, which leads to the 
 results of philosophic meditation. Every part 
 of the population, from the highest to the lowest, 
 contributes its share towards the general ac- 
 tivity ; so that no opportunities are afforded to 
 learned leisure, no support is given to tho
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 281 
 
 unproductive labourer in philosophy or litera- 
 ture. If genius is fostered at all in such a com- 
 munity, it is not the genius of the philosopher, 
 but of the poet. In uncivilized states, the 
 demand is not so much for instruction as for 
 amusement ; and it naturally follows, that the 
 tone of the writers is taken from the temper 
 of the community. Those will be held in the 
 highest esteem, who can celebrate the warlike 
 exploits of their countrymen in animated and 
 heroic song ; or paint a strong delineation of 
 their manners in satire, or on the stage.* 
 
 If we apply these general remarks to what 
 we actually know of those countries which have 
 only made the first advances towards civiliza- 
 tion, they will not be contradicted, but strength- 
 ened by farther inquiry. We shall find, that 
 to the Arabians, before the age of Mahomet, 
 
 * Est in Originibus (Catonis) solitos esse in epulis canere 
 convivas ad tibicinem de clarorum hominum virtutibus. Cic. 
 Tusc. Qu. 1. 1. Homer, and the Bards, are familiar in- 
 stances. This is illustrated at large l>y Lovvtb on the He- 
 brew Poetry, Lect. iv.
 
 282 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 though " their penetration was sharp, their 
 fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and senten- 
 tious, the arts of grammar, of metre, and of 
 rhetoric, were unknown.'** Their morality 
 was delivered in unconnected sentences ; their 
 philosophy was illustrated by fable. " But the 
 genius and merit of a rising poet was celebrated 
 by the applause of his own and the kindred 
 tribes." In that country too, with whose pro- 
 gress in refinement we have the most intimate 
 acquaintance, we know that Homer flourished 
 four centuries before the first historian whose 
 works have been preserved, and not much less 
 remotely even from the first prose writers whose 
 names have been recorded.t The philosophy 
 of those who have been distinguished as the 
 seven wise men, and who lived in the interme- 
 diate period, was never collected, like that of 
 their successors, into a system of physics or 
 
 * Gibbon, ix. 241. 
 
 -} The first who published a prose oration was Pherecydes, 
 a contemporary of Cyrus. See Lowth, Lect. iv. Hecataeus 
 and Cadmus, the Milesian historians, belonged to nearly the 
 same period.
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 
 
 morals, but consisted, for the most part, of 
 sage or quaint observations on human life, which 
 perhaps owe their preservation as much to the 
 concise terseness of the Greek language, as to 
 their intrinsic merit or originality. The style 
 of Herodotus,* as well as that of the Old Tes- 
 tament, gives in many instances a curious ex- 
 ample of that intermediate step in the history 
 of language, before their respective styles have 
 been separately assigned to poetry and prose. 
 And although the manners of the two nations 
 among whom these works were produced, must 
 have been in some respects essentially different, 
 we shall certainly err in favour of the Israel- 
 ites, if we compare their degree of civilization 
 in the time of Moses, with that of the Greeks in 
 the age of Herodotus. 
 
 Yet it was in a state of society like this, and 
 to a people which, before their residence in 
 Egypt, had been certainly pastoral, that Moses 
 
 * A literal translation of some of the stories in Herodotus, 
 of that of Adrastus, for example, would greatly resemble 
 many of the narratives in Genesis.
 
 284 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 declared as a fact, what at a much later period 
 the wisest philosophers did not venture to affirm ; 
 what Aristotle, as we have seen, endeavoured 
 to demonstrate, and Xenophon and Cicero to 
 render probable by analogy. In the natural 
 progress of science, the last result of long 
 induction, or a series of demonstrations, is a 
 simple proposition.* That proposition, having 
 borne the test of repeated trials and examina- 
 tions, is added, as it were, to the capital stock 
 of general knowledge : but, in arriving at this 
 state, the simplest truths, such as the aberra- 
 tion of light, or the electricity of the clouds, 
 have cost their first discoverers the half of a 
 philosophic life. To this rule there is no excep- 
 tion. In moral and in natural philosophy, the 
 proofs must equally precede the deduction. But 
 on what authority does Moses, overstepping 
 the necessity of proof, declare, in simple and 
 
 * " De 1'aveu de presque tous les philosophes, les plus 
 sublimes verit^s, uue fois simplifies et reduites a leurs 
 inuindres termes, se convertissent en faits, et des-lors ne 
 presentcnt plus ti 1'espiit quo cette proposition: le blanc cst 
 l)l.inc, K noir est noir." Helvetius sur I'liommc, < hap. \\iii.
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 285 
 
 positive terms, the existence of one God, as the 
 Creator of heaven and earth ? On the same 
 authority as that on which an astronomer of the 
 present day lays down as the foundation of his 
 system, the sublimest discoveries of Newton, 
 without insisting on the demonstrations of truths 
 which the world has generally acknowledged. 
 So the truth which Moses declared, it was un- 
 necessary, it would have been impertinent to 
 prove, when it was already recognised by the 
 whole Hebrew nation; among whom the memory 
 of the creation had been preserved by indubitable 
 records, handed down to them with the history 
 of their ancestors, and the power of the Creator 
 had been proved to the evidence of their senses 
 by recent interpositions. 
 
 I entirely agree with Hume,* that " nothing 
 could disturb the natural progress of thought 
 
 * Nat. Hist, of Rel. p. 1. There is no exception to this 
 remark in the history of Greece or Italy, India or America. 
 Mr. Hume had thought much of mankind as a philosopher, 
 Dr. Robertson as an historian ; and in this they perfectly 
 agree. " When the intellectual faculties are just beginning to
 
 286 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 which rises gradually from inferior to superior, 
 and, by abstracting from what is imperfect, 
 
 unfold, and their feeble exertions are directed towards a few 
 objects of primary necessity and use, it is preposterous to 
 expect that men should be capable of tracing any relation 
 between effects and their causes ; or to suppose that they 
 should rise from the contemplation of the former to the dis- 
 covery of the latter, and from just conceptions of one 
 Supreme Being, as the Creator and Governor of the uni- 
 verse." Robertson's India, 303. It is curious to observe 
 how Hume contrives to escape from the argument in favour 
 of the authenticity of the Hebrew Scriptures, which arises 
 as regularly from his course of reasoning as if he had written 
 his Natural History of Religion to prove it. " It is matter 
 of fact incontestible, that about 1700 years ago, all man- 
 kind were polytheists. The doubtful and sceptical princi- 
 ples of a few philosophers, or the theism, and that too not 
 entirely pure, of one or two nations, form no objection worth 
 regarding." That mind must have been strangely consti- 
 tuted, upon which neither the partial exception (the force of 
 which he has insidiously weakened by an interpolation) in 
 the most ancient times, nor the universal change introduced 
 1700 years ago, could make any impression. 
 
 The remark itself is much in the spirit of Julian, who 
 carelessly asks, TTOIOV eflcoc eort, irpos nw 9fw>', esw TOV, 
 'Ov TrpoffKvvTJvets Ocotc erepoc Kal row, Mvr/(70/;n rH>v aafl- 
 /3orwv, o fit) roc a'XXac oterat \privai tyvXarretv evroXac ; 
 These very laws, which are peculiar to the Jews, are the 
 object of the argument which the Emperor attempts to escape 
 from.
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 287 
 
 slowly forms an idea of perfection : nothing 
 could disturb this natural progress of thought, 
 but some obvious and invincible argument which 
 might immediately lead the mind into the pure 
 principle of theism, and make it overleap at 
 one bound the vast interval which is interposed 
 between the human and the divine nature." 
 That argument was found by the Israelites in 
 their account of the creation, faithfully trans- 
 mitted by their own ancestors from age to age ; 
 was found in the repeated interference of divine 
 power, manifested to their nation ; and had 
 been lately confirmed beyond the possibility of 
 doubt, by their miraculous deliverance from 
 Egyptian slavery. On no other principle than 
 the general acknowledgment of this proposition, 
 can we account for the authoritative positive- 
 ness with which Moses published it to his peo- 
 ple : and on no other principle than its truth, 
 can we explain the superiority of his simple 
 statement over the elaborate arguments of phi- 
 losophers, to whom the evidence on which he 
 rested, was of course unknown.
 
 288 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 Reasoning, which concerns religious truths, 
 from the opposite interests which some find in 
 receiving, and others in rejecting them, is 
 sometimes blindly embraced, and frequently as 
 blindly refused. Let us attempt to compare 
 the case which has been now made out, with 
 some other fact which presents less to bias 
 our impartiality. It is possible to suppose, 
 that by some extraordinary revolution through- 
 out the civilized world, the discoveries familiar 
 to the present generation might be lost, and 
 science reduced to the low state in which it lay 
 three centuries ago. Suppose also, that, in 
 the process of ages, the progressive improve- 
 ment of the human mind should revive anew 
 the discoveries of Newton, so that they should 
 again be generally acknowledged, and com- 
 prised among the elements of astronomy. If 
 then, in some rude country, which had been 
 little known or examined, the curiosity of tra- 
 vellers should find an astronomical treatise with 
 this simple proposition for its basis, that our 
 earth and the other planets revolve round the
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 289 
 
 sun, which, as the centre of the system, sup- 
 ports the whole : it would naturally and at once 
 be concluded, that this people either now pos- 
 sessed, or had formerly arrived at the proofs 
 of that truth, the recent discovery of which 
 among themselves had surprised the age, and 
 immortalized its author. Neither is the case 
 here supposed, altogether imaginary. A similar 
 deduction has been actually inferred from the 
 antiquity of the Indian astronomy. From the 
 accuracy of the tables of Trivalore, philosophers 
 and historians have not hesitated to pronounce 
 that a nation which we had been accustomed 
 to consider as overspread with barbarous igno- 
 rance, must have been acquainted with geometri- 
 cal science, and even with the higher branches 
 of the mathematics, at a time when the astro- 
 nomy of all the rest of the world extended no 
 farther than actual observation.* 
 
 If, therefore, we find acknowledged among 
 the Hebrews, an uncivilized people, at an early 
 
 * Asiat. Researches, vol. vi. and viii. Ed. Review, vol. x. 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 age, a sublime truth which philosophers in after- 
 times much more imperfectly, and with far less 
 effect, promulgated as the gradual result of 
 long analysis ; what can we reasonably suppose, 
 but that there existed among them that unde- 
 niable evidence, either historical, or addressed 
 to the senses, or both, which first anticipated 
 argument, and afterwards superseded its neces- 
 sity ? 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe, in con- 
 clusion, that the farther we recede in order to 
 account for the introduction of this belief in a 
 Creator, the more we increase the difficulties 
 which embarrass any other explanation of its 
 origin than that to which it pretends. The 
 Israelites before the age of Moses had been in 
 a state of uncivilized life, unfavourable to the 
 expansion of the reasoning powers, even accord- 
 ing to their own history. But, according to all 
 other accounts of the existence of the world, 
 its inhabitants, the farther we look back, must 
 have been more and more savage, till the ima- 
 ginary period when the rude man first crept
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 291 
 
 forth from among his brethren of the desert, 
 little superior to the brutes that moved around 
 him.* 
 
 After this consideration of the extraordinary 
 object professed by the Hebrew legislator, and 
 of the peculiarities attending his polity; of its 
 effect upon the people, displayed in their reli- 
 gious feelings, their writings, and their morals ; 
 and of the impossibility of accounting for the 
 singular excellence of the doctrines inculcated 
 in the law, independently of divine assistance : 
 it is not too much to assert, that all reasoning 
 drawn from the analogy of human manners in 
 similar circumstances, and all historical expe- 
 rience as to the course of the human mind, is 
 directly violated, if we deny that the law deli- 
 vered by Moses to the Hebrews was established 
 by divine interference, to keep up among that 
 people the memory of the creation. 
 
 On a general view, it cannot certainly seem 
 
 * Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris, 
 Mututn ac turpe pecus. HORACE. 
 
 U 2
 
 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 an improbable case, that the Creator of the 
 world should maintain among 1 a particular peo- 
 ple the history of the original creation ; that 
 he should rescue that people from bondage by 
 miraculous interposition, in order to furnish 
 them with indubitable evidence of his protec- 
 tion and power ; that he should assign them a 
 specific residence, and prescribe to their ob- 
 servance peculiar ceremonies, as a memorial of 
 the extraordinary providence by which he had 
 proclaimed them the chosen depositories of the 
 truth intrusted to them ; or that he should pro- 
 hibit them, under pain of grievous national 
 misfortunes, from apostatizing to the senseless 
 idolatry of the neighbouring countries, but en- 
 join them to worship one God, as the Creator 
 of the world, who had given them such sensi- 
 ble evidence of his existence. This is the head 
 and front of the Hebrew story, which carries 
 with it, I must think, no strong offence against 
 probability ; even if no phenomena were solved 
 by its truth, and no difficulties embarrassed its 
 rejection ; even if the historical testimony were 
 less clear, or the internal evidence less decisive.
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 
 
 It is worth while, on the other hand, to re- 
 capitulate here some of the articles of that 
 creed we must abide by, if we reject the divine 
 commission of Moses. We must believe, first, 
 that this lawgiver struck out an account of the 
 creation of the world confessedly more rational 
 and consistent than any other, but which none 
 of the ancient philosophers could arrive at, 
 even with all the advantages arising from the 
 collision of intellect in a thinking and reason- 
 ing age ; which none of them either taught 
 their disciples, or gave any evident proof of 
 believing themselves : that Moses, however, 
 was so firmly convinced of its truth, as to take 
 the singular resolution of instituting a civil 
 polity for the professed purpose of maintaining 
 it ; and that he enforced his belief with such 
 authority, as to persuade the nation to coincide 
 with his views, and to ratify a system of laws, 
 which supposed, throughout their whole fabric, 
 a deviation from the usual course of events, 
 and which must lead to national destruction if 
 events did not dimate from their usual order : 
 that they received statutes, for example, bind-
 
 POPULAR BELIEF 
 
 ing- them, on pain of capital punishment, to ab- 
 stain on certain appointed seasons, not only 
 from business and amusement, but even from 
 hostility and self-defence, although they were 
 surrounded by inveterate enemies ; to leave 
 their land uncultivated every seventh year, and 
 to desert their abodes and go up to their capi- 
 tal annually, in commemoration of the creation 
 of the world, of which they knew no more 
 than the rest of mankind, and under dread of 
 the Creator's vengeance and power, of which 
 they had no other proof than their legislator's 
 word. Still, however, that nothing did occur 
 to contradict the assertions of the law, or the 
 belief it enjoined ; but that the effect of this 
 anomalous legislation was to produce, as it 
 were, a family of theists among a world of ido- 
 laters ; to exhibit a people in no other respects 
 superior to their neighbours, except in their 
 religious faith and worship, but in these points 
 leaving all other nations in comparative dark- 
 ness, while they enjoyed the light of the noon- 
 day sun : a people which served an immaterial 
 Creator, and maintained a firm reliance, both
 
 OF THE ISRAELITES. 295 
 
 national and personal, upon his power ; and 
 who displayed, both in the principle and purity 
 of their morals, their individual sense of the 
 existence of a Creator and moral Governor of 
 mankind. Is this credible ? And yet all this, 
 and much more than this,* must be embraced 
 as true, unless we are content to acknowledge 
 that Moses acted under a divine revelation, and 
 that the people for whom he framed his laws 
 had personal proof of his delegated authority. 
 Can any thing be less consistent with true 
 philosophy than to see an unquestionable phseno- 
 menon before our eyes, and yet to reject the 
 only account that is offered, or can be offered, 
 for its solution ? 
 
 * I allude to the ordinances commemorating points of the 
 miraculous history, which did not fall within my course of 
 argument, and form the grounds of Leslie's irrefragable 
 treatise : as the stones set up at Gilgal, the brazen serpent, 
 the ark, Aaron's rod, &c. Can we imagine that a nation 
 existed, venerating monuments like these, and sacredly 
 observing certain institutions, in memory of certain events, 
 which events never really took place ; and annually cele- 
 brating a very particular ceremony like that of the passover, 
 and regularly consecrating all their first-born male children, 
 in memory of a deliverance, which deliverance never oc- 
 curred ?
 
 296 POPULAR BELIEF, &C. 
 
 The point, therefore, of the existence of an 
 historical record declaring- the fact of the crea- 
 tion, has all the force of moral certainty. And 
 the nature of the case admits of no other than 
 moral evidence. It cannot be a matter capable 
 of demonstration, that Moses received commu- 
 nications from heaven. Neither can we receive 
 the sensible proofs of the fact, which were ma- 
 nifested to the Hebrews themselves when they 
 surrounded Mount Sinai. But the sources 
 which are open to us, and which terminate in 
 this moral certainty, are of the most unexcep- 
 tionable nature. They are almost independent 
 of direct human testimony : they are not found- 
 ed on tradition or uncertain annals j but the evi- 
 dence they furnish is derived from the internal 
 nature and genius of the law and writings them- 
 selves, when brought into comparison with the 
 genius of other writings, and nature of other 
 laws. The force of this species of evidence 
 may appear different to different readers : but 
 all must allow that it is less than other histori- 
 cal evidence subject to falsification or error.
 
 297 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Conclusions from the foregoing Argument. 
 
 IT only remains to review the steps we have 
 passed, and to bring into sight the conclusion 
 to which they have gradually led us. 
 
 It first appeared from metaphysical reason- 
 ing, that something must have existed from 
 eternity ; and that it is absurd to suppose that 
 something to have been the material world. 
 
 It was next briefly observed, that we should 
 violate all the rules of probability and all the 
 philosophical principles by which we are ac- 
 customed to form our judgment and direct our 
 inquiries, if we referred the various instances
 
 298 CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 
 
 of design with which the world confessedly 
 abounds, to any chance or accidental concur- 
 rence of circumstances, or to any other cause 
 than the agency of an Intelligent Contriver. 
 
 From our own existence therefore, or that of 
 the material world, we are brought to the 
 knowledge of a Creator ; and from the proofs 
 of design in our own persons, or in the uni- 
 verse, we farther derive a conviction of the in- 
 telligence of the Creator. 
 
 The brief statement of these arguments, drawn 
 from the constitution of the world, led the way 
 to an enquiry, whether no historical record 
 had been preserved of an event in which man- 
 kind are so nearly interested as the creation. 
 And the result has proved to be a moral cer- 
 tainty, that the Creator did originally reveal 
 himself to the patriarchs of the human race, 
 and afterwards caused a mode of government 
 and a form of religion to be instituted, which 
 should commemorate the creation of the world, 
 and preserve the worship of the Creator.
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. 299 
 
 Thus we have demonstrative evidence de- 
 claring a fact that cannot be rejected without 
 absurdity, and analogical evidence accumulated 
 to the highest degree, declaring that same fact 
 probable, which historical testimony records : 
 historical testimony so strong from internal 
 and collateral evidence, that if it stood alone 
 and unsupported, and concerned the most im- 
 probable fact, we could not consistently reject 
 it as long as we admit any other recorded his- 
 tory - 9 but which demands immediate and un- 
 qualified assent, when it confirms and is mu- 
 tually confirmed by the deductions of our 
 reason, and the analogy of our experience : all 
 concurring to prove that the world we inhabit 
 was created by a self-existent and intelligent 
 Being. 
 
 Whether a fact which is supported by this 
 accumulated evidence, is one that ought to 
 bind the belief and influence the practice of 
 mankind, will hardly be thought a reasonable 
 question by those who consider the nature of 
 evidence in general, and of that evidence upon
 
 300 CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 
 
 which mankind are accustomed habitually to 
 act and depend. The evidence throughout 
 is not certainly of such a nature, that it cannot 
 be denied without a contradiction. But what 
 evidence is of this nature? Our own ex- 
 istence, of which we are intuitively conscious, 
 and the abstract proposition derived from our 
 consciousness, viz. that something has existed 
 from eternity, are the only facts to the pre- 
 sent purpose which come under that descrip- 
 tion, or admit of infallible demonstration. If, 
 for instance, we advance one step farther, 
 and affirm that eternal something to be matter, 
 our progress is arrested by the sceptic, who 
 urges the fallibility of our senses, and our 
 ignorance of the mode in which matter can 
 act upon mind, and the consequent possibi- 
 lity, that what we imagine a material world 
 is no more than an airy nothing and a name. 
 If, again, we affirm the eternal something to be 
 spirit, we are questioned for a proof of the ex- 
 istence of spirit ; and are told that the same 
 matter which " crystallizes in the mineral, ve- 
 getates in the plant, lives and is organised
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. 301 
 
 in the brute ; feels, thinks and reasons in 
 man."* 
 
 It has, in fact, been the great object of infi- 
 delity, during- the last half century, to intro- 
 duce this sort of universal scepticism ; and to 
 throw an air of uncertainty over all those facts 
 which cannot be proved by what is called the 
 highest possible evidence. This resource re- 
 mained, when the rude and direct attacks against 
 theism and revelation had been made and foiled. 
 The researches of that pious philosopher to 
 whom his contemporaries ascribed " every virtue 
 under heaven," led the way to this sceptical 
 habit ; researches which ought rather to have 
 conducted him to the just conclusion, afterwards 
 formed by Reid, that the premises must be false, 
 which led to inferences so absurd. The great 
 danger of Mr. Hume's writings consists less in 
 any unsound principles which are supposed to 
 be there proved, than in the prevalent spirit of 
 scepticism which pervades the whole. And 
 whatever may have been the intention, which 
 * Academical Questions, p. ^51.
 
 302 CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 
 
 those who know the author's own sentiments 
 are best able to estimate, this is the undoubted 
 tendency of a sceptical volume, which has re- 
 cently appeared under the title of Acade- 
 mical Questions ; from which a cursory reader 
 is likely to arrive at the tenet of the original 
 sect, that there is nothing certain in the world. 
 
 If the existence of an immaterial Creator is 
 not a subject of mere speculation, but a fact 
 upon which a certain course of action, and pecu- 
 liar duties, depend ; it is undoubtedly material 
 to inquire what degree of evidence might justly 
 be supposed to influence mankind, and bind them 
 to the performance of those duties. The high- 
 est degrees of evidence are generally acknow- 
 ledged to be intuition and demonstration. 
 But intuitive evidence only acquaints us with 
 our own existence : if, therefore, we admit this 
 species of evidence alone, we confine our know- 
 ledge, and limit our actions, to the deductions 
 from this single fact. If we expect demon- 
 strative evidence, the only truth relating to this 
 subject, which cannot be denied without in-
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. 303 
 
 volving a contradiction, is the naked proposi- 
 tion, something has existed from eternity. Can 
 it be reasonably argued, that we are to extend 
 our belief no farther, and that no actions are 
 binding upon us, that do not result from one 
 of these acknowledged facts ? 
 
 If common sense revolts against such a con- 
 clusion, and if it is inconsistent with the na- 
 ture of things, that intuitive or demonstrative 
 evidence should reach all the various truths 
 about which the human mind is conversant ; 
 it becomes an interesting object of inquiry, what 
 species of evidence ought to be deemed binding 
 upon mankind ; and whether, in the view 
 of moral obligation, there is any just ground 
 for that distinction between the degrees of 
 evidence which has been commonly acquiesced in. 
 
 If we consider the circumstances in which 
 mankind are placed, it appears that the several 
 kinds of evidence, that are derived from intui- 
 tion, from demonstration, from the senses, from 
 moral reasoning, and from human testimony,
 
 304 CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 
 
 have each their respective provinces, and, if com- 
 plete in themselves, carry with them an equal 
 degree of assurance. Our own existence we 
 infer from consciousness. The existence of 
 other things we perceive by sensation. Ab- 
 stract truths we learn from demonstration. But 
 the use of moral evidence, and of that derived 
 from human testimony, is far more general j 
 and upon these we depend, and must depend, 
 not only in matters relating to the advancement 
 of science and learning, but in almost every 
 thing which concerns our conduct and directs 
 the management of our lives. 
 
 Any attempt to exalt one of these species of 
 evidence to the depreciation of the rest, is 
 scarcely less unphilosophical than to misapply 
 them. Des-Cartes has been generally ridiculed 
 for taking the pains to prove his own existence 
 by demonstration, which he knew from consci- 
 ousness. But it is, in fact, a similar absurdity 
 to require demonstrative proof of that which 
 we learn by sensation, as the existence of ex- 
 ternal things ; or to demand sensitive proof, or
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. 305 
 
 demonstrative proof, or intuitive conviction, of 
 that which is in its own nature incapable of 
 any other than what is called probable evi- 
 dence, viz. the existence of such or such a 
 person, or the occurrence of any particular 
 fact, at a thousand miles distance, or a thousand 
 years ago. 
 
 If it be argued, that this evidence is liable 
 to error, and may mislead us ; I answer, that 
 there is no evidence in which we may not be 
 mistaken ; and that it is our business to exa- 
 mine into it, and to take care that we are not 
 deceived. We may be deceived even by trust- 
 ing implicitly to intuitive evidence ; by which 
 it has been commonly asserted, that we im- 
 mediately acquire the knowledge of our own 
 existence. But Mr. Stewart* has acutely ob- 
 
 * Philos. Essays, Es. i. p. 8. " The exercise of consci- 
 ousness necessarily implies a belief not only of the present 
 existence of what is felt, but of the present existence of that 
 which feels and thinks. Of these facts, however, it is the 
 former alone of which we can possibly be said to be consci- 
 ous agreeably to the rigorous interpretation of the expres- 
 sion. The latter is made known to us by a suggestion of the 
 understanding consequent on the sensation." 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 
 
 served, that it is not our own existence, which 
 we learn from consciousness, but the existence of 
 the sensation, from which the understanding- 
 infers the existence of the sentient being-. 
 
 Berkeley and Hume argue, that the senses 
 may be deceived, and therefore require other 
 and farther proof of the existence of a material 
 world.* But so may reason be deceived. How 
 grossly was the reason of the greatest philoso- 
 phers from the age of Aristotle to that of Reid 
 mistaken, in supposing that the ideas we possess 
 of external objects were resemblances of those 
 
 * It has often appeared to me that Berkeley's argument 
 as to the liability of our senses to be deceived, has been taken 
 too readily and implicitly. " It is granted," he says, " on 
 all hands, and what happens in dreams, frenzies, or the like, 
 puts it beyond dispute, that it is possible we might be 
 affected with all the ideas we have now, though no bodies 
 existed without." But what do these examples amount 
 to? A man out of his senses, or when his senses are asleep, 
 is brought in to prove that the senses may be deceived, when 
 sound and waking ; aud therefore that they never can afford 
 any complete or irrefragable proof of the real existence of ex- 
 ternal things. Surely there is nothing legitimate cither in 
 the argument or the conclusion.
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. gOy 
 
 objects ! It is no doubt true, that we cannot be 
 mistaken as to the notions of our own minds ; 
 but we may be mistaken as to their relation 
 to other notions, in which mode alone can 
 they furnish us with demonstrative knowledge. 
 Even with respect to mathematical truths, the 
 proper field of demonstration ; can any thing, 
 except imagination or theory, persuade a mathe- 
 matician, that he is more certain of the equality 
 or inequality of certain angles, which he proves 
 by demonstration, than of the real existence of 
 the pen with which he describes his diagram, 
 which he learns by sensation ? 
 
 The object of these remarks is by no means 
 to throw a doubt over the certainty of all evi- 
 dence, but to question the propriety of allow- 
 ing the justice of the distinction commonly 
 made between the several species of evidence. 
 In conducting the affairs of life, undoubtedly, 
 the proper inquiry is, not whether a particular 
 fact or proposition is supported by the highest 
 degree of evidence, but, whether the evidence 
 on which it rests is of the proper sort, and com- 
 
 x 2
 
 308 CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 
 
 plete, according- to the matter about which it is 
 conversant. The world is so constituted, that 
 we must sometimes depend upon consciousness, 
 and sometimes upon our senses ; that in some 
 cases we must be guided by reasoning, whether 
 demonstrative or analogical, and in others by 
 human testimony : the force therefore of each 
 species of evidence is equal, and in their pe- 
 culiar province the power of each is paramount ; 
 and all that we can require is, to know the 
 truth according to the most infallible certainty 
 which the nature of the particular case can 
 yield. 
 
 Indeed, if it were not just and reasonable 
 to place effectual reliance on what is termed 
 probable evidence, the business of the world 
 would soon stand still. Human testimony is 
 the mainspring of all that is planned or done 
 in commerce, at the bar, or in the senate. 
 Moral probability is all that we attain, or seek 
 to attain, in politics or jurisprudence, or even 
 in most of the sciences. Nor is it too much 
 to affirm, that every individual risks without
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. 309 
 
 hesitation his health, or his life, or his fortune, 
 or reputation, daily in some way or other, on 
 the strength of evidence which, if it came to 
 be narrowly examined, would not appear to 
 have half the certainty which we may arrive 
 at, respecting the miraculous deliverance of the 
 Israelites from Egypt, and the veracity of the 
 Mosaic records.* The word probable, when 
 applied to evidence of this nature, " does not 
 imply any deficiency in the proof, but only marks 
 the particular nature of that proof, as contra- 
 distinguished from other species of evidence. 
 It is opposed not to what is certain, but to 
 what admits of being demonstrated after the 
 manner of mathematicians."! 
 
 * It must be remembered, that one only of the various 
 proofs which combine to establish the Jewish revelation, is 
 urged in this Treatise. Many of the points of internal evi- 
 dence, the whole external testimony, as well as the argument 
 from the accomplishment of the prophecies, and the cor- 
 roboration arising from the evidence of Christianity, have 
 either been passed over or very slightly alluded to. 
 
 -j- Stewart's Elements of the Phil, of the human Mind, 
 vol. ii. ch. iv. sect. 4. The remark which follows is no less 
 important ; " This difference between the technical meaning 
 of the word probability, as employed by logicians, and the
 
 310 CONCLUSIONS FRO.M THE 
 
 The consideration as to what sort of evidence 
 mankind are at liberty to refuse, or bound to 
 receive, when applied to the being of a Creator, 
 is not one of speculative inquiry, but of im- 
 portant and awful responsibility. No fallacious 
 theory, no hypothetical distinction between the 
 several species of evidence, will be available on 
 that day, " when the last account betwixt Hea- 
 ven and earth is to be made." Now, since it is 
 not in the power even of Omnipotence itself to 
 give demonstrative proof of an historical fact, 
 the legitimate expectation seems to be, that the 
 evidence of the relation of mankind to the Cre- 
 ator, arising from the fact of the creation, should 
 be of the same nature and not less strong in 
 degree, than the evidence of those facts and 
 truths which mankind concur in believing, and 
 on which they confidently rely, not only in their 
 
 notion usually attached to it in the business of life, has led 
 many authors of the highest name, in some of the most im- 
 portant arguments which can employ human reason, to over- 
 look the irresistible evidence which was placed before their 
 eyes, in search of another mode of proof altogether unat- 
 tainable in moral inquiries, and which, if it could be attained, 
 would not be less liable to the cavils of spcctics."
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. 311 
 
 ordinary affairs, but in the conduct and manage- 
 ment of their lives. This evidence either con- 
 sists in inferences drawn by analogy, from ac- 
 knowledged facts to facts which cannot be 
 brought to the immediate test of demonstrative 
 or sensitive evidence, which is the nature of 
 most philosophical conclusions : or it consists 
 in the records of human testimony, conveyed to 
 us by the medium of letters, or communicated 
 by oral tradition. This, however, is precisely 
 the nature of the evidence which has been ad- 
 duced, first, for the existence of an immaterial 
 intelligent Creator, and, next, for the fact of his 
 having revealed himself to mankind, and pre- 
 served that orignal revelation through the instru- 
 mentality of a particular nation. 
 
 But uncertainty, it is said, attends all human 
 testimony, or human judgment. If it is meant 
 that we cannot be deceived with respect to our 
 own existence, or the existence of something 
 from eternity, or the equality of the angles of a 
 triangle to two right angles, but that we may 
 possibly be deceived respecting historical facts,
 
 312 CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 
 
 which cannot be susceptible of demonstration ; 
 the proposition is undeniably true. But it can- 
 not be carried one step farther. If it were pro- 
 bable as well as possible, that we should be 
 deceived, why has the probability no influence 
 on our conduct? Why, in all matters depending 
 on such testimony,* which includes most of 
 the matters in which we are concerned at all, 
 do we not only reason and dispute, but act, 
 and shape our conduct, rather as if it were im- 
 possible than probable that human testimony 
 should deceive us? Our belief in it, in fact, 
 is so complete, that some philosophers have 
 
 * " In "astronomical calculations, for example, how few 
 are the instances in which the data rest on the evidence of 
 our own senses ; and yet our confidence in the result is not, 
 on that account, in the smallest degree weakened. Even in 
 pure mathematics, a similar regard to testimony, accompa- 
 nied by a similar faith in the faculties of others, is by no 
 means uncommon. Who would scruple, in a geometrical 
 investigation, to adopt as a link in the chain, a theorem of 
 Apollonius or Archimedes, although he might not have lei- 
 sure at the moment to satisfy himself, by an actual exami- 
 nation of their demonstrations, that they had been guilty of 
 no paralogism, either by accident or design, in the course 
 of their reasoning?" Stewart, Elem. vol. ii. ch. iv. s. 4.
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. 313 
 
 thought it too strong* to be accounted for by ex- 
 perience of its truth, and have attributed it to 
 an original principle. 
 
 Let a voyager, for instance, after some long 
 circumnavigation, publish the result of his obser- 
 vations respecting the situation of countries, the 
 existence of others before unknown, the degrees 
 of temperature, and the variations of the needle ; 
 his discoveries are enrolled among the annals 
 of our knowledge, and his experience furnishes 
 new inductions, on which philosophers will not 
 hesitate to found their conclusions. Voyagers, 
 with little hesitation, have considered as ascer- 
 tained what their predecessors have recorded ; 
 have judged the experience of former dis- 
 coveries equivalent to their own ; and have 
 made the limits of previous narrations the point 
 from which their own subsequent inquiries ought 
 legitimately to begin. The utmost incredulity 
 that is shown, supposing the fact to be very new 
 or very extraordinary, is to require the cor- 
 roborative testimony of a second inquirer. To 
 depend, therefore, on human testimony, unless
 
 CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 
 
 the interest to deceive is so manifestly great, 
 that it may be supposed to sway the narration, 
 is neither unusual nor unphilosophical. 
 
 Should it still be urged, that, however this 
 may be in matters of inconsiderable import, 
 the case becomes very different where the bu- 
 siness and direction of life are affected ; we 
 must again appeal to experience. Trace the 
 progress of maritime discovery : demonstra- 
 tion could scarcely have added to the confi- 
 dence which Columbus placed in his analogical 
 reasonings. From the spherical figure of the 
 earth, he thought it evident that the continents 
 then known formed but a part of the terra- 
 queous globe. From the visible wisdom of the 
 Author of nature, he argued, that the unknown 
 tracts were habitable. He found also, on re- 
 cord, certain observations of modern naviga- 
 tors, tending to strengthen these conclusions. 
 " The force of this united evidence, arising 
 from theoretical principles and practical obser- 
 vations,"* was sufficient to induce Columbus 
 * Robertson's America, vol. i. p. 89.
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. 315 
 
 to risk the sacrifice of every thing that is valu- 
 able in existence. We may proceed, however, 
 still farther, and affirm, that, but for a systema- 
 tic confidence in human testimony, America 
 would have remained for ever half peopled 
 and uncivilized. The return of Columbus with 
 a few followers, and their relation of the course 
 of their voyage, and the new world they had 
 visited, was the signal to adventurers from various 
 countries to undertake an expedition of eight 
 hundred leagues. 
 
 Now, it could not in equity be allowed, that 
 a man should plead ignorance of a particular 
 law, if it were proved that in other instances, 
 he had availed himself of some of its provisions. 
 If the belief of a Creator is the source of peculiar 
 duties, for the performance of which mankind 
 are responsible ; and if the existence of a Creator 
 on which those duties depend, is proved by evi- 
 dence of the same nature as that upon which 
 we daily direct our actions, can it be justi- 
 fiable to withhold assent in the particular case 
 where assent is most important ? If a man will
 
 316 CONCLUSIONS FROM THE 
 
 risk his reputation, his fortune, his lief on pro- 
 bable inferences ; and if multitudes are daily 
 risking 1 all that is dear to them on the truth of 
 human testimony; surely it must cease to be 
 argued, that these degrees of evidence are in- 
 sufficient to warrant our acquiescing in a con- 
 clusion " so important and so extraordinary," 
 as the existence of an intelligent Creator. For 
 this, after all, is the fact on which scepticism 
 is so obstinate ; not one that militates against 
 reason ; that controverts our experience ; that 
 deranges our philosophy : unless reason is out- 
 raged by admitting a fact so congenial to the 
 human mind, that it has been at times supposed 
 to be naturally impressed upon it ; unless ex- 
 perience is contradicted by tracing effects to a 
 cause ; unless philosophy is deranged by the 
 introduction of a sufficient agency to account 
 for an acknowledged operation. 
 
 I conclude, therefore, from this united de- 
 monstrative, analogical, and historical testimony, 
 " that there is a Supreme Creator, by whom 
 every thing exists :" the proofs of which were
 
 FOREGOING ARGUMENT. 317 
 
 proposed as the first object of this Treatise. I 
 shall, therefore, argue that point no farther, 
 but proceed to inquire into the attributes which 
 either naturally belong to such a Being, or are 
 evident from his works.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 APPENDIX, No. I. 
 
 THAT THE MOSAIC HISTORY IS NOT INCONSIS- 
 TENT WITH GEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 
 
 IT may be said, that an argument founded on 
 the internal evidence of the Mosaic history, 
 cannot be complete without some notice, or 
 convincing without some refutation, or attempt 
 at refutation, of the principal objections which 
 have been urged against it. But if the posi- 
 tive evidence of the whole is incontrovertibly 
 strong, it cannot be invalidated by occasional 
 difficulties respecting the minuter details of the 
 history, still less by hypothetical difficulties, 
 of which nature are those usually alleged 
 against the Pentateuch. The object of this 
 Treatise certainly does not admit of a particu- 
 lar examination of the various attacks which 
 VOL. i. Y
 
 MOSAIC HISTORY 
 
 have been aimed, from time to time, against 
 specific portions of the Mosaic law, and of the 
 history appended to it : and even if such an 
 examination would not lead me too far from 
 my main subject, the inquiry might well seem 
 superfluous : the most fertile ingenuity, or the 
 bitterest acrimony, can scarcely invent an alle- 
 gation which has not been refuted a hundred 
 times already ; and the valuable work of Dr. 
 Graves has recently brought the answers again 
 to public notice. 
 
 I shall, therefore, confine this Appendix to 
 the brief consideration of two subjects which 
 are sometimes popularly urged as affecting the 
 truth of the Hebrew cosmogony. The first of 
 these is its supposed inconsistency with recent 
 geological discoveries. This vague idea (for it 
 is little more) has been in some measure che- 
 rished by a certain jealousy of geological theo- 
 ries on the part of some friends of Revelation : 
 a jealousy, however, which may well be ex- 
 cused, since it arose from an apparent ten- 
 dency, on the other side, to attribute the va-
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 323 
 
 rlous catastrophes or revolutions, probable or 
 recorded, which can be traced in our globe, to 
 a sort of mechanical agency of its own ; in 
 other words, to natural causes arising out of 
 its constitution. The effect of such a philo- 
 sophy is, of course, to keep out of sight the 
 interference of the Creator ; and would be 
 more consistent in the advocates of the eternity 
 of the world, than in those who admit the fact 
 of its creation by an Intelligent Power. 
 
 In order to form any judgment upon this 
 question, we must begin by distinguishing what 
 is mere theory from what is actual discovery. 
 No doubt there have been speculations on the 
 formation, appearances, and revolutions of the 
 earth, which are either irreconcilable with any 
 fair interpretation of the Mosaic history, or 
 have left it altogether out of the question. 
 These, however, are not facts, but hypotheses : 
 framed in general with the intention of explain- 
 ing some one of the numerous phsenomena of 
 the globe, which appeared peculiarly promi- 
 nent in the view of the author, and enforced 
 
 Y 2
 
 3<24 MOSAIC HISTORY. 
 
 with little consideration of the rest. These 
 theories have, therefore, fallen to the ground 
 successively, as legitimate science advanced. 
 
 Next to the consideration as to what is ascer- 
 tained in geology, must follow the inquiry as 
 to what is declared on the face of the history. 
 The account of the creation given by Moses, 
 does not profess to furnish any thing like a 
 systematic or elaborate detail of the mode in 
 which the materials of the earth were brought 
 to their actual form and situation. The warm- 
 est lover of geology would scarcely expect to 
 find this in the record ; the very terms in which 
 such an account could be expressed requiring 
 an advanced state of science ; and the infor- 
 mation, when conveyed, being altogether un- 
 profitable as to those uses which are the proper 
 objects of Revelation. To know his connexion 
 with the Creator and moral Governor of the 
 world is necessary to the virtue and happiness 
 of man. To investigate the regular laws to 
 which the created world conforms, or the pro- 
 cess by which it was reduced to that obedi-
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 325 
 
 ence, is a delightful exercise of the reason he 
 possesses; but is totally unconnected with those 
 higher interests which a revelation has in view. 
 
 But any curious information as to the struc- 
 ture of the earth ought still less to be expected 
 by any one acquainted with the general cha- 
 racter of the Mosaic records. There is nothing 
 in them either to gratify the curiosity, or re- 
 press the researches of mankind, when brought, 
 in the progress of cultivation, to calculate the 
 motions of the heavenly bodies, or speculate 
 on the formation of the globe. The expres- 
 sions of Moses are evidently accommodated to 
 the first and familiar notions derived from the 
 sensible appearances of the earth and heavens : 
 and the absurdity of supposing, that the literal 
 interpretation of terms in Scripture ought to 
 interfere with the advancement of philosophi- 
 cal inquiry, would have been as generally for- 
 gotten as renounced, if the oppressors of Ga- 
 lileo had not found a place in history. The con- 
 cessions, if they may be so called, of the 
 believers in Revelation on this point, have
 
 326 
 
 MOSAIC HISTORY 
 
 been amply remunerated by the sublime dis- 
 coveries as to the prospective wisdom of the 
 Creator, which have been gradually unfolded 
 by the progressive improvements in astronomi- 
 cal knowledge. We may trust with the same 
 confidence as to any future results from geo- 
 logy, if that science should ever find its New- 
 ton, and break through the various obstacles 
 peculiar to that study, which have hitherto 
 precluded any general solution of its numerous 
 and opposite phenomena. 
 
 Without professing, therefore, to search into 
 the Mosaic account for any philosophical ex- 
 planation of the structure of the earth, it will 
 be useful to consider what we do actually find 
 in the record, whether of matter of fact or 
 description : that we may more distinctly 
 perceive how the case stands at present as to 
 the true bearing of geological discoveries upon 
 Revelation. 
 
 So far as relates to the subject before us, 
 the account in Genesis may be briefly summed
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 
 
 up in these three articles : First, that God 
 was the original Creator of all thing's : secondly, 
 that, at the formation of the globe we inhabit, 
 the whole of its materials were in a state of 
 chaos and confusion : and thirdly, that at a 
 period not exceeding five thousand years ago, 
 (whether we adopt the Septuagint or Hebrew 
 chronology is immaterial,) the whole earth 
 underwent a mighty catastrophe, in which it 
 was completely inundated by the immediate 
 agency of the Deity, and all its inhabitants 
 destroyed, except the remnant miraculously pre- 
 served to continue the species. 
 
 These are the great outlines drawn by the 
 sacred historian ; and if we add to them what 
 may be generally collected, that the materials 
 of the globe were in a fluid state previous to 
 its organization, and that the mode of its orga- 
 nization was not instantaneous, but a gradual 
 process, we shall have placed before us all the 
 important points which the records comprise, 
 or the most zealous believer in their inspiration 
 would think himself bound to maintain.
 
 328 MOSAIC HISTORY 
 
 If such is the historical account, let us pro- 
 ceed to compare it with the appearances which 
 the world exhibits. The conclusions which a 
 natural philosopher of the highest authority 
 thinks himself justified in laying down as cer- 
 tain, are these ; first, " That the sea has at 
 one period or other not only covered all our 
 plains, but that it must have remained there 
 for a long time, and in a state of tranquil- 
 lity." Secondly, " That there has been at 
 least one change in the basin of that sea which 
 preceded ours ; it has experienced at least one 
 revolution." Thirdly, " That the particular 
 portions of the earth also, which the sea has 
 abandoned by its last retreat, had been laid 
 dry once before, and had at that time pro- 
 duced quadrupeds, birds, plants, and all kinds 
 of terrestial productions : it had then been 
 inundated by the sea, which has since retired 
 from it, and left it to be occupied by its own 
 proper inhabitants." * 
 
 * Cuvier on the Theory of the Earth, edited by Professor 
 Jamieson, p. 11, 13, and 14. Cuvier inclines to the belief, 
 that the internal structure of the earth or crust of the globe
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 329 
 
 It is thus evident that the account of Moses, 
 and the results attained by Cuvier, are so far 
 from being contradictory, that they mutually 
 coincide, and derive light and support from 
 each other. First, the prevalence of the waters 
 at the period of the creation described by Mo- 
 ses : * secondly, the separation of the land from 
 the waters, producing a revolution in the basin 
 of the sea : and thirdly, the irruption of the 
 sea over the continent, at a time when its inha- 
 bitants were not very different from those which 
 it still continues to support : are satisfactory 
 coincidences between the sacred historian and 
 the philosopher ; coincidences perhaps too 
 vague to be relied on solely as evidences of the 
 facts, but certainly sufficient to meet any objec- 
 tions which might be insinuated on the score of 
 geology against the other testimony to the truth 
 of the Mosaic writings. 
 
 bears signs of more than one revolution previous to the last, 
 or Deluge ; and of some previous to the existence of animate 
 beings. To this idea I shall allude hereafter. 
 
 * Gen. i. ver. 6 and 9. " Let the waters under the hea- 
 " ven be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land 
 " appear."
 
 330 MOSAIC HISTORY 
 
 Respecting the deluge indeed, its effects, 
 and its universality, there is no uncertainty. 
 Whatever revolutions the materials of our globe 
 may have experienced, it arises from the nature 
 of such revolutions that the effects of the last 
 in order should be most distinctly and uni- 
 versally visible. Accordingly, it is from the 
 legible characters of the deluge recorded by 
 Moses, that geology furnishes the strongest 
 corroboration to his history. Geologers ac- 
 quaint us, that as soon as we pierce the vegeta- 
 ble mould and alluvial soil which form the usual 
 surface of the earth, strata of rocks appear of va- 
 rious descriptions, intermixed with an endless 
 variety of hardened earths, and of calcareous 
 and mineral substances ; strata so blended and 
 heaped together, as to baffle any hypothesis 
 hitherto devised as to their formation : the ac- 
 count which is satisfactory on a partial view, 
 or for a single district, being utterly inconsis- 
 tent with the phenomena of others. 
 
 On the other hand, the Mosaic history informs 
 us that not more than five thousand years ago
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 331 
 
 the whole inhabited world suffered a mighty 
 convulsion, and was inundated by waters co- 
 vering- the highest mountains for one hundred 
 and fifty days. 
 
 It is a problem of very difficult solution, to 
 determine how much of that appearance of 
 internal and external ruin which the earth uni- 
 formly exhibits is to be referred to the effect of 
 this catastrophe. To ascertain this point with 
 any approach to probability, we ought to be 
 acquainted with the means employed ; and the 
 operation by which the submersion was imme- 
 diately caused is only described by the historian 
 in the most general terms. The simplicity of 
 his expression is more suited to the awful event 
 which it relates, than satisfactory to a philo- 
 sophical inquirer : " The fountains of the great 
 " deep were broken up, and the windows of 
 " heaven were opened." From a description 
 of this nature it can only be collected, (what 
 the historian is evidently most anxious we 
 should understand,) that the event was not 
 occasioned by any agency belonging to the
 
 332 
 
 31 OS A 1C HISTORY 
 
 common order of things, but by a supernatural 
 interference.* And to this conclusion we 
 must be brought by a moment's consideration 
 of its nature. Nothing, surely, short of the 
 most complete subversion of the whole globe 
 could raise the sea to a perpendicular height of 
 at least 12,000 feet beyond its ordinary level, 
 or cause an equivalent subsidence of the land.-|- 
 Even if we diminish in any allowable propor- 
 tion the height of the antediluvian hills, still 
 such an overthrow of the system could neither 
 have been effected without violence, nor have 
 taken place without corresponding devastation. 
 
 * The importance which Moses himself attached to the 
 fact of the deluge, is evident from the manner of his narra- 
 tion. He represents it as scarcely less vast and extraordinary 
 than the creation itself, and as requiring- equally the imme- 
 diate exertion of the Creator's power. He relates it very 
 particularly. He prepares us for the account of it, by a so- 
 lemn deliberation on the part of the moral Governor of the 
 world; and he closes the history of it by an assurance to 
 mankind, that the globe they inhabit should never again be 
 subjected to a similar catastrophe. 
 
 -j- The greatest depth of the sea, according to La Place, 
 is eleven miles, and the greatest height of mountains, three or 
 four.
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 333 
 
 When we call to mind the destruction which 
 is spread by a sudden alteration in the level of 
 a very inconsiderable collection of water, even 
 to the extent of fifty or a hundred feet, we 
 cannot easily assign limits to the effect of a 
 body of waters like the ocean pouring in over 
 the land when its level was destroyed. We are 
 at a loss to conceive what the power of such a 
 machine might be, when once in operation. 
 
 Were it allowable to risk a conjecture as to 
 the secondary agents employed in this super- 
 natural revolution, it might seem antecedently 
 probable that subterraneous fire would be prin- 
 cipally concerned in effecting it. The reasons 
 are obvious : the known existence of near two 
 hundred volcanic openings, is sufficient proof 
 of the extent of internal fire : the vast dis- 
 tance at which the shocks they occasion have 
 been sensibly felt, gives some idea of the ex- 
 tent of their force, which even an intervening 
 ocean cannot restrain.* Their accompani- 
 
 * The volcanoes of Etna and Vesuvius attest their inter- 
 nal communications by their simultaneous eruptions. The
 
 334 MOSAIC HISTORY 
 
 ments are earthquakes, agitations of the sea, and 
 inundations. Their consequences are destruc- 
 tion. The earthquake that overwhelmed Callao 
 may have represented on a small and partial 
 scale, the universal deluge. If we multiply 
 that partial subversion of nature to the extent 
 required in order to raise the sea to the level 
 of the highest mountains, we may form some 
 conception of the magnitude of the convulsion, 
 though it would be impossible for us even then 
 to determine what effect such a total disruption 
 and submersion of all the parts which form the 
 fabric of our globe, might occasion upon the 
 materials of which it is composed.* 
 
 convulsions which shook Italy have been accompanied by si- 
 milar convulsions in Iceland. 
 
 * St. Peter, alluding to the deluge, seems clearly to have 
 entertained the idea of a complete overthrow of the parts of 
 the globe. " The world that then was, being overflowed 
 " with water, perislied." The term world would not necessa- 
 rily carry this argument with it, without the succeeding verse; 
 in which the Apostle proceeds to add, " but the heavens and 
 " the earth which are now, by the same word, are kept in 
 " store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment." 
 The contrast in the latter verse explains the ambiguous term 
 in the former. I2p. 2. ch. iii. ver. 6 and 7.
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 335 
 
 From these considerations it would appear, 
 antecedently, not improbable, that the crust of 
 the earth should exhibit traces of the agency, 
 perhaps I may add of the destructive agency, of 
 water and fire. And if geological researches 
 can be yet said to have arrived at any indis- 
 putable conclusion, it seems to be this, that 
 there are phsenomena in the strata of rocks and 
 mineral veins, &c. which can only be ascribed 
 to the agency of water and fire, and which may 
 be best explained, in some instances, if we sup- 
 pose those powerful agents to have been simul- 
 taneously employed. 
 
 But, leaving these agents out of the ques- 
 tion, and adhering to the plain fact of the event 
 and chronology of the deluge, the general con- 
 clusion may be briefly summed up in the words 
 of the powerful authority before cited ; who is 
 of opinion that it is thoroughly established by 
 geology, " that the crust of our globe has been 
 subjected to a great and sudden revolution, the 
 epoch of which cannot be dated much farther 
 back than five or six thousand years ago : and
 
 336 MOSAIC HISTORY 
 
 that the small number of men and other animals 
 that escaped from the effects of that revolution, 
 have since propagated and spread over the lands 
 then newly laid dry."* 
 
 It cannot, therefore, be denied, that the na- 
 tural philosopher and the sacred writer here 
 throw light upon each other. The one points 
 out the signs and remains of a catastrophe, 
 which the other relates as an historical fact. The 
 one shows us a mighty revolution of the order of 
 nature ; the other acquaints us with the agent, 
 by whose power that revolution was effected. 
 
 Having gone back thus far, it might perhaps 
 seem that any speculations on the revolutions 
 which the globe may have undergone previous 
 to that on record, would be superfluous. Re- 
 searches, however, are making, as to the indi- 
 cations remaining of a previous sera, and even 
 of a previous submersion. And the same great 
 
 Cuvier, Essay, p. 171. This subject has lately received 
 a great accession of interest and illustration from Professor 
 Auckland's Reliquiae Diluviana*.
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 337 
 
 naturalist does not doubt that he has discovered 
 numerous genera in a fossil state, which have 
 now no existence in the world ; and gives it as 
 the general result of his inquiries, that, " judg- 
 ing from the different orders of animals of 
 which we discover the fossil remains, the 
 countries which are now inhabited had proba- 
 bly, before the last deluge, experienced two or 
 three irruptions of the sea." 
 
 To attempt any explanation of a notion so 
 hypothetical, and founded on so partial an in- 
 duction as the chalk district in the neighbour- 
 hood of Paris, would be scarcely less idle than 
 to allow any such hypothesis or discovery to 
 militate against the moral or historical evidence 
 on which the Mosaic records rest their immov- 
 able foundation.* 
 
 * It might be worth considering, by those who have the 
 knowledge necessary for such a speculation, how far some of 
 these stratifications and deposits, which are supposed to be- 
 long to successive revolutions, can be accounted for by sup- 
 posing the shocks or convulsions which may have occasioned 
 or attended the deluge, to have been successive, with intervals 
 between them. It is worthy of notice, that the account of 
 VOL. I. Z
 
 338 MOSAIC HISTORY 
 
 To account for any of the phenomena of 
 stratification, we must look for some agency 
 beyond the ordinary course of nature. No 
 causes, of which we know or witness the ope- 
 ration, can explain the state in which the sup- 
 posed remains of a former world have been 
 discovered. The Chinese chronology is as in- 
 sufficient as the Hebrew. The accumulation, 
 therefore, of facts like those which Cuvier has 
 collected, and the description of fossil remains 
 of unknown genera, form a curious and inte- 
 resting subject of speculation, but can never 
 interfere with the knowledge acquired from less 
 disputable sources of information. The alter- 
 nate revolutions which Cuvier supposes, are in 
 the science of geology what systems beyond 
 our own are in astronomy. They are matters 
 
 Moses rather favours such an hypothesis : " The flood was 
 " forty days upon the earth ; and ttie waters increased, and 
 " bare up the ark, and was lift up above the earth. And 
 " the waters prevailed a>i<l increased greatly upon the earth : 
 " and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the 
 " waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth : and all the 
 " high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered." 
 Gen. chap. vii.
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 339 
 
 of curious reflection and sublime interest ; but 
 they lead us beyond the regions of legitimate 
 science or certain history, into those of vague 
 and speculative inquiry. 
 
 All, however, that I am concerned to esta- 
 blish, is the unreasonableness of supposing that 
 geological discoveries, as far as they have hitherto 
 proceeded, are hostile to the Mosaic account of 
 the creation. No rational naturalist would 
 attempt to describe, either from the brief narra- 
 tion in Genesis or otherwise, the process by 
 which our system was brought from confusion 
 into a regular and habitable state. No rational 
 theologian will direct his hostility against any 
 theory, which, acknowledging the agency of the 
 Creator, only attempts to point out the secondary 
 instruments he has employed. Hitherto indeed 
 those theories have had the fate of the monsters 
 of fabulous antiquity, and been destroyed by one 
 another, leaving the only record to which any 
 certain reference can be made, to triumph over 
 their fate. It may be safely affirmed, that no 
 geological theory has yet been proposed, which 
 
 z 2
 
 340 MOSAIC HISTORY 
 
 is not less reconcilable to ascertained facts and 
 conflicting phenomena, than to the Mosaic 
 history.* 
 
 According- to that history, we are bound to 
 admit that only one general destruction or re- 
 volution of the globe has taken place, since 
 the period of that creation which Moses re- 
 cords, and of which Adam and Eve were the 
 first inhabitants. The certainty of one event 
 of that kind would appear from the discoveries 
 of geologers, even if it were not declared by 
 the sacred historian. But we are not called 
 
 * See Cuvier, p. 40 et seqq. Professor Kidd's observa- 
 tions on this subject are well worth attention. In conclusion, 
 he says, " From the endless discordance in the opinions of 
 philosophers on this point, from the manifest inadequacy of 
 the data we are at present in possession of, and from the 
 physical impossibilities which must for ever be a bar to any 
 thing more than a superficial knowledge of the earth's struc- 
 ture, it is preposterous to suppose that that high degree of 
 moral evidence, on which the credibility of Scripture rests, 
 can with any justice be weakened by our interpretation of 
 phaenomena, the connexion of which among themselves even 
 we certainly are at present, and probably ever shall be, in- 
 capable of explaining." Geolog. Essay, ch. i.
 
 NOT OPPOSED BY GEOLOGY. 341 
 
 upon to deny the possible existence of previ- 
 ous worlds, from the wreck of which our 
 globe was organized, and the ruins of which 
 are now furnishing- matter to our curiosity. 
 The belief of their existence is indeed consistent 
 with rational probability, and somewhat con- 
 firmed by the discoveries of astronomy, as to the 
 plurality of worlds.
 
 342 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 APPENDIX, No. II. 
 
 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND FROM A 
 SINGLE PAIR. 
 
 ANOTHER subject connected with the Mosaic 
 account of the creation, in which the truth of 
 that record is apparently implicated, is, the 
 descent of mankind from a single pair. Some 
 writers, indeed, who defend the hypothesis of 
 distinct species, have disclaimed the idea of 
 considering that hypothesis as contradictory to 
 Revelation ; and appeal to the acknowledged 
 purpose, and indisputable conciseness, of the 
 history given by Moses, as rendering it unne- 
 cessary to adhere to so strict and literal an in- 
 terpretation of the text. But whatever possi- 
 bility there might be of reconciling the account
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 34<3 
 
 of Moses with any other hypothesis than that 
 of the original creation of a single pair, and no 
 more ; it is evident that such is the plain and 
 natural interpretation of his history. And on 
 this ground a popular argument is sometimes 
 raised against his authority. It is asserted, 
 that the different characters of the several races 
 of mankind are inconsistent with the idea of a 
 common descent, and constitute distinct spe- 
 cies ; and in proof of this point stress is parti- 
 cularly laid upon the form of the skull, which 
 varies in the European, the Mongole, the Ne- 
 gro, the American, and the Malay race, very 
 remarkably in their respective extremes ; and 
 certain varieties in the bones are brought for- 
 ward, especially of the fore-arm and heel j to 
 which are added, the striking diversities of 
 colour. The exact details of this different or- 
 ganization properly belong to treatises written 
 expressly on this subject, and I must leave 
 them to be sought there. Without entering 
 upon it with anatomical accuracy, there is evi- 
 dently a considerable variety in the external 
 configuration, and enough to make it a natural
 
 344 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 question whether such varieties can be accounted 
 for on any other supposition than that of distinct 
 species. 
 
 This is a question which can scarcely, in the 
 present state of our knowledge, be treated in 
 any other mode than that of analogy. Are 
 there any varieties among brute animals, con- 
 fessedly belonging to the same original species, 
 approaching to those which are so evident 
 among mankind ? Are there any causes to 
 which we can confidently trace those varieties ? 
 Do similar possible causes of variety exist in 
 the circumstances of different branches of the 
 human race ? These are the only lines of ar- 
 gument by which we can approach the present 
 inquiry. 
 
 I. It is undeniable that the varieties which 
 spring up, and are perpetuated, among inferior 
 animals, are no less numerous or remarkable, 
 than those exhibited by the inhabitants of the 
 different corners of the globe. This is a fact 
 familiar to the most common observation. While
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 345 
 
 the inhabitant of a sea-port, or crowded city, 
 is surprised by every possible shade of hue in the 
 human complexion, and such varieties of coun- 
 tenance as must naturally result from a difference 
 in the facial angle varying 1 from 85 to 70 de- 
 grees ; the traveller through the country finds 
 the brute creation exhibiting similar differences, 
 and deviations not less remarkable from the 
 original model. He sees, for instance, in almost 
 every country, a prevailing breed of oxen : the 
 red of Devonshire, the white-faced breed of 
 Herefordshire, the hornless breed naturalized 
 from Poland, the stately brown of Yorkshire, 
 the lean and ragged Alderney, the black heifer of 
 the Scottish hills. Among horses there is no less 
 variety ; as between the tall and bony draught- 
 horses of Lincolnshire, the Scotch galloway, the 
 Welsh or Shetland pony, and the breed of racers. 
 Again, we find an acknowledged difference in 
 the breed of sheep, as exhibited by the horned 
 breed, that of Leicestershire, the South- down, 
 and the Welsh, with all the intermediate va- 
 rieties. Hogs vary no less remarkably, in the 
 shape of the head, the length and size of the
 
 346 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 leg ; and one race, which is not uncommon in 
 some parts of England, has the hoof undivided.* 
 I do not instance the numerous races of dogs, 
 because, owing to the extraordinary difference 
 among them, some naturalists have controverted 
 Buffon's theory of a single species ; though even 
 if that belief is given up, very important devia- 
 tions will remain to be accounted for. The 
 smaller animals, as fowls, hares, rabbits, &c., 
 afford similar examples of variety, which it is not 
 necessary to notice, except to show, that such 
 is the plan which Nature is universally accus- 
 tomed to follow. 
 
 Now, with regard to the degree of difference, 
 it must be confessed that the species which have 
 been alluded to, exhibit peculiarities no less 
 striking than those of the European or Negro. 
 A series of skulls, from the large head of the 
 wild horse to the short head of the Hungarian 
 breed, or the slender head of the English racer, 
 would form a more remarkable instance of de- 
 
 * Noticed also by Arislotle and Pliny.
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 347 
 
 viation than that procured by the facial angle of 
 Camper or zygomatic processes of Blumenbach, 
 in the human race. No difference in the os calcis, 
 or ulna, between the American and European, 
 is so considerable as that which exists between 
 the comparative length of leg in different breeds 
 of hogs, or the size of the head and legs in pro- 
 portion to the rest of the body in sheep. The 
 nature of the covering of the animal, whether of 
 the wool among sheep, or of the hair in dogs 
 and goats, varies no less than the hair of the 
 human head. And the animals which have been 
 enumerated furnish as remarkable, and, ap- 
 parently, as arbitrary varieties of colour as we 
 find among mankind, from the Albino to the 
 New Zealander or African. 
 
 The difference, therefore, is not less in de- 
 gree, and it is the same in kind ; it consists in 
 the shape of the skull, in the length of some of 
 the bones, in the hair, and in the colour of the 
 skin. Yet the examples alleged have been con- 
 fined almost to a single kingdom. Take the 
 globe collectively, as in the case of man ; and
 
 348 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 the bison and buffalo will be added to the va- 
 rieties of the ox ; the argali, and Siberian sheep, 
 will be placed in contrast with our domestic 
 breed ; the Ceylon horse would be instanced, 
 which is not more than thirty inches high : and, 
 according to the most common opinion, the dog 
 would afford an example of the wolf or jackal in 
 a state of domestication. Perhaps the best 
 general idea of the natural tendency to variety, 
 which is found in all the species of land animals, 
 may be formed from those plates in books of 
 zoology which present a collective view of the 
 separate species j and as the advocates of dif- 
 ferent species in the human race take pains to 
 show us the features and complexion most dis- 
 similar to each other in frightful contrast, it is 
 reasonable to employ the same method in order 
 to counteract an erroneous impression. 
 
 II. It is evident from these instances, that 
 there is a great tendency in nature to run into 
 varieties of configuration, size, and colour. 
 The question, which respects the immediate 
 cause to which such physical diversities may
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 349 
 
 be ascribed, is less easily answered. Analogy 
 must still be our guide. What are the acknow- 
 ledged circumstances which lead to accidental 
 deviation in those departments of nature where 
 our observations are most certain and familiar ? 
 
 In flowering plants and fruits, varieties abound, 
 and the art of producing them is well under- 
 stood. They are known to depend on the 
 nature of the soil which nourishes them, and 
 its comparative richness or poverty ; on climate 
 and exposure j on care or neglect of cultivation. 
 
 What cultivation effects in the vegetable, 
 domestication effects in the animal world. The 
 wild animal, preserving the same habits, nou- 
 rished by the same food, sometimes in scarcity, 
 and sometimes in abundance, and exposed to 
 the vicissitudes of the seasons, assumes little 
 variety which may not easily be traced to the 
 operation of these causes : the same soil, cli- 
 mate, and subsistence, continue to produce a 
 similar race, and it is not till these are altered 
 that peculiar characters arise. But when the
 
 .350 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 animal becomes domesticated, all the stimu- 
 lants which are found by experience to affect 
 the breed are supplied : such as regular and 
 abundant nourishment, and protection from in- 
 clement seasons. " The consequence is, a lux- 
 uriant growth, the revolution of varieties, and 
 the exhibition of all the perfections of which 
 the species is capable."* And the varieties thus 
 springing up from time to time, whether in the 
 wool or hair, in the form of the limbs, or in 
 colour, are perpetuated in the offspring, and 
 subsequently increased by a careful selection of 
 the subjects most remarkable for the quality 
 which it is desired to improve. " These are 
 kept for the future propagation of the stock, 
 and a repeated attention is paid to the same 
 circumstances, till, the effect continually in- 
 creasing, a particular figure, colour, proportion 
 of limbs, or any other attainable quality, is es- 
 tablished in the race ; and the conformity is 
 
 * See Dr. Pritchard's Researches into the physical His- 
 tory of Man : a work containing a large collection of valuable 
 facts relating to this subject, from which the author reasons 
 with exemplary candour and moderation.
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 351 
 
 afterwards maintained by removing from the 
 breed any new variety which may casually spring- 
 up in it."* Thus, in England, where the white 
 fleece is preferred, the black rams are killed ; 
 in other countries equal care is taken to exclude 
 the white variety. On the other hand, a diminu- 
 tion of size and deterioration of the fleece will al- 
 ways happen, where the greater and the less 
 copulate promiscuously, and the young animal is 
 restrained from growth by penury of sustenance. 
 
 III. The causes, therefore, of varieties among 
 inferior animals may be considered as tolerably 
 ascertained. If similar causes operate on man 
 also, which is now to be inquired, it is natural 
 to suppose, that we should find some traces of 
 their effect in the countries and localities most 
 
 * A curious instance of the tendency in nature to perpe- 
 tuate accidental varieties, appears in a breed of sheep, called 
 the Ankon, the fore-legs being bent in the form of an elbow. 
 By degrees a considerable number were obtained by selection 
 from the offspring of a ram which first showed the peculi- 
 arity, and the breed is now regularly propagated in New 
 England, because it is unable to get over the fences. 
 Pritchard, p. 71.
 
 3,52 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 favourable for its development ; notwithstand- 
 ing- the advantages which man enjoys in pro- 
 curing for himself artificial protection against 
 the seasons, and the frequent and uncontrolled 
 intermixture of families and tribes. 
 
 Accordingly, the effect of climate upon the 
 human race is undeniable. It is observed by 
 every traveller through extensive regions ; and 
 its influence alone has been very generally sup- 
 posed to regulate that most striking variety 
 which mankind exhibit, the diversities of co- 
 lour.* " The more exact as well as more ex- 
 tended observations which our enlarged ac- 
 quaintance with different countries has intro- 
 duced, so far contradict this hypothesis, as to 
 
 * This is the received idea from the time of Herodotus : 
 who calls the ^Ethiopians, dydpuirot uVo (cau/xaroc, /ue'Aayec 
 oVrec. ii. 2. De Pauw says, with great positiveness, " Le 
 teint plus ou moins obscur, plus ou moins fonce des habitans 
 qui essuient ces ditferentes temperatures de 1'air entre les 
 tropiques, prouve independamment de toute autre demon- 
 stration, que le climat seul colorie les substances les plus in- 
 times du corps humain." Recherches sur les Americaines, 
 p. 219.
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 353 
 
 prove that the influence of heat of climate, 
 without other adventitious circumstances, is 
 insufficient to account for the phenomenon." * 
 The indigenous nations of America afford a 
 
 o 
 
 very ample field for this inquiry, scattered at 
 immense distances over a vast continent of a 
 most diversified surface, including- every va- 
 riety of habitable climate : and the result is, 
 that it is impossible to attribute the colour of 
 the skin to the effect of heat alone. The In- 
 dians of New Spain, says Humboldt, have a 
 more swarthy complexion t than the inhabi- 
 tants of the warmest climates of South Ame- 
 
 * Pritchard ubi supra. I have taken the liberty of select- 
 ing from this author several of the following quotations ; and 
 indeed have derived great assistance from his volume through- 
 out the whole of this discussion. 
 
 f It is understood, that the proximate cause of the differ- 
 ence in colour consists in the colouring matter of the rete 
 mucosum or reticular fabric ; a general capillary system 
 lying beneath the epidermis or external cuticle. This system 
 of vessels contains, in different people, fluids of different 
 shades. Humboldt says, that the rete mucosum of the Ne- 
 gro and American contains an " abundant deposition of car- 
 buretted hydrogen." 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 354f ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 rica. There are tribes of a colour by no means 
 deep among- the Indians of the new continent, 
 whose complexion approaches to that of the 
 Arabs or Moors. We find the people of the 
 Rio Nesrro swarthier than those of the lower 
 
 O 
 
 Orinoco, and yet the banks of the first of these 
 rivers enjoy a much cooler climate than the 
 more northern regions. In the forests of Gui- 
 ana, especially near the sources of the Orinoco, 
 are several tribes of a whitish complexion; the 
 Guaicas, Guajaribs, and Ariques, of whom se- 
 veral robust individuals have the appearance of 
 true Mestizos ; yet these tribes have never 
 mingled with Europeans, and are surrounded 
 with other tribes of a dark brown hue. Her- 
 rera, Ulloa, and many Spanish writers, some 
 of whom are cited by Dr. Robertson, give the 
 same account. Ulloa's authority is of the more 
 weight, because he had personally opportunities 
 of making observations on the Indians in North 
 as well as South America ; and he reported 
 that there was no discoverable difference of 
 complexion which had any relation to climate.
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 355 
 
 The Negro race affords us another example 
 of a stock of people spread over regions which 
 extend themselves into almost every habitable 
 climate, and preserving, like the tribes of Ame- 
 rican Indians, that general likeness which gives 
 a presumptive proof of connexion in race and 
 origin. Yet the general conclusion from a sur- 
 vey of Africa and the neighbouring islands, is in 
 contradiction to the supposed effect of climate 
 on the human complexion. There are indeed 
 variations from the deep black, as the tawny co- 
 lour of the Foulahs and Hottentots ; but the 
 lighter people live either among or in the vici- 
 nity of others, that are perfectly black, and 
 the variety cannot therefore be imputed to local 
 situation. The general complexion of savages 
 is black or a dark hue, and among the nations 
 which continue in that state, whatever cli- 
 mates they inhabit, though deviations occur in 
 individuals, yet these do not go to any great 
 extent, nor are they frequent enough to pro- 
 duce any general effect. They appear indeed 
 to occur more often in moderate than in very 
 hot climates. 
 
 A A
 
 356 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 It is certain, therefore, that the common 
 opinion which refers the difference of com- 
 plexion among mankind solely to the climate 
 under which they live, and the degree of heat 
 and cold they experience, gives at most only a 
 partial and inadequate account of the pheno- 
 menon. 
 
 At the same time no fact can be better as- 
 certained, than that local circumstances, de- 
 gree of exposure, quality and quantity of food 
 and state of civilization, all exercise an effect 
 upon the human constitution, which is distin- 
 guishable in the features, size and strength of 
 the individual. The facts observed by Ulloa 
 and Humboldt, as to the local varieties in the 
 American race, admit of no other explanation. 
 The latter says, " the same style of features 
 exists, no doubt, in both Americas ; but those 
 Europeans who have sailed on the great rivers 
 Orinoco and the Amazons, and have had oc- 
 casion to see a great number of tribes assem- 
 bled together under the monastical hierarchy 
 of the missions, must have observed, that the
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 357 
 
 American race contains nations whose features 
 differ no less widely from each other, than the 
 numerous varieties of the race of Caucasus, 
 the Circassians, Moors, and Peruvians." 
 
 Mr. Jackson * has given a very minute de- 
 scription of the inhabitants of the different 
 provinces within the empire of Morocco. 
 Many of the ^discrepancies which he observes 
 are material to the present subject. The first 
 province from the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 where villages and walled habitations are met 
 with, is Haha : the neighbouring provinces be- 
 ing altogether inhabited by Arabs dwelling in 
 tents. Immediately following this remark, we 
 find the observation that " the Shelluks of Haha 
 are physiognomically distinguishable from the 
 Arabs of the plains, from the Moors of the 
 towns, and from the Berebbers of North Atlas, 
 and even from the Shelluks of Susa, though in 
 their language, manners, and mode of living 
 they resemble the latter." 
 
 * Morocco, p. 16.
 
 358 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 The extraordinary power of local circum- 
 stance over the human constitution, is well 
 exemplified by a passage in Mr. Turner's Em- 
 bassy to Tibet. He tells us, that " at the foot 
 of the Bootan mountains, a plain extends for 
 about thirty miles, choked, rather than clothed, 
 with the most luxuriant vegetation. The ex- 
 halations arising from the springs which the 
 vicinity of the mountains produces, collected 
 and confined by almost impervious woods, 
 generate an atmosphere which no traveller ever 
 passed with impunity. Yet even this spot is 
 not destitute of inhabitants, though its influence 
 has wholly debased in them the form, the size, 
 and strength of human creatures." A mes- 
 senger here met Mr. Turner, a being that 
 hardly bore the resemblance of humanity ; " of 
 disgusting features, meagre limbs, and diminu- 
 tive stature. He was of a mixed race between 
 the Bootean and Bengalee ; and it was won- 
 derful to observe how greatly the influence of 
 a pestilential climate had caused him to dege- 
 nerate from both." * 
 
 * Embassy to Tibet, p. 21.
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 359 
 
 The effect of a precarious or insufficient 
 supply of food is described by Volney, in his 
 account of the Bedouin Arabs, whom he calls 
 a race of men equally remarkable in their 
 physical and moral character. " Their singu- 
 larity is so striking, that even their neighbours 
 the Syrians regard them as extraordinary 
 beings, especially those tribes which dwell in 
 the depths of the deserts. In general they are 
 small, meagre, and tawny : they also differ 
 among themselves in the same camp; and I 
 have remarked that the Shaiks, i. e. the rich, 
 and their attendants, were always taller and 
 more corpulent than the common class. This 
 difference can only be attributed to their food, 
 with which the former are supplied more abun- 
 dantly than the latter. It is an undoubted fact, 
 that the quantity of food usually consumed by 
 the greater part of them, does not exceed six 
 ounces a day."* 
 
 In countries inhabited by the European race, 
 the tribes that reside in hilly tracts are fairer 
 * Travels in Syria, i. 391.
 
 360 
 
 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 than the people of the plains and valleys. The 
 mountaineers of Sicily are remarkable for light 
 hair and blue eyes, characters which are not seen 
 in the low country on the coast. 
 
 The general complexion of the Scottish high- 
 landers is dark ; dark brown or black hair and 
 eyes are very prevalent among them ; and in 
 some spots of the northern highlands, red hair 
 is almost universal. 
 
 Johnson observes of the inhabitants of the 
 Hebrides, that they are commonly of the middle 
 stature ; and that the tallest men he saw were 
 among those of highest rank : adding, as a 
 general observation, that in regions of barren- 
 ness and scarcity the human race is hindered 
 in its growth by the same causes as other 
 animals. To the same purpose it has been 
 remarked, that the young men who offer them- 
 selves for the army in Ireland, are more gene- 
 rally below the given height than in England : 
 a fact not admitting of mistake, as the standard 
 is an infallible criterion.
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 36l 
 
 These observations, which might be extended 
 without limit from every reputable book of 
 travels, establish beyond reasonable doubt the 
 effect of local causes upon the physical consti- 
 tution of mankind ; and lead to this general 
 conclusion, that penury of living, and exposure 
 to changeable and inclement extremes of heat 
 and cold, contribute to the coarseness, and what 
 may be called the deterioration of the species. 
 This is sufficiently shown by the examples which 
 have been alleged. 
 
 IV. But, in order to judge of the reasona- 
 bleness of attributing to the operation of these 
 causes the whole of the pheenomena under 
 inquiry, it ought to be considered whether a 
 reverse of the circumstances which have re- 
 duced the Bedouin or Bojesman to their state 
 of degradation, will also reverse their physiog- 
 nomical character ; and whether the comforts 
 and conveniences of civilization will produce a 
 tendency towards the European standard of 
 features and complexion.
 
 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 The inhabitants of the South Sea isles are 
 favourably circumstanced to assist us in this 
 question. The presumption, both from their 
 language, manners, and situation, is greatly in 
 favour of their descent from the same original 
 race ; and they are living under very various 
 circumstances of climate, and plenty, and ad- 
 vancement in the arts : some absolute savages, 
 and others with great advantages of comfort 
 and abundance. If, then, difference of civi- 
 lization affects the form and features, it will be 
 evident here : and here its effect is seen in the 
 features, hair, and complexion. 
 
 O-Taheitee and the adjacent Society Isles, 
 contain the fairest and best-proportioned peo- 
 ple of all the numerous clusters.* But their 
 inhabitants differ, according to their rank. 
 " The common people, who are most exposed 
 to the air and sun, exert their strength in agri- 
 culture, fishing, paddling, building houses and 
 canoes, and are stinted in their food, are blacker, 
 
 * Forsler's Observations on a Voyage round the World.
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 363 
 
 their hair more woolly and crisp, their bodies 
 low and slender. But their chiefs and arees 
 have a very different appearance. The colour 
 of their skin is less tawny than that of a Spaniard, 
 and not so coppery as that of an American ; it 
 is of a lighter tint than the fairest complexion 
 of an inhabitant of the East India islands ; in a 
 word, it is of a white, tinctured with a brownish 
 yellow, however, not so strongly mixed, but 
 that on the cheek of the fairest of their women you 
 may easily distinguish a spreading blush. From 
 this complexion we find all the intermediate hues 
 down to a lively brown, bordering upon the 
 swarthy complexion. A few have yellowish 
 brown, or sandy hair." Dr. Forster saw one 
 man in O-Taha who had perfectly red hair, a 
 fairer complexion than the rest, and was sprinkled 
 all over with freckles. When it is remembered 
 that these people are universally acknowledged 
 to be of the same race with the New Zealand- 
 ers, who are perfectly black, and have every 
 characteristic in the form of the savage state 
 exhibited in their manners and customs, the 
 gradual effect of clothing, protection, regular
 
 364 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 sustenance, and comfort, will be distinctly 
 seen. 
 
 Among the Negro race a corresponding dif- 
 ference is found. The Foulahs, according to 
 Park, are distinguished from the surrounding 
 tribes in Africa. They are not black, but of 
 a tawny colour, which is lighter and yellower 
 in some states than others. They have small 
 features, and soft silky hair, without either the 
 thick lips or the crisp wool which are common 
 to the other tribes. Again, they are much 
 more civilized than the rest of the African 
 nations, and their manners are gentle and 
 pastoral. 
 
 A similar tendency appears in the same 
 Negro race, when transplanted to America ; in 
 those individuals, at least, who with the coun- 
 try are allowed to change the manners of their 
 African progenitors. " The domestic servants, 
 whose condition is little different from that of 
 the lower class of white people, alter perceiv- 
 ably in the third generation ; they have the nose
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 365 
 
 raised, the mouth and lips of moderate size, the 
 eyes lively and sparkling 1 , and often the whole 
 composition of features extremely agreeable. 
 The hair grows sensibly longer in each succeeding 
 race : it extends to three, four, and sometimes to 
 six or eight inches."* 
 
 In Hindostan, the higher caste, or Brahmans, 
 who live in a state of ease and affluence, differ 
 widely from the rest, not only in a distinct turn 
 of features, but in their complexion also, which 
 is of a much lighter shade than that of the in- 
 ferior orders, both in the northern and southern 
 provinces of India. These examples sufficiently 
 prove the effect of civilization in bringing the 
 complexion and features gradually towards the 
 European standard.^ 
 
 * Dr. Smith. 
 
 t " All Asiatics attach an idea of rank to fairness of colour. 
 Why, I know not, unless it is that their chiefs are usually 
 fairer than the commonalty : this may perhaps be owing- to 
 their being brought up with greater care, immured and shel- 
 tered from vicissitudes of climate and season : in their mature 
 age also they are less liable to exposure." Pottinger's Travels 
 in Beloochistan and Sinde, 150.
 
 366 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 If the history of different nations should ever 
 be so clearly traced as to be matter of certainty 
 instead of conjecture, which may be the case 
 when we attain a more intimate acquaintance 
 with their language and annals, written or tra- 
 ditional, it is probable that the effect of climate 
 and moral habits in the change of character 
 and configuration would appear undeniably, by 
 tracing its progress through different migra- 
 tions.* It does, indeed, already show itself 
 clearly, in many undisputed instances. The 
 language of the Turks remains an indelible 
 monument of their origin from a tribe of Tur- 
 comans. Yet they have long since lost their 
 Tartar configuration ; and the flat faces and 
 squat bodies of their ancestors are no longer 
 
 * Dr. PritcHard has entered upon this subject with great 
 ingenuity and research, and gone far towards proving a com 
 raon origin, in particular, to all the nations from Kgypt to 
 the Ganges. Mr. Townsend likewise, in a recent volume, 
 traces a connected chain of languages, which every where 
 exhibit a common origin, and differ only in dialect, extend- 
 ing from Cape Comorin to Iceland and Scandinavia; whence 
 the conclusion follows, that all these nations were colonies 
 from some eastern country.
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 367 
 
 found among- them, and have been succeeded 
 by high features and admirable forms. 
 
 V. The tendency in the different varieties 
 of the human race to return to the same model, 
 leads strongly to the same conclusion with the 
 former instances. This is perfectly understood 
 in the Spanish provinces of South America, 
 where the regnlar gradations from the alliance 
 between a native and an European are regularly 
 traced. The fifth generation, called Quinte- 
 rone,* is the last stage, there being no visible 
 difference between them arid the whites, either 
 in colour or features. Mr. Barrowf states a 
 fact of the same nature with regard to the Hot- 
 tentots : " Those who marry have seldom more 
 than two or three children, and many of the 
 women are barren. This, however, is not the 
 case when a Hottentot woman is connected with 
 a white man. The fruit of such an alliance is 
 not only, in general, numerous, but are beings of 
 a very different nature from the Hottentot ; 
 men of six feet high, and stout in proportion, 
 * Ulloa, vol. i. p. 31. -j- Account of the Cape.
 
 368 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 and women, not ill-featured, well made, smart, 
 and active." It tends to the same purpose, that 
 the peculiar configuration of the Tartar or 
 Negro is often found among individuals in every 
 country. It is allowed even by Blumenbach, 
 that no national form is so constant and un- 
 varied, but that it exhibits instances of great 
 deviation ; so that we every where observe 
 among Europeans a frequent similarity to the 
 Ethiopian or Calmuck form. 
 
 The particular occasion and nature of the 
 process by which these and all the varieties of 
 which every country in the globe furnishes ex- 
 amples, are first produced, and afterwards 
 perpetuated, is confessedly a secret which no 
 researches have yet penetrated completely. 
 It is probable that the mind is materially con- 
 cerned. The perception of beauty, which 
 seems peculiar to the human race, must have 
 considerable effects upon the physical character, 
 and act as a constant principle of improvement. 
 Many of the instances which have been addu- 
 ced also confirm the opinion of Johnson, who
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 369 
 
 remarks,* that "to expand the human face to 
 its full perfection, it seems necessary that the 
 mind should co-operate by placidness of con- 
 tent, or consciousness of superiority." But, 
 without attempting to account for the fact, the 
 fact itself is indisputable, that in every climate, 
 every tribe, and every individual family, there 
 is a tendency to variety in the midst of general 
 uniformity, and some secret law of nature by 
 which accidental varieties become permanent 
 and hereditary. 
 
 In families, this is universally acknowledged. 
 In nations, it is matter of common observation. 
 In different provinces of the same nation, it is 
 not unfrequently remarked. Travellers in 
 Italy assert, that the people of every different 
 state have their peculiar form of features, or 
 characteristic physiognomy. The different castes 
 in Hindostan, who have been prevented by their 
 religion from intermarriages, have each acquired 
 a distinct set of features, and are all easily dis- 
 
 * Journey to the Western Islands, p. 191. 
 VOL. 1. B B
 
 370 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 tinguished by people who are conversant with 
 them. This must evidently be ascribed to some 
 natural principle, which we can only pretend to 
 trace in its effects. 
 
 But whatever this secret influence may be, 
 it is material to remark, that in the earlier ages, 
 in those, for instance, which succeeded the 
 deluge, two circumstances would greatly con- 
 tribute to perpetuate those varieties which local 
 causes might produce, and, perhaps, to fix those 
 strong characteristic features, which, in their 
 extremes, so widely separate the different races 
 of mankind. First, the protracted period to 
 which the lives of the patriarchs were extended ; 
 which would, of course, allow more scope for 
 the operation of those causes, whatever they arc, 
 which influence the form and features : the 
 peculiarities dependent on those causes would 
 from hence become more deeply seated in the 
 individual, and more remarkably continued in 
 the offspring. 
 
 Secondly : the effect produced by these means
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 371 
 
 Would be greatly increased by the universal 
 custom of adhering to one family in forming 
 matrimonial alliances. This custom is a natural 
 result from the patriarchal mode of life, and is 
 always found co- existent with a certain state of 
 civilization. The anxiety of Abraham, lest 
 Isaac should take a wife from among the daugh- 
 ters of the Canaanitcs, with whom he dwelt, is 
 recorded in Scripture : he solemnly enjoins his 
 servant, that he " should go unto his own coun- 
 " try and his own kindred, and take a wife for 
 " his son."* We find the same related of Isaac,f 
 who charged his son Jacob to go to Padan-Aran 
 to the house of Bethuel, his mother's father, 
 and take a wife from thence of the daughters of 
 Laban, his mother's hr other. There can be no 
 doubt but that, in a state of civilization and of 
 manners when this care to prevent intermarria- 
 ges was general, the peculiar characters would be 
 more strongly marked, and indelibly fixed, than 
 we can expect to find them in any modern ex- 
 amples. 
 
 * Gen. xxiv. 7 Gen. xxviii. 
 
 13 B
 
 372 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 VI. With so many facts before us, both direct 
 and analogous, by which the varieties appearing 
 among the human race may be accounted for, 
 and have been accounted for by our greatest and 
 most unbiassed naturalists, it will hardly be ar- 
 gued that his report of the descent of mankind 
 from a single pair can form a solid objection to 
 the history given by Moses of the creation. But 
 suppose an objector to embrace the other side 
 of the question, and maintain, that the differ- 
 ences existing among the human race are specific 
 differences, and not accidental varieties ; it is 
 important to see that he has not at all advanced 
 the inquiry, or removed the difficulty. If we once 
 have recourse to different species for an expla- 
 nation of the phaenomena, the species must be 
 multiplied beyond what the warmest partizans 
 of that hypothesis will be disposed to allow, or 
 they are reduced to the very difficulties from 
 which they endeavour to escape by such vio- 
 lent means. 
 
 " The Negro, the American, some of the 
 Asiatic tribes, and the European, seem evi-
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 373 
 
 dently to be different species," says Mr. White.* 
 But what is gained by this admission, if the 
 supposed impassable boundaries, features, and 
 colour, are overstepped in innumerable instances 
 within the several regions to which these dif- 
 ferent species are allotted ? In Africa, there 
 are many tribes with Negro features, but a 
 tawny, or yellow, or copper colour :f America 
 has her white as well as her copper and swarthy 
 race. In Asia, what a marked discrepancy be- 
 tween the Circassian and the Calmuck ; the inha- 
 bitants of Hindostan, and of China ; the Arabs 
 and the islanders of the Pacific ! Must we sup- 
 pose a distinct creation for each of these, and a 
 hundred other tribes, which cannot be ascribed to 
 common origin, if it is determined that features 
 and complexion have never deviated from the 
 mould in which they were first cast, six thou- 
 sand years ago ? 
 
 What shall we say of the difference between 
 the erees, or nobles, and lower classes in the 
 
 * On the Gradations in Man. -j- Park.
 
 >71 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 islands of Australasia ? " The former," says 
 Captain Cook, " were, without exception, per- 
 fectly well-formed ; whereas the lower sort, 
 besides their general inferiority, are subject to 
 all the variety of make and figure that is seen 
 in the populace of other countries." 
 
 By the advocates of distinct species the well- 
 known difference between the noble families of 
 Persia and the inferior classes must be sought 
 for in the history of their ancestors, and not 
 ascribed to the cause to which it is generally re- 
 ferred, their selection of the most beautiful Cir- 
 cassians for their harams. 
 
 Travellers in Africa agree in relating, that 
 almost every tribe has its distinct physiognomy. 
 The JalofFs are jet black, but their features 
 approach the European model. The Foulahs, 
 who adjoin them, rank themselves among the 
 white people. The colour of the people of 
 Congo differs greatly in depth of dye. Their 
 hair is in general black and curled ; but, in 
 some instances, of a dark sandy colour. They
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 3J5 
 
 have neither flat noses nor thick lips, like other 
 Negroes. The island of Madagascar is inha- 
 bited by races of people who differ consider- 
 ably in their physical characters. Some tribes 
 are of a deep black colour, with crisp or woolly 
 hair ; in short, true Negroes. Other tribes have 
 dark and smooth hair, and are tawny. Some 
 are copper-coloured. The people of Natal, on 
 the eastern shore of Africa, are of a middle 
 stature, well-made, and of graceful aspect. Their 
 faces are oval, and noses neither flat nor high, 
 but well-proportioned. Passing to the opposite 
 side of Africa, we are informed, that the com- 
 plexion of the Moors is of all shades, from black 
 to white. The women of Fas are as fair as 
 Europeans, with the exception of their eyes 
 and hair, which are universally dark. " It is 
 extraordinary," says Mr. Jackson,* " that the 
 inhabitants of two cities, situated within a day's 
 journey of each other, should discover such a 
 physiognomical difference, as is apparent be- 
 tween the females of Fas and those of Mequinas j 
 
 * Accouut of Morocco, p. 137.
 
 3J6 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND 
 
 the former being generally of a sallow or pale 
 complexion, while the latter unite that beautiful 
 red and white so much admired by foreigners in 
 our English ladies. The men of the neighbour- 
 ing district of Temsena are of a copper colour." 
 
 Similar difference, both in colour and form, 
 without any discoverable cause, are remarked 
 by Ulloa and Humboldt in America. The na- 
 tives of Guayaquil are not tawny, though the 
 heat there is equal to that of Panama or Car- 
 thagena : they are fresh-coloured, and so finely 
 featured as to be justly called the handsomest 
 of all Peru.* Again, some of the Mestizoes, 
 born at Quito, are as tawny as the Indians 
 themselves ; others have so fine a complexion, 
 that they might pass for whites till viewed at- 
 tentively.t In North America, under 54 10' 
 north latitude, at Cloak Bay, in the midst of 
 copper-coloured Indians, with small long eyes, 
 there is a tribe with large eyes, European fea- 
 tures, and a skin less dark than that of our 
 European peasantry. 
 
 * Ulloa, i. 164. f Ulloa, i. 277.
 
 FROM A SINGLE PAIR. 377 
 
 There is a like diversity in the Finnish race. 
 The Laplanders are diminutive and deformed ; 
 have black hair and a swarthy brown com- 
 plexion. The Finns, though nearly related to 
 them, are much stouter and better made : they 
 have fair complexions, and very generally red 
 hair. 
 
 This cursory view of the diversities existing 
 between nations closely adjoining each other, 
 and bearing every presumptive proof of a com- 
 mon origin, is quite enough to show how little 
 would be gained towards a consistent theory, 
 by adopting the hypothesis of several species 
 of the human race. If we once admit the idea, 
 that the varieties of colour and features are 
 specific, it is impossible to assign a limit, and 
 a thousand different tribes in every extensive 
 district crowd upon us, each claiming, and 
 with almost equal right, the distinction of a 
 separate creation. The European is not more 
 unlike the Caifre, than the CaiFre differs from 
 the Bojesman, or the Hottentot, from whom 
 they are separated only by a range of hills.
 
 378 ON THE DESCENT OF MANKIND, &C. 
 
 Upon the whole, I think we are justified in 
 concluding", that although the mode by which 
 peculiar features and complexion become per- 
 manent, is still involved in much obscurity, yet 
 the account of the origin of the human race, 
 contained in the Mosaic history, agrees better 
 with the general results concerning the appear- 
 ance of mankind in different countries, than 
 any other theory which has hitherto been pro- 
 posed.
 
 379 
 
 APPENDIX, No. III. 
 
 ON THE AUTHENTICITY AND ANTIQUITY OF 
 THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 AMONG the points which have been confes- 
 sedly proved already, beyond the dpubt of any 
 reasonable man, I must be allowed to reckon 
 the antiquity and authenticity of the Penta- 
 teuch. " Common sense requires that every 
 thing proposed to the understanding, should 
 be accompanied with such proof as the nature of 
 it can furnish. He who requires more, is 
 guilty of absurdity ; he who requires less, of 
 rashness." That any part of the premises on 
 which the argument depends, may not appear 
 to be quite overlooked, I will briefly show 
 that these demands of Bolingbroke are in the 
 present instance strictly satisfied.
 
 380 ON THE AUTHENTICITY AND 
 
 The authenticity has been proved,* first, by 
 a comparison of the style of the early historical 
 books with that of the rest of the Old Testa- 
 ment. " No language continues during many 
 centuries in the same state of cultivation ; and 
 the Hebrew, like other tongues, passed through 
 the several stages of infancy, youth, manhood, 
 and old age. If, therefore, on comparison, 
 the several parts of the Hebrew Bible are 
 found to differ, not only in regard to style, but 
 also in regard to character and cultivation of 
 language ; if the one discovers the golden, 
 another the silver, a third the brazen, a fourth 
 the iron age ; we have strong internal marks 
 of their having been composed at different and 
 distant periods. No classical scholar, inde- 
 pendently of the Grecian history, would be- 
 lieve that the poems ascribed to Homer were 
 written in the age of Demosthenes, the ora- 
 tions of Demosthenes in the time of Origen, 
 or the commentaries of Origen in the days of 
 Lascaris and Chrysoloras. For the very same 
 
 * See an excellent pamphlet, " The Authenticity of the 
 Five Books of Moses vindicated," by Bishop Marsh.
 
 ANTIQUITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 381 
 
 reason, it is certain that the five books ascribed 
 to Moses were not written m the time of David, 
 the Psalms of David in the age of Isaiah, nor 
 the prophecies of Isaiah in the time of Malachi. 
 But as the Hebrew ceased to be the living lan- 
 guage of the Jews during the Babylonish cap- 
 tivity, the book of Malachi could not have 
 been written much after that period : before 
 that period, therefore, were written the pro- 
 phecies of Isaiah, still earlier the Psalms of 
 David, and much earlier than these the books 
 which are ascribed to Moses." * 
 
 The difference of style, here argued upon, 
 is of course a subject of very nice and critical 
 observation. The most popular proof of it is 
 the remarkable simplicity which pervades the 
 narrative part of the Pentateuch, and is a cha- 
 racteristic, in all countries, of the infancy of 
 literature. Herodotus, the oldest profane his- 
 torian of whom we have any considerable 
 remains, bears a stronger resemblance to Moses 
 in this respect than is to be found between 
 * Marsh, p. 6 and 14.
 
 382 0\ T THE AUTHENTICITY AND 
 
 any two other authors of a different age and 
 country. Expressions and idioms also occur 
 in the Pentateuch, which had become obsolete 
 as early as the time of David. What is still 
 more decisive, is the use of Egyptian words, 
 confirming the place of birth and education of 
 the writer : and used to express things which 
 subsequent authors expressed, as might be ex- 
 pected, in their native Hebrew. 
 
 The second and most powerful argument is 
 derived from the unanimous consent of the 
 Jews, who undeniably ascribed to Moses the 
 books in question, from the period of their 
 conquest of Palestine and first observance of 
 the law, as long as they continued to be a 
 people. " We are reduced, therefore, to this 
 dilemma ; to acknowledge, either that these 
 laws were actually delivered by Moses, or that 
 a whole nation during fifteen hundred years, 
 groaned under the weight of an imposture 
 without once detecting, or even suspecting the 
 fraud."* If we dispute the evidence of liis- 
 
 * Marsh, p. 8.
 
 ANTIQUITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 383 
 
 tory so clear as this, we may at once throw off 
 the mask, and reject the belief of all facts with 
 which we are not made acquainted by personal 
 observation. The only narrative we possess of 
 any part of the siege of Troy, is that of a poet 
 who lived about two hundred years after the 
 supposed events, and whose poems were not 
 collected, or, as some conjecture, not even com- 
 mitted to writing-, till three hundred years later. 
 That this poetical narrative abounds with incon- 
 sistencies and improbabilities which render it 
 utterly undeserving of historical credit, has been 
 shown not more ingeniously than satisfactorily.* 
 And yet the idea of rejecting, on that account, 
 the concurrent testimony of antiquity which 
 tells us that Troy was taken by an armament 
 fitted out from Greece, has been always justly 
 treated as a learned delirium. Why is this, but 
 because the concurrent testimony of successive 
 generations, from the supposed event to the 
 time we dispute about it, is exactly the sort of 
 evidence which we want, and which the case 
 
 * Bryant's treatise on the Siege of Troy.
 
 384< ON THE AUTHENTICITY AND 
 
 allows ? so that to require more, becomes, as 
 Bolingbroke justly says, absurd. 
 
 Against the whole weight of this evidence it 
 is merely alleged, that a few expressions and 
 passages are found in the Pentateuch which 
 must have been written after the time of Moses : 
 such as that a city which was originally called 
 Laish, but changed its name to that of Dan, 
 after the Israelites had conquered Palestine, is 
 yet denominated Dan, in the book of Genesis ;* 
 and that an allusion is made in Genesis j" to the 
 kings of Israel, which implies a writer subse- 
 quent to the establishment of the monarchy. 
 
 * Gen. xiv. 14. See Marsh, p. 15. 
 
 -{- ' These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom 
 " before there reigned any king over the children of Israel," 
 Gen. xxxvi. 31. Another passage occurs, in which the intru- 
 sion of a marginal remark is still more evident : Deut. iii. 14. 
 " Jair the son of Manasseh took all the country of Argob 
 " unto the coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi, and called them 
 " after his own name, Bashan-havoth-jair, nnfo f/iis day." On 
 a less honest principle, but leading to similar variations, the 
 Samaritans introduced into their copy of the Pentateucli 
 some readings intended to justify their pretensions as to the 
 sacredness of Mount Gerizim.
 
 ANTIQUITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 385 
 
 That the modern name, in the first instance, 
 was substituted for the obsolete term Laish, by 
 a transcriber who was more anxious to be easily- 
 understood by his readers, than to preserve the 
 integrity of the text, it is abundantly natural to 
 suppose : and the clause in Genesis xxxvi. has 
 every appearance of being 1 interpolated, perhaps 
 from some remark at first added as a marginal 
 note, by an inconsiderate copyist in a later age. 
 Similar errors are of most frequent occurrence 
 in every ancient writer ; and their effect is to 
 furnish strong presumption against the authen- 
 ticity of the passage itself; but no critic would 
 venture to question the reputation of the work 
 in which they are found, on grounds so slight 
 and easy of solution, even if its authenticity 
 depended on no other evidence than the general 
 testimony of antiquity. 
 
 Yet such are the trivial errors, which are some- 
 times alluded to in general terms, as sufficient to 
 overbear the various concurrent evidence in 
 favour of the authenticity of the Pentateuch, and 
 to give probability to the spurious account of an 
 
 VOL. i. c c
 
 ,386 
 
 ON THE AUTHENTICITY AND 
 
 apocryphal book, which states that the books 
 originally written by Moses and Joshua, had been 
 destroyed, and the deficiency supplied by inspira- 
 tion delivered to Ezra.* 
 
 It is familiarly known to all who have turned 
 their thoughts to this subject, that the book of 
 Esdras has never been considered as possessing 
 the least claim to authority, and gives the 
 strongest grounds for suspicion from the inter- 
 nal evidence of both style and matter. But 
 there is no occasion for recourse to such dispu- 
 table arguments. The providential preservation 
 of the Samaritan Pentateuch, agreeing in all es- 
 sentials with the Hebrew, affords an irrefraga- 
 ble proof of the authenticity of both :'|" for it is 
 known, first, how long before the Babylonish 
 captivity, the ten tribes under Rehoboam sepa- 
 
 * See Apocrypha, 2 Esdras, chap. xiv. 
 
 -}- " As the Pentateuch is the only part of the Bible which 
 is received by the Samaritans, their copies of it must have 
 been derived, if not from those of their ancestors, who se- 
 ceded from the tribe of Judah, at least from some copy ante- 
 cedent to the Babylonish captivity." Marsh's Lectures, 
 p. ii. 1. x.
 
 ANTIQUITY OF THE PENTATEUCH. 38? 
 
 rated from their brethren : and secondly, how 
 inveterate an enmity existed between the two 
 branches of the Hebrew stock. If, therefore, 
 the authority of the uncanonical Esdras is to be 
 admitted, the entire agreement between the 
 writing's which he pretends to have restored to 
 the Jews, and the Samaritan copy of the law, 
 remains to be accounted for ; and can only be 
 ascribed to one of the following causes : either 
 he adopted a copy from the Samaritans, which 
 had been received and observed by them from a 
 remote period as sacred and authentic ; or he 
 persuaded the bitter enemies of the tribe of Judah 
 to credit his pretended revelation, and accept a 
 history bearing- the name of their revered ances- 
 tor and legislator ; or the account given of him- 
 self by Esdras must be received as literally true, 
 and the agreement between the copies ascribed 
 to his miraculous inspiration. There is unques- 
 tionably a phenomenon which can only be ex- 
 plained by one of the solutions, and we may 
 safely leave objectors to take their choice among 1 
 them.
 
 388 ON THE AUTHENTICITY, &C. 
 
 The authenticity of the Pentateuch implies of 
 course, its antiquity. Still the questions are 
 separate. The latter is briefly considered in 
 Sect. III. It has become the less necessary to 
 go at length into either of these subjects, since 
 the recent publication of Dr. Graves ; who em- 
 ploys the six first of his valuable Lectures in 
 alleging the evidence for " the authenticity and 
 truth of the Pentateuch ;" and has besides, in his 
 Appendix, minutely considered the texts origi- 
 nally urged against it by Le Clerc, subsequently 
 refuted by Witsius, and most of them retracted 
 by Le Clerc himself, together with the conclu- 
 sions he had grounded on them. 
 
 THE END x- 
 
 LONDON 
 
 IBOT80N AND PALMEH, I'KINTEllS, SAVOY STHEET, SFHANI).
 
 The Jewish Sense of Responsibility. 
 
 The Rev. Morris Joseph in Reply to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 The Rev. MORRIS JOSEPH devoted his sermon at the Berkeley Street Syna- 
 gogue on Sabbath last to an examination of some remarks made by the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury at the recent World's Temperance Congress. The Arch- 
 bishop implied that the Jewish sense of responsibility in regard to evils like 
 intemperance was feebler than the Christian. As against this idea Mr. Joseph 
 niti-d the great Mosaic precept, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 Those who received that precept, he said, were introduced into a region of 
 boundless social obligation. Never could they shelter themselves 
 behind the plea that the woe of the world was no concern of 
 theirs. It was just as much their concern as was their own pain, 
 true Israelite, even in the Mosaic age, could ask, " Am I 
 my brother's keeper ? " He was warned " Thou shalt not see thy 
 brother's ox go astray ; thou canst not hid<5 thyself as a son of God, as a 
 moral being, thou canst not." And as the parallel passage in Deuteronomy 
 proved, the word " brother " included even an enemy. The Prophet had tersely 
 expressed the warning : " Thou sbalt not hide thyself from thine own flesh." 
 What the Law taught the Rabbins^amplified. We are bound, they said, to 
 relieve the poor of the Gentiles, toT;are for their sick, to bury their dead, to 
 comfort their mourners, equally with our own. "Saparate not thyself from the 
 community," they enjoined us. No one, they declared, has the right to 
 iate himself from its interests, to withdraw from the task of bearing its 
 burdens, of curing its ills, of righting its wrongs. And this duty was of "the 
 widest. The Jew was admonished to identify himself with the welfare of the 
 country in which he lives, to pray for its prosperity, seeing that its prosperity is 
 the guarantee of the peace and security that are the foundations of the social 
 order. Within tha last century, representative Jewish assemblies had met at 
 various times to set forth the tenets of Judaism, and in every case the duty of 
 zealously promoting the general weal was placed in the forefront of the pronounce- 
 ment. The foundation of the social ethics of Judaism was the eternal principle 
 of the common brotherhood of humanity. " Let no man urge," the llabbins say, 
 "'because I am vile, ray neighbour shall be vile also: rememb. r that RO to 
 argue is to despise God's image, which is imprinted upon thee and thy neighbour 
 alike." Such was Jewish theory ; what of Jewish practice .' Did Jews make 
 excuses, and say, " this or that social evil does not touch me ; therefore, I will 
 not move a finger to cure it " ? Was not Hospital Sabbath itself a living proof 
 that the Synagogue takes its place by the side of the Church in the noble work 
 of alleviating human suffering ? And that was but a typical example. Were 
 Jews ever behind their neighbours when any common work of beneficence was 
 to be done ? No ; the memory of the long drawn-out agony of their race, far 
 from forbidding their co-operation, only served to stimulate their compassion for 
 woe like that which was appealing to them that day. If there was one charge 
 that mieht truthfully be brought against some of their number it was rather 
 the tendency to indulge the humanitarian sentiment to the neglect of the 
 specifically Jewish. Israel, said Jehudah Halevy, was the heart of the nations, 
 the most sensitive part of the great organism of humanity. He felt every 
 experience, every emotion, every sorrow of mankind, with especial keenness. 
 And the evincing of such sensitiveness was the best refutation of all such 
 charges as that to which the Archbishop had lent his sanction. Let them, then, 
 generously respond to the cry of the Hospitals, first because of their kinship 
 with the sull'erers, but also because they were Jews, bound to vindicate the 
 good name of their faith and their race.
 
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