UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF" 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October, 1894. 
 Accessions No. &7o ftlnl Class No. 
 
 J ^r / Cx^Xv*^*O^ x ^* x ^ 
 
UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES 
 
 IN THE WRITINGS BOTH OF 
 
 THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS, , 
 
 
 AN ARGUMENT OF THEIR VERACITY- 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX, 
 
 CONTAINING UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES BETWEEN THE GOSPELS, 
 AND ACTS, AND JOSEPHUS. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. J. J. BLUNT, B. D. 
 
 ff 
 
 MARGARET PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
 
 No. 285 BROADWAY. 
 
 185". 
 
 THB 
 
 'UHIVBRSITY1 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 THE present Volume is a republication, with corrections 
 and large additions, of several short Works which I printed 
 a few years ago separately; and which, having passed 
 through more or fewer editions, have become out of print : 
 I have thus been furnished with an opportunity of revising 
 and consolidating them. These works were : " The Ve- 
 racity of the Books of Moses ;" " The Veracity of the His- 
 torical Scriptures of the Old Testament j" and " The Ve- 
 racity of the Gospels and Acts," argued from undesigned 
 coincidences to be found in them when compared in their 
 several parts ; and in the last instance, when compared 
 also with the Writings of Josephus. They were all of 
 them originally the substance of Sermons delivered before 
 the University, some in a Course of Hulsean Lectures, 
 others on various occasions. And though two of them, 
 the Veracity of the Books of Moses, and the Veracity of 
 the Gospels and Acts, were divested of the form of Ser- 
 mons before publication ; the third, The Veracity of the 
 Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament (which consti- 
 tuted the Hulseau Lectures) still retained it. I have 
 thought that by reducing this to the same shape as the 
 rest, and combining it with them, the whole would present 
 a continued argument, or rather a continued series of in- 
 
 1* 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 dependent arguments, for the Veracity of the Scriptures, 
 of which the effect would be greater than that of the 
 separate works could be, which might be read perhaps out 
 of the natural order, and which were not altogether uni- 
 form in their plan. But as this test of veracity proved ap- 
 plicable, though in a less degree, for reasons I have as- 
 signed elsewhere, to the Prophetical Scriptures also, I have 
 introduced into the present Volume' in its proper place, evi- 
 dence of the same kind which had been long lying by me, 
 for the Veracity of some of those Writings ; thus employ- 
 ing one and the same touchstone of truth, to verify suc- 
 cessively the Books of Moses, the Historical Scriptures of 
 the Old Testament, the Prophetical, and the Gospels and 
 Acts, in their order. 
 
 The argument, as my readers will of course be aware, 
 is an extension of that of the Horce Paulince, and which 
 originated, as was generally supposed, with Dr. Paley. 
 But Dr. Turton, 1 the present bishop of Ely, has rendered 
 the claims of Dr. Paley to the first conception of it doubt- 
 ful, by producing a passage from the conclusion of Dr. 
 Doddridge's Introduction to his Paraphrase and Notes on 
 the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, to the following 
 effect. 
 
 " Whoever reads over St. Paul's Epistles with atten- 
 tion will discern such intrinsic characters in their genuine- 
 ness, and the divine authority of the doctrines they con- 
 
 i In his " Natural Theology considered with reference to Lord Brougham'* 
 Discourse," &c. p. 23. 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 tain, as will perhaps produce in him a stronger conviction 
 than all the external evidence with which they are attend- 
 ed. To which we may add, that the exact coincidence ob- 
 servable between the many allusions to particular facts, in 
 this, as well as in other Epistles, and the account of the 
 facts themselves as they are recorded in the History of the 
 Acts, is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of each." 
 
 Be this however as it may, Dr. Paley first brought the 
 argument to light in support of the Epistles of St. Paul ; 
 and I am not aware that it has since been deliberately ap- 
 plied to any other of the sacred books, except by Dr. Graves, 
 in two of his Lectures on the Pentateuch, to that portion 
 of holy writ. Much, however, of the same kind of testi- 
 mony I have no doubt has escaped all of us ; and still re- 
 mains to be detected by future writers on the Evidences. 
 For myself, though I may not lay claim to the merit (what- 
 ever it may be) of actually discovering all the examples of 
 consistency without contrivance, w r hich I shall bring for- 
 ward in this volume, indeed, I could not myself now trace 
 to their beginnings thoughts which have progressively ac- 
 cumulated 1 and though in many cases, where the detec- 
 tion was my own. I may have found, on examination, that 
 there were others who had forestalled me, qui nostra ante 
 
 1 I have availed myself in this republication, of several suggestions on the 
 subject of the Patriarchal Church, (No. i. Part i.) offered to me some years 
 ago in a letter by the Rev. J. W. Burgon of Worcester College, Oxford ; and 
 of one coincidence (No. xi. Part iv.) communicated to me in substance, by 
 letter also, by the Rev. J. Daniel, of St. John's College, Cambridge, soon 
 after the first Edition of the Veracity of the Gospels came out. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 nos, yet most of them I have not seen noticed by com- 
 mentators at all, and scarcely any of them in that light in 
 which only I regard them, as grounds of Evidence. It 
 is to this application, therefore, of Expositions, often in 
 themselves sufficiently familiar, that I have to beg the can- 
 did attention of my readers ; and if I shall frequently bring 
 out of the treasures of God's word, or of the interpretation 
 of God's word, " things old" the use that I make of them 
 may not perhaps be thought so. 
 
 As the argument for the Veracity of the Gospels and 
 Acts, derived from undesigned coincidences, discoverable 
 between them and the Writings of Josephus, does not fall 
 within the general design of this work, as now constructed, 
 and yet is related to it, and important in itself, I have 
 thought it best not to suppress, but to throw it into an Ap- 
 pendix. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, 
 May 3, 1841 
 
THE VERACITY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 IT is my intention to argue in the following pages the 
 Veracity of the Books of Scripture, from the instances they 
 contain of coincidence without design, in their several 
 parts. On the nature of this argument I shall not much 
 enlarge, but refer my readers for a general view of it to the 
 short dissertation prefixed to the Horce Paulince of Dr. 
 Paley, a work where it is employed as a test of the veracity 
 of St. Paul's Epistles with singular felicity and force, and 
 for which suitable incidents were certainly much more 
 abundant than those which any other portion of Scripture 
 of the same extent provides ; still, however, if the instances 
 which I can offer, gathered from the remainder of Holy 
 Writ, are so numerous and of such a kind as to preclude 
 the possibility of their being the effect of accident, it is 
 enough. It does not require many circumstantial coinci- 
 dences to determine the mind of a jury as to the credibility 
 of a witness in our courts, even where the life of a fellow- 
 creature is at stake. I say this, not as a matter of charge, 
 but as a matter of fact, indicating the authority which at- 
 taches to this species of evidence, and the confidence uni- 
 
8 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 versally entertained that it cannot deceive. Neither should 
 it be forgotten, that an argument thus popular, thus ap- 
 plicable to the affairs of common life as a test of truth, 
 derives no small value when enlisted in the cause ot 
 Revelation, from the readiness with which it is appre- 
 hended and admitted by mankind at large ; and from the 
 simplicity of the nature of its appeal ; for it springs out of 
 the documents, the truth of which it is intended to sustain, 
 and terminates in them ; so that he who has these, has 
 the defence of them. 
 
 2. Nor is this all. The argument deduced from coinci- 
 dence without design has further claims, because, if well 
 made out, it establishes the authors of the several books 
 of Scripture as independent witnesses to the facts they 
 relate ; and this, whether they consulted each other's 
 writings, or not; for the coincidences, if good for any- 
 thing, are such as could not result from combination, 
 mutual understanding, or arrangement. If any which I 
 may bring forward may seem to be such as might have so 
 arisen, they are only to be reckoned ill-chosen, and dis- 
 missed. For it is no small merit of this argument, that it 
 consists of parts, one or more of which (if they be thought 
 unsound) may be detached without any dissolution of the 
 reasoning as a whole. Undesigned 'n ess must be apparent 
 in the coincidences, or they are not to the purpose. In 
 our argument we defy people to sit down together, or 
 transmit their writings one to another, and produce the 
 like. Truths known independently to each of them, must 
 be at the bottom of documents having such discrepancies 
 and such agreements as these in question. The point, 
 therefore, whether the authors of the books of Scripture 
 have or have not copied from one another, which in the 
 case of some of them has been so much labored, is thus 
 rendered a matter of comparative indifference. Let them 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 9 
 
 have so done, still by our argument their independence 
 would be secured, and the nature of their testimony be 
 shown to be such as could only result from their separate 
 knowledge of substantial facts. 
 
 3. I will add another consideration which seems to me 
 to deserve serious attention : that in several instances the 
 probable truth of a miracle is involved in the coincidence. 
 This is a point which we should distinguish from the 
 general drift of the argument itself. The general drift of 
 our argument is this, than when we see the writers of the 
 Scriptures clearly telling the truth in those cases where we 
 have the means of checking their accounts, when we 
 see that they are artless, consistent, veracious writers, 
 where we have the opportunity of examining the fact, it 
 is reasonable to believe that they are telling the truth in 
 those cases where we have not the means of checking 
 them, that they are veracious where we have not the 
 means of putting them to proof. But the argument I am 
 now pressing is distinct from this. We are hereby called 
 upon, not merely to assent that Moses and the author of 
 the Book of Joshua, for example ; or Isaiah and the author 
 of the Book of Kings ; or St. Matthew and St. Luke ; 
 epeak the truth when they record a miracle, because we 
 know them to speak the truth in many other matters^ 
 (though this would be only reasonable where there is no 
 impeachment of their veracity whatever,) but we are called 
 upon to believe a particular miracle, because the very cir- 
 cumstances which attend it furnish the coincidence. I 
 look upon this as a point of very great importance. I do 
 not say that the coincidence in such a case establishes 
 the miracle, but that by establishing the truth of ordinary 
 incidents which involve the miracle, which compass the 
 miracle round about, and which cannot be separated frora 
 
10 THE VERACITY DF THE PART I, 
 
 the miracle without the utter laceration of the history 
 itself, it goes very near to establish it. 
 
 4. On the whole, it is surely a striking fact, and one 
 that could scarcely happen in any continuous fable, how- 
 ever cunningly devised, that annals written by so many 
 hands, embracing so many generations of men, relating to 
 so many different states of society, abounding in super- 
 natural incidents throughout, when brought to this same 
 touchstone of truth, undesignedness, should still not flinch 
 from it ; and surely the character of a history, like the 
 character of an individual, when attested by vouchers not 
 of one family, or of one place, or of one date only, but by 
 such as speak to it under various relations, in different 
 situations, and at divers periods of time, can scarcely 
 deceive us. 
 
 Perhaps I may add, that the turn which biblical criti- 
 cism has of late years taken, gives the peculiar argument 
 here employed the advantage of being the word in season : 
 and whilst the articulation of Scripture (so to speak), 
 occupied with its component parts, may possibly cause it 
 to be less regarded than it should be in the mass and as a 
 whole, the effect of this argument is to establish the gen- 
 eral truth of Scripture, and with that to content itself ; its 
 general truth, I mean, considered with a reference to all 
 practical purposes, which is our chief concern : and thus 
 to pluck the sting out of those critical difficulties, however 
 numerous and however minute, which in themselves have a 
 tendency to excite our suspicion and trouble our peace. Its 
 effect, I say, is to es lablish the general truth of Scripture, 
 because by this investigation 1 find occasional tokens of ve- 
 racity, such as cannot, I think, mislead us, breaking out, as 
 the volume is unrolled, unconnected, unconcerted, unlocked 
 for ; tokens which I hail as guarantees for more facts than 
 they actually cover ; as spots which truth has singled out 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 11 
 
 whereon to set her seal, in testimony that the whole docu- 
 mentj of which they are a part, is her own act and deed ; 
 as pass-words, with which the Providence of God has taken 
 care to furnish his ambassadors, which, though often trifling 
 in themselves, and having no proportion (it may be) to the 
 length or importance of the tidings they accompany, are 
 still enough to prove the bearers to be in the confidence of 
 their Almighty Sovereign, and to be qualified to execute 
 the general commission with which they are charged 
 under his authority. 
 
 I shall produce the instances of coincidence without 
 design which I have to offer, in the order of the Books of 
 Scripture that supply them, beginning with the Books of 
 Moses. But before I proceed to individual cases, I will 
 endeavor to develop a principle upon, which the Book of 
 Genesis goes as a whole, for this is in itself an example 
 of consistency. 
 
 THERE may be those who look upon the Book of 
 Genesis as an epitome of the general history of the world 
 in its early ages, and of the private history of certain 
 families more distinguished than the rest. And so it is, 
 and on a first view it may seem to be little else ; but if we 
 consider it more closely, I think we may convince ourselves 
 of the truth of this proposition, that it contains fragments 
 (as it were) of the fabric of a Patriarchal Church, frag- 
 ments scattered indeed and imperfect, but capable of com- 
 bination, and when combined, consistent as a whole. 
 Now it is not easy to imagine that any impostor would 
 set himself to compose a book upon a plan so recondite ; 
 nor, if he did, would it be possible for him to execute it aa 
 
12 THE VERACITY OP THE PART I. 
 
 it is executed here. For the incidents which go to prove 
 this proposition are to be picked out from among many 
 others, and on being brought together by ourselves, they 
 are found to agree together as parts of a system, though 
 they are not contemplated as such, or at least are not pro- 
 duced as such, by the author himself. 
 
 I am aware that, whilst we are endeavoring to obtain a 
 view of such a Patriarchal Church by the glimpses af- 
 forded us in Genesis, there is a danger of our theology 
 becoming visionary : it is a search upon which the imagi- 
 nation enters with alacrity, and readily breaks its bounds 
 it has done so in former times and in our own. Still 
 the principle of such investigation is good ; for out of God's 
 book, as out of God's world, more may be often concluded 
 than our philosophy at first suspects. The principle is 
 good, for it is sanctioned by our Lord himself, who re- 
 proaches the Sadducees with not knowing those Scriptures 
 which they received, because they had not deduced the 
 doctrine of a future state from the words of Moses, " i am 
 the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God 
 of Jacob," though the doctrine was there if they would but 
 have sought it out. One consideration, however, we must 
 take along with us in this inquiry, that the Books of 
 Moses are in most cases a very incomplete history of facts 
 telling something and leaving a great deal untold 
 abounding in chasms which cannot be filled up not, 
 therefore, to be lightly esteemed even in their hints, for 
 hints are often all that they offer. 
 
 The proofs of this are numberless ; but as it is impor- 
 tant to my argument that the thing itself should be dis- 
 tinctly borne in mind, I will name a few. Thus if we 
 read the history of Joseph as it is given in the 37th chapter 
 of Genesis, where his brethren first put him into the pit 
 and then sell him to the Ishmaelits, we might conclude 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 13 
 
 that he was himself quite passive in the whole transaction. 
 Yet when the brothers happen to talk together upon this 
 same subject many years afterwards in Egypt, they say 
 one to another, " We are verily guilty concerning our 
 brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he 
 besought us, and we would not hear." 1 All these fervent 
 entreaties are sunk in the direct history of the event, and 
 only come out by accident after all. As another instance. 
 The simple account of Jacob's reluctance to part with Ben- 
 jamin, would lead us to suppose that it was expressed and 
 overcome in a short time, and with no great effort. Yet 
 we incidentally hear from Judah that this family struggle 
 (for such it seems to have been) had occupied as much 
 time as would have sufficed for a journey to Egypt and 
 back. 2 As a third instance. The several blessings which 
 Jacob bestows on his sons have probably a reference to the 
 past as well as to the future fortunes of each. In the case 
 of Reuben, the allusion happens to be a circumstance in 
 his life, with which we are already acquainted ; here, 
 therefore, we understand the old man's address 8 ; but in 
 the case of several at least of his other sons, where there 
 are probably similar allusions to events in their lives too, 
 which have not, however, been left on record, there is much 
 that is obscure the brevity of the previous narrative not 
 supplying us with the proper key to the blessing. As a 
 fourth instance. The address of Jacob on his death-bed to 
 Reuben, to which I have just referred, shows how deeply 
 Jacob resented the wrong done him by this son many years 
 before, and proves what a breach it must have made be- 
 tween them at the time ; yet all that is said of it in the 
 Mosaic history is, " and Israel heard it," 4 not a syllable 
 more. It is needless to multiply instances ; all that I wish 
 to impress is this, that in the Book of Genesis a_Aml ia 
 1 Gen. xlii. 21. 2 xliii. 10. 3 xlix. 4. < mv. 22. 
 
 2 
 
14 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 not to be wasted, but improved j and that he who expects 
 every probable deduction from Scripture to be made out 
 complete in all its parts before he will admit it, expects 
 more than he will in many cases meet with, and will learn 
 much less than he might otherwise learn. 
 
 Having made these preliminary remarks, I shall now 
 proceed to collect the detached incidents in Genesis which 
 appear to point out the existence of a Patriarchal Church. 
 And the circumstance of so many incidents tending to this 
 one centre, though evidently without being marshalled or 
 arranged, implies veracity in the record itself; for it is a 
 very comprehensive instance of coincidence without design 
 in the several parts of that record. 
 
 1. First, then, the Patriarchs seem to have had places 
 set apart for the worship of God, consecrated, as it were, 
 especially to His service. To do things " before the Lord, 1 
 is a phrase not unfrequently occurring, and generally in a 
 local sense. Cain and Abel appear to have brought their 
 offerings to the same spot it might be, (as some have 
 thought,) 1 to the East of the Garden, where the symbols 
 of God's presence w 7 ere displayed ; and when Cain is ban- 
 ished from his first dwelling, and driven to wander upon 
 the earth, he is said to have " gone out from the presence 
 of the Lord ;" 2 as though, in the land where he was hence- 
 forward to live, he would no longer have access to the spot 
 where God had more especially set his name : or it might 
 be a sacred tent 3 for it is told Cain, " if thou doest not well, 
 sin, (i. e. a sin-offering) lieth at the door :" 3 and we know 
 that the sacrifices were constantly brought to the door of 
 the Tabernacle, in later times. 4 Again, when the angels 
 had left Abraham, and were gone towards Sodom. " Abra- 
 
 1 Hooker, Eccl. Pol. b. v. 11. Vide Mr. Faber's Three Dispensations, 
 Vol. I. p. 8 ; and comp. Wisdom, ix. 9. 
 
 2 Gen. iv. 16. 3 ib. iv. 7. 4 See Lightfoot, i. 3. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 15 
 
 ham," we read, " stood yet before the Lord" 1 i. e. he staid 
 to plead with God for Sodom in the place best suited to 
 such a service, the place where prayer was wont to be 
 made ; and accordingly it follows immediately after, " and 
 Abraham drew near and said ;" 2 and again, the next day, 
 " Abraham gat up early in the morning," (probably his 
 usual hour of prayer,) " to the place where he stood before 
 the Lord" 3 the same where he had put up his intercessions 
 to God the day before ; in short, the place where he " built 
 an altar unto the Lord," when he first came to dwell in 
 the plain of Mamre, 4 for that was still the scene of this 
 transaction. Again, of Rebekah we read, that when the 
 children struggled within her, " she went to inquire of the 
 Lord," and an answer was received prophetic of the different 
 fortunes of those children. 5 And when Isaac contempla- 
 ted blessing his son, which was a religious act, a solemn 
 appeal to God to remember His covenant unto Abraham, 
 it was to be done " before the Lord"* The place might 
 be as I have just said, an altar such as was put up by 
 Abraham at Hebron, by Isaac at Beer-sheba, or by Jacob 
 at Beth-el, where they respectively dwelt ; 7 it might be, as 
 I have also suggested, a separate tent, and a tent actually 
 was set apart by Moses outside the camp, before the Tab- 
 ernacle was erected, where every one repaired who sought 
 the Lord / or it might be a separate part of a chamber 
 of the tent ; but however that was, the expression is a defi- 
 nite one, and relates to some appointed quarter to which 
 the family resorted for purposes of devotion. Accord- 
 ingly the very same expression is used in after-times, when 
 the Tabernacle had been set up, confessedly as the place 
 where the people were to assemble for prayer and sacrifice, 
 
 1 Gen. xviii. 22. * ib. xviii. 23. 3 Ib. xix. 27. 
 
 4 Ib. xiii. 18. s ib. xxv. 22. ib. xxvii. t. 
 
 ? See Gen. xiii. 18; xxvi. 25 fxxxv. 6. 8 Exod. xxxiii. 7. 
 
x6 THE VERACITY O* THE PART I. 
 
 " He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of 
 the Tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, and 
 he shall kill the bullock before the Lord." 1 " Three times 
 in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy 
 God in the place which he shall choose." 2 Here there can 
 be no question as to the meaning of the phrase ; it occurs, 
 indeed, some five-and-thirty times in the last four books of 
 Moses, and in all as significant of the place set apart for 
 the worship of God. I conclude therefore that in those pas- 
 sages of Genesis which I have quoted, Moses employs the 
 same expression in the same sense. 
 
 Such are some of the hints which seem to point to 
 places of patriarchal worship. 
 
 2. In like manner, and by evidences of the same indirect 
 and imperfect kind, I gather that there were persons 
 whose business it was to perform the rites of that worship 
 not perhaps their sole business, but their appropriate 
 business. Whether the first-born was by right of birth 
 the priest also has been doubted ; at the same time it is 
 obvious that this circumstance would often, perhaps gener- 
 ally where there was no impediment, point him out as the 
 fit person to keep alive in his own household the fear of 
 that God who alone could make it to prosper. Persons, 
 however, invested with the sacerdotal office there undoubt- 
 edly were ; such was Melchizedeck " the Priest of the 
 Most High God," as he is expressly called, 9 and the func- 
 tions of his ministry he publicly performs towards Abraham, 
 blessing him as God's servant, as the instrument by which 
 His arm had overthrown the confederate kings, and re- 
 ceiving from Abraham a tenth of the spoil, which could be 
 nothing but a religious offering, and which indeed, as such, 
 is the ground of St. Paul's argument for the superiority of 
 
 i Lev. i. 3. 3 Deut. xvt. 16. 3 Gen. xiv. 1& 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 17 
 
 Christ's priesthood over the Levitical. l Such probably was 
 Jethro " the Priest of Midian." 8 Moreover, we find the 
 priests expressly mentioned as a body of functionaries ex- 
 isting amongst the Israelites even before the consecration of 
 Aaron and his sons ; 3 the "young men" who offered burnt- 
 offerings, spoken of Exod. xxiv. 5, being the same under a 
 different name, probably the first-born. Then if we read 
 of Patriarchal Priests, so do we of Patriarchal " Preachers 
 of Righteousness," as in Noah. 4 So do we of Patriarchal 
 Prophets, as in Abraham, 5 as in Balaam, as in Job, as in 
 Enoch. All these are hints of a Patriarchal Church, dif- 
 fering perhaps less in its construction and in the manner 
 in which God was pleased to use it, as the means of keeping 
 himself in remembrance amongst men, from the churches 
 which have succeeded, than may be at first imagined. 
 
 3. Pursue we the inquiry, and I think a hint may be 
 discovered of a peculiar dress assigned to the Patriarchal 
 Priest when he officiated ; for Jacob, being already pos- 
 sessed of the birthright, and probably in this instance of 
 the priesthood with it, since Esau by surrendering the 
 birthright became "profane"* goes in to Isaac to receive 
 the blessing, a religious act, as I have already said, to be 
 done before the Lord. Now on this occasion, Rebekah 
 took " goodly raiment" (such is our translation) " of her 
 eldest son Esau, which were with her in the house, and 
 put them upon Jacob her youngest son." 7 Were these the 
 sacerdotal robes of the first-born? It occurred to me 
 that they might be so ; and on reference I find that the 
 Jews themselves so interpreted them, 8 an interpretation 
 which has been treated by Dr. Patrick more contemplu- 
 
 1 Heb. vii. 9. 2 Exod. ii. 16. 3 Exod. xix. 22. 
 
 2 Peter ii. 5. 5 Gen. xx. 7. Heb. xii. 16. 
 
 i Gen. xxvii. 15. 8 Vide Patrick in loc. 
 
 2* 
 
18 THE TERACITY OF THE PART 1. 
 
 ously than it deserved to be ;* for I look upon it as a trifle 
 indeed, but still as a trifle which is a component part of 
 the system I am endeavoring to trace out; had it stood 
 alone it would have been fruitless perhaps to have haz- 
 arded a word upon it as it stands in conjunction with so 
 many other indications of a Patriarchal Church it has its 
 weight. Now I do not say that the Hebrew expression 2 
 here rendered "raiment" (for of the epithet " goodly" I will 
 speak by and by,) is exclusively confined to the garments 
 of a priest ; it is certainly a term of considerable latitude, 
 and is by no means to be so restricted ; still when the 
 priest's garments are to be expressed by any general term 
 at all, it is always by the one in question. Yet there is 
 another term in the Hebrew, 3 perhaps of as frequent oc- 
 currence, and also a comprehensive term ; but whilst this 
 latter is constantly applied to the dress of other individuals 
 of both sexes, I do not find it ever applied to the dress of 
 the priests. The distinction and the argument will be best 
 illustrated by examples : Thus we read in Leviticus, 4 ac- 
 cording to our version, " the high-priest that is consecrated 
 to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head, nor 
 rend his clothes" The word here translated " garments" 
 in the one clause, and " clothes" in the other, is in the 
 Hebrew in both clauses the same is the word in question 
 is the raiment of Esau which Rebekah took, and in 
 both clauses the priests' dress is meant, and no other. So 
 again, what are called* " the clothes of service," is still the 
 
 i More especially as he quotes in another place (on Exod. xxviii. 2,) an 
 opinion of the Hebrew Doctors, that vestments were, inseparable from the 
 priesthood, so that Adam, Abel, and Cain did not sacrifice without them ; see 
 Gen. iii. 22: and again, (on Exod. xxviii. 35,) a maxim among the- Jews, 
 that when the priests were clothed with their garments they were priests; 
 when they were not so clothed, they were not priests. 
 
 2 D ^2 3 rreVia nbato 4 Chap. xxi. 10. 
 
 * Exod. xxxv. 19. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 19 
 
 same word, as implying Aaron 9 s clothes, or those of his 
 sons, and no other. And again, Moses says, 1 " uncover 
 not your heads, neither rend your clothes, lest ye die ;" 
 still the word is the same, for he is there speaking to 
 Aaron a.id his sons, and to none other. But when he 
 says, 2 " your clothes are not waxed old." the Hebrew word 
 is no longer the same, though the English word is, but is 
 the other wor.l of which I spoke ; 3 for the clothes of the 
 people are here signified, and not of the priests. 
 
 This, therefore, is all that can be maintained, that the 
 term used to express the " raiment" which Rebekah 
 brought out for Jacob, is the term which should express 
 appropriately the dress of the priest, though it certainly 
 would not express it exclusively. But again, the epithet 
 "goodly" (or " desirable"* as the margin renders it more 
 closely,) annexed to the raiment is still in favor of our in- 
 terpretation, though neither is this word, any more than 
 the other, conclusive of the question. Certainly, however, 
 it is, that though the word translated u goodly" is not re- 
 stricted to sacred things, it does so happen that to sacred 
 things it is attached in very many instances, if not in a 
 majority of instances where it occurs in Holy Writ. Thus 
 the utensils of the Temple which Nebuchadnezzar carried 
 away are called in the Book of Chronicles 5 the goodly 
 vessels of the House of the Lord." And Isaiah writes, 
 "all our pleasant things are laid waste," 6 meaning the 
 Temple the word here rendered "pleasant." being the 
 same as that in the former passages rendered " goodly ;" 
 and in the Lamentations 7 we read, " the adversary hath 
 spread out his hand upon all our pleasant things," where 
 the Temple is again understood, as the context proves; 
 
 i Lev. x. 6. 2 Deut. xxix. 5. 3 nsVa 
 
 4 r^pnn * 2 Chron. ixxvi. 10. Isa. Ixiv. 11. 
 
 7 Lam! L 10 
 
20 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 and in Genesis, 1 " a tree to be desired to make one wise." 
 the term perhaps meant to convey a hint of violated 
 sanctity as entering into the offence of our first parents. 
 In other places it occurs in a bad sense, as relating to what 
 was held sacred by heathens only, but still what was held 
 sacred " The oaks which ye have desired"* " all pleasant 
 pictures," 3 objects of idolatry, as the tenor of the passage 
 indicates " their delectable things shall not profit," 4 that 
 is, their idols. I may add too, that the awl^ of the Sep- 
 tuagint, (for this answers to the " raiment" of our version,) 
 though not limited to the robe of the altar, is the term 
 used in the Greek as the appropriate one for the robe 
 of Aaron ; and finally, that the care with which this ves- 
 ture had been kept by Rebekah, and the perfumes with 
 which it was imbued when Jacob wore it, (for Isaac 
 " smelled the smell of his raiment,") savor of things per- 
 taining unto God. 
 
 Again, it seems to be by no means improbable that 
 " the coat of many colors? (xirwra notxAor, as the LXX. 
 understands it 5 ) which Jacob made for Joseph, was a 
 sacerdotal garment. It figures very largely in a very 
 short history. It appears to have been viewed with great 
 jealousy by his brothers; far greater than an ordinary 
 dress, which merely bespoke a certain partiality on the 
 part of a parent, would have been likely to inspire. They 
 strip him of it, when they put him in the pit ; they dip it 
 in the blood of the goat, when they want to persuade 
 Jacob that a wild beast had devoured him. Reuben, Jacob's 
 first-born, and naturally therefore the Priest of the family, 
 had forfeited his father's affection and disgraced his station 
 oy his conduct towards Bilhah. Jacob might feel that 
 
 i Gen. iii. 6. 2 Isa. i. 29. 3 ibid. ii. Jfc 
 
 4 Ibid. xliv. 9. 5 Gen. XXXTU. 3. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 21 
 
 the priesthood was open under the circumstances ; and his 
 fondness for Joseph might suggest to him, that he might 
 in justice be considered his first-born: for that he sup- 
 posed Rachel, Joseph's mother, to be his wife, when Leah, 
 Reuben's mother, had been deceitfully substituted for her. 
 He might give him therefore, " this coat of many colors," 
 as a token of his future office. Hannah brought Samuel 
 " a little coat" from year to year, when she came up with 
 her husband to offer his yearly sacrifice: 1 and, though 
 Aaron's coat is not called a coat of many colors, it was so 
 in fact : " and of the blue and purple and scarlet they 
 made cloths of service, to do service in the holy place, and 
 made the holy garments for Aaron." 2 On the whole, 
 therefore, I think there was a meaning in this " coat of 
 many colors," beyond the obvious one ; and that it was 
 emblematical of priestly functions which Jacob was anxious 
 to devolve upon Joseph. 
 
 4. Furthermore, the Patriarchal Church seems not to 
 have been without its forms. Thus Jacob consecrates 
 the foundation of a place of worship with oil ; 3 the incident 
 here alluded to being apparently a much more detailed 
 and emphatic one than it seems at first sight : for we find 
 him, by anticipation, calling " this the house of God, and 
 this the gate of heaven," 4 and promising eventually to 
 endow it with tithes : 5 and we hear God reminding him of 
 this solemn act long afterwards, when he was in Syria, 
 ana appropriating to himself the very title of this Temple : 
 " I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, 
 and where thou vowedst a vow unto me." 6 And accord- 
 ingly we are told at much length, and with several of the 
 circumstances of the case described, that Jacob, after his 
 
 i 1 Sam. ii. 19. 2 Exod. xxxix. 1. 3 Gen. xxviii. 18. 
 
 Ib. xxviii. 17. Ib. xxviii. 22. Ibid. xxxi. 13. 
 
22 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 return from Haran, actually fulfilled his pious intentions, 
 and " built an altar," and " set up a pillar," and " poured a 
 drink-offering thereon." 1 
 
 Then there appears to have been the rite of imposition 
 of hands existing in the Patriarchal Church : and when 
 Jacob blessed Joseph's children he is very careful about 
 the due observance of it ; the narrative, succinct as on the 
 whole it is, dwelling upon this point with much amplifi- 
 cation. 2 
 
 Again, the shoes of those who trod upon holy ground, 
 or who entered consecrated places were to be put off their 
 feet ; the injunction to this effect, of which we read in the 
 case of Moses at the bush, implies a usage already estab- 
 lished ; 3 and this usage, though nowhere expressly com- 
 manded in the Levitical Law, appears to have continued 
 amongst the Israelites by tradition from the Patriarchal 
 times ; and is that which a passage in Ecclesiastes 4 probably 
 contemplates in its primary sense, " Look to thy foot when 
 thou comest to the House of God.'* And finally the 
 Patriarchal Church had its posture of worship, and men 
 bowed themselves to the ground when they addressed 
 God.' 
 
 But if there were Patriarchal Places for worship if 
 there were Priests to conduct the worship if there were 
 decent Robes wherein those priests ministered at the wor- 
 ship if there were Forms connected with that worship ; 
 so do I think there were stated Seasons set apart for it : 
 though here again we have nothing but hints to guide us 
 to a conclusion. 
 
 5. I confess that the Divine institution of the Sabbath 
 
 Gen. xxxv. 1. 15. Ibid, xlviii. 1319. 3 Excel, iii. 5. 
 
 * Eccles. v. 1. s See Mede's Works, b. ii. p. 340 et seq. 
 
 Gen. xxiv. 2652 ; Exod. iv. 31 ; xii. 27. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 23 
 
 as a day of religious duties, seems to me to have been 
 from the beginning ; and though we have but glimpses 
 of such a fact, still to rny eye they present themselves as 
 parts of that one harmonious whole which I am now 
 endeavoring to develop and draw out even of a Patriar- 
 chal Church, whereof we see scarcely anything but by 
 glimpse. 
 
 "And it came to pass that on the sixth day they 
 gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man, 
 and all the rulers of the congregation came, and told 
 Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the 
 Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the Holy Sab- 
 bath unto the Lord. Six days ye shall gather it ; but on 
 the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be 
 none." 1 Arid again, in a few verses after, "And the Lord 
 said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my com- 
 mandments and my laws ? See, for that the Lord hath 
 given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the 
 sixth day the bread of two days." Now the transaction 
 here recorded is by some argued to be the first institution 
 of the Sabbath. The inference I draw from it, I confess, 
 is different. I see in it, that a Sabbath had already been 
 appointed that the Lord had already given it ; and that, 
 in accommodation to that institution already understood, 
 he had doubled the manna on the sixth day. But even 
 supposing the Institution of the Sabbath to be here formally 
 proclaimed, or supposing (as others would have it, and as 
 the Jews themselves pretend,) that it was not now promul- 
 gated, strictly speaking, but was actually one of the two 
 precepts given a little earlier at Marah, 2 still it is not un- 
 common in the writings of Moses, nor indeed in other 
 parts of Scripture, for an event to be mentioned as then 
 
 1 Fsod. jvi. 23. s Ex id. xv. 25, and compare Deut. v. lil 
 
tA. THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 occurring for the first time, which had in fact occurred, 
 and which had been reported to have occurred, long before. 
 For instance, Isaac and Abimelech meet, and swear to do 
 each other no injury. "And it came to pass the same 
 day, that Isaac's servants came and told him concerning 
 the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We 
 have found water : and he called it Shebah ; therefore the 
 name of the city is Beer-Sheba unto this day" 1 Now 
 who would not say that the name was then given to the 
 place by Isaac, and for the first time ? Yet it had been 
 undoubtedly given by Abraham long before, in commemo- 
 ration of a similar covenant which he had struck with 
 the Abimelech of fiis day "These seven ewe-lambs," 
 said he to that Prince, "shall thou take at my hand, that 
 they may be a witness? unto thee that I have digged this 
 well ; wherefore he called the place Beer-Sheba, beause 
 they sware both of them." 2 Again, " So Jacob came to 
 Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Beth-el, he 
 and all his people that were with him. And he built there 
 an altar, and called the place El-Beth-el, because there 
 God appeared unto him when he fled from the face of his 
 brother." 8 Who would not conclude that the new name 
 was given to Luz now for the first time ? Yet Jacob had 
 in fact changed the name a great many years before, 
 when he was on his journey to Haran. " And Jacob rose 
 up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had 
 put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured 
 oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that 
 place Beth-el : but the name of the city was called Luz at 
 the first." 4 Or, as another instance : "And God appeared 
 unto Jacob again when he came out of Padan-Aram, and 
 
 1 Gen. xxvi. 32. 2 Gen. xxi. 31. 
 
 3 Ib. xxxv. 6, 7 Ib. xxviii. 18, 19. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 25 
 
 blessed him : and God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob, 
 thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel 
 shall be thy name, and he called his name Israel" 1 Who 
 would not suppose that the name of Israel was now given 
 to Jacob for the first time? Yet several chapters before 
 this, when Jacob had wrestled with the angel, (not at 
 Beth-el, which was the former scene, but at Peniel,) we 
 read, that "the angel said, What is thy name? and he 
 said Jacob : and he said, Thy name shall be called no 
 more Jacob, but Israel ; for as a prince hast thou power 
 with God, and with man, and hast, prevailed." 2 
 
 Thus again, to add one example more, we are told in 
 the Book of Judges, 3 that a certain Jair, a Gileadite, a 
 successor of Abimelech in the government of Israel, " had 
 thirty sons that rode on thirty ass-colts, and they had thirty 
 cities, which are called Havoth-Jair unto this day, which 
 are in the land of Gilead." Who would not conclude that 
 the cities were then called by this name for the first time, 
 and that this Jair was the person from whom they de- 
 rived it? Yet we read in the Book of Numbers. 4 that 
 another Jair, who lived nearly three hundred years earlier, 
 "went and took the small towns of Gilead" (apparently 
 these very same.) " and called them Havoth-Jair" So that 
 the name had been given nearly three centuries already. 
 Why, then, should it be thought strange that the institu- 
 tion of the Sabbath should be mentioned as if for the first 
 time in the 16th chapter of Exodus, and yet that it should 
 have been in fact founded at the creation of the world, as 
 the language of the 2nd chapter of Genesis, 5 taken in its 
 obvious meaning, implies ; and as St. Paul's argument in 
 the 4th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews (I think) re- 
 
 1 Gen. xxxv. 10. 2 Ib. xxxii. 28. 3 Judges x. 4. 
 
 * Num. xxxii. 41. 5 Gen. ii. 3. 
 
 3 
 
26 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 quires it to have been ? Nor is such a case without a 
 parallel. " Moses gave unto you circumcision," says our 
 Lord ; yet there is added, " not because it is of Moses, but 
 of the Fathers y" 1 and the like may be said of the Sab- 
 bath ; that Moses gave it, and yet that it was of the 
 Fathers. And surely such observance of the Sabbath 
 from the beginning is in accordance with many hints 
 which are conveyed to us of some distinction or other be- 
 longing to that day from the beginning as when Noah 
 sends forth the dove three times successively at intervals of 
 seven days : as when Laban invites Jacob to " fulfil his 
 week" after the marriage of Leah ; the nuptial festivities 
 being probably terminated by the arrival of the Sabbath : 2 
 as when Joseph makes a mourning for his father of seven 
 days ; 3 the lamentation most likely ceasing with the return 
 of that festival : these and other hints of the same kind 
 being, as appears to me, pregnant with meaning, and in- 
 tended to be so, in a history of the rapid and desultory 
 nature of that of Moses. Neither is there much difficulty 
 in the passage of Ezekiel, 4 with which those, who main- 
 tain the Sabbath to have been for the first time enjoined 
 in the wilderness, support themselves. " Wherefore," says 
 that Prophet, " I caused them to go forth out of the land 
 of Egypt, and brought (hem into the wilderness and I 
 gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments, 
 which if a man do, he shall even live in them moreover 
 also I gave them my Sabbaths? Here, then, it is alleged, 
 Ezekiei affirms, or seems to affirm, that the Almighty gave 
 the Israelites his Sabbaths when he was leading them out 
 of Egypt, and that He had not given them till then. Yet 
 His statutes and judgments are also spoken of as given 
 
 i John vii. 22. 2 Gen. xxix. 27. 
 
 3 Ib. 1. 10. * Ezek. xx. 10, 11, 12. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 27 
 
 at the same time, whereas very many of those had surely 
 been given long before. It would be very untrue to assert 
 that, until the Israelites were led forth from Egypt, no 
 statutes or judgments of the same kind had been ever 
 given : it was in the wilderness that the law respecting 
 clean and unclean beasts was promulgated, yet that law 
 had certainly been published long before j 1 and the same 
 may be said of many others, which I will not enumerate 
 here, because I shall have occasion to do it by and by. 
 My argument, then, is briefly this : that as Ezekiel speaks 
 of statutes and judgments given to the Israelites in the 
 wilderness, some of which were certainly old statutes and 
 judgments repeated and enforced, so when he says that 
 the Sabbaths were given to the Israelites in the wilderness, 
 he cannot be fairly accounted to assert that the Sabbaths 
 had never been given till then. The fact indeed probably 
 was, that they had been neglected and half forgotten dur- 
 ing the long bondage in Egypt, (slavery being unfavorable 
 to morals,) and that the observance of them was re-as- 
 serted and renewed at the time of the promulgation of the 
 Law in the Desert. In this sense, therefore, the Prophet 
 might well declare, that on that occasion God gave the 
 Israelites his Sabbaths. It is true, that in addition to the 
 motive for the observance of the Sabbath, (hinted in the 
 2nd chapter of Genesis, and more fully expressed in the 
 "20th of Exodus,) which is of universal obligation, other 
 motives were urged upon the Israelites specially applicable 
 to them as that " the day should be a sign between 
 God and them" 2 as that it should be a remembrance of 
 their having been made to rest from the yoke of the Egyp- 
 tians. 3 Yet such supplementary sanctions to the per- 
 formance of a duty (however well adapted to secure the 
 
 i Gen. vii. 2. 2 Exod. xxxi. 17. 3 Deut. v. 15. 
 
28 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 obedience of the Israelites) are quite consistent with a pre- 
 vious command addressed to all, and upon a principle 
 binding on all. 1 
 
 I have now attempted to show, but very briefly, lest 
 otherwise the scope of my argument should be lost sight of, 
 that there were among the Patriarchs places set apart for 
 worship persons to officiate a decent ceremonial an 
 appointed season for holy things I will now suggest in 
 very few words, (still gathering my information from such 
 hints as the Book of Genesis supplies from time to time,) 
 something of the duties and doctrines which were taught 
 in that ancient Church : and here, I think it will appear, 
 that the Law and the Prophets of the next Dispensation 
 had their prototypes in that of the Patriarchs that the 
 Second Temple was greater indeed in glory than the First, 
 but was nevertheless built up out of the First, the one 
 body " not unclothed," but the other rather '' clothed upon." 
 
 6. In this primitive Church, then, the distinction of 
 clean and unclean is already known, and known as much 
 in detail as under the Levitical Law, every animal being 
 arranged by Noah in one class or the other; 2 and the clean 
 being exclusively used by him for sacrifice. 3 The blood, 
 which is the life of the animal, is already withheld as food. 4 
 Murder is already denounced as demanding death for its 
 punishment. 5 Adultery is already forbidden, as we learn 
 from the cases of Pharaoh and Abimelech, 6 of Reuben, 7 
 and Joseph. 8 Oaths are already binding. 9 Fornication is 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, it is true, frequently speaks of the Patriarchs as observ- 
 ing no Sabbaths, (See e. g. Dial. $ 23 ;) but it is certain that his meaning 
 was, that the Patriarchs did not observe the Sabbaths according to the pe- 
 culiar rites of the Jewish Law; his use of the word aa/3/3aTi$tv has always a 
 reference to that Law : and by no means that they kept no Sabbaths at all. 
 2 Gen. vii. 2. 3 Ibid. viii. 20. 
 
 Ib. ix. 4. 5 Ib. ix. 6; xlii. 22. Ib. xii. 18; xxvi. 10. 
 
 7 Ib. xlix. 4. 8 Ib. xxxix. 9. Ib. xxvi. 28. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 29 
 
 already condemned, as in the case of Shecbem, who is 
 said " to have wrought folly in Israel, which thing ought 
 not to be done." 1 Marriage with the uncircumcised or 
 idolater is already prohibited. 2 A curse is already de- 
 nounced on him that setteth light by his father or his mo 
 ther. 3 Purifications are already enjoined those who 
 approach a holy place, for Jacob bids his people "be clean 
 and change their garments" before they present themselves 
 at Bethel. 4 The brother is already commanded to marry 
 the brother's widow, and to raise up seed unto his brother. 5 
 The daughter of the Priest (if Judah as the head of his 
 own family maybe considered in that character, is already 
 to be brought forth and burned, if she played the harlot. 6 
 These laws, afterwards incorporated in the Levitical, are 
 here brought together and reviewed at a glance ; but as 
 they occur in the book of Genesis, be it remembered, they 
 drop out incidentally, one by one, as the course of the nar- 
 rative happens to turn them up. They are therefore to be 
 reckoned fragments of a more full and complete code which 
 was the groundwork in all probability of the Levitical code 
 itself; for it is difficult to suppose that where there were 
 these there were not others like to them. But this is not 
 all the Patriarchs had their sacrifices, that great and 
 leading rite of the Church of Aaron ; the subjects of those 
 sacrifices fixed ; useless without the shedding of blood ; for 
 what but the violation of an express command full of 
 meaning, could have constituted the sin of Cain ? 7 Their 
 sacrifices, how far regulated in their details by the injunc- 
 tions of God himself, we cannot determine ; yet it is im- 
 
 1 Gen. xxxiv. 7. 
 
 * Ib. xxxiv. 14, and comp. Exod. xxxiv. 16, and Dr. Patrick's Comment, 
 3 Ib. ix. 25, and comp. Deut. xxvii. 16. * Gen. xxxv. 2. 
 
 * Ib. xxxviii. 8. e Ib. xxxviii. 24. 
 i Sea Ib. iii. 21 j iv. 4, 5, 7. 
 
 3* 
 
30 THE VERACITY OP THE PART I, 
 
 possible to read in the 15th chapter of Genesis the particu- 
 lars of Abraham's offering of the heifer, the goat, the ram, 
 the turtle-dove, and the pigeon their ages, their sex, the 
 circumspection with which he dissects and disposes them 
 whether all this be done in act or in vision, without feeling 
 assured that very minute directions upon all these points 
 were vouchsafed to the Patriarchal Church. She had 
 her Sacraments ; for sacrifice of which I have just been 
 speaking, was one, and circumcision was the other. 
 
 Then as she had her sacrifices and sacraments, so had 
 she her types types which in number scarcely yield to 
 those of the Levitical Law, in precision and interest per- 
 haps exceed them. For we meet with them in the names 
 and fortunes of individuals whom the Almighty Disposer 
 of events, without doing violence to the natural order of 
 things, exhibits as pages of a living book in which the 
 Promise is to be read as characters expressing His coun- 
 sels and covenants writ by His own finger as actors, 
 whereby he holds up to a world, not yet prepared for less 
 gross and sensible impressions, scenes to come. It would 
 lead me far beyond the limits of my argument were I to 
 touch upon the multitude of instances, which will crowd, 
 however, I doubt not, upon the minds of my readers. I 
 might tell of Adam, whom St. Paul himself calls the "fig- 
 ure" or type " of Him who was to come." 1 I might tell of 
 the sacrifice of Isaac (though not altogether after him 
 whose vision upon this subject, always bright though often 
 baseless, would alone have immortalized his name) of 
 that Isaac whose birth was preceded by an annunciation 
 to his mother 2 whose conception was miraculous 3 who 
 was named of the angel before he was conceived in the 
 womb 4 , and Joy, or Laughter, or Rejoicing was that name 5 
 
 1 Rom. v. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 45. 2 Gen. xviii. 10. 
 
 s Gen. xviii. 14. < Ib. xvfi. 19. 5 Ih. xxi, 6. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 31 
 
 who was, in its primary sense, the seed in which all the 
 nations of the earth were to be blessed 1 whose projected 
 death was a rehearsal (as it were), almost two thousand 
 years beforehand, of the great offering of all the very 
 mountain, Moriah, not chosen by chance, not chosen for 
 convenience, for it was three days' journey from Abraham's 
 dwelling-place, but no doubt appointed of God as the future 
 scene of a Saviour's passion too 2 a son, an only son the 
 victim the very instruments of the oblation, the wood, 
 not carried by the young men, not carried by the ass which 
 they had brought with them, but laid on the shoulders of 
 him who was to die, as the cross was borne up that same 
 ascent of Him, who, in the fulness of time, was destined to 
 expire upon it. But indeed I see the Promise all Genesis 
 through, so that our Lord might well begin with Moses in 
 expounding the things concerning Himself; 3 and well 
 might Philip say, " We have found him of whom Moses 
 in the Law did write." 4 I see the Promise all Genesis 
 through, and if I have constructed a rude and imperfect 
 Temple of Patriarchal Worship out of the fragments which 
 offer themselves to our hands in that history, the Messiah 
 to come is the spirit that must fill that Temple with His 
 all-pervading presence, none other than He must be the 
 Shekinah of the Tabernacle we have reared. For I con- 
 fess myself wholly at a loss to explain the nature of that 
 Book on any other principle, or to unlock its mysteries by 
 any other key. Couple it with this consideration, and I 
 see the scheme of Revelation, like the physical scheme, 
 proceeding with beautiful uniformity an unity of plan 
 connecting (as it has been well said by Paley) the chicken 
 roosting upon its perch with the spheres revolving ill the 
 
 i Gen. xxh. 18. * Ib. xxii. 2; 2 Chron. iii. 1. 
 
 3 Luke xxiv. 27. John i. 45. 
 
*^ THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 firmament ; and an unity of plan connecting in like man- 
 ner the meanest accidents of a household with the most 
 illustrious visions of a prophet. Abstracted from this con- 
 sideration, I see in it details of actions, some trifling, some 
 even offensive, pursued at a length (when compared with 
 the whole) singularly disproportionate ; while things which 
 the angels would desire to look into are passed over and 
 forgotten. But this principle once admitted, and all is 
 consecrated all assumes a new aspect trifles that seem 
 at first not bigger than a man's hand, occupy the heavens; 
 and wherefore Sarah laughed, for instance, at the prospect 
 of a son, and wherefore that laugh was rendered immortal 
 in his name, and wherefore the sacred historian dwells on 
 a matter so trivial, whilst the world and its vast concerns 
 were lying at his feet, I can fully understand. For then I 
 see the hand of God shaping everything to his own ends, 
 and in an event thus casual, thus easy, thus unimportant, 
 telling forth his mighty design of Salvation to the world, 
 and working it up into the web of his noble prospective 
 counsels. 1 I see that nothing is great or little before Him 
 who can bend to his purposes whatever He willeth, and 
 convert the light-hearted and thoughtless mockery of an 
 aged woman into an instrument of his glory, effectual as 
 the tongue of the seer which He touched with living coals 
 from the altar. Bearing this master-key in my hand, I can 
 interpret the scenes of domestic mirth, of domestic strata- 
 gem, or of domestic wickedness, with which the history of 
 Moses abounds. The Seed of the Woman which was to 
 bruise the Serpent's head, 2 however indistinctly understood, 
 (and probably it was understood very indistinctly,) was 
 the one thing longed for in the families of old, was " the 
 desire of all nations," as the Prophet Haggai expressly calls 
 
 i Gen. xxi. 6. 2 Gen. iii. 15. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 33 
 
 it; 1 and provided they could accomplish this desire, they 
 (like others when urged by an overpwering motive) were 
 often reckless of the means, and rushed upon deeds which 
 they could not defend. Then did the wife forget her jeal- 
 ousy, and provoke, instead of resenting, the faithlessness 
 of her husband ; 2 then did the mother forget a mother's 
 part, and teach her own child treachery and deceit ; 3 then did 
 daughters turn the instincts of nature backward, and delib- 
 erately work their own and their fathers shame ; 4 then did 
 the daughter-in-law veil her face, and court the incestuous 
 bed ; 5 and to be childless was to be a bye-word ; and to 
 refuse to raise up seed to a brother was to be spit upon ; 7 
 and the prospect of the Promise, like the fulfilment of it, 
 did not send peace into families, but a sword, and three 
 were set against two, and two against three ; 8 and the elder 
 who would be promoted unto honor, was set against the 
 younger, whom God would promote, 9 and national differ- 
 ences were engendered by it, as individuals grew into na- 
 tions ; 10 and even the foulest of idolatries may be traced, 
 perhaps, to this hallowed source ; for the corruption of the 
 best is the worst corruption of all. 11 It is upon this prin- 
 ciple of interpretation, and I know not upon what other 
 so well, that we may put to silence the ignorance of foolish 
 men, who have made those parts of the Mosaic History 
 a stumbling-block to many, which, if rightly understood, 
 are the very testimony of the covenant ; and a principle, 
 which is thus extensive in its application and successful in 
 its results, which explains so much that is difficult, and 
 answers so much that is objected against, has, from this 
 
 1 Hag. ii. 7. 2 Gen. xvi. 2; xxx. 3 ; xxx. 9. 
 
 3 Ib. xxv. 23; xxvii. 13. * Ib. xix. 31. 5 Ib. xxxviii. 14. 
 
 Ib. xvi. 5; xxx. 1. 1 Ib. xxxviii. 26; Deut. xxv. 9. 
 
 8 Gen. xxvii. 41. 9 Ib. iv. 5 ; xxvii. 41. 
 
 w Ib. xix. 37; xxvi. 35. " Numb. XXY. 1, 2, 3. 
 
34 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I, 
 
 circumstance alone, strong presumption in its favor, strong 
 claims upon our sober regard. 1 
 
 Such is the structure that appears to me to unfold itself, 
 if we do but bring together the scattered materials of 
 which it is composed. The place of worship the priest 
 to minister the sacerdotal dress the ceremonial forms 
 the appointed seasons for holy things preachers 
 prophets a code of laws sacrifices sacraments types 
 and a Messiah in prospect, as leading a feature of the 
 whole scheme, as he now is in retrospect of a scheme 
 which has succeeded it. Complete the building is not, but 
 still there is symmetry in its component parts, and unity 
 in its whole. Yet Moses was certainly not contemplating 
 any description of a Patriarchal Church. He had other 
 matters in his thoughts : he was the mediator not of this 
 system, but of another, which he was now to set forth in 
 all its details, even of the Levitical. Hints, however, of 
 a former dispensation he does inadvertently let fall, and 
 these we find, on collecting and comparing them, to be, as 
 far as they go, harmonious. 
 
 Upon this general view of the Book of Genesis, then, 
 I found my first proof of consistency without design in 
 the writings of Moses, and my first argument for their 
 veracity for such consistency is too uniform to be acci- 
 dentalj and too unobtrusive to have been studied. Such 
 a view is, doubtless, important as far as regards the doc- 
 trines of Scripture ; I, however, only urge it as far as re- 
 gards the evidences. I shall now enter more into detail, 
 and bring forward such specific coincidences amongst in- 
 dependent passages of the Mosaic writings, as tend to prove 
 that in them we have the Word of Truth, that in them we 
 may put our trust with faith unfeigned. 
 
 i See Allix, " Reflections on the Books of Holy Scripture," where this 
 interesting subject is most ingeniously pursued. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 35 
 
 II. 
 
 IN the 18th chapter of Genesis we find recorded a very 
 singular conversation which Abraham is reported to have 
 held with a superior Being, there called the Lord. It 
 pleased God on this occasion to communicate to the Father 
 of the Faithful his intention to destroy forthwith the cities 
 of Sodom and Gomorrah, of which the cry was great, and 
 the sin very grievous. Now the manner in which Abra- 
 ham is said to have received the sad tidings, is remarkable. 
 He does not bow to the high behest in helpless acquies- 
 cence the Lord do what seemeth good in his sight but, 
 with feelings at once excited to the uttermost, he pleads 
 for the guilty city, he implores the Lord not to slay the 
 righteous with the wicked ; and when he feels himself 
 permitted to speak with all boldness, he first entreats that 
 fifty good men may purchase the city's safety, and, still en- 
 couraged by the success of a series of petitions, he rises in 
 his merciful demands, till at last it is promised that even 
 if ten should be found in it, it should not be destroyed for 
 ten's sake. 
 
 Now was there no motive beyond that of general hu- 
 manity which urged Abraham to entreaties so importu- 
 nate, so reiterated ? None is named perhaps such gen- 
 eral motive will be thought enough I do not say that it 
 was not ; yet I think we may discover a special and ap- 
 propriate one, which was likely to act upon ihe mind of 
 Abraham with still greater effect, though we are left en- 
 tirely to detect it for ourselves. For may we not imagine, 
 that no sooner was the intelligence sounded in Abraham's 
 ears, than he called to mind that Lot his nephew, with all 
 his f amity, was dwelling in this accursed town, 1 and that 
 i Gen. xiv. 12. 
 
36 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I, 
 
 this consideration both prompted and quickened his prayer ? 
 For while he thus made his supplication for Sodom, I do 
 not read that Gomorrah and the other cities of the plain 1 
 shared his intercession, though they stood in the same need 
 of it and why not ? except that in them he had not the 
 same deep interest. It may be argued too, and without 
 any undue refinement, that in his repeated reduction of 
 the number which was to save the place, he was governed 
 by the hope that the single family of Lot (for he had sons- 
 in-law who had married his daughters, and daughters un- 
 married, and servants,) would in itself have supplied so 
 many individuals at least as would fulfil the last condition 
 ten righteous persons who might turn away the wrath 
 of God, nor suffer his whole displeasure to arise. 
 
 Surely nothing could be more natural than that anxiety 
 for the welfare of relatives so near to him should be felt 
 by Abraham nothing more natural than that he should 
 make an effort for their escape, as he had done on a former 
 occasion at his own risk, when he rescued this very Lot 
 from the kings who had taken him captive nothing more 
 natural than that his family feelings should discover them- 
 selves in the earnestness of his entreaties yet we have to 
 collect all this for ourselves. The whole chapter might be 
 read without our gathering from it a single hint that he 
 had any relative within ten days' journey of the place. 
 All we know is, that Abraham entreated for it with great 
 passion that he entreated for no other place, though others 
 were in the same peril that he endeavored to obtain such 
 terms as seemed likely to be fulfilled if a single righteous 
 family could be found there. And then we know, from 
 what is elsewhere disclosed, that the family of Lot did ac- 
 tually dwell there at that time, a family that Abraham 
 
 i Gen. xix. 28; Jude, 7. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 37 
 
 might well have reckoned on being more prolific in virtue 
 than it proved. 
 
 Surely, then, a coincidence between the zeal of the uncle 
 and the danger of the brother's son is here detailed, though 
 it is not expressed ; and so utterly undesigned is this coin- 
 cidence, that the history might be read many times over, 
 and this feature of truth in it never happen to present 
 itself. 
 
 And here let me observe, (an observation which will be 
 very often forced upon our notice in the prosecution of this 
 argument,) that this sign of truth (whatever may be the 
 importance attached to it), offers itself in the midst of an 
 incident in a great measure miraculous : and though it 
 cannot be said that such indications of veracity in the nat- 
 ural parts of a story, prove those parts of it to be true 
 which are supernatural; yet where the natural and 
 supernatural are in close combination, the truth of the 
 former must at least be thought to add to the credibility 
 of the latter ; and they who are disposed to believe, from 
 -the coincidence in question, that the petition of Abraham 
 in behalf of Sodom was a real petition, as it is described 
 by Moses, and no fiction, will have some difficulty in 
 separating it from the miraculous circumstances connected 
 with it the visit of the angel the prophetic information 
 he conveyed and the terrible vengeance with which he 
 was proceeding to smite that adulterous and sinful genera- 
 tion. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE 24th chapter of Genesis contains a very beautiful 
 aad primitive picture of Eastern manners, in the mission 
 of Abraham's trusty servant to Mesopotamia, to procure a 
 wife for Isaac from the daughters of that branch of the 
 
 4 
 
38 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 Patriarch's family which continued to dwell in Haran. 
 He came nigh to the city of Nahor it was the hour when 
 the people were going to draw water. He entreated God 
 to give him a token whereby he might know which of the 
 damsels of the place he had appointed to Isaac for a wife. 
 " And it came to pass that behold Rebekah came out, who 
 was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, 
 Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder." 
 " Drink, my lord," was her greeting, " and I will draw 
 water for thy camels also." This was the simple token 
 which the servant had sought at the hands of God ; and 
 accordingly he proceeds to impart his commission to her- 
 self and her friends. To read is to believe this story. 
 But the point in it to which I beg the attention of my 
 readers is this, that Rebekah is said to be, " the daughter 
 of Bethuel, the son of Milcah which she bare unto Nahor" 
 It appears, therefore, that the grand-daughter of Abra- 
 ham's brother is to be the wife of Abraham's son i.e. tht 
 a person of the third generation on Nahor's side is found 
 of suitable years for one of the second generation on Abra- 
 ham's side. Now what could harmonize more remarkably 
 with a fact elsewhere asserted, though here not even 
 touched upon, that Sarah the wife of Abraham was for a 
 long time barren, and had no child till she was stricken 
 in years ? l Thus it was that a generation on Abraham's 
 side was lost, and the grand-children of his brother in 
 Haran were the co-evals of his own child in Canaan. I 
 must say that this trifling instance of minute consistency 
 gives me very great confidence in the veracity of the his- 
 torian. It is an incidental point in the narrative most 
 easily overlooked I am free to confess, never observed by 
 myself till I examined the Pentateuch with a view to this 
 
 i Gen. xviii. 12. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 39 
 
 species of internal evidence. It is a point on which he 
 might have spoken differently, and yet not have excited 
 the smallest suspicion that he was speaking inaccurately. 
 Suppose he had said that Abraham's son had taken for 
 a wife the daughter of Nahor, instead of the grand- 
 daughter, who would have seen in this anything im- 
 probable ? and to a mere inventor would not that alli- 
 ance have been much the more likely to suggest itself? 
 
 Now here, again, the ordinary and extraordinary are so 
 closely united, that it is extremely difficult indeed to put 
 them asunder. If, then, the ordinary circumstances of 
 the narrative have the impress of truth, the extraordinary 
 have a very valid right to challenge our serious considera- 
 tion too. If the coincidence almost establishes this as a 
 certain fact, which I think it does, that Sarah did not bear 
 Isaac while she was young, agreeably to what Moses af- 
 firms ; is it not probable that the same historian is telling 
 the truth when he says, that Isaac was born when Sarah 
 was too old to bare him at all except by miracle? when 
 he says, that the Lord announced his future birth, and 
 ushered him into the world by giving him a name fore- 
 telling the joy he should be to the nations ; changing the 
 names of both his parents with a prophetic reference to 
 the high destinies this son was appointed to fulfil ? 
 
 Indeed the more attentively and scrupulously we ex- 
 amine the Scriptures, the more shall we be (in rny opinion) 
 convinced, that the natural and supernatural events re- 
 corded in them must stand or fall together. The spirit 
 of miracles possesses the entire body of the Bible, and can- 
 not be cast out without rending in pieces the whole frame 
 of the h'story itself, merely considered as a history. 
 
40 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THERE is another indication of truth in this same 
 portion of patriarchal story. It is this The consistent 
 insignificance of Bethuel in this whole affair. Yet he 
 was alive, and as the father of Rebekah was likely, it 
 might have been thought, to have been a conspicuous 
 person in this contract of his daughter's marriage. For 
 there was nothing in the custom of the country to warrant 
 the apparent indifference in the party most nearly con- 
 cerned, which we observe in Bethuel. Laban was of the 
 same country and placed in circumstances somewhat simi- 
 lar ; he too had to dispose of a daughter in marriage, and 
 that daughter also, like Rebekah, had brothers j 1 yet in 
 this case the terms of the contract were stipulated, as was 
 reasonable, by the father alone ; he was the active person 
 throughout. But mark the difference in the instance of 
 Bethuel whether he was incapable from years or imbecil- 
 ity to manage his own affairs, it is of course impossible to 
 say, but something of this kind seems to be implied in all 
 that relates to him. Thus, when Abraham's servant meets 
 with Rebekah at the well, he inquires of her, "whose 
 daughter art thou ; tell me, I pray thee, is there room in 
 thy father's house for us to lodge in?" 2 She answers, that 
 she is the daughter of Bethuel, and that there is room ; 
 and when he thereupon declared who he w r as and whence 
 he came, " the damsel ran and told them of her mother's 
 house " (not of her father's house, as Rachel did when 
 Jacob introduced himself,) 3 "these things." This might 
 be accident; but "Rebekah had a brother" the history 
 continues, and " his name was Laban, and Laban ran 
 
 i Gen. xxxi. 1, 2 fl>. xxiv. 23, 3 ib. xxu. 12. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 41 
 
 out unto the man" and invited him in. 1 Still we have no 
 mention of Bethuel. The servant now explains the na- 
 ture of his errand, and in this instance it is said, that 
 Laban and Bethuel answered ; 2 Bethuel being here in this 
 passage, which constitutes the sole proof of his being alive, 
 coupled with his son as the spokesman. It is agreed, that 
 she shall go with the man, and he now makes his pres- 
 ents, but to whom ? " Jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, 
 and raiment, he gave to Rebekah." He also gave, we are 
 told, " to her brother and to her mother precious things ;'' 8 
 but not it seems to her father ; still Bethuel is overlooked, 
 and he alone. It is proposed that she shall tarry a few 
 days before she departs. And by whom is this proposal 
 made ? Not by her father, the most natural person surely 
 to have been the principal throughout this whole affair ; 
 but " by her brother and her mother"* In the next gen- 
 eration, when Jacob, the fruit of this marriage, flies to his 
 mother's country at the counsel of Rebekah to hide him- 
 self from the anger of Esau, and to procure for himself 
 a wife, and when he comes to Haran and inquires of the 
 shepherds after his kindred in that place, how does he ex- 
 press himself? "Know ye," says he, " Laban the son of 
 Nahor T' s This is more marked than even the former 
 instances, for Laban was the son of Bethuel, and only the 
 grandson of Nahor ; yet still we see Bethuel is passed 
 over as a person of no note in his own family, and Laban 
 his own child designated by the title of his grandfather, 
 instead of his father. 
 
 This is consistent and the consistency is too much of 
 one piece throughout, and marked by too many particu- 
 lars, to be accidental. It is the consistency of a man who 
 knew more about Bethuel than we do, or than he hap- 
 
 Gen. xxiv. 29. 2 ib. xxiv. 50. 3 ib. xxiv. 53. 
 
 4 Ib. xxiv. 55. s ib. xxix. 5. 
 
 4* 
 
42 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 pened to let drop from his pen. It is of a kind, perhaps, 
 the most satisfactory of all for the purpose I use it. because 
 the least liable to suspicion of all. The uniformity of ex- 
 pressive silence repeated omissions that have a meaning 
 no agreement in a positive fact, for nothing is asserted ; 
 yet a presumption of the fact conveyed by mere negative 
 evidence. It is like the death of Joseph in the New Tes- 
 tament, which none of the Evangelists affirm to have 
 taken place before the Crucifixion, though all imply it. 
 This kind of consistency I look upon as beyond the reach 
 of the most subtle contriver in the world. 
 
 V. 
 
 ON the return of this servant of Abraham, his embassy 
 fulfilled, and Rebekah in his company, he discovers Isaac 
 at a distance, who was gone out (as our translation has it) 
 " to meditate" or (as the margin has it) " to pray in the 
 field at eventide." 1 
 
 Now in this subordinate incident in the narrative there 
 are marks of truth, (very slight indeed it may be,) but 
 still, I think, if not obvious, not difficult to be perceived 
 and not unworthy to be mentioned. Isaac went out to 
 meditate or to pray but the Hebrew word does not relate 
 to religious meditation exclusively, still less exclusively 
 to direct prayer. Neither does the corresponding expres- 
 sion in the Septuagint (fiJofoo-^crai) convey either of these 
 senses exclusively, the latter of the two perhaps not at all. 
 The leading idea suggested seems to be an anxious, a 
 reverential, a painful, a depressed state of mind " out of 
 the abundance of my complaint" (or meditation, for the 
 
 i Gen. xxiv. 63, 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 43 
 
 word is the same here, only in the form of a substantive,) 
 " out of the abundance of my meditation and grief have 
 I spoken," are the words of Hannah to Eli. 1 " Who hath 
 woe, who hath sorrow, who hath contentions, who hath 
 babbling, (the word is here still the same and evidently 
 might be rendered with more propriety melancholy,) who 
 hath wounds without cause, who hath redness of eyes ?" 2 
 Isaac therefore went out into the field not directly to pray, 
 but to give ease to a wounded spirit in solitude. Now 
 the occasion of this his trouble of mind is not pointed out, 
 and the passage indeed has been usually explained with- 
 out any reference to such a feeling, and merely as an in- 
 stance of religious contemplation in Isaac worthy of imita- 
 tion by all. But one of the last things that is recorded tc 
 have happened before the servant went to Haran, whence 
 he was now returning, is the death and burial of Sarah, 
 no doubt a tender mother (as she proved herself a jealous 
 one), to the child of her old age and her only child. What 
 more likely than that her loss was the subject of Isaac's 
 mournful meditation on this occasion ? But this conjec- 
 ture is reduced almost to certainty by a few words inciden- 
 tally dropped at the end of the chapter ; for having lifted 
 up his eyes and beheld the camels coming, and the ser- 
 vant, and the maiden, Isaac " brought her into his mother 
 Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah and she became his wife ; 
 and he loved her, and was comforted after his mother's 
 death."* 
 
 The agreement of this latter incident with what had 
 gone before is not set forth in our version, and a scene of 
 very touching and picturesque beauty impaired, if not 
 destroyed. 
 
 1 1 Sam. i. 16. Prov. xxiii. 29. 3 Gen. xxiv. 67. 
 
44 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 VI. 
 
 WE have now to contemplate Isaac in a different scene, 
 and to remove with him (after the fashion of this earthly 
 pilgrimage), from an occasion of mirth to one of mourn- 
 ing. 
 
 Being now grown old, as he says, and " not knowing 
 the day of his death" he prepares to bless his first-born 
 son "before he dies" 1 So spake the Patriarch. This 
 looks very like one of the last acts of a life which time 
 and natural decay had brought near its close ; yet it is cer- 
 tain that Isaac continued to live a great many years after 
 this, nay, that probably a fourth part of his whole life yet 
 remained to him for he was still alive when Jacob re- 
 turned from Mesopotamia ; when even many of Jacob's sons 
 were grown up to manhood who were as yet in the loins 
 of their father ; 2 and even after that Patriarch had re- 
 peatedly migrated from dwelling-place to dwelling-place in 
 the land of Canaan. For " Jacob," we read when all these 
 other events had been related in their order, " came unto 
 Isaac his father, unto Mamre, unto the city of Arbah, 
 which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned. 3 " 
 
 How then is this seeming discrepancy to be got over ? 
 I mean, the discrepancy between Isaac's anxiety to bless 
 his son before he died, and the fact of his being found 
 alive perhaps forty or fifty years afterwards ? My answer 
 is this that it w r as probably at a moment of dangerous 
 sickness when he bethought himself of imparting the 
 blessing and I feel my conjecture supported by the fol- 
 lowing minute coincidences. That Isaac was then de- 
 sirous to have " savory meat such as he loved," as though 
 he loathed his ordinary food : that Jacob bade him " arise 
 
 i Gen. xxvii. 2, 4. 2 Ib. xxxiv. 5. 3 Ib. xxxv. 27. 
 
PART I. T300KS OF MOSES. 45 
 
 and sit that he might eat of his venison," as though he 
 was at the time stretched upon his bed ; that he " trembled 
 very exceedingly" when Esau came in and he was ap- 
 prised of his mistake, as though he was very weak ; that 
 the words of Esau, when he said in his heart " the days 
 of mourning for my father are at hand," are as though 
 he was thought sick unto death ; and that those of Re- 
 bekah, when she said unto Jacob " should I be deprived 
 of you both in one day," are as though she supposed the 
 time of her widowhood to be near. 
 
 I will add that the prolongation of Isaac's life unex- 
 pectedly (as it should seem), may have had its influence 
 in the continued protection of Jacob from Esau's anger, 
 the latter, even in the first burst of his passion, retaining 
 that reverence for his father which determined him to put 
 off the execution of his evil purposes against Jacob, till he 
 should be no more. And this affection seems to have been 
 felt by him to the last ; for wild and wandering as was 
 his life, the sword or the bow ever in his hand, we never- 
 theless find him anxious to do honor to his father's grave, 
 and assisting Jacob at the burial. 1 The filial feelings 
 therefore which had stayed his hand at first, were still 
 tending to soothe him during Jacob's absence, and to pro- 
 pitiate him on Jacob's return ; for the days of mourning 
 for his father were still not come. 
 
 VII. 
 
 MY next coincidence may not be thought in itself so 
 convincing as some others, yet as it at once furnishes an 
 argument for the truth of Genesis and an answer to an 
 
 i Gen. xxxv. 29. 
 
46 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 objection, I will not pass it over. When Jacob is about to 
 remove with his family to Beth-el, a place already conse- 
 crated in his memory by the vision of angels, and thence- 
 forward to be distinguished by an altar to his God, he gives 
 the following extraordinary command to his household and 
 all that are with him : " Put away the strange gods that 
 are among you, and be clean, and change your garments ;' n 
 or as it might be translated with perhaps more closeness, 
 " the gods of the stranger" Had Jacob, then, hitherto 
 tolerated the worship of idols among his attendants ? 
 Had he connived so long at a defection from the God of 
 his fathers, even whilst he was befriended by Him, whilst 
 he was living under his special protection, whilst he was in 
 frequent communication with Him ? This is hard to be 
 believed ; indeed it would have seemed incredible altogether. 
 had it not been remembered that Rachel had Images 
 which she stole from her father Laban, and which he at 
 least considered as his household gods. Those images, 
 however, might be taken by Rachel as valuables, silver Or 
 gold perhaps, a fair prize as she might think, serving to bal- 
 ance the portion which Laban had withheld from her, and 
 /he money which he had devoured. That she used them 
 herself as idols does not appear, but rather the contrary 
 and that Jacob was perfectly unconscious of their being 
 at all in his camp, whether as objects of worship or as ob- 
 jects of value, is evident from his giving Laban free leave 
 to put to death the party on whom they should be found. 2 
 He therefore was not an idolater himself; nor, as far as 
 we know, did he wink at idolatry in those about him. 
 Whence then this command,, issued to his attendants on 
 their approach to Beth-el, that holy ground, " to put away 
 the strange gods that were amongst them, and to make 
 themselves clean ?" 
 
 i Gen xxxv. 2. * ibid. xxxi. 32. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 47 
 
 Let us only refer to an event of a former chapter, 1 and 
 all is plain. The sons of Jacob had just been destroying 
 the city of the Shechemites they had slain the males, but 
 " all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives 
 took they captive, and spoiled all that was in the house." 
 These captives, then, so lately added to the company of 
 Jacob, were in all probability the strangers alluded to, 
 and the idols in their possession the gods of the strangers^ 
 which accordingly the Patriarch required them to put 
 away forthwith before Beth-el was approached. Moreover, 
 it may be observed, that the terms of the command extend 
 to " all that were with him" which may well have respect 
 to the recent augmentation of his numbers, by the addition 
 of the Shechemite prisoners : and the further injunction, 
 that not only the idols were to be put away, but that all 
 were to be clean and change their garments, may have 
 a like respect to the recent slaughter of that people, whereby 
 all who were concerned in it were polluted. 
 
 Yet surely nothing can be more incidental than the con- 
 nection between the sacking of the city, and the subse- 
 quent command to put the idols of the stranger away 
 though nothing can be more natural and satisfactory than 
 that connection when it is once perceived. Indeed so little 
 solicitous is Moses to point out these two events as cause 
 and consequence, that he has left himself open to miscon- 
 struction by the very unguarded and artless manner in 
 which he expresses himself, and has even placed the char- 
 acter of Jacob, as an exclusive worshipper of the true God, 
 unintentionally in jeopardy. 
 
 1 Gen. miv. 
 
48 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IN the character of Jocob I see an individuality which 
 marks it to belong to real life : and this is my next argu- 
 ment for the veracity of the writings of Moses. The par- 
 ticulars we read of him are consistent with each other, and 
 with the lot to which he was born ; for this more or less 
 models the character of every man. The lot of Jacob had 
 not fallen upon the fairest of grounds. Life, especially the 
 former part of it, did not run so smoothly with him as with 
 his father Isaac so that he might be tempted to say to 
 Pharaoh towards the close of it naturally enough, that 
 " the days of the years of it had been evil." The faults of 
 his youth had been visited upon his manhood with retrib- 
 utive justice not unfrequent in God's moral government of 
 the world, where the very sin by which a man offends is 
 made the rod by which he is corrected. Rebekah's undue 
 partiality for her younger son, which leads her to deal cun- 
 ningly for his promotion unto honor, works for her the 
 loss of that son for the remainder of her days his own 
 unjust attempts at gaming the superiority over his elder 
 brother, entail upon him twenty years slavery in a foreign 
 land and the arts by which he had made Esau to suffer, 
 are precisely those by which he suffers himself at the hands 
 of Laban. Of this man, the first thing we hear is, his 
 entertainment of Abraham's servant when he came on his 
 errand to Rebekah. Hospitality was the virtue of his age 
 and country ; in his case, however, it seems to have been 
 no little stimulated by the sight of " the earring and the 
 bracelets on his sister's hands," which the servant had 
 already given her 1 so he speedily made room for the 
 
 i Gen. xxiv. 30. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 49 
 
 camels. He next is presented to us as beguiling that sis- 
 ter's son, who had sought a shelter in his house, and whose 
 circumstances placed him at his mercy, of fourteen years 
 service, when he had covenanted with him for seven only 
 endeavoring to retain his labor when he would not pay 
 him his labor's worth himself devouring the portion which 
 he should have given to his daughters, counting them but 
 as strangers. 1 Compelled at length to pay Jacob wages, 
 he changes them ten times, and in the spirit of a crafty 
 griping worldling, makes him account for whatever of the 
 flock was torn of beasts or stolen, whether by day or night. 
 When Jacob flies from this iniquitous service with his fam- 
 ily and cattle, Laban still pursues and persecutes him, in- 
 tending, if his intentions had not been over-ruled by a 
 mightier hand, to send him away empty, even after he 
 had been making, for so long a period, so usurious a profit 
 of him. 
 
 I think it was to be expected, that one who had been 
 disciplined in such a school as this, and for such a season, 
 would not come out of it without bearing about him its 
 marks ; and that oppressed first by the just fury of his 
 brother, which put his life in hazard, and drove him into 
 exile, and then still more by the continued tyranny of a 
 father-in-law, such as we have seen, Jacob should have 
 learned, like maltreated animals, to have the fear of man 
 habitually before his eyes. Now that it was so, is evident 
 from all the latter part of his history. 
 
 He is afraid that Laban will not let him go, and there- 
 fore takes the precaution to steal from him unawares, 
 when he is gone to a distance to shear his sheep. He ap- 
 proaches the borders of Edom, but here the ancient dread 
 of his brother revives, and he takes the precaution to pro- 
 
 i Gen. xixi. 15. 
 
 5 
 
50 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 pitiate him or to escape him by measures which breathe 
 the spirit of the man in a singular manner. He sends 
 him a message it is from " Jacob thy servant" to " Esau 
 my lord." Esau advances, and he at once fears the worst. 
 Then does he divide his people and substance into two 
 bands, that if the one be smitten, the other may escape 
 he provides a present of many cattle for his brother he 
 commands his servants to put a space between each drove, 
 apparently to add effect to the splendor of his present he 
 charges them to deliver severally their own portion, with 
 the tidings that he was behind who sent it he appoints 
 their places to the women and children with the same pru- 
 dential considerations that mark his whole conduct ; first 
 the handmaids and their children ; then Leah and her 
 children ; and in the hindermost and least exposed place, 
 his favorite Rachel and Joseph. Such are his precautions. 
 They are all however needless Esau owes him no wrong 
 he even proposes to escort him home in peace, or to 
 leave him a guard out of the four hundred men that were 
 with him. But Jacob evades both proposals ; apprehend- 
 ing, most likely, more danger from his friends than from 
 his foes ; and dismisses his brother with a word about " fol- 
 lowing my lord to Seir ;" an intention which, as far as we 
 know, he was in more haste to express than accomplish. 
 All this ended, the honor of his house is violated by She- 
 ohem, a son of a prince of that country. Even this insult 
 does not throw him off his guard. He heard it, " but he 
 held his peace" till his sons, who were with the cattle in 
 the field, should come home. They soon proceed to take 
 summary vengeance on the Shechemites. The fear of 
 man, however, which had restrained the wrath of Jacob 
 at the first, besets him still, and he now says to his sons 
 " Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the 
 inhabitants of the land ; and I being few in number, they 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 
 
 61 
 
 shall gather themselves together against me and slay me ; 
 and I shall be destroyed, I and my house." 1 Jacob would 
 have been better pleased with more compromise and less 
 cruelty he was not prepared to give utterance to that 
 feeling of turbulent indignation, reckless of all conse- 
 quences, which spake in the words of Simeon and Levi. 
 "Shall he deal with our sister as with an harlot?" Here 
 again, however, his fears proved groundless. Many years 
 now pass away, but when we meet him once more he is 
 still the same the same leading feature in his character 
 continues to the last. His sons go down into Egypt for 
 corn in the famine they return with an injunction from 
 Joseph to take back with them Benjamin, or else to see 
 his face no more. This is urged upon Jacob, and the re- 
 ply it extorts from him is in strict keeping with all that 
 has gone before : " Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me, as 
 to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother ?" 2 Still we 
 see one whom suffering had rendered distrustful who 
 would lend many his ear, but few his tongue. The fam- 
 ine presses so sore, that there is no alternative but to 
 yield up his son. Still he is the same individual. Judah 
 is in haste to be gone he will be surety for the lad he 
 will bring him again, or bear the blame forever. But 
 Jacob gives little heed to these vaporing promises of a 
 sanguine adviser, and as stooping before a necessity which 
 was too strong for him, he prudently sets himself to devise 
 means to disarm the danger ; and " if it must be so now," 
 says he, " do this, take of the best fruits of the land in 
 your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little 
 balm and a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and al- 
 monds and take double money in your hand ; and the 
 money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks, 
 
 i Gen. xxxiv. 30. * ib. xliii. 6. 
 
52 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 carry it again in your hand ; peradventure it was an over- 
 sight." 1 
 
 I cannot persuade myself that these are not marks of a 
 real character especially when I consider that this iden- 
 tity \s found in incidents spread over a period of a hundred 
 years or more that they are mere hints, as it were, out 
 of which we are left to construct the man ; hints inter- 
 rupted by a multitude of other matters ; the geneal- 
 ogy and adventures of Esau and his Arab tribes; the 
 household affairs of Potiphar ; the dreams of Pharaoh ; 
 the polity of Egypt that the facts thus dispersed and 
 broken are to be brought together by ourselves, and the 
 general induction to be drawn from them by ourselves, 
 nothing being more remote from the mind of Moses than 
 to present us with a portrait of Jacob ; nay, that of Isaac, 
 who happens to be less involved in the circumstances of 
 his history, he scarcely gives us a single feature. Surely, 
 with all this before us, it is impossible to entertain the idea 
 for a moment of any studied uniformity. Yet an uni- 
 formity there is ; casual, therefore, on the part of Moses, 
 who was thinking nothing about it but complete, because, 
 without thinking about it, he was by some means or other 
 drawing from the life. 
 
 And now am I thought to disparage the character of 
 this holy man of old ? God forbid ! I think that in the 
 incidents I have named his conduct may be excused, if not 
 justified. But were it otherwise, I am not aware that any 
 of the Patriarchs has been set up, or can be set up, as a 
 genuine pattern of Christian morals. They saw the 
 Promise, (and the more questionable parts of Jacob's con- 
 duct are to be accounted for by his impatience to obtain 
 the Promise, and by his consequently using unlawful 
 
 Gen. xliii. 12. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 53 
 
 means to obtain it,) but " they saw it afar oft" "they 
 beheld it, but not. nigh." They lived under a code of laws 
 that were not absolutely good, perhaps not so good as the 
 Levitical, for as this was but a preparation for the more 
 perfect Law of Christ, so possibly was the Patriarchal but 
 a preparation for the more perfect Law of Moses. Indeed 
 I have already observed, that many scattered hints may 
 be gathered from this latter law, which show that it was 
 but the Law under which the Patriarchs had lived re- 
 constructed, augmented, and improved and I apprehend 
 that such a scheme of progressive advancement, first the 
 dawn, then the day, then the perfect day, is analogous to 
 God's dealings in general. But the broad light in which 
 the Fathers of Israel are to be viewed is this, that they 
 were exclusive worshippers of the One True Everlasting 
 God, in a world of idolaters that they were living de- 
 positaries of the great doctrine of the Unity of the God- 
 head, when the nations around were resorting to every 
 green tree that they " were faithful found among the 
 faithless." And so incalculably important was the preser- 
 vation of this Great Article of the Creed of man, at a time 
 when it rested in the keeping of so few, that the language 
 of the Almighty in the Law seems ever to have a respect 
 unto it : fury, anger, indignation, jealousy, hatred, being 
 expressions rarely, if ever, attributed to him, except in ref- 
 erence to idolatry and, on the other hand, enemies of 
 God, adversaries of God, haters of God, being there 
 chiefly and above all, idolaters. But in this sense God 
 was emphatically the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 
 and the God of Jacob : none of them, not even the last, 
 (for the only passage which savors of the contrary admits, 
 as we have seen, of easy explanation,) having ever for- 
 feited their claim to this high and glorious title ; however, 
 
54 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 such title may not be thought to imply that their moral 
 characters and conduct were faultless, and worthy of all 
 acceptation. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE marks of coincidence without design, which I have 
 brought forward to prove the truth of the Books of Moses 
 as successively presenting themselves in the history of 
 Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, I shall now follow up by 
 others in the history of Joseph. 
 
 By the ill-concealed partiality of his father, and his own 
 incaution in declaring his dreams of future greatness, 
 Joseph had incurred the hatred of his brethren. They 
 were feeding the flock near Shechem Jacob desires to 
 satisfy himself of their welfare, and sends Joseph to in- 
 quire of them and to bring him word again. Meanwhile 
 they had driven further a-field to Dothan, and Joseph, in- 
 formed of this by a man whom he found wandering in 
 the country, followed them thither. They beheld him 
 when he was yet afar off; his dress was remarkable, 1 and 
 the eye of the shepherd in the plain country of the East, 
 like that of the mariner now, was no doubt practised and 
 keen. They take their counsel together against him. 
 They conclude, however, not to stain their hands in the 
 blood of their brother, but to cast him into an empty pit, 
 which, in those countries, where the inhabitants were 
 constantly engaged in a fruitless search for water, was a 
 very likely place to be on the spot. There he was to be 
 left to die, or, as Reuben intended, to remain till he could 
 rid him out of their hands. Nothing could be more artless 
 than this story. Nothing can bear more indisputable 
 
 i Gen. xxxvii. 3. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 55 
 
 signs of truth than its details. But the circumstance, on 
 which I now rest, is another that is mentioned. The 
 brothers having achieved their evil purpose, sat down to 
 eat bread possibly some household present which Jacob 
 had sent them, and Joseph had just conveyed, such as on 
 a somewhat similar occasion, in after-times, Jesse sent and 
 David conveyed to his elder brethren in the camp though 
 on this, as on a thousand touches of truth of the like kind, 
 the reader of Moses is left to make his own speculations. 
 And now " they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold 
 a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their 
 camels, bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to 
 carry it down to Egypt" 1 Now this, though by no 
 means an obvious incident to have suggested itself, does 
 seem to me a very natural one to have occurred ; and 
 what is more, is an incident which tallies remarkably well 
 with what we read elsewhere, in a passage however hav- 
 ing no reference whatever to the one in question. For 
 have we not reason to know, that at this very early period 
 in the history of the world, this first of caravans upon 
 record was charged with a cargo for Egypt singularly 
 adapted to the wants of the Egyptians at that time? 
 Expunge the 2nd and '3rd verses of the 50th chapter of 
 Genesis, and the symptoms of veracity in the narrative 
 which I here detect, or think I detect, would never have 
 been discoverable. But in those verses I am told that 
 Joseph commanded the Physicians to embalm his father 
 and the Physicians embalmed Israel and forty days 
 were fulfilled to him ; for so are fulfilled the days of those 
 which are embalmed, and the Egyptians mourned three- 
 score and ten days." I conclude, therefore, from this, that 
 in these very ancient times it was the practice of the 
 
 1 Gen. xxxvii. 25. 
 
56 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 Egyptians (for Joseph was here doing that which was the 
 custom of the country where he lived), to embalm their 
 dead and we know from the case of our Lord that an 
 hundred pounds weight of myrrh and aloes was not more 
 than enough for a single body. 1 Hence, then, the camel- 
 loads of spices which the Ishmaelites were bringing from 
 Gilead, would naturally enough find an ample market in 
 Egypt. Now, is it easy to come to any other conclusion 
 when trifles of this kind drop out. fitted one to another 
 like the corresponding parts of a cloven tally, than that 
 both are true ? that the historian, however he obtained 
 his intelligence, is speaking of particulars which fell within 
 his own knowledge, and is speaking of them faithfully ? 
 Surely nothing can be more incidental than the mention 
 of the lading of these camels of the Ishmaelites it has 
 nothing to do with the main fact, which is merely this, 
 that the party, whoever they were, and whatever they 
 were bent upon, were ready to buy Joseph, and that his 
 brethren were ready to sell him. On the other hand no 
 one can suspect, that when Moses relates Joseph to have 
 caused his father's body to be embalmed, he had an eye to 
 corroborating his account of the adventure which he had 
 already told concerning the Ishmaelitish merchants, who 
 might thus seem occupied in a traffic that was appropriate. 
 I think that this single coincidence would induce an un- 
 prejudiced person to believe, that the ordinary parts of 
 this story are matters of fact fully known to the historian, 
 and accurately reported by him. Yet it is an integral 
 portion of this same story, uttered by the same historian, 
 that Joseph had visions of his future destinies, which were 
 strictly fulfilled that the whole proceeding with regard 
 to him had been under God's controlling influence from 
 
 i John xix. 39. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 57 
 
 beginning to end that though his brethren " thought evil 
 against him, God meant it unto good," to bring to pass, as 
 he did at a future day, "to save much people alive." 1 
 
 X. 
 
 NOR is this all with regard to Egypt wherein is seen 
 the image and superscription of truth. An argument for 
 the Veracity of the New Testament has been found in the 
 harmony which pervades the very many incidental notices 
 of the condition of Judea at the period when the New 
 Testament professes to have been written. A similar 
 agreement without design may be remarked in the oc- 
 casional glimpses of Egypt which open upon us in the 
 course of the Mosaic History. For instance, I perceive in 
 each and all of the following incidents, indirect indications 
 of this one fact, that Egypt was already a great corn 
 country though I do not believe that such a fact is 
 directly asserted in any passage in the whole Pentateuch. 
 Thus, when Abram found a famine in the land of Canaan, 
 he " went down into Egypt to sojourn there." 2 There 
 was a second famine in a part of Canaan in the days of 
 Isaac : he, however, on this occasion went to Gerar, which 
 was in the country of the Philistines, but it appears as 
 though this was only to have been a stage in a journey 
 which he was projecting into Egypt ; for we read, that 
 " the Lord appeared unto him and said, Go not down into 
 Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of." 3 
 There is a third famine in Canaan in the time of Jacob, 
 and then " all countries came unto Egypt to buy corn, 
 because the famine was so sore in all lands." 4 Again, I 
 
 i Gen. 1. 20. a Ib. xii. 10. 3 ib. xxvi. 2. 2 ib. X H. 57. 
 
58 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 read of Pharaoh being wroth with two of his officers 
 they are spoken of as persons of some distinction in the 
 court of the Egyptian King and who are they? One 
 was the chief of the Butlers, but the other was the chief 
 of the Bakers. 1 Still I see in this an indication of Egypt 
 being a corn country ; of bread being there literally the 
 staff of life, and the manufacturing and dispensing of it 
 an employment of considerable trust and consequence. 
 So again I find, that in the fabric of the bricks in Egypt 
 straw was a very essential element ; and so abundant 
 does the corn-crop seem to have been so widely was it 
 spread over the face of the country, that the task-masters 
 of the Israelites could exact the usual tale of the bricks, 
 though the people had to gather the stubble for themselves 
 to supply the place of the straw, which was withheld. 2 
 Still I perceive in this an intimation of the agricultural 
 fertility of Egypt, there could not have been the stubble- 
 land here implied unless corn had been the staple crop of 
 the country. Then when Moses threatens to plague the 
 Egyptians with a Plague of Frogs, what are the places 
 which at once present themselves as those which are likely 
 to be defiled by their presence ? " The river shall bring 
 forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into 
 thine house, and into thy bed-chamber, and upon thy bed, 
 and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, 
 and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs"* 
 And of these kneading-troughs we again read, as utensils 
 possessed by all, and without which they could not think 
 even of taking a journey for on the delivery of the Israel- 
 ites from Egypt, we find that "they took their dough 
 before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs being 
 bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders." 4 
 
 i Gen xl. 1. 2 Exod. v. 7. 3 Ib. via. 3. * ib. xiL 34. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 59 
 
 Now it may be said, that we all know Egypt to have 
 been a great corn-country that the thing admits of no 
 doubt, and never did I allow it to be so and if such a fact 
 had been asserted in the writings of Moses as a broad fact, 
 I should have taken no notice of it, for it would then have 
 afforded no ground for an argument like this ; in such a 
 case, Moses might have come at the knowledge as we 
 ourselves may have done, by having visited the country 
 himself, or by having received a report of it from others 
 who had visited it, and so might have incorporated this 
 amongst other incidents in his history ; but I do not ob- 
 serve it asserted by him in round terms ; it is not indeed 
 asserted by him at all it is intimated intimated when 
 he is manifestly not thinking about it, when his mind and 
 his pen are quite intent upon other matters ; intimated very 
 often, very indirectly, in very various ways. The fact 
 itself of Egypt being a great corn-country was no doubt 
 perfectly well known to Dr. Johnson, but though so much 
 of the scene of Rasselas is laid in Egypt, I will venture to 
 say, that there are in it no hints of the nature I am de- 
 scribing ; such, I mean, as would serve to convince us that 
 the author was relating a series of events which had hap- 
 pened under his own eye, and that the places with which 
 he combines them were not ideal, but those wherein they 
 actually came to pass. 
 
 Surely then it is very satisfactory to discover concur- 
 rence thus uniform, thus uncontrived, in particulars falling 
 out at intervals in the course of an artless narrative which 
 is not afraid to proclaim the Almighty as manifesting 
 himself by signal miracles, and which connects those mir- 
 acles too in the closest union with the subordinate matters 
 of which we have thus been able to ascertain the probable 
 truth and accuracy. 
 
60 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 XI. 
 
 BEFORE we dismiss this question of the Corn in Egypt, 
 we may remark another trifling instance or two of con- 
 sistency without design declaring themselves in this part 
 of the narrative and tending to strengthen our belief in it. 
 Joseph, it seems, 1 advised Pharaoh before the famine 
 began, to appoint officers over the land, that should " take 
 up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plen- 
 teous years." After this we have several chapters occu- 
 pied with the details of the history of Jacob and his sons 
 the journey of the latter to Egypt their return to their 
 father the repetition of their journey the discovery of 
 Joseph the migration of the Patriarch with all his family 
 of whom the individuals are named after their respective 
 heads the introduction of Jacob to Pharaoh, and his final 
 settlement in the land of Goshen. Then the affair of the 
 famine is again touched upon in a few verses, and a per- 
 manent regulation of property in Egypt is recorded as the 
 accidental result of that famine. For the people who had 
 sold both themselves and their lands to Pharaoh for corn 
 to preserve life, are now permitted to redeem both on the 
 payment of a fifth of the produce to the King forever. 
 " And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto 
 this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part." 2 Now 
 this was, as we had been told in a former chapter, 
 precisely the proportion which Joseph had " taken up" 
 before the famine began. It was then an arrangement 
 entered into with the proprietors of the soil prospectively, 
 as likely to insure the subsistence of the people ; the ex- 
 periment was found to answer and the opportunity of 
 
 i Gen. xli. 34. 2 Ib. xlvii 26. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 61 
 
 perpetuating it having occurred, the arrangement was now 
 made lasting and compulsory. Magazines of corn were 
 henceforth to be established which should at all times be 
 ready to meet an accidental failure of the harvest. Can 
 anything be more natural than this ? anything more 
 common than for great civil and political changes t<? 
 spring out of provisions which chanced to be made to meet 
 some temporary emergency? Has not our own constitu- 
 tion, arid have not the constitutions of most other countries, 
 ancient and modern, grown out of occasion out of the 
 impulse of the day ? 
 
 Further still. Though Joseph possessed himself on his 
 royal master's account of all the land of Egypt besides, 
 and disposed of the people throughout the country just as 
 he pleased, 1 u he did not buy the land of the priests, for 
 the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and 
 did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them, wherefore 
 they sold not their lands." The priests then, we see, 
 were greatly favored in the arrangements made at this 
 period of national distress. Now does not this accord with 
 what we had been told on a former occasion. that Pha- 
 raoh being desirous to do Joseph honor, causing him to 
 ride in the second chariot that he had, and crying before 
 him, Bow the knee, and making him ruler over all the 
 land of Egypt, 2 added yet this as the final proof of his 
 high regard, that " he gave him to wife Asenath, the 
 daughter of Potipherah, Priest of On?" 3 When therefore 
 the priests were thus held in esteem by Pharaoh, and 
 when the minister of Pharaoh, under whose immediate 
 directions all the regulations of the polity of Egypt were 
 at that time conducted, had the daughter of one of them 
 for his wife, is it not the most natural thing in the world 
 to have happened, that their lands should be spared ? 
 
 i Gen. xlvii. 22. 2 ib. xli. 43. 3 Ib. xli. 45. 
 
 6 
 
62 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 XII. 
 
 I HAVE already found an argument for the veracity of 
 Moses in the identity of Jacob's character : I now find an- 
 other in the identity of that of Joseph. There is one quality 
 (as it has been often observed, though with a different view 
 from mine), which runs like a thread through his whole 
 history, his affection for his father. Israel loved him, 
 we read, more than all his children he was the child of 
 his age his mother died whilst he was yet young, and a 
 double care of him consequently devolved upon his survi- 
 ving parent. He made him a coat of many colors he 
 kept him at home when his other sons were sent to feed 
 the flocks. When the bloody garment was brought in, 
 Jacob in his affection for him, (that same affection which 
 on a subsequent occasion, when it was told him that after 
 all Joseph was alive, made him as slow to believe the 
 good tidings as he was now quick to apprehend the sad,) 
 in this his affection for him, I say, Jacob at once concluded 
 the worst ; and " he rent his clothes and put sackcloth 
 upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days, and 
 all his daughters rose up to comfort him ; but he refused 
 to be comforted, and he said, For I will go down into the 
 grave of my son mourning." 
 
 Now what were the feelings in Joseph which responded 
 to these ? When the sons of Jacob went down to Egypt, 
 and Joseph knew them though they knew not him, for 
 they (it may be remarked, and this again is not like fic- 
 tion), were of an age not to be greatly changed by the 
 lapse of years, and were still sustaining the character in 
 which Joseph had always seen them, whilst he himself 
 had meanwhile grown out of the stripling into the man, 
 and from a shepherd-boy was become the ruler of a king- 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 63 
 
 dom when his brethren thus came before him, his ques- 
 tion was, " Is your father yet alive 7" 1 They went down 
 a second time, and again the question was, " Is your fa- 
 ther well, the old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive ?" 
 More he could not venture to ask, whilst he was yet in 
 his disguise. By a stratagem he now detains Benjamin, 
 leaving the others, if they would, to go their way. But 
 Judah came near unto him, and entreated him for his 
 brother, telling him how that he had been " surety to his 
 father' 1 to bring him back, how that " his father was an 
 old man," and that this was the " child of his old age, and 
 that he loved him," how it would come to pass that if he 
 should not see the lad with him he would die, and his 
 gray hairs be brought with sorrow to the grave ; for " how 
 shall I go to my father, and the lad be not with me ? 
 lest, peradventure, I see the evil that shall come on my fa 
 ther" Here, without knowing it, he had struck the string 
 that was the tenderest of all. Joseph's firmness forsook 
 him at this repeated mention of his father, and in terms 
 so touching he could not refrain himself any longer, and 
 causing every man to go out, he made himself known to 
 his brethren. Then, even in the paroxysm which came 
 on him, (for he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard,) 
 still his first words uttered from the fulness of his heart 
 were, " Doth my father yet live ?" He now bids them 
 hasten and bring the old man down, bearing to him tokens 
 of his love and tidings of his glory. He goes to meet him 
 he presents himself unto him, and falls on his neck and 
 weeps on his neck a good while he provides for him and 
 his household out of the fat of the land he sets him 
 before Pharaoh. By and by he hears that he is sick, and 
 hastens to visit him he receives his blessing watches 
 
 i Gen. xliii. 7. 
 
64 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 his death-bed embalms his body mourns for him three- 
 score and ten days and then carries him (as he had de- 
 sired), into Canaan to bury him. taking with him as an 
 escort to do him honor, " all the elders of Egypt, and 
 all the servants of Pharaoh, and all his house, and the 
 house of his brethren, chariots and horsemen, a very 
 great company." How natural it was now for his breth- 
 ren to think that the tie by which alone they could 
 imagine Joseph to be held to them was dissolved, that 
 any respect he might have felt or feigned for them, 
 must have been buried in the Cave of Machpelah, and 
 that he would now requite to them the evil they had 
 done ! " And they sent a message unto Joseph, saying, 
 Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall 
 ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the tres- 
 pass of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee 
 evil." And then they add of themselves, as if well aware 
 of the surest road to their brother's heart, " Forgive, we 
 pray thee, the trespass of the servants of the God of thy 
 father" In everything the father's name is still put fore- 
 most : it is his memory which they count upon as their 
 shield and buckler. Moreover, it may be added, that 
 though all intercourse had ceased for so many years be- 
 tween Joseph and his family, still the lasting affection he 
 bore a parent is manifested in the name which he gave to 
 his son born to him only two years before the famine, even 
 Manasseh, or forgetting, for God, said he, " hath made 
 me forget all my hire and all my father's house ;' J1 as 
 though instead of his father he must have children' to 
 fill up the void in his heart which a parent's loss had 
 created. 
 
 It is not the singular beauty of these scenes, or the 
 
 i Gen. xli. 51. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. DO 
 
 moral lesson they teach, excellent as it is, with which I 
 arn now concerned, but simply the perfect artless consist- 
 ency which prevails through them all. It is not the con- 
 stancy with which the son's strong affection for his father 
 had lived through an interval of twenty years' absence, 
 and what is more, through the temptation of sudden pro- 
 motion to the highest estate it is not the noble-minded 
 frankness with which he still acknowledges his kindred, 
 and makes a way for them, " shepherds" as they were, to 
 the throne of Pharaoh himself it is not the simplicity and 
 singleness of heart, which allow him to give all the first- 
 born of Egypt, men over whom he bore absolute rule, an 
 opportunity of observing his own comparatively humble 
 origin, by leading them in attendance upon his father's 
 corpse, to the valleys of Canaan and the modest cradle of 
 his race it is not, in a word, the grace, but the identity 
 of Joseph's character, the light in which it is exhibited by 
 himself, and the light in which it is regarded by his breth- 
 ren, to which I now point as stamping it with marks of 
 reality not to be gainsaid. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 I WILL now follow the Israelites out of Egypt into the 
 wilderness, on their return to the land from which their 
 fathers had wandered, and which they, or at least their 
 children, were destined to enjoy. 
 
 In the tenth chapter of Leviticus we are told that " Na- 
 dab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his 
 censer and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and 
 offered strange fire unto the Lord, which he commanded 
 them not. And there went out fire from the Lord and de- 
 voured them, and they died before the Lord." Now it is- 
 
 6* 
 
66 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 natural to ask, how came Nadab and Abihu to be guilty 
 of this careless affront to God, lighting their censers proba- 
 bly from their own hearths, and not from the hallowed fire 
 of the altar, as they were commanded to do. Possibly we 
 cannot guess how it happened it may be one of those 
 many matters which are of no particular importance to be 
 known, and concerning which we are accordingly left in 
 the dark. Yet when I read shortly afterwards the follow- 
 ing instructions given to Aaron, I am led to suspect that 
 they had their origin in some recent abuse which called 
 for them, though no such origin is expressly assigned to 
 them. I cannot help imagining, that the offence of Nadab 
 and Abihu was at the bottom of the statute, " Do not drink 
 wine nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when 
 ye go into the Tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die 
 it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations : 
 and that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, 
 and between clean and unclean, and that ye may teach 
 the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath 
 spoken unto them by the hands of Moses." Thus far at 
 least is clear, that a grievous and thoughtless insult is of- 
 fered to God by two of his Priests, for which they are cut 
 off that without any direct allusion to their case, but still 
 very shortly after it had happened, a law is issued forbid- 
 ding the Priests the use of wine when about to minister. 
 I conclude, therefore, that there was a relation (though it 
 is not asserted) between the specific offence and the gen- 
 eral law ; the more so, because the sin against which that 
 law is directed is just of a kind to have produced the rash 
 and inconsiderate act of which Aaron's sons were guilty. 
 If, therefore, this incidental mention of such a law at such 
 a moment, a moment so likely to suggest the enactment 
 of it, be thought enough to establish the law as a matter 
 of fact, then have we once more ground to stand upon ; 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 67 
 
 for the enactment of the law is coupled with the sin of 
 Aaron's sons ; their sin with their punishment ; their pun- 
 ishment with a miracle. Nor, it may be added, does the 
 unreserved and faithful record of such a death, suffered for 
 such an offence, afford an inconsiderable argument in favor 
 of the candor and honesty of Moses, who is no respecter 
 of persons it seems ; but when God's glory is concerned, 
 and the welfare of the people intrusted to him, does not 
 scruple to be the chronicler of the disgrace and destruction 
 even of the children of his own brother. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 ANOTHER coincidence suggests itself, arising out of 
 this same portion of history, whether however founded in 
 fact or in fancy, be my readers the judges. From the 9th 
 chapter of Numbers, v. 15, we learn that the Tabernacle 
 was erected in the wilderness preparatory to the celebra- 
 tion of the first Passover kept by the Israelites after their 
 escape from Egypt. From the 40th chapter of Exodus 
 we find, that it was reared on the first day of the first 
 month, (v. 2,) or thirteen days before the Passover, 1 and 
 that at the same time Aaron and his sons were consecrated 
 to minister in it (v. 13.) In the 8th and 9th chapters of 
 Liviticus are given the particulars of their consecration, 
 (8lh, 6, 12, 30,) and the ceremony is said to have occupied 
 seven days, (v. 33,) during which they were not to leave 
 the Tabernacle day or night. On the eighth day they of- 
 fered up sin-offerings for themselves and for the people. It 
 was on this same day, as we read in the tenth chapter, 3 
 that Nadab and Abihu were cut off because of the strange 
 
 1 Lev. xxiii. 5. * See ch. ix. 8, 12; x. 19. 
 
68 THE VERACITY OP THE PART I. 
 
 fire which they offered, and their dead bodies were dis- 
 posed of as follows : " Moses called Mishael and Eliza- 
 phan the sons of Uzziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said unto 
 them, Come near, carry your brethren from before the 
 sanctuary out of the camp. So they went near, and car- 
 ried them in their coats out of the camp." (x. 4.) All this 
 happened on the eighth day of the first month, or just six 
 days before the Passover. 
 
 Now in the 9th chapter of the Book of Numbers, which 
 speaks of this identical Passover, (v. 1,) as will be seen 
 by a reference to the first verse of that chapter, (indeed 
 there is no mention of more than this one Passover having 
 been kept in the whole march, 1 ) in this 9th chapter I am 
 told of the following incidental difficulty ; that " there 
 were certain men who were defiled by the dead body of 
 a man, that they could not keep the Passover on that day 
 and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that 
 day and those men said unto him, We are defiled by the 
 dead body of a man, wherefore we are kept back that we 
 may not offer an offering to the Lord in his appointed sea- 
 son among the children of Israel." (v. 6, 7.) The case is 
 spoken of as a solitary one. 
 
 Now it may be observed, by way of limiting the ques- 
 tion, that the number of Israelites who paid a tax to the 
 Tabernacle a short time, and only a short time, before its 
 erection, were 603,550, being all the males above twenty 
 years of age, the Levites excepted* at least this exception 
 is all but certain, that tribe being the tellers, being already 
 consecrated, and set apart from the other tribes, and it not 
 being usual to take the sum of them among the children 
 of Israel. 3 Moreover, the number is likely, in this instance, 
 to be correct, because it tallies with the number of talents 
 
 i See also Josh. v. 9, 10. 3 Exod. xxxviu. 26. 
 
 3 See Numb. i. 47, 49, and xxvi. 62. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 69 
 
 to which the poll-tax amounted at half a shekel a head. 
 But shortly after the Tabernacle had been set up, (for it 
 was at the beginning of the second month of the second 
 year.) the number of the people was again taken accord- 
 ing to the families and tribes, 1 and still it is just the same 
 as before, 003,550 men. In this short interval, therefore, 
 (which is that in which we are now interested,) it should 
 seem, that no man had died of the males who were above 
 twenty, not being Levites for of these no account seems 
 to have been taken in either census indeed in the latter 
 census they are expressly excepted. The dead body, 
 therefore, by which these "certain men" were defiled, 
 could noi, have belonged to this large class of the Israel- 
 ites. But of a case of death, and of defilement in conse- 
 quence, which had happened only six days before the 
 Passover, amongst the Levites, we had been told (as we 
 have seen) in the 9th chapter of Leviticus. My con- 
 clusion, therefore, is. that these " certain men," who were 
 defiled, were no others than MishaeF and Elizaphan, who 
 had carried out the dead bodies of Nadab and Abilm 
 Neither can anything be more likely than that, with the 
 lively impression on their minds of God's wrath so recently 
 testified against those who should presume to approach him 
 unhallowed, they should refer their case to Moses., and run 
 no risk. 
 
 I state the conclusion and the grounds of it. To those 
 who require stronger proof, I can only say, I have none to 
 give ; but if the coincidence be thought well founded, then 
 surely a more striking example of consistency without de- 
 sign cannot be well conceived. Indeed, after it had been 
 suggested to me by a hint to this effect, thrown out by Dr. 
 Shuckford, unaccompanied by any exposition of the argu/- 
 
 i Numb. i. 46. 
 
70 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 ments which might be urged in support of it, I had put it 
 aside as one of those gratuitous conjectures in which that 
 learned Author may perhaps be thought sometimes to in- 
 dulge till by searching more accurately through several de- 
 tached parts of several detached chapters in Exodus. Levit- 
 icus, arid Numbers, I was able to collect the evidence I have 
 produced, whether satisfactory or not be my readers, as I 
 have said, the judges. For myself, I confess, that though 
 it is not demonstrative, it is very persuasive. 
 
 XV. 
 
 " ALL the congregation of the children of Israel," we 
 read, 1 "journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their 
 journeys according to the commandment of the Lord, and 
 pitched in Rephidim, and there was no water for the peo- 
 ple to drink." " And the people thirsted there for water ; 
 and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Where- 
 fore is this, that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to 
 kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst ?" (v. 3.) 
 Moses upon this entreats the Lord for Israel ; and the nar- 
 rative proceeds in the words of the Almighty " Behold, I 
 will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and 
 thoushalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of 
 it, that my people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight 
 of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the 
 place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the 
 children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, say- 
 ing, Is the Lord among us, or not T " Then came Ama- 
 lek" the narrative continues, " and fought with Israel in 
 Rephidim" 
 
 i Exod. xvii. i. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 71 
 
 Now this last incident is mentioned, as must be perceived 
 at once, without any other reference to what had gone be- 
 fore than a reference of date. It was " then" that Amalek 
 came. It is the beginning of another adventure which 
 befell the Israelites, and which Moses now goes on to relate. 
 Accordingly in many copies of our English version a mark 
 is here introduced indicating the commencement of a fresh 
 paragraph. Yet I cannot but suspect, that there is a coin- 
 cidence in this case between the production of the water, 
 in an arid wilderness, and the attack of the Amalekites 
 that though no hint whatever to this effect is dropped, 
 there is nevertheless the relation between them of cause 
 and consequence. For what in those times and those 
 countries w r as so common a bone of contention as the pos- 
 session of a well ? Thus we read of Abraham reproving 
 Abimelech " because of a well of water, which Abime- 
 lech's servants had violently taken away." 1 And again 
 we are told, that " Isaac's servants digged in a valley and 
 found there a well of springing water and the herds- 
 men of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, 
 The water is ours, and he called the name of the well 
 Esek, because they strove with him. And they digged 
 another well, and strove for that also ; and he called the 
 name of it Sitnah. And he removed from thence, and 
 digged another well, and for that they strove not ; and he 
 called the name of it Rehoboth ; and he said, For now the 
 Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in 
 the land." 2 In like manner when the daughters of the 
 Priest of Midian " came and drew .water, and filled the 
 troughs to water their father's flock, the shepherds," we 
 find, " came and drove them away : but Moses stood up 
 and helped them, and watered their flock. * 3 And again, 
 
 i Gen xxi. 25. 2 Ib. xxvi. 22. 3 Exod. ii. 17. 
 
/* THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 when Moses sent messengers to the King of Edom with 
 proposals that he might be permitted to lead the people of 
 Israel through his territory, the subject of water enters very 
 largely into the terms : " Let me pass, I pray thee, through 
 thy country : we will not pass through the fields and 
 through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water 
 of the wells : we will go by the king's highway we will 
 not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have 
 passed thy borders. And Edom said unto him, Thou shalt 
 not pass by me lest I come out against thee with the sword. 
 And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the 
 highway : and if I and my cattle drink of thy water > then 
 I will pay for it" 1 Again, on a subsequent occasion, Moses 
 sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, with the 
 same stipulations : " Let me pass through thy land : we 
 will not turn into the fields or into the vineyards ; we will 
 not drink of the waters of the well, but we will go along 
 by the king's highway, until we be past thy borders." 2 
 And when Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy recapitulates 
 some of the Lord's commands, one of them is, as touching 
 the children of Esau, " Meddle not with them ; for I will 
 not give you their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth, 
 because I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession. 
 Ye shall buy meat of them for money that ye may eat. and 
 ye shall also buy water of them for money that ye may 
 drink" 3 Indeed the well is quite a feature in the narra- 
 tive of Moses, brief as that narrative is. It unobtrusively 
 but constantly reminds us of our scene lying ever in the 
 East just as the Forum could not fail to be perpetually 
 mixing itself up with the details of any history of Rome 
 which was not spurious. The well is the spring of life. 
 It is the place of meeting for the citizens in the cool of the 
 
 i Numb. xx. 17. 2 ib. xxi. 22. s Deut. ii. 6. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 73 
 
 day the place of resort for the shepherds and herdsmen 
 it is here that we may witness the acts of courtesy or of 
 stratagem acts of religion acts of civil compact acts 
 commemorative of things past it is here that the journey 
 ends it is by this that the next is regulated hither the 
 fugitive and the outcast repair here the weary pilgrim 
 rests himself the lack of it is the curse of a kingdom, 
 and the prospect of it in abundance the blessing which 
 helps forward the steps of the stranger when he seeks 
 another country. It enters as an element into the lan- 
 guage itself of Holy Writ, and the simile, the illustration, 
 the metaphor, are still telling forth the great Eastern 
 apophthegm, that of "all things WATER is the first." Of 
 such value was the well so fruitful a source of contention 
 in those parched and thirsty lands was the possession of a 
 well! 
 
 Now applying these passages to the question before us, 
 I think it will be seen, that the sudden gushing of the 
 water from the rock, (which was the sudden discovery of 
 an invaluable treasure,) and the subsequent onset of the 
 Amalekites at the very same place for both occurrences 
 are said to have happened at Rcphidim, though given as 
 perfectly distinct and independent matters, do coincide very 
 remarkably with one another ; and yet so undesigned is 
 the coincidence, (if indeed coincidence it is after all,) that 
 it might not suggest itself even to readers of the Pen- 
 tateuch whose lot is cast in a torrid clime, and to whom 
 the value of a draught of cold water is therefore well 
 known : still less to those who live in a land of brooks, like 
 our own, a land of fountains and depths that spring out of 
 the valleys and hills, and who may drink of them freely 
 without cost and without quarrel. 
 
 If then it be admitted, that the issue of the torrent from 
 the rock synchronizes very singularly with the aggression 
 
 7 " 
 
74 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 of Amalekj yet that the narrative of the two events does 
 not hint at any connection whatever between them, I 
 think that all suspicion of contrivance is laid to sleep, and 
 that whatever force is due to the argument of consistency 
 without contrivance as a test, and as a testimony of truth, 
 obtains here. Yet here, as in so many other instances 
 already adduced, the stamp of truth, such as it is, is found 
 where a miracle is intimately concerned ; for if the coinci- 
 dence in question be thought enough to satisfy us that 
 Moses was relating an indisputable matter of fact, when 
 he said that the Israelites received a supply of water at 
 Rephidim, it adds to our confidence that he is relating an 
 indisputable matter of fact too, when he says in the same 
 breath, that it was a miraculous supply where we can 
 prove that there is truth in a story so far as a scrutiny of 
 our own, which was not contemplated by the party whose 
 words we are trying, enables us to go, it is only fair to 
 infer, in the absence of all testimony to the contrary, that 
 there is truth also in such parts of the same story as our 
 scrutiny cannot attain unto. And indeed it seems to me, 
 that the sin of Amalek on this occasion, a sin which was 
 so offensive in God's sight as to be treasured up in judg- 
 ment against that race, causing Him eventually to destroy 
 them utterly, derived its heinousness from this very thing, 
 that the Amalekites were here endeavoring to dispossess 
 the Israelites of a vital blessing which God had sent to 
 them by miracle, and which he could not so send without 
 making it manifest even to the Amalekites themselves, 
 that the children of Israel were under his special care 
 that in fighting therefore against Israel, they were fighting 
 against God. And such, I persuade myself, is the true 
 force of an expression in Deuteronomy used in reference 
 to this very incident for Amalek is there said to " have 
 smitten them when they were weary, and to have feared 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 75 
 
 not God ;" 1 that is, to have done it in defiance of a mira- 
 cle, which ought to have impressed them with a fear of 
 God, indicating, as of course it did, that God willed not 
 the destruction of this people. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 AMONGST the institutions established or confirmed by 
 the Almighty whilst the Israelites were on their march, 
 for their observance when they should have taken posses- 
 sion of the land of Canaan, this was one " Three times 
 thou shall keep a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt 
 keep the Feast of Unleavened bread thou shalt eat un- 
 leavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the 
 time appointed of the month Abib ; for in it thou earnest 
 out from Egypt ; and none shall appear before me empty : 
 and the Feast of Harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors, 
 which thou hast sown in thy field : and the feast of In- 
 gathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou 
 hast gathered in thy labors out of the field." 2 
 
 Such then were the three great annual feasts. The 
 first, in the month Abib, which was the Passover. The 
 second, which was the Feast of Weeks. The third, the 
 Feast of In-gathering, when all the fruits, wine and oil, as 
 well as corn, had been collected and laid up. The season 
 of the year at which the first of these occurred is all that 
 I am anxious to settle, as bearing upon a coincidence 
 which I shall mention by and by. Now this is deter- 
 mined with sufficient accuracy for my purpose, by the 
 second of the three being the Feast of Harvest, and the 
 fact that the interval between the first and second was 
 
 1 Deut. TXV. 18. 2 Exod. xxiii. 14. 
 
76 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 just seven weeks: 1 "And ye shall count unto you from 
 the morrow after the Sabbath," (this was the Sabbath of 
 the Passover,) " from the day that ye brought the sheaf 
 of the wave-offering ; seven Sabbaths shall be complete. 
 Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye 
 number fifty days, and ye shall offer a new meat-offering 
 unto the Lord. Ye shall bring out of your habitations 
 two wave-loaves, of two tenth-deals, they shall be of fine 
 flour, they shall be baken with leaven. They are the 
 first-fruits unto the Lord." 
 
 At the Feast of Weeks, therefore, the corn was ripe and 
 just gathered, for then were the first-fruits to be offered, in 
 the loaves made out of the new corn. If then the wheat 
 was in this state at the second great festival, it must have 
 been very far from ripe at the Passover, which was seven 
 weeks earlier ; and the wave-sheaf, which, as we have 
 seen, was to be offered at the Passover, must have been 
 of some grain which came in before wheat it was in fact 
 barley.* Now does not this agree in a remarkable, but 
 most incidental manner, with a circumstance mentioned 
 in the description of the Plague of the Hail ? The hail, it 
 is true, was sent some little time previous to the destruc- 
 tion of the first-born, or the date of the Passover, for the 
 Plague of Locusts and the Plague of Darkness intervened, 
 but it was evidently only a little time ; for Moses being 
 eighty years old when he went before Pharaoh, 3 and hav- 
 ing walked forty years in the wilderness, 4 and being only 
 a hundred and twenty years old when he died, 5 it is plain 
 that he could have lost very little time by the delay of the 
 plagues in Egypt, the period of his life being filled up 
 without any allowance for such delay. I mention this, 
 because it will be seen that the argument requires the 
 
 1 Lev. xxiii. 15. 2 See Ruth ii. 23. 3 Exod. vii. 7. 
 
 < Joshua v. 6. s Deut. xxxiv. 7. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES, 77 
 
 time of the hail and that of the death of the first-born (or 
 in other words the Passover) to be nearly the same. Now 
 the state of the crops in Egypt at the period of the hail 
 we happen to know was it then such as w r e might have 
 reason to expect from the state of the crops of Judea at or 
 near the same season ? i. e. the barley ripe, the wheat 
 not ripe by several weeks ? 
 
 It is fortunate, inasmuch as it involves a point of. evi- 
 dence, that one of the Plagues chanced to be that of Hail 
 for it is the only one of them all of a nature to give us 
 a clue to the time of year when they came to pass, and 
 this it does in the most casual manner imaginable, for the 
 mention of the hail draws from the historian who records 
 it the remark, that " the flax and the barley were smitten, 
 for the barley was in the ear and the flax was boiled ; but 
 the wheat and the rye were not smitten, for they were not 
 grown up," (or rather perhaps, were not out of sheath. 1 ) 
 Now this is precisely such a degree of forwardness as we 
 should have respectively assigned to the barley and wheat 
 deducing our conclusion from the simple circumstance 
 that the seasons in Egypt do not greatly differ from those 
 of Judea, and that in the latter country wheat was ripe 
 and just gathered at the Feast of Weeks, barley just fit 
 for putting the sickle into fifty days sooner, or at the Pass- 
 over, which nearly answered to the time of the hail. Yet 
 so far from obvious is this point of harmony, that nothing 
 is more easy than to mistake it ; rily, nothing more likely 
 than that we should even at first suspect Moses himself to 
 have been out in his reckoning, and thus to find a knot 
 instead of an argument. For on reading the following 
 passage, 2 where the rule is given for determining the sec- 
 ond feast, we might on the instant most naturally suppose 
 
 * Eiod. ix. 32. 2 Deut. xvi. 9. 
 
78 THE VERACITY OP THE PART I. 
 
 that the great wheat-harvest of Judea was in the month 
 Abib, at the Passover " Seven weeks shalt thou number 
 unto thee, begin to number the seven weeks from such 
 time as ^thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn." 
 Now this " putting the sickle to the corn " is at once per- 
 ceived to be at the Passover when the wave-sheaf was 
 offered, the ceremony from which we see the Feast of 
 Weeks was measured and fixed. Yet had the whecit- 
 harvest been here actually meant, it would have been 
 impossible to reconcile Moses with himself; for he would 
 then have been representing the wheat to be ripe in Judea 
 at a season when, as we had elsewhere gathered from him, 
 it was not grown up or out of the sheath in Egypt. But 
 if the sickle was to be put into some grain much earlier 
 than wheat, such as barley, and if the barley-harvest is 
 here alluded to as falling in with the Passover, and not 
 the wheat-harvest, then all is clear, intelligible, and free 
 from difficulty. 
 
 In a word then my argument is that at the Passover 
 the barley in Judea was ripe, but that the wheat was not, 
 seven weeks having yet to elapse before the first-fruits of 
 the loaves could be offered. This I collect from the history 
 of the Great Jewish Festivals. Again, that at the Plague 
 of Hail (which corresponds with the time of the Passover 
 to a few days), the barley in Egypt was smitten being in 
 the ear, but that the wheat was not smitten, not being yet 
 boiled. This I collect from the history of the Great Egyp- 
 tian Plagues. The two statements on being compared 
 together, agree together. 
 
 I cannot but consider this as very far from an unimpor- 
 tant coincidence tending, as it does, to give us confidence 
 in the good faith of the historian, even at a moment when 
 he is telling of the Miracles of Egypt, "the wondrous 
 works that were done in the land of Ham." For, sup- 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 79 
 
 ported by this circumstantial evidence, which, as far as it 
 goes, cannot lie, I feel that I have very strong reason for 
 believing that a hail-storm there actually was, as Moses 
 asserts ; that the season of the year to which he assigns 
 it, was the season when it did in fact happen ; that the 
 crops were really in the state in which he represents 
 them to have been more I cannot prove for further my 
 test will not reach. It is not in the nature of miracles to 
 admit of its immediate application to themselves. But 
 when I see the ordinary circumstances which attend upon 
 them, and which are most closely combined with them, 
 yielding internal evidence of truth, I am apt to think that 
 these in a great measure vouch for the truth of the rest. 
 Indeed, in all common cases, even in judicial cases of life 
 and death, the corroboration of the evidence of an un- 
 impeached witness in one or two particulars is enough to 
 decide a jury that it is worthy of credit in every other par- 
 ticular that it may be safely acted upon in the most aw- 
 ful and responsible of all human decisions. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE argument which I have next to produce has been 
 urged by Dr. Graves, 1 though others had noticed it before 
 him ; 2 I shall not, however, scruple to introduce it here in 
 its order, connected as it is with several more, all relating 
 to the economy of the camp. The incident on which it 
 turns is trifling in itself, but nothing can be more charac- 
 teristic of truth. On the day when Moses set up the 
 Tabernacle and anointed and sanctified it, the princes of 
 the tribes made an offering consisting of six waggons and 
 
 1 On the Pentateuch, Vol. I. p. 111. 
 
 2 See Dr. Patrick on Numb. vii. 7, 8 
 
80 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 twelve oxen. These are accordingly assigned to the ser- 
 vice of the Tabernacle : "And Moses gave them unto the 
 Levites ; Two waggons and four oxen he gave unto the 
 sons of Gershon according to their service, and four wag- 
 gons and eight oxen he gave unto the sons of Merari ac- 
 cording to their service." 1 Now whence this unequal di- 
 vision ? Why twice as many waggons and oxen to Merari 
 as to Gershon ? No reason is expressly avowed. Yet if 
 I turn to a former chapter, separated however from the one 
 which has supplied this quotation, by sundry and divers 
 details of other matters, I am able to make out a very 
 good reason for myself. For there, amongst the instruc- 
 tions given to the families of the Levites, as to the shares 
 they had severally to take in removing the Tabernacle 
 from place to place, I find that the sons of Gershon had to 
 bear " the curtains," and the " Tabernacle" itself, (i. e. the 
 linen of which it was made), and " its covering, and the 
 covering of badgers' skins that was above upon it, and the 
 hanging for the door," and " the hangings of the court, and 
 the hanging for the door of the gate of the court," and 
 " their cords, and all the instruments of their service ;" 2 in 
 a word, all the lighter part of the furniture of the Taber- 
 nacle. But the sons of Merari had to bear " the boards 
 of the Tabernacle, and the bars thereof, and the pillars 
 thereof, and the sockets thereof, and the pillars of the court 
 round about, and their sockets, and their pins, and their 
 cords, with all their instruments ;" 3 in short, all the cum 
 brous and heavy part of the materials of which the frame- 
 work of the Tabernacle was constructed. And hence it is 
 easy to see why more oxen and waggons were assigned to 
 the one family than to the other. Is chance at the bottom 
 of all this? or, cunning contrivance? or, truth and only 
 truth ? 
 i Numb. vii. 7, 8. 2 ib. iv. 25. 3 ib. iv, 32. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 IN the tenth chapter of the Book of Numbers we have 
 a particular account of the order of march which was ob- 
 served in the Camp of Israel on one remarkable occasion, 
 viz. when they broke up from Sinai. " In the first place 
 went the standard of the camp of Judah according to their 
 armies/' (v. 14). Does this precedence of Judah agree 
 with any former account of the disposition of the armies 
 of Israel ? In the second chapter of the same book I read, 
 " on the East side toward the rising of the sun shall they 
 of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout 
 their armies," (v. 3). All that is to be gathered from this 
 passage is, that Judah pitched East of the Tabernacle. 
 I now turn to the tenth chapter, (v. 5,) and I there find 
 amongst the orders given for the signals, " when ye blow 
 an alarm, (i. e. the first alarm, for the others are mention- 
 ed successively in their turn,) then the camps that lie on 
 the East parts shall go forward." But from the last pas- 
 sage it appears that Judah lay on the East parts, there- 
 fore when the first alarm was blown, Judah should be the 
 tribe to move. Thus it is implied from two passages 
 brought together from two chapters, separated by the in- 
 tervention of eight others relating to things indifferent, 
 that Judah was to lead in any march. Now we see in the 
 account of a specific movement of the camp from Sinai, 
 with which I introduced these remarks, that on that occa- 
 sion Judah did in fact lead. This then is as it should be. 
 The three passages agree together as three concurring 
 witnesses in the mouth of these is the word established. 
 Yet there is some little intricacy in the details enough at 
 least to leave room for an inadvertent slip in the arrange- 
 
06 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 ments 3 whereby a fiction would have run a risk of being 
 self-detected. 
 
 Pursue we this inquiry a little further; for the next 
 article of it is perhaps rather more open to a blunder of 
 this description than the last. It may be thought that the 
 leading tribe, the van-guard of Israel, was an object too 
 conspicuous to be overlooked or misplaced In the 18th 
 verse of the same chapter of Numbers, it is said, that after 
 the first division was gone, and the Tabernacle, "the 
 standard of the camp of Reuben set forward according to 
 their armies." The camp of Reuben, therefore, was that 
 which moved second on this occasion. Does this accord 
 with the position it was elsewhere said to have occupied ? 
 It is obvious that a mistake might here most readily have 
 crept in ; and that if the writer had not been guided by a 
 real knowledge of the facts which he was pretending 
 to describe, it is more than probable he would have be- 
 trayed himself. Turn we then to the second chapter, 
 (v. 10,) where the order of the tribes in their tents is given, 
 and we there find that " on the south side was to be the 
 standard of the camp of Reuben, according to their 
 armies." Again, let us turn to the tenth chapter, (v. 6,) 
 where the directions for the signals are given, and we are 
 there told, " When ye blow the alarm the second time, 
 then the camps on the south side shall take their journey ;" 
 but the passage last quoted, (which is far removed from 
 this.) informs us that Reuben was on the south side of the 
 Tabernacle ; the camp of Reuben therefore it was, which 
 was appointed to move when the alarm was blown the 
 second time. Accordingly we see in the description of the 
 actual breaking up from Sinai, with which I set out, that 
 the camp of Reuben was in fact the second to move. 
 The same argument may be followed up, and the same 
 satisfactory conclusions obtained in the other two campa 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 83 
 
 of Ephraim and Dan ; though here recourse must be had 
 to the Septuagint, of which the text is more full in these 
 two latter instances than the Hebrew text of our own ver- 
 sion, and more full precisely upon those points which are 
 wanted in evidence. 1 On such a trifle does the practica- 
 bility of establishing an argument of coincidence turn ; 
 and so perpetually, no doubt, (were we but aware of it,) 
 are we prevented from doing justice to the veracity of the 
 writings of Moses, by the lack of more abundant details. 
 
 In all this, it appears to me, that without any care or 
 circumspection of the historian, as to how he should make 
 the several parts of his tale agree together without any 
 display on the one hand, or mock concealment on the 
 other, of a harmony to be found in those several parts 
 and in the meantime, with ample scope for the admission 
 of unguarded mistakes, by which a mere impostor would 
 soon stand convicted, the whole is at unity with itself, and 
 the internal evidence resulting from it clear, precise, and 
 above suspicion. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 1. THE arrangements of the camp provide us with an- 
 other coincidence, no less satisfactory than the last for it 
 may be here remarked, that in proportion as the history 
 of Moses descends to particulars, (which it does in the 
 camp,) in that proportion is it fertile in the arguments of 
 which I am at present in search. It is in general the 
 extreme brevity of the history, and nothing else, that, 
 baffles us in our inquiries ; often affording (as it does) a 
 hint which we cannot pursue for want of details, and ex- 
 
 1 Septuagint, Numb. 3f. 6. 
 
84 THE VERACITY OP THE PART I. 
 
 hibiting a glimpse of some corroborative fact which it a 
 vexatious to be so near grasping, and still to be compelled 
 to relinquish it. 
 
 In the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Numbers we 
 read, " Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath 
 the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of 
 Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took 
 men, and they rose up before Moses with certain of the 
 congregation of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of 
 the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. 
 And they gathered themselves together against Moses and 
 against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much 
 upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one 
 of them, and the Lord is among them j wherefore then 
 lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord." 1 
 Such is the history of the conspiracy got up against the 
 authority of the leaders of Israel. The principal parties 
 engaged in it, we see, were Korah of the family of Kohathj 
 and Dathan, Abiram, and On, of the family of Reuben. 
 Now it is a very curious circumstance that some thirteen 
 chapters before this chapters occupied with matters of 
 quite another character it is mentioned incidentally that 
 " the families of the sons of Kohath were to pitch on the 
 side of the Tabernacle southward."* And in another 
 chapter yet further back, and as independent of the latter as 
 the latter was of the first, we read no less incidentally, " on 
 the south side (of the Tabernacle) shall be the standard of 
 the camp of Reuben, according to their armies." 3 The 
 family of Kohath, therefore, and the family of Reuben, 
 both pitched on the same side of the Tabernacle they 
 were neighbors, and were therefore conveniently situated 
 for taking- secret counsel together. Surely this singular 
 
 i Numb. xvi. 1. a Ib. iii. 29. 3 Ib. fi. 10. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 85 
 
 coincidence comes of truth not of accident, not of design ; 
 not of accident, for how great is the improbability that 
 such a peculiar propriety between the relative situations 
 of the parties in the conspiracy should have been the mere 
 result of chance ; when three sides of the Tabernacle were 
 occupied by the families of the Levites, and all four sides 
 by the families of the tribes, and when combinations 
 (arithmetically speaking), to so great an extent might 
 have been formed between these in their several members, 
 without the one in question being of the number. It does 
 not come of design, for the agreement is not obvious 
 enough to suit a designer's purpose it might most easily 
 escape notice: it is indeed only to be detected by the 
 juxtaposition of several unconnected passages falling out 
 at long intervals. Then, again, had no such coincidence 
 been found at all ; had the conspirators been represented 
 as drawn together from more distant parts of the camp, 
 from such parts as afforded no peculiar facilities for leaguing 
 together, no objection whatever would have lain agsrinst 
 the accuracy of the narrative on that account. The argu- 
 ment, indeed, for its veracity would then have been lost, 
 but that would have been all ; no suspicion whatever 
 against its veracity would have been thereby incurred. 
 
 2. But there is yet another feature of truth in this 
 same most remarkable portion of Mosaic history ; and this 
 has been enlarged upon by Dr. Graves. 1 I shall not how- 
 ever scruple to touch upon it here, both because I do not 
 take quite the same view of it throughout, and because 
 this incident combines with the one 1 have just brought 
 forward, and thus acquires a value beyond its own, from 
 being a second of its kind arising out of one and the same 
 event the united value of two incidental marks of truth 
 
 i On the Pentateuch, Vol. I. p. 155. 
 
 8 
 
86 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 being more than the sum of their separate values. In 
 deed, these two instances of consistency without design, 
 taken together, hedge in the main transaction on the right 
 hand and on the left, so as almost to close up every avenue 
 through which suspicion could insinuate the rejection of il. 
 On a common perusal of the whole history of this re- 
 bellion, in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers, the impres- 
 sion left would be, that, in the punishment of Korah, Da- 
 than, and Abiram, there was no distinction or difference ; 
 that their tents and all the men that appertained unto 
 Korah, and all their goods, were destroyed alike. Never- 
 theless, ten chapters after, when the number of the chil- 
 dren of Israel is taken, and when in the course of the num- 
 bering, the names of Dathan and Abiram occur, there is 
 added the following incidental memorandum " This is 
 that Dathan and Abiram who were famous in the congre- 
 gation, who strove against Moses and against Aaron, in 
 the company of Korah, when they strove against the 
 Lord." Then the death which they died is mentioned, and 
 last of all it is said, " Notwithstanding the children of 
 Korah died not" 1 This, at first sight, undoubtedly looks 
 like a contradiction of what had gone before. Again, then, 
 let us turn back to the 16th chapter, and see whether we 
 have read it right. Now, though upon a second perusal I 
 still find no express assertion that there was any differ- 
 ence in the fate of these several rebellious households, I 
 think upon a close inspection I do find (what answers my 
 purpose better) some difference implied. For, in verse 27, 
 we are told, " So they gat up from the Tabernacle of Ko- 
 rah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side ;" i. e. from a 
 Tabernacle which these men in their political rebellion and 
 religious dissent (for they went together) had set up in 
 
 1 Numb. xxvi. : 1. 
 
PART I. BOOKS J>F MOSES. 87 
 
 common for themselves arid their adherents, in opposition 
 to the great Tabernacle of the congregation. " And Da- 
 than and Abiram," it is added, " came out and stood in the 
 door of their tents ; and their wives, and their sons, and 
 their little children." Here we perceive that mention is 
 made of the sons of Dathan and the sons of Abiram, but 
 not of the sons of Korah. So that the victims of the ca- 
 tastrophe about to happen, it should seem from this ac- 
 count too, were indeed the sons of Dathan and the sons 
 of Abiram, but not (in all appearance) the sons of Korah. 
 Neither is this difference difficult to account for. The Le- 
 vites pitching nearer to the Tabernacle than the other 
 tribes, forming, in fact, three sides of the inner square, 
 whilst the others formed the four sides of the outer, it 
 would necessarily follow, that the dwelling-tent of Korah, 
 a Levite, would be at some distance from the dwelling- 
 tents of Dathan and Abiram, JReubenites, and, as brothers, 
 probably contiguous ; at such a distance at least, as might 
 serve to secure it from being involved in the destruction 
 which overwhelmed the others ; for, that the desolation 
 was very limited in extent, seems a fact conveyed by the 
 terms of the warning " Depart from the tents of these 
 wicked men," (i. e. the tabernacle which the three leaders 
 had reared in common, and the two dwelling-tents of Da- 
 than and Abiram, 1 ) as if the danger was confined to the 
 vicinity of those tents. 
 
 In this single event, then, the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, 
 and Abiram, I discover two instances of coincidence with- 
 out design, each independent of the other the one, in the 
 conspiracy being laid amongst parties whom I know, from 
 information elsewhere given, to have dwelt on the same 
 side of the Tabernacle, and therefore to have been conve- 
 
 See chap. xvi. verse 27. An attention to this verse shows these to 
 . nave been the tents meant. 
 
88 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 niently situated for such a plot the other, in the different 
 lots of the families of the conspirators, a difference of which 
 there is just hint enough in the direct history of it, to be 
 brought out by a casual assertion to that effect in a subse- 
 quent casual allusion to the conspiracy, and only just hint 
 enough for this a difference, too, which accords very re- 
 markably with the relative situations of those several fam- 
 ilies in their respective tents. 
 
 But if the existence of a conspiracy be by this means 
 established, above all dispute, as a matter of fact if the 
 death of some of the families of the conspirators, and the 
 escape of others, be also by the same means established, 
 above all dispute, as another matter of fact if the testi- 
 mony of Moses, after having been submitted to a test which 
 he could never have contemplated or been provided against 
 turn out in these particulars at least to be quite worthy of 
 credit to what are we led on ? Is not the historian still 
 the same : is he not still treating of the same incident, 
 when he informs us that the punishment of this rebellious 
 spirit was a miraculous punishment? that the ground 
 clave asunder that was under the ringleaders, and swal- 
 lowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that ap- 
 pertained unto them, and all their goods ; so that they, 
 and all that appertained unto them, went down alive into 
 the pit, and the earth closed upon them, and they per- 
 ished from among the congregation? 
 
 XX. 
 
 THE arrangements of the camp suggest one point of 
 coincidence more, not perhaps so remarkable as the last, 
 yet enough so to be admitted amongst others as an indi- 
 tation of truth in the history. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 89 
 
 In the 32nd chapter of Numbers, (v. 1,) it is said, 
 " Now the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, 
 had a very great multitude of cattle ; and when they saw 
 the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that behold the 
 place was a place for cattle, the children of Gad and the 
 children of Reuben came and spake unto Moses, and to 
 Eleazer the priest, and unto the princes of the congrega- 
 tion, saying, Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah, 
 and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Shebam, and Nebo, and 
 Beon, even the country which the Lord smote before the 
 congregation of Israel, is a land for cattle, and thy servants 
 have cattle; wherefore, said they, if we have received 
 grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants 
 for a possession, and bring us not over Jordan." 
 
 Here was a petition from the tribes of Reuben and of 
 Gad, to have a portion assigned them on the east side of 
 Jordan, rather than in the land of Canaan. But how 
 came the request to be made conjointly by the children of 
 Reuben and the children of Gad ? Was it a mere acci- 
 dent? Was it the simple circumstance that these two 
 tribes being richer in cattle than the rest, and seeing that 
 the pasturage was good on the east side of Jordan, desired 
 on that account only to establish themselves there to- 
 gether, and to separate from their brethren? Perhaps 
 something more than either. For I read in the 2nd chap- 
 ter of Numbers, (v. 10. 14,) that the camp of Reuben was on 
 the south side of the tabernacle, and that the tribe of Gad 
 formed a division of the camp of Reuben. It may very 
 well be imagined, therefore, that after having shared to- 
 gether the perils of the long and arduous campaign through 
 the wilderness, these two tribes, in addition to considera- 
 tions about their cattle, feeling the strong bond of well-tried 
 companionship in hardships and in arms, were very likely 
 to act with one comimn council, and to have a desire still 
 
 8* ' 
 
90 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 to dwell beside one another, after the toil of battle, as quiet 
 neighbors in a peaceful country where they were finally 
 to set up their rest. Here again is an incident, I think, 
 beyond the reach of the most refined impostor in the 
 world. What vigilance, however alive to suspicion, and 
 prepared for it what cunning, however bent upon giving 
 credibility to a worthless narrative, by insidiously scatter- 
 ing through it marks of truth which should turn up from 
 time to time and mislead the reader, would have suggested 
 one so very trivial, so very far fetched, as a desire of two 
 tribes to obtain their inheritance together on the same 
 side of the river, simply upon the recollection that such a 
 desire would fall in very naturally with their having 
 pitched their tents side by side in their previous march 
 through the wilderness ? 
 
 XXI. 
 
 SOME circumstances in the history of Balak and Balaam 
 supply me with another argument for the veracity of the 
 Pentateuch. But before I proceed to those which I have 
 more immediately in my eye, I would observe, that the sim- 
 ple fact of a King of Moab knowing that a Prophet dwelt 
 in Mesopotamia, in the mountains of the East, a country 
 so distant from his own, in itself supplies a point of harmony 
 favoring the truth and reality of the narrative. For I am 
 led by it to remark this, that very many hints may be picked 
 up in the writings of Moses, all concurring to establish one 
 position, viz. that there was a communication amongst the 
 scattered inhabitants of the earth in those early times, a 
 circulation of intelligence, scarcely to be expected, and not 
 easily to be accounted for. Whether the caravans of mer- 
 chants which, as we have seen, traversed the deserts of the 
 
PART I, BOOKS OF MOSES. 91 
 
 East whether the unsettled and vagrant habits of the 
 descendants of Ishmael and Esau, which singularly fitted 
 them for being the carriers of news, and with whom the 
 great wilderness was alive whether the pastoral life of 
 the Patriarchs, and of those who more immediately sprung 
 from them, which led them to constant changes of place 
 in search of herbage whether the frequent petty wars 
 which were waged amongst lawless neighbors whether 
 the necessary separation of families, the parent hive cast- 
 ing its little colony forth to settle on some distant land, 
 and the consequent interest and curiosity which either 
 branch would feel for the fortunes of the other whether 
 these were the circumstances that encouraged arid main- 
 tained an intercourse among mankind in spite of the 
 numberless obstacles which must then have opposed it, 
 and which we might have imagined would have inter- 
 cepted it altogether ; or whether any other channels of in- 
 telligence were open of which we are in ignorance, sure it 
 is, that such intercourse seems to have existed to a very, 
 considerable extent. 
 
 Thus, far as Abraham was removed from the branch 
 of his family which remained in Mesopotamia, " it came 
 to pass that it was told him, saying, Behold, Milcah, she 
 hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor ;" and 
 their names are then added. 1 In like manner Isaac and 
 Rebekah appear in' their turn to have known that Laban 
 had marriageable daughters ; 2 and Jacob, when he came 
 back to Canaan after his long sojourn in Haran, seems to 
 have known that Esau was alive and prosperous, and that 
 he lived at Seir, whither he sent a message to him ; 3 and 
 Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, who went with her to Canaan 
 n her marriage, is found many years afterwards in the 
 
 i Gen. xxii. 20. 2 ib. xxviii. 2. s Jb. ixxii. 3. 
 
92 THE VKRACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 family of Jacob, for she dies in his camp as he was return- 
 ing from Haran, 1 and therefore must have been sent back 
 again meanwhile, for some purpose or other, from Canaan 
 to Haran ; and at Elim, in the desert, the Israelites dis- 
 cover twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palms, 
 the numbers, no doubt, not accidental, but indicating that 
 some persons had frequented this secluded spot acquainted 
 with the sons and grandsons of Jacob ; 2 and Jethro, the 
 father-in-law of Moses, is said " to have heard of all that 
 God had done for Moses and for Israel his people." 3 And 
 when Moses, on his march, sends a message to Edom, it 
 is worded, " thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen 
 us how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have 
 dwelt in Egypt a long time ;" 4 together with many more 
 particulars, all of which Moses reckons matters of notoriety 
 to the inhabitants of the desert. And on another occasion 
 he speaks of " their having heard that the Lord was 
 among his people, that he was seen by them face to face, 
 that his cloud stood over them, and that he went before 
 them by day-time in a pillar of cloud, and in a pillar of 
 fire by night." 5 And this may, in fact, account for the 
 vestiges of so many laws which we meet with throughout 
 the East, even in this very early period, as held in common 
 and the many just notions of the Deity, mixed up, 
 indeed, with much alloy, which so many nations possessed 
 in common and the rites and customs, whether civil or 
 sacred, to which in so many points they conformed in 
 common. Now all these unconnected matters hint at this 
 one circumstance, that intelligence travelled through the 
 tribes of the Desert more freely and rapidly than might 
 have been thought, and the consistency with which the 
 
 Gen. xxxv. 8. 2 Exod. xv. 27. 3 Ib. xviii. 1. 
 
 < Numb. xx. 15. s ib. xiv, 14. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 93 
 
 writings of Moses imply such a fact, (for they neither affirm 
 it, nor trouble themselves about explaining it,) is a feature 
 of truth in those writings. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 THROUGH some or other of the channels of information 
 enumerated in the last paragraph, Balak, King of Moab, 
 is aware of the existence of a Prophet at Pethor, and 
 sends for him. It is not unlikely, indeed, that the Moab- 
 ites, who were the children of Lot, should have still main- 
 tained a communication with the original stock of all 
 which continued to dwell in Aram or Mesopotamia. Nei- 
 ther is it unlikely that Pethor, which was in that country, 1 
 the country whence Abraham emigrated, and where Nahor 
 and that branch of Terah's family remained, should pos- 
 sess a Prophet of the true God. Nor is it unlikely again, 
 that, living in the midst of idolaters, Balaam should in a 
 degree partake of the infection, as Laban had done before 
 him in the same country ; and that whilst he acknowl- 
 edged the Lord for his God, and offered his victims by 
 sevens, (as some patriarchal tradition perhaps directed 
 him, 2 ) he should have had recourse to enchantments also 
 mixing the profane and sacred, as Laban did the wor- 
 ship of his images with the worship of his Maker. All 
 this is in character. Now it was not Balak alone who 
 sent the embassy to Balaam. He was but King of the 
 Moabites, and had nothing to do with Midian. With the 
 elders of Midian, however, he consulted, they being as 
 much interested as himself in putting a stop to the tri- 
 umphant march of Israel. Accordingly we find that the 
 
 i Numb, xxiii. 7. 2 See Job xlii. 8. 
 
94 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 mission to the Prophet came from the two people conjoint- 
 ly ; " the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian de- 
 parted, with the rewards of divination in their hand." 1 In 
 the remainder of this interview, and in the one which 
 succeeded it, all mention of Midian is dropped, and the 
 " princes of Balak," and the " servants of Balak," are the 
 titles given to the messengers. And when Balaam at 
 length consents to accept their invitation, it is to Moab, the 
 kingdom of Balak, that he comes, and he is received by 
 the King at one of his own border-cities near the river of 
 Arnon. Then follows the Prophet's fruitless struggle to 
 curse the people whom God had blessed, and the conse- 
 quent disappointment of the King, who bids him " flee to 
 his place, the Lord having kept him back from honor ;" 
 " and Balaam rose up," the history concludes, " and went 
 and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way." 2 
 So they parted in mutual dissatisfaction. 
 
 Hitherto, then, although the elders of Midian were con- 
 cerned in inviting the Prophet from Mesopotamia, it does 
 not appear that they had any intercourse whatever with 
 him on their own account Balak and the Moabites had 
 engrossed all his attention. The subject is now discon- 
 tinued : Balaam disappears, gone, as we may suppose, to 
 his own country again, to Pethor, in Mesopotamia, for he 
 had expressly said on parting, " Behold, I go unto my 
 people" 3 Meanwhile the historian pursues his onward 
 course, and details, through several long chapters, the 
 abandoned profligacy of the Israelites, the numbering of 
 them according to their families, the method by which 
 their portions were to be assigned in the land of promise, 
 the laws of inheritance, the choice and appointment of a 
 successor a series of offerings and festivals of various 
 
 i Numb, xxi, 7. ib. xxiv. 25. 3 ib. xx iv. 14, 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 1 J5 
 
 kinds, more or less important, the nature and obligation 
 of vows, and the different complexion they assumed under 
 different circumstances enumerated, and then, (as it often 
 happens in the history of Moses, where a battle or a rebel- 
 lion perhaps interrupts a catalogue of rites and cere- 
 monies,) then, I say, comes an account of an attack made 
 upon the Midianites in revenge for their having seduced 
 the people of Israel by the wiles of their women. So 
 " they slew the kings of Midian, besides the rest of them 
 that were slain, viz. Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, 
 and Reba, five kings of Midian ;" and lastly, there is ad- 
 ded, what we might not perhaps have been prepared for, 
 " Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the 
 sword" 1 
 
 It seems then, but how incidentally ! that the Prophet 
 did not, after all, return to Mesopotamia, as we had sup- 
 posed. Now this coincides in a very satisfactory manner 
 with the circumstances under which, we have seen, Ba- 
 laam was invited from Pethor. For the deputation, which 
 then waited on him, did not consist of Moabites exclusively, 
 but of Midianites also. When dismissed, therefore, in 
 disgust by the Moabites, he would not return to Mesopota- 
 mia until he had paid his visit to the Midianites , who 
 were equally concerned in bringing him where he was. 
 Had the details of his achievements in Midian been given, 
 as those in Moab are given, they might have been as nu- 
 merous, as important, and as interesting. One thing only, 
 however, we are told, that by the counsel which he sug- 
 gested during this visit concerning the matter of Peor, and 
 which he probably thought was the most likely counsel to 
 alienate the Israelites from God, and to make Him curse 
 instead of blessing them, he caused the children of Israel 
 
 1 Numb. MIL 8. 
 
% THE VERACITY OF THE PART I 
 
 to commit the trespass he anticipated, and to fall into the 
 trap which he had provided for them. Unluckily for him, 
 however, his stay amongst the Midianites was unseason- 
 ably protracted, and Moses coming upon them, as we have 
 seen, by command of God, slew them and him together. 
 The undesigned coincidence lies in the Elders of Moab 
 and the Elders of Midian going to Balaam ; in Midian 
 being then mentioned no more, till Balaam, having been 
 sent away from Moab, apparently that he might go home, 
 is subsequently found a corpse amongst the slaughtered 
 Midianites. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 IN the consequences which followed from this evil coun- 
 sel of Balaam, I fancy I discover another instance of coin- 
 cidence without design. It is this. As a punishment for 
 the sin of the Israelites in partaking of the worship of 
 Baal-Peor, God is said to have sent a plague upon them. 
 Who were the leaders in this defection from the Almighty, 
 and in this shameless adoption of the abomination of the 
 Moabites, is not disclosed nor indeed whether any one 
 tribe were more guilty before God than the rest only it 
 is said that the number of " those who died in the Plague 
 was twenty and four thousand." 1 I read, however, that 
 the name of a certain Israelite that was slain on that oc- 
 casion, (who in the general humiliation and mourning, de- 
 fied, as it were, the vengeance of the Most High, and de- 
 termined, at all hazards, to continue in the lusts to which 
 the idolatry had led,) I read, I say, that " the name of 
 this Israelite that was slain, even that was slain with the 
 
 1 Numb. xxv. 9. 
 
PA11T I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 97 
 
 Midianitish woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince 
 of a chief house among the Simeonites." 1 And very great 
 importance is attached to this act of summary punishment 
 as though this one offender, a prince of a chief house 
 of his tribe, was a representative of the offence of many 
 for on Phinehas, in his holy indignation, putting him to 
 instant death, the Plague ceased, " So the Plague was 
 stayed from the children of Israel." 2 
 
 Shortly after this a census of the people is taken. All 
 the tribes are numbered, and a separate account is given 
 of each. Now in this I observe the following particular 
 that, although on comparing this census with the one 
 which had been made nearly forty years before at Sinai, it 
 appears that the majority of the tribes had meanwhile in- 
 creased in numbers, and none of them very materially di- 
 minished, 3 the tribe of Simeon had lost almost two-thirds 
 of its whole body, being reduced from "fifty-nine thousand 
 and three hundred," 4 to " twenty-two thousand and two 
 hundred." 5 No reason is assigned for this extraordinary 
 depopulation of this one tribe no hint whatever is given 
 as to its eminence in suffering above its fellows. Nor can. 
 I pretend to say that we can detect the reason with an,y 
 certainty of being right, though the fact speaks for itself 
 that the tribe of Simeon must have experienced disaster 
 beyond the rest. Yet it does seem very natural |o think,, 
 that, in the recent Plague, the tribe to which ZZijmri be^ 
 longed, who is mentioned as a leading person, in it with 
 great emphasis, was the tribe upon which the chief fury 
 of the scourge fell as having been that which had been 
 the chief transgressors in the idolatry-. 
 
 Moreover, that such was the case,, t arn further inclined 
 to believe from another circumstance. One of the last 
 
 i Numb. xxv. 14. 2 b. xxv. & 3 Comp. Ib. i. and ixvi v 
 
 4 Ib. i. 23. s ih. **XH 1^ 
 
 9 
 
98 THE VERACITY OP THE PART t, 
 
 great acts which Moses was commissioned to perform be- 
 fore his death, has a reference to this very affair of Baal- 
 Peor. " Avenge the children of Israel," says God to him, 
 "of the Midianites ; afterward thou shalt be gathered 
 unto thy people.'' 1 Moses did so : but before he actually 
 was gathered to his people, and while the recent extermi- 
 nation of this guilty nation must have been fresh in his 
 mind, he proceeds to pronounce a parting blessing on the 
 tribes. Now it is singular, and except upon some such 
 supposition as this I am maintaining, unaccountable, that 
 whilst he deals out the bounties of earth and heaven with 
 a prodigal hand upon all the others, the tribe of Simeon he 
 passes over in silence, and none but the tribe of Simeon 
 for this he has no blessing 2 an omission which should 
 seem to have some meaning, and which does in fact, as I 
 apprehend, point to this same matter of Baal Peor. For if 
 that was pre-eminently the offending tribe, nothing could 
 be more likely than that Moses, fresh, as I have said, from 
 the destruction of the Midianites for their sin, should re- 
 member their principal partners in it too, and should think 
 it hard measure to slay the one, and forthwith bless the 
 
 1 Numb. xxxi. 2. 
 * Deut. xxxiii. 6. ' It is nothing but fair to state that the reading of the 
 
 CodeX Alexandr. is, ^'C'w 'Povfinv KO\ fifi dirodaviru, roi Sv/uwz' JCTTW TroXtij iv 
 
 dpiQ/jiy. " Let Reuben live and not die, and let Simeon be many in num- 
 ber." This reading, however, the Codex Vaticanus, the rival MS. of the 
 Alexandrine, and at least its equal in authority, does not recognize : neither 
 is it found in the Hebrew text, nor in any of the various readings of that 
 text as given by Dr. Kennicott, nor in the Samaritan, nor in the early Ver- 
 sions. It is difficult to believe that the name of Simeon should have been 
 omitted in so many instances by mistake ; whilst it is easy to suppose that 
 ft might have been introduced in some one instance by design, the tran- 
 scriber ot aware of any cause for the exclusion of this one tribe, and say- 
 ing, " Peradventure, it is an oversight." Moreover, the blessing of Reuben 
 thus curtailed, " Let Reuben Live and not die," seems tame, and unworthy 
 the party and the occasion. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES* 99 
 
 other. Nor can I help remarking, in further support of 
 this conjecture, that the little consideration paid to this 
 tribe by their brethren shortly afterwards, in tiie allotment 
 of the portions of the Holy Land, implies it to have been 
 in disgrace their inheritance being only the remnant of 
 that assigned to the children of Judah, which was too much 
 for them ; l and so inadequate to their wants did it prove, 
 that in after-times they sent forth a colony even to Mount 
 Seir. 
 
 Admitting, then, the fact to be as I have supposed, it sup- 
 ports (as in so many other cases already mentioned) the 
 credibility of a miracle. For the name of the audacious 
 offender points incidentally to the offending tribe the ex- 
 traordinary diminution of that tribe points to some extra- 
 ordinary cause of the diminution the pestilence presents 
 itself as a probable cause and if the real cause, then it 
 becomes the judicial punishment of a transgression, a mir- 
 acle wrought by God (as Moses would have it), in token 
 that his wrath was kindled against Israel. 
 
 So much for the Books of Moses ; not that I believe the 
 subject exhausted, for I doubt not that many examples of 
 coincidence without design in the writings of Moses have 
 escaped me, which others may detect, as one eye will often 
 see what another has overlooked. Still I cannot account 
 for the number and nature of those which I have been 
 able to produce on any other principle than the veracity 
 of the narrative which presents them ; accident could not 
 have touched upon truth so often design could not have 
 touched upon it so artlessly ; the less so, because these co- 
 incidences do not discover themselves in certain detached 
 and isolated passages, but break out from time to time a^ 
 the history proceeds, running witnesses (as it were) to the 
 
 1 Josh. xiz. 9. 
 
100 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I, 
 
 accuracy not of one solitary detail, but of a series of de- 
 tails extending through the lives and actions of many dif- 
 ferent individuals, relating to many different events, and 
 dating at many different points of time. For, I have trav- 
 elled through the writings of Moses, beginning from the 
 history of Abraham, when a sojourner in the land of 
 Canaan, and ending with a transaction which happened 
 on the borders of that land, when the descendants of 
 Abraham, now numerous as the stars in heaven, were 
 about to enter and take possession. I have found in the 
 progress of the checkered series of events, the marks of 
 truth never deserting us I have found (to recapitulate as 
 briefly as possible) consistency without design in the 
 many hints of a Patriarchal Church incidentally scattered 
 through the Book of Genesis taken as a whole I have 
 found it in particular instances ; in the impassioned terms 
 wherein the Father of the Faithful intercedes for a devoted 
 city of which his brother's son was an inhabitant in 
 the circumstance of his own son receiving in marriage 
 the grand-daughter of his brother, a singular confirma- 
 tion that he was the child of his parent's old age, the mi- 
 raculous offspring of a sterile bed I have found it in the 
 several oblique intimations of the imbecility and insig- 
 nificance of Bethuel in the occurrence of Isaac's medita- 
 tion in the field, with the fact of his mother's recent death 
 and in the desire of that Patriarch on a subsequent oc- 
 casion to impart the blessing, as compared with what seem 
 to be symptoms of a present and serious sickness I have 
 found it in the singular command of Jacob to his followers, 
 to put away their idols, as compared with the sacking of 
 an idolatrous city, and the capture of its idolatrous in- 
 habitants shortly before I have found it in the identity 
 of the character of Jacob, a character offered to us in many 
 aspects and at many distant intervals, but still ever the 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 101 
 
 same I have found it in the lading of the camels of the 
 Ishmaelitish merchants, as compared with the mode of 
 sepulture amongst the Egyptians in the allusions to the 
 corn-crop of Egypt, thrown out in such a variety of ways, 
 and so inadvertently in all, as compared one with another 
 I have found it in the proportion of that crop perma- 
 nently assigned to Pharaoh, as compared with that which 
 was taken up by Joseph for the famine ; and in the very 
 natural manner in which a great revolution of the state is 
 made to arise out of a temporary emergency I have found 
 it in the tenderness with which the property of the priests 
 was treated, as compared with the honor in which they 
 were held by the king, and the alliance which had been 
 formed with one of their families by the minister of the 
 king I have found it in the character of Joseph, which, 
 however and whenever we catch a glimpse of it, is still 
 one : and whether it be gathered from his own words or 
 his own deeds, from the language of his father or from 
 the language of his brethren, is still uniform throughout 
 I have found it in the death of Nadab and Abihu, as com- 
 pared with the remarkable law which follows touching the 
 use of wine and in the removal of their corpses by the 
 sons of Uzziel, as compared with the defilement of certain 
 in the camp about the same time by the dead body of a 
 man I have found it in the gushing of water from the 
 rock at Rephidim, as compared with the attack of the 
 Amalekites which followed in the state of the crops in 
 Judea at the Passover, as compared with that of the 
 crops in Egypt at the plague of Hail in the proportion 
 of oxen and waggons assigned to the several families of 
 the Levites, as compared with the different services they 
 had respectively to discharge I have found it in the order 
 of march observed in one particular case, when the Israel- 
 ites broke up from Mount Sinai, as compared with the 
 
 9* 
 
102 ,^ THE VERACITY OF THE PART 1. 
 
 general directions given in other places for pitching the 
 tents and sounding the alarms I have found it in (he 
 peculiar propriety of the grouping of the conspirators 
 against Moses and Aaron, as compared with their relative 
 situations in the camp consisting, as they do, of such a 
 family of the Levites and such a tribe of the Israelites as 
 dwelt on the same side of the Tabernacle, and therefore 
 had especial facilities for clandestine intercourse I have 
 found it in an inference from the direct narrative, that the 
 families of the conspirators did not perish alike, as com- 
 pared with a subsequent most casual assertion, that though 
 the households of Dathan and Abiram were destroyed, 
 the children of Korath died not I have found it in the 
 desire expressed conjointly by the Tribe of Reuben and 
 the Tribe of Gad to have lands allotted them together 
 on the east side of Jordan, as compared with their contig- 
 uous position in the camp during their long and trying 
 march through the wilderness I have found it in the uni- 
 formity with which Moses implies a free communication 
 to have subsisted amongst the scattered inhabitants of the 
 East in the unexpected discovery of Balaam amongst 
 the dead of the Midianites, though he had departed 
 from Moab apparently to return to his own country, as 
 compared with the united embassy that was sent to invite 
 him and, finally, I have found it in the extraordinary 
 diminution of the Tribe of Simeon, as compared with the 
 occasion of the death of Zimri, a chief of that tribe, the 
 only individual whom Moses thinks it necessary to name, 
 and the victim by which the Plague is appeased. 
 
 These indications of truth in the Mosaic writings, (to 
 which, as I have said, others of the same kind might 
 doubtless be added,) may be sometimes more, sometimes 
 less strong ; still they must be acknowledged, I think, on 
 a general review and when taken in the aggregate, to 
 
PART I. ROOKS OP MOSES. 103 
 
 amount to evidence of great cumulative weight evidence 
 the more valuable in the present instance, Because the ex- 
 treme antiquity of the documents precludes any arising 
 out of contemporary history. But though the argument 
 of coincidence without design is the only one with which 
 I proposed to deal, I may be allowed, in closing my re- 
 marks on the Books of Moses, to make brief mention of a 
 few other points in favor of their veracity, which have 
 naturally presented themselves to my mind whilst I have 
 been engaged in investigating that argument several of 
 these also bespeaking undesignedness in the narrative 
 more or less, and so far allied to my main proposition 
 For example 
 
 1. There is a minuteness in the details of the Mosaic 
 writings, which argues their truth ; for it often argues the 
 eye-witness, as in the adventures of the wilderness ; and 
 often seems intended to supply directions to the artificer, 
 as in the construction of the Tabernacle. 
 
 2. There are touches of nature in the narrative which 
 argue its truth, for it is not easy to regard them otherwise 
 than as strokes from the life as where " the mixed mul- 
 titude," whether half-casts or Egyptians, are the first to 
 sigh for the cucumbers and melons of Egypt, and to 
 spread discontent through the camp 1 as, the miserable 
 exculpation of himself, which Aaron attempts, with all the 
 cowardice of conscious guilt "I cast into the fire, and 
 there came out this calf :" the fire, to be sure, being in the 
 fault. 2 
 
 3. There are certain little inconveniences represented 
 as turning up unexpectedly, that argue truth in the story ; 
 for they are just such accidents as are characteristic of the 
 working of a new system and untried machinery. What 
 
 Numb. xi. 4. a Exod. xxxii. 24. 
 
104 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I. 
 
 is to be done with the man who is found gathering sticks 
 on the Sabbath-day 1 (could an impostor have devised 
 such a trifle ?) How the inheritance of the daughters of 
 Zelophehad is to be disposed of, there being no heir-male. 2 
 Either of them inconsiderable matters in themselves, but 
 both giving occasion to very important laws ; the one 
 touching life, and the other property. 
 
 4. There is a simplicity in the manner of Moses when 
 telling his tale, which argues its truth no parade of lan- 
 guage, no pomp of circumstance even in his miracles a 
 modesty and dignity throughout all. Let us but compare 
 him in any trying scene with Josephus ; his description, 
 for instance, of the passage through the Red Sea, 3 of the 
 murmuring of the Israelites and the supply of quails and 
 manna, with the same as given by the Jewish historian, 
 or rhetorican, we might rather say and the force of the 
 observation will be felt. 4 
 
 5. There is a candor in the treatment of his subject by 
 Moses, which argues his truth ; as when he tells of his 
 own want of eloquence, which unfitted him for a leader 5 
 his own want of faith, which prevented him from enter- 
 ing the promised land* the idolatry of Aaron his brother 7 
 the profaneness of Nadab and Abihu, his nephews 8 
 the disaffection and punishment of Miriam, his sister. 9 
 The relationship which Amram his father bore to Joche- 
 bed his mother, which became afterwards one of the 
 prohibited degrees in the marriage Tables of the Levitical 
 Law. 10 
 
 6. There is a disinterestedness in his conduct, which 
 
 i Numb. xv. 32. 2 ib. xxxvi. 2. 
 
 3 Exod. xiv. Joseph. Antiq. b. 2. c. xvi. 
 
 * Ib. xvi. Joseph. Antiq. b. 3, c. i. 5 ib. iv. 10. Numb. xx. 12. 
 
 i Exod. xxxii. 21. Lev. x. 1. 9 Numb. xii. 1. 
 
 Exod. vi. 20. Lev. xxviii, 12., 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 
 
 105 
 
 argues him to be a man of truth ; for though he had sons, 
 he apparently takes no measures during his life to give 
 them offices of trust or profit; and at his death he appoints 
 as his successor one who had no claims upon him, eithei 
 of alliance, of clan-ship, or of blood. 
 
 7. There are certain prophetical passages in the writ- 
 ings of Moses, which argue their truth ; as several respect- 
 ing the future Messiah ; and the very sublime and literal 
 one respecting the final fall of Jerusalem. 1 
 
 8. There is a simple key supplied by these writings to 
 the meaning of many ancient traditions current amongst 
 the heathens, though greatly disguised, which is another 
 circumstance that agues their truth as, the golden age 
 the garden of the Hesperides the fruit tree in the midst 
 of the garden which the dragon guarded the destruction 
 of mankind by a flood, all except two persons, and those 
 righteous persons 
 
 " Innocuos ambos, cultores numinis ambos;2" 
 
 the rainbow, " which Jupiter set in the cloud, a sign to 
 men" 3 the seventh day a sacred day 4 with many others : 
 all conspiring to establish the reality of the facts which 
 Moses relates, because tending to show that vestiges of the 
 like present themselves in the traditional history of the 
 world at large. 
 
 9. The concurrence which is found between the writ- 
 ings of Moses and those of the New Testament, argues 
 their truth : the latter constantly appealing to them, being 
 indeed but the completion of the system which the others 
 are the first to put forth. Nor is this an illogical argument 
 for, though the credibility of the New Testament itself 
 may certainly be reasoned out from the truth of the Pen- 
 
 i Deut. xxviii. 2 Ovid, Met. i. 327. 3 Horn. II. xi. 27, 28. 
 
 * Hesiod. Oper. ct D . 770. See Grot, de Verit. Rel. Christ. 1. 1, x*L 
 
106 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I, 
 
 tateuch once established, it is still very far from depending 
 on that circumstance exclusively, or even principally. 
 The New Testament demands acceptance on its own 
 merits, on merits distinct from those on which the Books 
 of Moses rest therefore (so far as it does so) it may fairly 
 give its suffrage for their veracity valeat quantum valet 
 and surely it is a very improbable thing, that two dis- 
 pensations, separated by an interval of some fifteen hun- 
 dred years, each exhibiting prophecies of its own, since 
 fulfilled each asserting miracles of its own, on strong evi- 
 dence of its own that two dispensations, with such indi- 
 vidual claims to be believed, should also be found to stand 
 in the closest relation to one another, and yet both turn out 
 impostures after all. 
 
 10. Above all, there is a comparative purity in the theol- 
 ogy and morality of the Pentateuch, which argues not only 
 its truth, but its high original ; for how else are we to ac- 
 count for a system like that of Moses, in such an age and 
 amongst such a people ; that the doctrine of the unity, the 
 self-existence, the providence, the perfections of the great 
 God of heaven and earth, should thus have blazed forth 
 (how far more brightly than even in the vaunted schools of 
 Athens at its most refined era !) from the midst of a na- 
 tion, of themselves ever plunging into gross and grovelling 
 idolatry ; and that principles of social duty, of benevo- 
 lence, and of self-restraint, extending even to the thoughts 
 of the heart, 1 should have been the produce of an age, 
 which the very provisions of the Levitical Law itself show 
 to have been full of savage and licentious abominations? 
 
 Such are some of the internal evidences for the veracity 
 of the Books of Moses. 
 
 11. Then the situation in which the Jews actually 
 
 i Exod. xx. 3; Deut. vi. 4; Exod. iii. 14; Deut. xi. 14; Lev. xix. 2; 
 lb. xix. 18 ; Deut. xxx. 6 ; Exod. xx. 17. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 107 
 
 found themselves placed, as a matter of fact, is no slight 
 argument for the truth of the Mosaic accounts; reminded, 
 as they were, by certain memorials observed from year to 
 year, of the great events of their early history, just as they 
 are recorded in the writings of Moses memorials, univer- 
 sally recognized both in their object and in their authority. 
 The Passover, for instance, celebrated by all no man 
 doubting its meaning, no man in all Israel assigning to it 
 any other origin than one, viz. that of being a contempo- 
 rary monument of a miracle displayed in favor of the peo- 
 ple of Israel : by right of which credentials, and no other, 
 it summoned from all quarters of the world, at great cost, 
 and inconvenience, and danger, the dispersed Jews none 
 disputing the obligation to obey the summons. 
 
 12. Then the heroic devotion with which the Israelites 
 continued to regard the Law, even long after they had 
 ceased to cultivate the better part of it, even when that 
 very Law only served to condemn its worshippers, so that 
 they would offer themselves up by thousands, with their 
 children and wives, as martyrs to the honor of their temple, 
 in which no image, even of an emperor, who could scourge 
 them with scorpions for their disobedience, should be suf- 
 fered to stand, and they live 1 so that rather than violate 
 the sanctity of the Sabbath Day, the bravest men in arms 
 would lay down their lives as tamely as sheep, and allow 
 themselves to be burnt in the holes where they had taken 
 refuge from their cruel and cowardly pursuers. 8 All this 
 points to their Law, as having been at first promulgated 
 under circumstances too awful to be forgotten even after 
 the lapse of ages. 
 
 13. Then again, the extraordinary degree of national 
 pride with which the Jews boasted themselves to be God's 
 
 1 Joseph. Bell. Jud, b. 2, c. 10. 4. 2 Antiq. Jud. b. 12, c. 6. 2. 
 
108 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I 
 
 peculiar people, as if no nation ever was or ever could be 
 so nigh to Him ; a feeling which the early teachers of 
 Christianity found an insuperable obstacle to the progress 
 of the Gospel amongst them, and which actually did effect 
 its ultimate rejection this may well seem to be founded 
 upon a strong traditional sense of uncommon tokens of the 
 Almighty's regard for them above all other nations of the 
 earth, which they had heard with their ears, or their 
 fathers had declared unto them, even the noble works that 
 He had done in the old time before them. 
 
 14. Then again, the constant craving after " a sign," 
 which beset them in the latter days of their history, as a 
 lively certificate of the prophet ; and not after a sign only, 
 but after such an one as they would themselves prescribe : 
 " What sign shewest thou that we may see and believe ?... 
 our fathers did eat manna in the desert ;' n this desire, so 
 frequently expressed, and with which they are so fre- 
 quently reproached, looks like the relic of an appetite en- 
 gendered in other times, when they had enjoyed the privi- 
 lege of more intimate communion with God it seems the 
 wake, as it were, of miracles departed. 
 
 15. Lastly, the very onerous nature of the Law so 
 studiously meddling with all the occupations of life, great 
 and small this yoke would scarcely have been endured, 
 without the strongest assurance on the part of those who 
 were galled by it, of the authority by which it was im- 
 posed. For it met them with some restraint or other at 
 every turn. Would they plough ? Then it must not be 
 with an ox and an ass. 2 Would they sow ? Then 
 must not the seed be mixed. 3 Would they reap? Then 
 must they not reap clean. 4 Would they make bread ? 
 Then must they set apart dough enough for the consecra 
 
 i John vi. 31. 2 Deut. xxii. 10. 3 Ib. 9. * Lev. xix. 9. 
 
PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 109 
 
 ted loaf. 1 Did they find a bird's nest? Then must they 
 let the old bird fly away. 2 Did they hunt? Then they 
 must shed the blood of their game, and cover it with dust. 3 
 Did they plant a fruit tree? For three years was the 
 fruit to be uncircumcised. 4 Did they shave their beards ? 
 -They were not to cut the corners. 5 Did they weave a 
 garment ? Then must it be only with threads prescribed. 6 
 Did they build a house ? They must put rails and bat- 
 tlements on the roof. 7 Did they buy an estate ? At the 
 year of Jubilee back it must go to its owner. 8 This last 
 in itself and alone a provision which must have made itself 
 felt in the whole structure of the Jewish commonwealth, 
 and have sensibly affected the character of the people ; 
 every transfer of land throughout the country having to 
 be regulated in its price according to the remoteness or 
 proximity of the year of release ; and the desire of accu- 
 mulating a species of property usually considered the most 
 inviting of any, counteracted and thwarted at every turn. 
 All these (and how many more of the same kind might 
 be named) ! are enactments which it must have required 
 extraordinary influence in the Lawgiver to enjoin, and 
 extraordinary reverence for his powers to perpetuate. 
 
 i Numb. xv. 20. 2 Deut. xxii. 6. 3 Lev. xvii. 13. 
 
 Ib. xix. 23. Ib. 27. e Ib. 19. 
 
 Deut. xxii. 8. 8 Lev. xrv. 13. 
 
 10 
 
THE VERACITY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 
 
 PART IL 
 
 HITHERTO I have endeavored to prove the veracity of 
 the Mosaic writings by the instances they contain of coin- 
 cidence without design in their several parts ; and I hope 
 and believe that I have succeeded in pointing out such 
 coincidences as might come of truth, and could come of 
 nothing but truth. These presented themselves in the 
 history of the Patriarchs from Abraham to Joseph ; and 
 in the history of the chosen race in general, from their 
 departure out of Egypt to the day when their great Law- 
 giver expired on the borders of that land of Promise into 
 which Joshua was now to lead them a long and eventful 
 history. I shall now resume the subject ; pursue the ad- 
 ventures of this extraordinary people, as they are unfolded 
 in some of the subsequent books of holy writ ; and, still 
 using the same test as before, ascertain whether these por- 
 tions of Scripture do not appear to be equally trustworthy, 
 and whilst, like the former, they assert, often without any 
 recourse to the intervention of second causes, miracles 
 many and mighty, they do not challenge confidence in 
 those miracles by marks of reality, consistency, and accu- 
 
PART II. THE HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 11 
 
 racy, which the ordinary matters of fact combined with 
 them constantly exhibit. " For this credibility of the com 
 mon scripture history," says Bishop Butler, " gives some 
 credibility to its miraculous history ; especially as this is 
 interwoven with the common, so as that they imply each 
 other, and both together make up one revelation." 1 
 
 I. 
 
 MOSES then being dead, Joshua takes the command of 
 the armies of Israel, and marches them over Jordan to the 
 possession of the land of Canaan. It was a day and a 
 deed much to be remembered. " It came to pass, when the 
 people removed from their tents to pass over Jordan, and 
 the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the peo- 
 ple ; and as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, 
 and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped 
 in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overflowed! all his 
 banks in the time of harvest,) that the waters which came 
 down from above stood and rose tip upon an heap very 
 far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan : and 
 those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even 
 the salt sea, failed and were cut off: and the people passed 
 over right against Jericho. And the priests that bare the 
 irk of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on the dry 
 ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed 
 over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean 
 over Jordan.'' 2 
 
 Such is the language of the Book of Joshua. Now in 
 he midst of this miraculous narrative, an incident is men- 
 noned, though very casually, which dates ' >o son of 
 
 i Analogy, p. 389. 2 j oa h. iii. 1417. 
 
112 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 the year when this passage of the Jordan was effected. 
 The feet of the priests, it seems, were dipped in the brim 
 of the water ; and this is explained by the season being 
 that of the periodical inundation of Jordan, that river 
 overflowing his baj*k all the time of harvest. The bar- 
 ley-harvest is here meant, or the former harvest, as it is 
 elsewhere called, in contradistinction to the wheat, or latter 
 harvest ; for in the f ourth chapter (v. 19) we read, " the 
 people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first 
 month" that is, fou~ days before the Passover, which fell 
 in with the barley-harvest ; the wheat-harvest not being 
 fully completed till Pentecost, or fifty days later in the 
 year, when the wave-loaves of the first-fruits of the wheat 
 were offered up. 1 The Israelites passed the Jordan then, 
 it appears, at the time of barley-harvest. But we are told 
 in Exodus that at the Plague of Hail, which was but a 
 day or two before the Passover, " the flax and the barley 
 were smitten, for the barley was in the ear and the flax 
 was boiled, but the wheat and the rye were not smitten, 
 for they were not grown up." 2 It should seem, therefore, 
 that the flax and the barley were crops which ripened 
 about the same time in Egypt ; and as the climate of Ca- 
 naan did not differ materially from that of Egypt, this, no 
 doubt, was the case in Canaan too ; there also these two 
 crops would come in at the same time. The Israelites, 
 therefore, who crossed the Jordan, as we have seen in one 
 passage, at the harvest, and that harvest, as we have seen 
 in another passage, the barley-harvest, must, if so, have 
 crossed it at the^?a#-harvest. 
 
 Now, in a former chapter, we are informed, that three 
 days before Joshua ventured upon the invasion, he sent 
 
 1 This question of the harvests TB examined in greater detail in Part I. 
 ffo. rvi. 
 Exod. be. 31. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 113 
 
 two men, spies, to view the land, even Jericho. 1 It was a 
 service of peril : they were received by Rahab, a woman 
 of that city, and lodged in her house : but the entrance of 
 these strangers at night-fall was observed : it was a mo- 
 ment, no doubt, of great suspicion and alarm : an enemy's 
 army encamped on the borders. The thing was reported 
 to the King of Jericho, and search was made for the men. 
 Rahab, however, fearing God for by faith she felt that 
 the miracles wrought by him in favor of Israel were proofs 
 that for Israel he fought, by faith, which, living as she 
 did in the midst of idolaters, might well be counted to her 
 for righteousness, and the like to which, in a somewhat 
 similar case, was declared by our Lord, enough to lead 
 those who professed it into the kingdom of God, even be- 
 fore the chief priests and elders themselves 2 she, I say, 
 having this faith in God, and true to those laws of hospi- 
 tality which are the glory of the eastern nations, and more 
 especially of the females of the East, even to this day, at 
 much present risk protected her guests from their pursuers. 
 But how ! " She brought them up to the roof of her 
 house, and hid them with the stalks of flax"* the stalks 
 of flax, no doubt just cut down, which she had spread upon 
 the roof of her house to steep and to season. 
 
 Here I see truth. Yet how very minute is this incident ! 
 how very casually does it present itself to our notice ! how 
 very unimportant a matter it seems in the first instance, 
 under what the spies were hidden ! enough that, whatever 
 it was, it answered the purpose, and saved their lives. 
 Could the historian have contemplated for one moment the 
 effect which a trifle about a flax-stalk might have in cor- 
 roboration of his account of the passage of the Jordan ? 
 Is it possible for the most jealous examiner of human tes- 
 
 i Josh. i. 2; U. 1, 22; iii. 2. 2 Heb. xi. 31. Matt. xxi. 31. 
 
 Josh. ii. 6. 
 
 10* 
 
114 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 timony to imagine that these flax-stalks were fixed upon 
 above all things in the world for the covering of the spies, 
 because they were known to be ripe with the barley, and 
 the barley was known to be ripe at the Passover, and the 
 "Passover was known to be the season when the Israelites 
 set foot in Canaan ? Or rather, would he not fairly and 
 candidly confess, that in one particular, at least, of this 
 adventure, (the only one which we have au opportunity of 
 checking,) a religious attention to truth is manifested ; and, 
 that when it is said, " the feet of the Priests were dipped 
 in the brim of the water," and when a reason is assigned 
 for this gradual approach to the bed of a river, of which 
 the banks were in general steep and precipitous, we are 
 put in possession of one unquestionable fact at least, one 
 particular upon which we may safely repose, whatever may 
 be said of the remainder of the narrative, and that assur- 
 edly truth leads us by the hand to the very edge of the 
 miracle, if not through the miracle itself? 
 
 ii. 
 
 THE Israelites having made this successful inroad into 
 the land of Canaan, divided it amongst the Tribes. But 
 the Canaanites, though panic-struck at their first ap- 
 proach, soon began to take heart, and the covetous policy 
 of Israel (a policy which dictated attention to present pe- 
 cuniary profits, no matter at what eventual cost to the 
 great moral interests of the Commonwealth) had satisfied 
 itself with making them tributaries, contrary to the com- 
 mand of God, that they should be driven out ; l and, ac- 
 cordingly, they were suffered, as it was promised, to be- 
 
 i Eiod. xxiii. 31. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 115 
 
 come thorns in Israel's side, always vexing, often resisting 
 and sometimes oppressing them for many years together. 
 Meanwhile the Tribe of Dan had its lot cast near the 
 Amodtes. It struggled to work out for itself a settlement ; 
 but its fierce and warlike neighbors drove in its outposts, 
 and succeeded in confining it to the mountains. l The 
 children of Dan became straitened in their borders, and, 
 unable to extend them at home, " they sent of their fam- 
 ily five men from their coasts, men of valor, to spy out 
 the land and to search it." So these five men departed, 
 and, directing their steps northwards, to the nearest parts 
 of the country which held out any prospect to settlers, 
 " they came," we are told, " to Laish, and saw the people 
 that were therein, how they dwelt careless, after the man- 
 ner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure, and there /was no 
 magistrate in the land that might put them to shame in 
 anything, and they were far from the Zidonians, and 
 had no business with any man." 2 Thus the circumstan- 
 ces of the place and the people were tempting to the views 
 of the strangers. They return to their brethren, and 
 advise an attempt upon the town. Accordingly they 
 march against it, take it, and, rebuilding the city, which 
 was destroyed in the assault, change its name from Laish 
 to Dan, and colonize it. From this it should appear that 
 Laish, though far from Sidon, was in early times a town 
 belonging to Sidon, and probably inhabited by Sidonians, 
 for it was after their manner that the people lived. 
 
 Such is the information furnished us in the eighteenth 
 chapter of the Book Q{ Judges. 
 
 I now turn to the third chapter of the Book of Deuter- 
 onomy, and I there find the following passage : " We took 
 at that time, 1 ' says Moses, "out of the hand of the two 
 
 Judges i. 34. s Ib. xviii. 7. 
 
116 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 kings of the Amorites the land that was on this side Jor- 
 dan, from the river of Arnon unto Mount Hermon which 
 Herman the Sidonians call Sirion, and the Amorites call 
 it Shenir." 1 But why this mention of the Sidonian name 
 of this famous mountain ? It was not near to Sidon it 
 does not appear to have belonged to Sidon, but to the king 
 of Bashan. 8 The reason, though not obvious, is neverthe- 
 less discoverable, and a very curious geographical coinci- 
 dence it affords between the former passage in Judges and 
 this in Deuteronomy. 
 
 For Hermon, we know, was close to Caesarea Philippi. 
 But Caesarea Philippi, we are again informed, was the 
 modern name of Paneas, the seat of Jordan's flood : and 
 Paneas, we further learn, was the same as the still more 
 ancient Dan or Laish. 3 Now Laish, we have seen, was 
 probably at first a settlement of the Sidonians, after whose 
 manner the people of Laish lived. Accordingly it appears 
 but how distant and unconnected are the passages from 
 which such a conclusion is drawn ! that although this 
 Hermon was far from Sidon itself, still at its foot there 
 was dwelling a Sidonian colony, a race speaking the Si- 
 donian language ; and, therefore, nothing could be more 
 natural than that the mountain which overhung the town 
 should have a Sidonian name, by which it was commonly 
 known in those parts, and that this should suggest itself, 
 as well as its Hebrew name, to Moses. 
 
 i Deut. iii. 8, 9. 2 j os h. xii. 4, 5. 
 
 3 " Dan Phoenices oppidum, quod nunc Paneas dicitur. Dan autem 
 unus e fontibus est Jordanis." Hieronym. in Qusestionibus in Genesin i. 
 p. 382. It was also Csesarea Philippi. Euseb. Eccl. Hist. vii. c. xvii. 
 
 The Hierusalem Targum, Numb. xxxv. writes thus, " The mountain of 
 Snow at Cffisarea (Philippi) this was Herrnon.' " Lightfoot, Vol. u. p. 
 62,fol. See also Psalm xlii. 8. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 117 
 
 III. 
 
 CONNECTED with the circumstances of this same colony 
 of Laish is another coincidence which I have to offer, and 
 I introduce it in this place, because it is so connected, fot 
 otherwise it anticipates a point of Jewish history, which, 
 in the order of the books of Scripture, lies a long way be- 
 fore me. The construction of Solomon's Temple at Jeru- 
 salem is the event at which it dates. 
 
 In the seventh chapter of the First Book of Kings I 
 read, " And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of 
 Tyre. He was a widow's son of the Tribe of Naphtali, 
 and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass ; 
 and he was filled with wisdom and understanding, and 
 cunning to work all works in brass. And he came to 
 king Solomon, and wrought all his work." (v. 13.) But 
 in the parallel passage in the second chapter of the Second 
 Book of Chronicles, (v. 13), where we have the answer 
 which king Hiram returned to Solomon, when the latter 
 desired him to " send him a man, cunning to work in 
 gold, and in silver, and in brass ;" I find it running thus : 
 " Now I have sent a cunning man, endued with under- 
 standing, of Huram my father's, (or perhaps Huram-Abi 
 by name,) the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, 
 and his father was a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold." 
 It is evident, that the same individual is meant in both 
 passages ; yet there is an apparent discrepancy between 
 them : the one in Kings asserting his mother to be a wo- 
 man of the Tribe of Naphtali ; the other, in Chronicles, 
 asserting her to be a woman of the daughters of Dan. 
 The difficulty has driven the critics to some intricate ex- 
 pedients, in order to resolve it. " She herself was of the 
 Tribe of Dan," says Dr. Patrick ; " but her first husband 
 
118 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 was of the Tribe of Naphtali, by whom she had this son. 
 When she was a widow, she married a man of Tyre, who 
 is called Hiram's father, because he bred him up, and was 
 the husband of his mother." All this is gratuitous. The 
 explanation only serves to show that the interpreter was 
 aware of the knot, but not of the solution. This difficulty, 
 however, like many others in Scripture, when once ex- 
 plained, helps to confirm its truth. We have seen in the 
 last paragraph, that six hundred Danites emigrated from 
 their own Tribe, and seized upon Laish, a city of the Si- 
 donians. Now the Sidonians were subjects of the king of 
 Tyre, and were the selfsame people as the Tyrians ; for 
 in the fifth chapter of the First Book of Kings, where Sol- 
 omon is reported of sending to the king of Tyre for work- 
 men, he is said to assign as a reason for the application, 
 " Thou knowest that there is not among us any that can 
 skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians" (v. 6.) 
 The Tyrians, therefore, and the Sidonians were the same 
 nation. But Laish or Dan, we found, was near the 
 springs of Jordan ; and therefore, since the " outgoings " 
 of the territory of Naphtali are expressly said to have been 
 at Jordan, there is good reason to believe that Laish or 
 Dan stood in the Tribe of Naphtali. But if so, then is 
 the difficulty solved ; for the woman was, by abode, of 
 Naphtali; Laish, where she dwelt, being situated in 
 that Tribe, as Jacob is called a Syrian, from his having 
 lived in Syria; 1 and by birth, she was of Dan, being 
 come of that little colony of Danites, which the parent 
 stock had sent forth in early times to settle at a distance. 
 Meanwhile, the very circumstance which interposes to 
 reconcile the apparent disagreement, accounts no less nat- 
 urally for the fact, that she had a Tyrian for her husband. 
 
 1 Deut. xxvi 5. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 119 
 
 Now upon what a very trifle does this mark of truth 
 turn! Who can suspect anything insidious here? any 
 trap for the unwary inquisitor after internal evidence in 
 the domestic circumstances of a master-smith, employed by 
 Solomon to build his temple ? 
 
 I am glad to have it in my power to produce this geo- 
 graphical coincidence, because it is rare in its kind the 
 geography of Canaan, owing to its extreme perplexity, 
 scarcely furnishing its due contingent to the argument I 
 am handling. However, that very intricacy may in itself 
 be though to say something to our present purpose ; aris- 
 ing, as it in a great degree does, out of the manifold in- 
 stances in which different places are called by the same 
 name in the Holy Land. Now whilst this accident creates 
 a confusion, very unfavorable to determining their respec- 
 tive sites, and consequently stands in the way of such un- 
 designed tokens of truth as might spring out of a more 
 accurate knowledge of such particulars ; still it accords very 
 singularly with the circumstances under which Scripture 
 reports the land of Canaan to have been occupied : I 
 mean, that it was divided amongst Twelve Tribes of one 
 and the same nation ; each, therefore, left to regulate the 
 names within its own borders after its own pleasure ; and 
 all having many associations in common, which would 
 often over-rule them, no doubt, however unintentionally, 
 to fix upon the same. We have only to look to our own 
 colonies, in whatever latitude dispersed, to see the like 
 workings of the same natural feeling familiarly exemplified 
 in the identity of local names, which they severally present. 
 And it may be added, that such a geographical nomencla- 
 ture was the more likely to establish itself in the new 
 settlements of the Israelites, amongst whom names of 
 places, from the earliest times downwards, seem to have 
 been seldom, if ever, arbitrary, but still to have carried 
 
120 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 with them some meaning, which was, or which was 
 thought to be, significant. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I HAVE said that the Canaanites, who were spared by 
 the Israelites after the first encounter with them, partly 
 that they might derive from the conquered race a tribute, 
 and partly that they might employ them in the servile 
 offices of hewing wood and drawing water, by degrees 
 recovered their spirit, urged war successfully against their 
 invaders, and for many years mightily oppressed Israel. 
 The Philistines, the most formidable of the inhabitants of 
 Canaan, and those under whom the Israelites suffered the 
 most severely, added policy to power. For at their bidding 
 it came to pass, (and probably the precaution was adopted 
 by others besides the Philistines,) that "there was no 
 smith found throughout all the land of Israel ; for the 
 Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords 
 and spears. But all the Israelites went down to the Phil- 
 istines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, 
 and his axe, and his mattock." 1 Such is said to have 
 been the rigorous law of the conquerors. The workers in 
 iron were everywhere put down, lest, under pretence of 
 making implements for the husbandman, they should 
 forge arms for the rebel. Now that some such law was 
 actually in force, (I am not aware that direct mention is 
 made of it except in this one passage,) is a fact confirmed 
 by a great many incidents, some of them very trifling and 
 inconsiderable, none of them related or connected, but all 
 of them turned by this one key. 
 
 i 1 Sam. xiii. 19. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 121 
 
 Thus, when Ehud prepared to dispatch Eglon the king 
 of Moab, to whom the Israelites were then subject, " he 
 made him" (we are told) " a dagger, which had two edges, 
 of a cubit length, and he did gird it under his raiment 
 upon his right thigh;" 1 he made it himself, it seems, ex- 
 pressly for the occasion, and he bound it upon his right 
 thigh, instead of his left, which was the sword-side, to 
 baffle suspicion ; whilst, being left-handed, he could wield 
 it nevertheless. Moreover it may be observed in passing, 
 that Ehud was a Benjamite ; 2 and that of the Benjamites, 
 when their fighting men turned out against Israel in the 
 affair of Gibeah, there were seven hundred choice slingers 
 left-handed; 3 and that of this discomfited army, six hun- 
 dred persons escaped to the rock Rimmon, none so likely 
 as the light armed ; and that this escape is dated by oae 
 of our most careful investigators of Scripture, Dr. Light foot, 
 at thirteen years before Ehud's accession. 4 What then is 
 more probable, yet I need not say how incidental is this 
 touch of truth, than that this left-handed Ehud, a Ben- 
 jamite, was one who survived of those seven hundred left- 
 handed slingers, who were Benjamites? 
 
 Thus again. Shamgar slays six hundred of the Philis- 
 tines with an ox-goad; 5 doubtless having recourse to an 
 implement so inconvenient, because it was not permitted 
 to carry arms or to have them in possession. 
 
 Thus Samson, when he went down to Timnath, with 
 no very friendly feeling towards the Philistines, however 
 he might feign it, nor at a moment of great political tran- 
 quillity, was still unarmed ; so that when " the young lion 
 roared against him, he rent him, as he would have rent a 
 
 i Judges iii. 16. 2 ibid. iii. 15. 3 Ibid. xx. 16. 
 
 Lightfoot's Works, i. 4447. Judges iii. 31. 
 
 11 
 
122 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II 
 
 kid, and he had nothing in his hand." 1 And when the 
 same champion slew a thousand of the Philistines, it was 
 with a jaw-bone, for he had no other choice. " Was there 
 a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel ?" 3 
 
 All these are indications, yet very oblique ones, that no 
 smith or armorer wrought throughout all the land of 
 Israel ; for it will be perceived, on examination, that every 
 one of these incidents occurred at times when the Israel- 
 ites were under subjection. 
 
 Moreover, it was probably in consequence of this same 
 restrictive law, that the sling became so popular a wea- 
 pon amongst the Israelites. It does not appear that it was 
 known, or at least used, under Moses. Whilst Israel was 
 triumphant, it was not needed : in those happier days, her 
 fighting-men were men that " drew the sword." In the 
 days of her oppression they were driven to the use of more 
 ignoble arms. The sling was readily constructed, and 
 readily concealed. Whilst a staff or hempken-stalk grew 
 in her fields, and a smooth stone lay in her brooks, this 
 artillery at least was ever forthcoming. It was not a very 
 fatal weapon, unless wielded with consummate skill. The 
 Philistines despised it : Goliath, we may remember, scorns 
 it as a weapon against a dog : but by continual applica- 
 tion to the exercise of it, (for it was now their only hope.) 
 the Israelites converted a rude and rustic plaything into a 
 formidable engine of war. That troop of Benjamites, 
 of whom I have already spoken, had taken pains to make 
 themselves equally expert with either hand (every one 
 could sling stones at an hairbreadth, and not miss) and 
 the precision with which David directed it, would not per- 
 haps be thought extraordinary amongst the active and 
 practised youths of his day. 
 
 Judges xiv. 5, 6. 2 ibid. v. 8. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 123 
 
 These particulars, it will be perceived, are many and 
 divers ; and though they might not of themselves have 
 enabled us to draw them into an induction that the inhabi- 
 tants of Canaan withheld from Israel the use of arms ; 
 yet, when we are put in possession of the single fact, that 
 no smith was allowed throughout all Israel, we are at once 
 supplied with the centre towards which they are one and 
 all perceived to converge. 
 
 I know not how incidents of the kind here produced can 
 be accounted for, except by the supposition that they are 
 portions of a true and actual history ; and they who may 
 feel that there is in them some force, but who may at the 
 same time feel that fuller evidence is wanted to compel 
 their assent to a Scripture which makes upon them de- 
 mands so large ; who secretly whisper to themselves, in 
 the temper of the incredulous Jew of old, " We would see 
 a sign ;" or of him who mocked, saying, " Let Him now 
 come down from the cross, and we will believe" let such 
 calmly and dispassionately consider, that there could be no 
 room for faith, if there were no room for doubt ; that the 
 scheme of our probation requires, perhaps as a matter of 
 necessity, that faith should be in it a very chief ingredi- 
 ent ; that the exercise of faith, (as we may partly perceive,) 
 both the spirit which must foster it, and the spirit which 
 must issue from it, is precisely what seems fit for mould- 
 ing us into vessels for future honor ; that natural religion 
 lifts up its voice to tell us, that in this world we are, un- 
 doubtedly living under the dispensation of a God, who has 
 given us probability, and not demonstration, for the prin- 
 ciple of our ordinary guidance ; and that he may be there- 
 fore well disposed to proceed under a similar dispensation, 
 with regard to the next world, trying thereby who is the 
 " wise servant" who is reasonable in his demands for evi- 
 dence, for such he rejects not ; and who is presumptuous 
 
124 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II. 
 
 for such he still further hardens, saying to the one with 
 complacency and satisfaction. " Because I said unto thee, 
 I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest thou ? Thou shalt 
 see greater things than these." 1 And to the other, in sor- 
 row and rebuke, " Because thou hast seen me, thou hast 
 believed ; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have 
 believed." 2 
 
 V. 
 
 IT is most satisfactory to find, as the history of the Israel- 
 ites unfolds itself, the same indications of truth and accu- 
 racy still continuing to present themselves the same sig- 
 natures (as it were) of a subscribing witness of credit, 
 impressed on every sheet as we turn it over in its order. 
 The glory of Israel is now brought before us : David comes 
 upon the scene, destined to fill the most conspicuous place 
 in the annals of his country, and furnishing, in the details 
 of his long and eventful life, a series of arguments such 
 as we are in search of, decisive, I think, of the reality of 
 his story, and of the fidelity with which it is told. With 
 these I shall be now for some time engaged. 
 
 The circumstances under which he first appears be- 
 fore us, are such as give token at once of his intrepid char- 
 acter, and trust in God. " And there went out a champion," 
 (so we read in the seventeenth chapter of the First Book 
 of Samuel,) " out of the camp of the Philistines, Goliath 
 of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span." The 
 point upon which the argument for the veracity of the his- 
 tory which ensues will turn, is the incidental mention 
 here made of Goth, as the city of Goliath, a patronymic 
 
 i John i. 50. Ibid xx. 29. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 125 
 
 which might have been thought of very little importance, 
 either in its insertion or omission ; here, however, it stands. 
 Goliath of Gath was David's gigantic antagonist. Now let 
 us mark the value of this casual designation of the formi- 
 dable Philistine. The report of the spies whom Moses sent 
 into Canaan, as given in the thirteenth chapter of the Book 
 of Numbers, was as follows : " The land through which we 
 have gone to search it, ig a land that eateth up the inhab- 
 itants thereof ; and all the people that we saw in it were 
 men of a great stature. And there we saw the giant s, 
 the sons of Anak, which came of the giants. And we 
 were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in 
 their sight." 1 Moses is here a testimony unto us, that these 
 Anakims were a race of extraordinary stature. This fact 
 let us bear in mind, and now turn to the Book of Joshua, 
 There it is recorded amongst the feats of arms of that val- 
 iant leader of Israel, whereby he achieved the conquest of 
 Canaan, that " He cut off the Anakims from the moun- 
 tains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from the 
 mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel : 
 Joshua destroyed them utterly, with their cities. There 
 was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of 
 Israel, only" (observe the exception) " in Gaza, in Gath, 
 and in Ashdod, there remained." 2 Here, in his turn, 
 comes in Joshua as a witness, that when he put the Ana- 
 kims to the sword, he left some remaining in three cities, 
 and in no others ; and one of these three cities was Gath. 
 Accordingly, when in the Book of Samuel we find Gath 
 most incidentally named as the country of Goliath, the fact 
 squares very singularly with those two other independent 
 facts, brought together from two independent authorities 
 the Books of Moses and Joshua the one, that the Ana- 
 
 i Numb. xiii. 32, 33. 2 Josh, xi 21. 22. 
 
126 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II. 
 
 kirns were persons of gigantic size; the other, that some 
 of this nearly exterminated race, who survived the sword 
 of Joshua, did actually continue to dwell at Gath. Thus 
 in the mouth of three witnesses Moses, Joshua, and 
 Samuel, is the word established ; concurring as they do, in 
 a manner the most artless and satisfactory, to confirm one 
 particular at least in this singular exploit of David. One 
 particular, and that a hinge upon which the whole moves, 
 is discovered to be matter of fact beyond all question ; ana 
 therefore, in the absence of all evidence whatever to the 
 contrary, I am disposed to believe the other particulars of 
 the same history to be matter of fact too. Yet there are 
 many, I will not say miraculous, but certainly most provi- 
 dential circumstances involved in it ; circumstances argu- 
 ing, and meant to argue, the invisible hand by which 
 David fought, and Goliath fell. The stripling from the 
 sheepfold withstanding the man of war from his youth 
 the ruddy boy, his carriage and his cheeses left for the 
 moment, hearing and rejoicing both to hear and accept 
 the challenge, which struck terror into the veterans of 
 Israel the shepherd's bag, with five smooth stones, and no 
 more, (such assurance did he feel of speedy success,) op- 
 posed to the helmet of brass, and the coat of brazen mail, 
 and the greaves of brass, and the gorget of brass, and the 
 shield borne before him, and the spear with the staff like a 
 weaver's beam the first sling of a pebble, the signal of 
 panic and overthrow to the whole host of the Philistines 
 all this claims the character of more than an ordinary 
 event, and asserts, (as David declared it to do,) that " The 
 Lord saveth not with sword and spear ; but that the bat- 
 tle is the Lord's, and that he gave it into Israel's hands." 
 
 1 1 Sam. xvii. 47. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 127 
 
 VI. 
 
 I PROCEED with the exploits of David : for though the 
 coincidences themselves are distinct, they make up a story 
 which is almost continuous. David, we are told, had now 
 won the hearts of all Israel. The daughters of the land 
 sung his praises in the dance, and their words awoke the 
 jealousy of Saul. " Saul had slain his thousands David 
 his ten thousands." Accordingly the king, forgetful of his 
 obligations to the gallant deliverer of his country from the 
 yoke of the Philistines, and regardless of the claims of the 
 husband of his daughter, sought his life. Twice he at- 
 tacked him with a javelin as he played before him in his 
 chamber : he laid an ambuscade about his house : he pur- 
 sued him with bands of armed men as he fled for his life 
 amongst the mountains. David, however, had less fear for 
 himself than for his kindred, for himself he could pro- 
 vide his conscience was clear, his courage good, the hearts 
 of his countrymen were with him, and God was on his 
 side. But his name might bring evil on his house, and 
 the safety of his parents was his first care. How then did 
 he secure it ? " And David," we read, " went thence to 
 Mizpeh of Moab, and he said unto the king of Moab, 
 Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth, 
 and be with you till I know what God will do for me. 
 And he brought them before the king of Moab ; and they 
 dwelt with him all the time that David continued in the 
 hold." 1 
 
 Now why should David be disposed to trust his father 
 and mother to the protection of the Moabites above all 
 others? Saul, it is true, had been at war with them, 1 
 
 I Sam. Mil 3, 4. * Ibid. xiv. 47. 
 
128 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 whatever he might then be, but so had he been with 
 every people round about ; with the Ammonites, with the 
 Edomites, with the kings of Zobah. Neither did it fol- 
 low that the enemies of Saul, as a matter of course, would 
 be the friends of David. On the contrary, he was only re- 
 garded by the ancient inhabitants of the land, to which- 
 ever of the local nations they belonged, as the champion of 
 Israel ; and with such suspicion was he received amongst 
 them, notwithstanding Saul's known enmity towards him, 
 that before Achish king of Gath he was constrained to 
 feign himself mad, and so effect his escape. And though 
 he afterwards succeeded in removing the scruples of that 
 prince, and obtained his confidence, and dwelt in his land, 
 yet the princes of the Philistines, in general, continued to 
 put no trust in him ; and when it was proposed by Achish, 
 that he, with his men, should go up with the armies of the 
 Philistines against Israel, and when he had actually 
 joined, "the princes of the Philistines said unto him, 
 Make this fellow return, that he may go to the place which 
 thou hast appointed him ; and let him not go down with 
 us to battle, lest in the battle he be an adversary to us : 
 for wherewith should he reconcile himself unto his master ? 
 should it not be with the heads of these men 7" 1 
 
 Whether, indeed, the Moabites proved themselves to be 
 less suspicious of David than these, his other idolatrous 
 neighbors, does not appear ; nor whether their subsequent 
 conduct warranted the trust which he was now compelled 
 to repose in them. Tradition says, that they betrayed it, 
 and slew his parents ; and certain it is, that David, some 
 twenty years afterwards, proceeded against them with sig- 
 nal severity ; for " he smote Moab, and measured them 
 with a line, casting them down to the ground ; even with 
 
 1 1 Sam. Txix. 4. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 129 
 
 two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full 
 line to keep alive." 1 Something, therefore, had occurred in 
 the interval to excite his heavy displeasure against them : 
 and if the punishment seems to have tarried too long to 
 be consistent with so remote a cause of offence, it must be 
 remembered that for fourteen of those years the throne of 
 David was not established amongst the Ten Tribes ; and 
 that, amidst the domestic disorders of a new reign, leisure 
 and opportunity for taking earlier vengeance upon this 
 neighboring kingdom might well be wanting. But how- 
 ever this might be, in Moab David sought sanctuary for 
 his father and mother ; perilous this decision might be, 
 probably it turned out so in fact, but he was in a great 
 strait, and thought that, in a choice of evils, this was the 
 least. 
 
 Now what principle of preference may be imagined to 
 have governed David when he committed his family to the 
 dangerous keeping of the Moabites ? Was it a mere mat- 
 ter of chance ? It might seem so, as far as appears to the 
 contrary in David's history, given in the Books of Samuel ; 
 and if the Book of Ruth had never come down to us, to 
 accident it probably would have been ascribed. But this 
 short and beautiful historical document shows us a pro- 
 priety in the selection of Moab above any other for a place 
 of refuge to the father and mother of David ; since it is 
 there seen that the grandmother of Jesse, David's father, 
 was actually a Moabitess ; Ruth being the mother of 
 Obed, and Obed the father of Jesse. 2 And, moreover, that 
 Orpah, the other Moabitess, who married Mahlon at the 
 time when Ruth married Chilion his brother, remained be- 
 hind in Moab after the departure of Naomi and Ruth, and 
 remained behind with a strong feeling of affection, never- 
 
 i 2 Sam. viii. 2. Ruth i*. 17. 
 
130 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II 
 
 theless, for the family and kindred of her deceased hus- 
 band, taking leave of them with tears. 1 She herself then, 
 or, at all events, her descendants and friends, might still 
 be alive. Some regard for the posterity of Ruth, David 
 would persuade himself, might still survive amongst them. 
 An interval of fifty years, for it probably was not more, 
 was not likely, he might think, to have worn out the 
 memory and the feelings of the relationship, in a country 
 and at a period which acknowledged the ties of family to 
 be long and strong, and the blood to be the life thereof. 
 
 Thus do we detect, not without some pains, a certain 
 fitness in the conduct of David in this transaction, which 
 marks it to be a real one. The forger of a story could not 
 have fallen upon the happy device of sheltering Jesse in 
 Moab, simply on the recollection of his Moabitish extrac- 
 tion two generations earlier ; or, having fallen upon it, it is 
 probable he would have taken care to draw the attention 
 of his readers towards his device by some means or other, 
 lest the evidence it was intended to afford of the truth of 
 the history might be thrown away upon them. As it is, 
 the circumstance itself is asserted without the smallest at- 
 tempt to explain or account for it. Nay, recourse must be 
 had to another book of Scripture, in order that the coinci- 
 dence may be seen. 
 
 VII. 
 
 EVENTS roll on, and another incident in the life of Da- 
 vid now offers itself, which also argues the truth of what 
 we read concerning him. " And Michal, Saul's daughter, 
 loved David," we are told. 2 On becoming his wife, she 
 
 Ruth i. 17. * 1 Sam. zviii. 20. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 131 
 
 gave further proof of her affection for him, by risking the 
 vengeance of Saul her father, when she let David through 
 the window that he might escape, and made an image and 
 put it in the bed, to deceive Saul's messengers. 1 After this, 
 untoward circumstances produced a temporary separation 
 of David and Michal. She remains in her father's custody, 
 and Saul, who was the tyrant of his family, as well as 
 of his people, gives her " unto Phaltiel, the son of Laish, rt 
 to wife. Meanwhile David, in his turn, takes Abigail 
 the widow of Nabal, and Ahinoam of Jezreel, to be his 
 wives ; and continues the fugitive life he had been so long 
 constrained to adopt for his safety. Years pass away, and 
 with them a multitude of transactions foreign to the sub- 
 ject I have now before me. Saul however is slain ; but a 
 formidable faction of his friends, and the friends of his 
 house, still survives. Abner, the late monarch's captain, 
 and Ish-bosheth, his son and successor in the kingdom of 
 Israel, put themselves at its head. But David waxing 
 stronger every day, and a feud having sprung up between 
 the prince and this his officer, overtures of submission are 
 made and accepted, of which the following is the substance : 
 " And Abner sent messengers to David on his behalf, say- 
 ing, Whose is the land ? saying, also, Make thy league 
 with me, and behold, my hand shall be with thee to bring 
 about all Israel unto thee. And he said, Well, I will make 
 a league with thee ; but one thing I require of thee that 
 is, Thou shalt not see my face, except thou first bring Mi- 
 chal, Saul's daughter, when thou comest to see my face. 
 And David sent messengers to Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, say- 
 ing, Deliver me my wife Michal, whom I espoused to me. 
 And Ish-bosheth sent and took her from her husband, even 
 from Phaltiel the eon of Laish. And her husband went 
 
 1 1 Sam. xix. 12. 
 
132 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 with her along, weeping behind her to Bahurim. Then 
 said Abner unto him, Go, return ; and he returned." 1 It 
 is probable, therefore, that Michal and Phaltiel parted very 
 reluctantly. She had evidently gained his affections ; he, 
 most likely, had won hers : and in the meantime she had 
 been supplanted, (so at least she might think,) in David's 
 house and heart, by Abigail and Ahinoam. These were 
 not propitious circumstances, under which to return to 
 the husband of her youth. The effect, indeed, they were 
 likely to have upon her conduct is not even hinted at in the 
 remotest degree in the narrative ; but they supply us, how- 
 ever, incidentally with the link that couples Michal in her 
 first character, with Michal in her second and later charac- 
 ter ; for the difference between them is marked, though it 
 might escape us on a superficial glance ; and if our atten- 
 tion did not happen to be arrested by the events of the in- 
 terval, it would almost infallibly escape us. The last act 
 then, in which we left Michal engaged, was one of loyal 
 attachment to David saving his life, probably at great 
 risk of her own ; for Saul had actually attempted to put 
 Jonathan his son to death for David's sake, and why 
 should he spare Michal his daughter ? 2 Her subsequent 
 marriage with Phaltiel was Saul's business ; it might, or 
 might not, be with her consent : an act of conjugal devo- 
 tion to David was the last scene in which she was, to 
 our knowledge, a voluntary actor. Now let us mark the 
 ne xt, not the next event recorded in order, for we lose 
 sight of Michal for a season, but the next in which she 
 is a party concerned ; at the same time remembering that 
 the Books of Samuel do not offer the slightest explanation 
 of the contrast which her former and latter self present, or 
 the least allusion to the change. David brings the Ark 
 
 2 Sam. iii. 1216. * 1 Sam. zx. 33. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 133 
 
 from Kirjath-jearim, where it had been abiding since it was 
 recovered from the Philistines, to his own city. He dances 
 before it, girded with the priestly or prophetical vest, the 
 linen ephod, and probably chanting his own noV le 1 ymn, 
 " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! and be ye L. t up, ye 
 everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in !" 1 
 Michal, in that hour, no doubt, felt and reflected the joy of 
 her husband ! She had shared with him the day of ad- 
 versity she was now called to be partaker of his triumph ! 
 How read we ? The reverse of all this. " Then did Mi- 
 chal, Saul's daughter, look through a window, and saw 
 king David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she 
 despised him in her heart."* Nor did she confine her- 
 self to contemptuous silence : for when he had now set up 
 the Ark in the midst of the tabernacle, and had blessed 
 the people, he came unto his own household prepared, in 
 the joy and devotion of the moment, to bless that also. 
 How then is he received by the wife wb*ii he had twice 
 won at the hazard of his own life, and w ho had in return 
 shown herself heretofore ready to sacrifice her own safety 
 for his preservation ? Thus it was. " Michal carne out to 
 meet him, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel 
 to-day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants ! as 
 one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself." 
 Here was a burst of ill temper, which rather made an oc- 
 casion for showing itself, than sought one. Accordingly, 
 David replies with spirit, and with a righteous zeal for the 
 honor of God, not without an allusion (as I think) to the 
 secret, but true cause of this splenetic attack, " It was be- 
 fore the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and be- 
 fore all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of 
 the Lord, over Israel : therefore will I play before the Lord. 
 
 i Psalm xxiv. 7. a 2 Sam. vi. 76. 
 
134 
 
 THE VERACI'l f OF THE PART II. 
 
 And I will yet be more vile tban this, and will be base in 
 mine own sight ; and of the maid-servants which, thou 
 hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honor. /l In 
 these handmaids or maid-servants, which are so promi- 
 nently set forth, I recognize, if I mistake not, Abigail and 
 Ahinoam, the rivals of Michal ; and the very pointed re- 
 buke which the insinuation provokes from David, appears 
 to me to indicate, that (whatever she might affect) he felt 
 that the gravamen of her pretended concern for his debase- 
 ment did, in truth, rest here. And may I not add, that the 
 winding up of this singular incident, " Therefore Michalj 
 the daughter of Saul, had no child unto the day of hei 
 death," well accords with my suspicions ; and that whether 
 it be hereby meant that God judged her, or that David di- 
 vorced her, there is still something in the nature of her 
 punishment appropriate to the nature of her transgres- 
 sion? 
 
 On the whole, Michal is now no longer what Michal 
 was but she is precisely what, from the new position in 
 which she stands, we might expect her to be. Yet it is by 
 the merest glimpses of the history of David and her own, 
 that we are enabled to account for the change. The 
 fact is not formally explained ; it is not even formally as- 
 serted. All that appears, is a marked inconsistency in the 
 conduct of Michal, at two different points of time ; and 
 when we look about for an explar* tion, we perceive in the 
 corresponding fortunes of D? .d as compared with her 
 own during the interval, a * ,y natural, though after all 
 only a conjectural, explanation. 
 
 Herein, I again repeat, are the characters of truth, 
 incidents dropping into their places without care or contri- 
 vance, the fragments of an imperfect figure recovered out 
 
 - 2 Sam. vi. 21, 22. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES 
 
 of a mass of material, and found to be still its componen* 
 parts, however they might not seem such when individu 
 ally examined. 
 
 And here let me remark, (for I have been unwilling tc 
 interrupt my argument for the purpose of collateral expla- 
 nation, and yet without it I may be thought to have pur- 
 chased the evidence at some expense of the moral,) that 
 the practice of polygamy, which was not from the begin- 
 ning, but which Lamech first adopted, probably in the 
 hope of multiplying his issue, and so possessing himself 
 of that ** seed," which was now the "desire of the nations," 
 a desire which serves as a key (the only satisfactory 
 one, I think) to much of the conduct of the Patriarchs, 
 the practice of polygamy, I say, thus introduced, continued, 
 in David's time, not positively condemned ; Moses having 
 been only commissioned to regulate some of the abuses to 
 which it led ; and though his writing of divorcement 
 must be considered as making allowance for the hardness 
 of heart of those for whom he was legislating, (our Lord 
 himself so considers it,) a hardness of heart confirmed by 
 a long and slavish residence in a most polluted land ; still 
 that writing, lax as it might be, was no doubt, in itself a 
 restrictive law, as matters then stood. The provisions of 
 the Levitical code in general, and the extremely gross 
 state of society they argue, prove that it must have been a 
 restrictive law, an improvement upon past practices at 
 least. And when the times of the Gospel approached, and 
 a better dispensation began to dawn, the Almighty pre- 
 pared the world, by the mouth of a Prophet, to expect 
 those restrictions to be drawn closer, Malachi being com - 
 manded to proclaim what had not been proclaimed before, 
 that God " hated putting ^iway." 2 And when at length 
 
 i Matt. xix. 8. On thb subject, see Origen, Ep. ad African. $ 8. 
 a Mai. ii. 16. 
 
136 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II. 
 
 mankind were ripe for a more wholesome decree, Christ 
 himself pronounced it, and thenceforward, " A man was 
 to cleave unto his wife," and " they twain were to be one 
 flesh," and by none were they " to be put asunder, God 
 having joined them together." 1 A progressive scheme this 
 agreeable to that general plan by which the Almighty 
 seems to be almost always guided in his government 
 the development of that same principle by which the law 
 against murder was passed for an age that was full of vio- 
 lence ; and was afterwards sublimed into a law against 
 malice : by which the law against adultery was provided 
 for a carnal and grovelling generation ; and was after- 
 wards refined into a law against concupiscence : by which 
 the law of strict retaliation, and no more, eye for eye, and 
 tooth for tooth a law, low and ungenerous as it may 
 now be thought, nevertheless in advance of the people for 
 whom it was enacted, and better than the law of the 
 strongest afterwards gave place to that other and nobler 
 law, " resist not evil." And it may be observed, that the 
 very case of divorce, (and polygamy is closely connected 
 with it,) is actually in the contemplation of our Lord, when 
 he is thus exhibiting to the Jews the more elevated stand- 
 ard of Christian morals, and is ever contrasting, as he pro- 
 ceeds, v{ It was said by them of old time," with his own 
 more excellent way, "but I say unto you ;" as if in times 
 past, according to the words of the Apostle, " God suffered 
 nations to walk in their own ways," 2 for some wise pur- 
 pose, and for a while "winked at that ignorance." 3 
 
 * Mark x. 7; 2 Cor. xi. 2. 2 Acts xiv. 16. Ibid. xvii. 30, 
 
 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 1?T 
 
 VIII. 
 
 BUT there is another circumstance connected with this 
 removal of the Ark of God to Jerusalem, which bespeaks, 
 like the last, the fidelity with which the tale is told. It 
 was the intention of David to have conveyed this emblem 
 of God's presence with his people from Kirjath-jearim 
 (from Ephratah, where they found it in the wood) 3 at once 
 to his own city. An incident, however, of which I shall 
 presently speak, occurred to shake his purpose and change 
 his plan. " So David,' 1 we read upon this, " would not re- 
 move the Ark of the Lord unto him into the city of David ; 
 but David carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom, 
 the Grittite"* Now what regulated David in choosing 
 the house of Obed-Edom as a resting-place for the Ark 1 
 Was it an affair of mere chance 1 It might be so ; no 
 motive whatever, for the selection of his house above that 
 of another man, is assigned but this we are taught, that 
 " when the cart which bare the Ark came to Nachor's 
 threshing-floor, Uzzah put forth his hand and took hold 
 of it, for the oxen shook it; and the anger of the 
 Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him 
 there for his error, and he died by the Ark of God." 3 It 
 had been commanded, as we find in the seventh chapter 
 of the Book of Numbers, (v. 9,) that the Ark should be 
 borne on the shoulders of the Levites David, however, 
 had placed it in a cart after the fashion of the Philistines' 
 idols, and had neglected the Levitical precept. The sud- 
 den death of Uzzah, and the nature of his offence, alarms 
 him, sets him to think, reminds him of his neglect, and he 
 
 i Pa. cxxxii. 6. 22 Sam. vi. 10. 3 ibid. vi. G 
 
 12* 
 
138 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II. 
 
 turns to the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite. The epi- 
 thet here so incidentally annnexed to the name of Obed- 
 Edom, enables us to answer the question, wherefore David 
 chose the house of this man, with some probability of be- 
 ing" right in our conjecture. For we learn from the Book 
 of Joshua, that Gath (distinguished from other towns of 
 the same name, by the addition of Rimmon) 1 was one of 
 the cities of the Levites ; nor of the Levites only, but of 
 the KohathiteS) (v. 20,) the very family specially set apart 
 from the Levites, that " they should bear the Ark upon 
 their shoulders." 2 If, therefore, Obed-Edom was called 
 the Gittite, from this Gath, as he doubtless was so called 
 from some Gath or other, then must he have been a Le- 
 vite ; and more than this actually a Kohathite ; so that he 
 would be strictly in his office when keeping the Ark ; and 
 because he was so, he was selected ; David causing the 
 Ark to be " carried aside," or out of the direct road, (for 
 that is the force of the expression,) 3 precisely for the pur- 
 pose of depositing it with a man of an order, and of a pe- 
 culiar division of that order, which God had chosen for 
 his Ark-bearers. Accordingly, we read in the fifteenth 
 chapter of the first book of Chronicles, where a fuller ac- 
 count, in some particulars, is given, than in the parallel 
 passage of Samuel, of the final removal of the Ark, from 
 under the roof of Obed-Edom to Jerusalem, that the pro- 
 feme cart was no longer employed on this occasion, but 
 the more reverential mode of conveyance, and that which 
 the law enjoined, was now strictly adopted in its stead ; 
 (v. 15 ;) and moreover that Obed-Edom was appointed to 
 take an active part in the ceremonial, (v. 18. 24.) 
 
 This I look upon as a coincidence of some value (sup- 
 
 i Joshua xxi. 24. 2 Numb. vii. 9. 
 
 3 See Numb. xx. 17. where the same Hebrew word is used, and xxii. 93. 
 
PART n. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 139 
 
 posing it, of course, to be fairly made out) of some value, 
 I iuean, even independently of its general bearing upon 
 the credibility of Scripture ; for it is a touch of truth in 
 the circumstantial details of an event which is in its nature 
 miraculous. This it establishes as a fact, that, for some 
 reason or other, David went out of his way to deposit the 
 Ark with an individual of a family whose particular pro- 
 vince it was to serve and bear the Ark. This, I say, is 
 established by the coincidence as a fact and here, taking 
 my stand with substantial ground under my feet, I can 
 with safety, and without violence, gradually feel my way 
 along through the inconvenience which prompted this de- 
 viation from the direct path ; this change in the mode of 
 conveyance; this sudden reverence for the laws of the 
 Ark ; even up to the disaster which befell the rash and un- 
 consecrated Uzzah, and the caution and alarm it inspired, 
 as being a manifest interposition of God for the vindica 
 tion of his honor ; and when I find the apparently trivial 
 appellation of the Gittite, thus pleading for the reality of 
 a marvellous act of the Almighty, I am reminded how 
 carefully we should gather up every word of Scripture that 
 nothing be lost ; and I am led to contemplate the precau- 
 tions, the superstitious precautions of the Rabbins, if you 
 will, that one jot or one tittle may not be suffered to pass 
 from the text of the law, not without respect, as if its every 
 letter might contain some hidden treasure, some unsus- 
 pected fount, from which virtue might happily go out for 
 evidence, for doctrine, or for duty. 
 
 IX. 
 
 are now arrived a: another incident in the history 
 of David for I must still call your attention to the me- 
 
140 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 moirs of that extraordinary person, as exhibiting marks cJ 
 truth and reality, numerous perhaps beyond those which 
 any other character of the same antiquity presents an in- 
 cident which has been accounted, and most justly, ac- 
 counted, the reproach of his life. The province which I 
 have marked out for myself in this work, is the evidence 
 for the veracity of the sacred historians, and not the inter- 
 pretation of the moral difficulties which the history itself 
 may sometimes involve. In the present instance, however, 
 the very coincidence which establishes the trustworthiness 
 of the history, may serve also to remove some stumbling- 
 blocks out of the sceptic's path, and vindicate the ways of 
 God to man. 
 
 That the man after God's own heart should have so 
 fallen from his high estate, as to become the adulterer and 
 the assassin, has been ever urged with great effect by un- 
 believers ; and this very consequence of David's sin was 
 foreseen and foretold by Nathan the prophet, when he ap- 
 proached the king, bearing with him the rebuke of God on 
 his tongue, and saying, " By this deed thou hast given 
 great occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme." 
 Such has indeed been its effect from the day when it was 
 first done unto this day, and such probably will its effect 
 continue to be unto the end of time. David's transgres- 
 sion, committed almost three thousand years ago, sheds, 
 in some sort, an evil influence on the cause of David's 
 God even now. So wide-wasting is the mischief which 
 flows from the lapse of a righteous man ; so great the dark- 
 ness becomes, when the light that is amongst us is dark- 
 ness ! But was David the man after God's own heart 
 here? It were blasphemy to suppose it. That the sin 
 of David was fulfilling some righteous judgment of God 
 against Uriah and his house, I doubt not for God often 
 makes hh enemies his instruments, and without sanctify- 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES; 141 
 
 ing the means, strikes out of them good. Still a sin it was, 
 great and grievous, offensive to that God to whom the 
 blood of Uriah cried from the ground. And this the Al- 
 mighty proclaimed even more loudly perhaps by suffering 
 David to live, than if, in the sudden burst of his instant 
 displeasure, he had slain him. For, at the period when 
 the king of Israel fell under this sad temptation, he was at 
 the very height of his glory and his strength. The king- 
 dom of Israel had never so flourished before ; it was the 
 first of the nations. He had thoroughly subdued the Phil- 
 istines, that mighty people, who in his youth had com- 
 pelled all the Israelites to come down to their quarters, 
 even to sharpen their mattocks, so rigid was the exercise 
 of their rule. He had smitten the Moabites, on the other 
 side Jordan, once themselves the oppressors of Israel, mak- 
 ing them tributaries. He had subdued the Edomites, a 
 race that delighted in war ; and had stationed his troops 
 throughout all their territories. He had possessed himself 
 of the independent kingdom of the Syrians, and garrisoned 
 Damascus, their capital. He had extended his frontier 
 eastward to the Euphrates, 1 though never perhaps beyond 
 it ; 2 and he was on the point of reducing the Ammonites, 
 whose city, Rabbah, his generals were besieging ; and thus, 
 the whole of the promised land, with the exception of the 
 small state of Tyre, which the Israelites never appear to 
 have conquered, was now his own. Prosperity, perhaps, 
 had blinded his eyes, and hardened his heart. The treas- 
 ures which he had amassed, and the ease which he had 
 fought for and won, had made him luxurious ; for now it 
 was, that the once innocent son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, 
 he who had been taken from the sheep-folds because an 
 excellent spirit was in him, and who had hitherto pros- 
 
 2 Sam. viii. See Ezra iv. 20. 
 
142 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 pered in all that he had set his hand unto, it was now that 
 thii man was tempted and fell. And now mark the re- 
 mainder of his days God eventually forgave him, for he 
 repented him (as his penitential psalms still most affect 
 ingly attest), in the bitterness and anguish of his soul , 
 but God dried up all the sources of his earthly blessings 
 thenceforward forever. With this sin the sorrow of his 
 life began, and the curse which the prophet denounced 
 against him, sat heavy on his spirit to the last ; a curse 
 and I beg attention to this which has a peculiar reference 
 to the nature of his crime ; as though upon this offence 
 all his future miseries and misfortunes were to turn ; as 
 though he was only spared from the avenger's violent hand 
 to be made a spectacle of righteous suffering to the world. 
 He had committed murder by the edge of the sword, and 
 therefore the sword was never to depart from his house. 
 He had despised the commandment of the Lord (so Nathan 
 expressly says), and taken the wife of another to be his 
 wife ; therefore were his own wives to be taken from him, 
 and given to his neighbor in turn. The complexion, 
 therefore, of his remaining years, was set by this one fatal 
 deed of darkness, (let none think or say that it was lightly 
 regarded by the Almighty,) and having become the man 
 of blood, of blood he was to drink deep ; and having be- 
 come the man of lust, by that same baneful passion in 
 others was he himself to be scourged forever. Now the 
 manner in which these tremendous threats are fulfilled is 
 very remarkable ; for it is done by way of natural conse- 
 quence of the sin itself ; a dispensation which I have not 
 seen developed as it deserves to be, though the facts of the 
 history furnish very striking materials for the purpose. 
 And herein lies the coincidence, to which the remarks I 
 have hitherto been making are a needful prologue. 
 
 By the rebellion of Absalom it was that these menaces 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 143 
 
 of the Almighty Judge of all the earth were accomplished 
 with a fearful fidelity. 
 
 Absalom was able to draw after him the hearts of all the 
 people as one man. And what was it that armed him 
 with this moral strength ? What was it that gave him 
 the means of unseating his father in the affections of a 
 loyal people ? The king whom they had so greatly loved 
 who had raised the name of Israel to a pitch of glory 
 never attained unto before whose praises had been sung 
 by the mothers and maidens of Israel, as the champion to 
 whom none other was like ? How could he steal away 
 the hearts of the people from such a man, with so little 
 effort, and apparently with so little reason ? I believe that 
 this very sin of David was made the engine by which his 
 throne was shaken ; for I observe that the chief instrument 
 in the conspiracy was Ahithophel. No sooner was Absa- 
 lom determined upon his daring deed, than he looks to 
 Ahithophel for help. He appears, for some reason or other 
 not mentioned, to have quite reckoned upon him as well- 
 affected to his cause, as ready to join him in it heart and 
 hand ; and he did not find himself mistaken. " Absalom," 
 I read, 1 " sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's coun- 
 sellor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered sac- 
 rifices and tl.e conspiracy," (it is forthwith added, as 
 though Ahitnophel was a host in himself, ) " was strong ; 
 for the people increased continually with Absalom." David, 
 upon this, takes alarm, and makes it the subject of his 
 earnest prayer to God, that " he would turn the counsel of 
 Ahithophel into foolishness." Nor is this to be wondered 
 at, when we are told in another place that " the counsel 
 of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as 
 if a man had inquired at the oracle of God : so was all 
 
 i 2 Sam. xv. 12. 
 
144 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II. 
 
 the counsel of Ahithophel, both with David and with Ab- 
 salom." 1 He therefore was the sinews of Absalom's cause. 
 Of his character, and the influence which he possessed 
 over the people, Absalom availed himself, both to sink the 
 spirits of David's party, and to inspire his own with confi- 
 dence, for all men counted Ahithophel to be as a prophet. 
 But independently of the weight of his public reputation, 
 it is probable that certain private wrongs of his own, (of 
 which I have now to speak,) at once prepared him for ac- 
 cepting Absalom's rebellious overtures with alacrity, and 
 caused him to find still greater favor in the eyes of the 
 people, as being an injured man, whom it was fit that they 
 should avenge of his adversary. For in the twenty-third 
 chapter of the second Book of Samuel, I find in the cata- 
 logue of David's guardsmen, thirty-seven in number, the 
 name of " Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite" (v. 
 34.) The epithet of Gilonite sufficiently identifies this 
 Ahithophel with the conspirator of the same name. One, 
 therefore, of the thirty-seven officers about David's person, 
 was a son of the future conspirator against his throne. 
 But, in this same catalogue, I also meet with the name of 
 Uriah the Hittite (v. 39). Eliam. therefore, and Uriah 
 must have been thrown much together, being both of the 
 same rank, and being each one of the thirty-seven officers 
 of the king's guard. Now, from the eleventh chapter of 
 the second Book of Samuel, I learn that Uriah the Hittite 
 had for his wife Bath-sheba, the daughter of one Eliam 
 (v. 3). I look upon it, therefore, to be so probable, as al- 
 most to amount to certainty, that this was the same Eliam 
 as before, and that Uriah (as was very natural, considering 
 the necessary intercourse of the parties) had married the 
 daughter of his brother officer, and accordingly, the grand- 
 
 i 2 Sam. xvi. 23. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 145 
 
 daughter of AhithopheL I feel that I now have the key to the 
 conduct of this leading conspirator ; the sage and prudent friend 
 of David converted, by some means or other, into his deadly foe 
 for I now perceive, that when David murdered Uriah, he murder- 
 ed AhithophePs grandson by marriage, and when he corrupted 
 Bath-sheba, he corrupted his grandmother by blood. Well then, 
 after this disaster and dishonor of his house, might revenge rankle 
 in the heart of Ahithophel ! Well might Absalom know that 
 nothing but a fit opportunity was wanted by him, that he might 
 give it vent, and spend his treasured wrath upon the head of 
 David his wrong-doer ! Well might he approach him with con- 
 fidence, and impart to him his treason, as a man who would wel- 
 come the news, and be his present and powerful fellow-worker ! 
 Well might the people who, upon an appeal like this, seldom fail 
 to follow the dictates of their better feelings, and to stand man- 
 fully by the injured, find their allegiance to a throne defiled with 
 adultery and blood, relaxed, and their loyalty transferred to the 
 rebel's side! And the terms in which Shimei reproaches the 
 king, when he follows after him to Bahurim, casting stones at him, 
 not improbably as expressive of the legal punishment of the 
 adulterer, " Come out, come out, thou bloody man, thou man of 
 Belial y" 1 and the meekness moreover with which David bows to 
 the reproach, accepting it as a merited chastisement from God. 
 " So let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse 
 David ;" (v. 20,) are minute incidents which testify to the same fact . 
 to the popular voice now lifted up against David, and to the merited - 
 cause thereof. Well might his heart sink within him, when he 
 heard that his ancient counsellor had joined the ranks of his enemies,- 
 
 1 2 Sam. xvi. 7, 
 13 
 
146 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IT. 
 
 and when he knew but too well what reason he had given 
 him for turning his arms against himself in that unmiti- 
 gated and inextinguishable thirst for vengeance which is. 
 sweet, however utterly unjustifiable, to all men so deeply 
 injured, and sweetest of all to the children of the East ! 
 And in the very first word of exhortation which Ahithophel 
 suggests to Absalom, I detect, or think 1 detect, the wound- 
 ed spirit of the man seizing the earliest moment for inflict 
 ing a punishment upon his enemy, ol a kind that should 
 not only be bitter, but appropriate- the eye for the eye ; 
 and when Absalom said, " Give counsel among you what 
 we shall do," and Ahithophel answered, " Go in unto thy 
 father's concubines which he hath left to keep the house," 1 
 he was not only moved by the desire that the rebellious 
 son should stand fairly committed to his rebellion by an 
 unpardonable outrage against the majesty of an eastern 
 monarch, but by the desire also to make David taste the 
 bitterness of that cup which he had caused others to drink, 
 and to receive the very measure which he had himself 
 meted withal. And so it came to pass, that Absalom fol- 
 lowed his counsel, and they spread for him the incestuous 
 tent, we read, on the top of the house, in the sight of all 
 Israel, 2 on that very roof, it should seem, on which David 
 at even- tide had walked, when he conceived this his great 
 sin, upon which his life was to turn as upon a hinge ; 3 and 
 so again it came to pass, and under circumstances of local 
 identity and exposure which wear the aspect of strictly judicial 
 reprisals, that that which he had done secretly (his abduction of 
 another man's wife), God did for him, and more also, as he said 
 lie would, before all Israel, and before the sun.* 
 
 Thus, having once discovered by the apposition of many 
 
 2 Sam. xvi. 21 2 Ib. xvi. 22. Ib. xi. 2. 4 Ib. xii. 12 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 147 
 
 massages, that a relation subsisted between Ahithophel 
 and Uriah, a fact which the sacred historian is so far from 
 dwelling upon that he barely supplies us with the means 
 to establish it at all, we see in the circumstances of the 
 conspiracy, the natural recoil of David's sin ; and in his 
 punishment, retributive as it is, so strictly retributive, that 
 it must have stricken his conscience as a judgment, even 
 had there been no warning voice concerning it, the accom- 
 plishment by means the most easy and unconstrained, of 
 all that Nathan had uttered, to the syllable. 
 
 X. 
 
 THERE is another incident connected with this part of 
 the history of David, which I have pondered, alternately 
 accepting and rejecting it, as still further corroborating 
 the opinion I have expressed, that the fortunes of David 
 Turned upon this one sin that having mounted to their 
 high mark, they henceforward began, and continued to 
 ebb away this one sin which, according to Scripture, 
 itself eclipsed every other. For though it would not be 
 difficult to name sundry instances of ignorance, of negli- 
 gence, of inconsideration, of infirmity in the life of David 
 besides this, it is nevertheless said, that "he did that 
 which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not 
 aside in anything that he commanded him all the days of 
 his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite" 1 
 1 propose, however, this coincidence for the reason I have 
 said, not without some hesitation ; though at the same 
 time, quite without concern for the safety of my cause, it 
 being, as I observed in the beginning of this work, a very 
 
 i 1 Kings TV. 5. See Sanderson, Serm. iv. ad Aulam, p. 79, IbL 
 
148 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 valuable property of the argument by which I am endeav- 
 oring to establish the credibility of Scripture, that any 
 member of it, if unsound or unsatisfactory, may be de- 
 tached without further injury to the whole, than the mere 
 loss of that member entails. 
 
 This, therefore, I perceive, or think I perceive, that 
 David became throughly encumbered by his connection 
 with Joab, the captain of his armies ; that he was too 
 suspicious to trust him, and too weak to dismiss him ; that 
 this officer, by some chance or other, had established a 
 despotic control over the king ; and that it is not unrea- 
 sonable to believe (and here lies the coincidence), that 
 wnen David made him the partner and secret agent of 
 his guilty purpose touching Uriah, he sold himself into 
 his hands ; that in that fatal letter he sealed away his 
 liberty, and surrendered it up to this his unscrupulous 
 accomplice. Certain it is, that during all the latter years 
 of his reign, David was little more than a nominal king. 
 
 Joab, no doubt, was by nature a man that could do and 
 dare a bold captain in bad times. The faction of Saul 
 was so strong, that David could at first scarcely call the 
 throne his own, or choose his servants according to his 
 pleasure ; and Joab, an able warrior, though sometimes 
 avenging his own private quarrels at the expense of his 
 sovereign's honor, and thereby vexing him at the heart, 
 was not to be displaced ; he was then too hard for David, 
 as the king himself complains. 1 But as yet, David was 
 not tongue-tied at least. He openly, and without reserve, 
 reprobated the conduct of Joab in slaying Abner, though 
 he had the excuse, such as it was, of taking away the life 
 o f -AS man by whose hand his brother Asahel had fallen. 
 Moreover, he so far asserted his own authority, as to make 
 
 i 2 Sam. Hi. 39. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 149 
 
 him rend his clothes, and gird him with sackcloth, and 
 mourn before this very Abner, whom he had thus vindic- 
 tively laid low ; doubtless a bitter and mortifying penance 
 to a man of the stout heart of Joab, and such as argued 
 David, who insisted upon it, to be as yet in his own do- 
 minions supreme. Circumstances might constrain him 
 still to employ this famous captain, but he had not at least 
 (young as his, authority then was) yielded himself up to 
 his imperious subject. On the contrary, waxing stronger 
 as he did, every day, and the remnant of Saul's party dis- 
 persed, he became the king of Israel in fact, as well as in 
 name ; his throne established not only upon law, but upon 
 public opinion too, so that " whatever the king did," we 
 are told, " pleased all the people." 1 He was now in a con- 
 dition to rule for himself, and for himself he did rule 
 (whatever had become of Joab in the mean season) ; for 
 we presently find him appointing that officer to the com- 
 mand of his army by his own act and deed, simply be- 
 cause he happened to be the man to win that rank 
 when it was proposed by David as the prize of battle 
 to any individual of his whole host, who should first 
 get up the gutter and smite the Jebusites at the storm- 
 ing of Zion. 2 And whoever will peruse the eighth and 
 tenth chapters of the second Book of Samuel, in which 
 are recorded the noble achievements of David at this 
 bright period of his life, his power abroad and his policy 
 at home, the energy which he threw into the national 
 character, and the respect which he commanded for it 
 throughout all the East, will perceive that he reigned 
 without a restraint and without a rival. Now comes the 
 guilty act; the fatal stumbling-block against which he 
 dashed his foot, and fell so pernicious a height. And 
 
 i 2 Sam. iii. 36. * Ib. r. 8 ; 1 Chron. xi. 6. 
 
 13* 
 
150 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 hencefor wards I see, or imagine I see, Joab usurping by 
 degress an authority which he had not before; taking 
 upon himself too much ; executing or disregarding David's 
 orders, as it suited his own convenience ; and finally con- 
 spiring against his throne and the rightful succession of 
 his line. Again ; I perceive, if I mistake not, the hands 
 of David tied ; his efforts to disembarrass himself of his 
 oppressor, feeble and ineffectual: his resentment set at 
 nought; his punishments, though just, resisted by his 
 own subject, and successfully resisted. For I find Joab 
 suggesting to David the recall of Absalom after his ban- 
 ishment, tnrough the widow of Tekoah, in a manner to 
 excite the suspicion of the king. 1 " Is not the hand of 
 Joab with thee in all this ?" were words in which probably 
 more was meant than met the ear. It is not unlikely 
 (though the passage is altogether mysterious and obscure) 
 that there was then some secret understanding between 
 the soldier and the future rebel, which was only inter- 
 rupted by the impetuosity of Absalom, who resented Joab's 
 delay, and set fire to his barley ; 2 an injury which he 
 must have had some reason to feel Joab durst not resent, 
 and which, in fact, even in spite of the fury of his natural 
 character, he did not resent. Howbeit, he remembered it 
 in the rebellion which now broke out, and took his per- 
 sonal revenge whilst he was professedly fighting the battle 
 of David, to whom his interest or his passion decided him 
 for this time to be true. " Deal gently for my sake with the 
 young man, even with Absalom," was the parting charge 
 which the king gave to this dangerous champion as he 
 went forth with the host ; in the hearing of all the people 
 he gave it, and to all the captains who were with him. It- 
 was the thing nearest his heart. For here it may be ob- 
 
 3 Sam. tfv. 19. * Ib. xiv. 30. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 151 
 
 served, that David's strong parental feelings, of wh'ch w 
 have many occasional glimpses, give an identity to livs 
 character, which, in itself, marks it to be a real one. The 
 fear of the servants to tell him that his infant was dead ; l 
 the advice of Jonadab, " a subtle man," who had read Da- 
 vid's disposition right, to Amnon, to feign himself sick, 
 that " when his father came to see him" he might prefer 
 to him his request ; 2 his " weeping so sore" for the death 
 of this son, and then again, his anguish subsided, < ; his 
 soul longing to go forth" to the other son who had slain 
 him ; 3 the little trait which escapes in the history of Adon- 
 ijah's rebellion, another of his children, that " his father 
 had not displeased him at any time, in saying, Why hast 
 thou done so ?" 4 are all evidently features of one and the 
 same individual. So these last instructions to his officers 
 touching the safety of Absalom, even when he was in arms 
 against him, are still uttered in the same spirit ; a spirit 
 which seems, even at this moment, far more engrossed with 
 the care of his child than with the event of his battle. " Deal 
 gently for my sake with Absalom." Joab heard, indeed, 
 but heeded not ; he had lost all reverence for the king's 
 commands ; nothing could be more deliberate than his in- 
 fraction of this one, probably the most imperative whick 
 had ever been laid upon him : it was not in the fury of 
 the fight that he forgot the commission of mercy, and cut 
 down the young man with whom he was importuned to 
 deal tenderly ; but as he was hanging in a tree, helpless 
 and hopeless ; himself directed to the spot by the steps of 
 another ; in cold blood ; but remembering perhaps his 
 barley, and more of which we know not, and caring noth- 
 ing for a king whose guilty secret he had shared, h-s 
 thrust him through the heart with his three darts, nr* 
 
 1 2 Sam. xii. 18. * "> xiii. 5. Ib. xiii. 36. < 1 Kings i. 6. 
 
152 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 then made In* way, with countenance unabashed, into the 
 chamber of his royal master, where he was weeping and 
 mourning for Absalom. 
 
 The bitterness of death must have been nothing to Da- 
 vid, compared with the feelings of that hour when his con- 
 science smote him, (as it doubtless did) with the complicated 
 trouble and humiliation into which his deed of lust and 
 blood had thus sunk him down. The rebellion itself, the 
 fruit of it, (as I hold ;) the audacious disobedience of Joab 
 to the moving entreaties of the parent, that his favorite 
 son's life might be spared, rebel as he was. felt to be the 
 fruit of that sin too ; for by that sin it was that he had de- 
 livered himself and his character bound hand and foot, to 
 the tender mercies of Joab, who had no touch of pity in 
 him. The sequel is of a piece with the opening ; Joab 
 imperious, and David, the once high-minded David, abject 
 in spirit and tame to the lash. " Thou hast shamed this 
 day the face of all thy servants. Arise, go forth, and speak 
 comfortably to thy servants ; for I swear by the Lord, if 
 thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this 
 night : and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil 
 that befell thee from thy youth up until now." 1 The pas- 
 sive king yields to the menace, for what can he do? and 
 with a cheerful countenance and a broken heart obeys the 
 commands of his subject, and sits in the gate. But this is 
 not all. David now sends a message to Amasa, a kinsman 
 whom Absalom had set over his rebel army ; it is a propo- 
 sal, perhaps a secret proposal, to make him captain over his 
 host in the room of Joab. The measure might be dictated 
 at once by "jolicy, Amasa being now the leader of a pow- 
 erful par\/ J ^iiorn David had to win, and by disgust at the 
 re ^nt pe-lii!y of Joab, and a determination to break away 
 
 1 2 Sam. xix. 7. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 153 
 
 from him at whatever cost. Amasa accepts the offer ; but 
 tfi thf very first military enterprise on which he is dis- 
 patched, Joab accosts him with the friendly salutation of 
 the East, and availing himself of the unguarded moment, 
 draws a sword from under his garment, smites him under 
 the fifth rib, and leaves him a bloody corpse in the high- 
 way. Then he calmly takes upon himself to execute the 
 commission with which Amasa had been charged ; and 
 this done, " he returns to Jerusalem," we read, " unto the 
 king," and once more he is " over all the host of Israel." 
 
 It is needless to point out how extreme a helplessness on 
 the part of David this whole transaction indicates. Here 
 is the general of his own choice assassinated in an act of 
 duty by his own subject, his commission usurped by the 
 murderer, and David, once the most popular and powerful of 
 sovereigns, saying not word. The dishonor, indeed, he felt 
 keenly ; felt it to his dying day, and in his very latest 
 breath gave utterance to it ; l but Joab has him in the toils, 
 and extricate himself he cannot. The want of cordiality 
 between them was now manifest enough, however the 
 original cause might be conjectured, rather than known ; 
 and when Adonijah prepares his revolt, for another en- 
 emy now sprang up in David's own house, to Joab he 
 makes his overtures, 2 having observed him, no doubt to be 
 a thorn in the king's side ; nor are the overtures rejected ; 
 and amongst other facts developed in this second conspi- 
 racy, it incidentally appears, that the ordinary dwelling- 
 place of Joab was " in the wilderness ;" 3 as if, suspicious 
 and suspected, a house within the walls of Jerusalem was 
 not the one in which he would venture to lay his head. 
 It is remarkable that this formidable traitor, from whose 
 thraldom David in the flower of his age, and the splendor 
 
 1 Kings ii. 5. a 1 Kings i. 7. Ib. ii. 34. 
 
154 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 of his military renown, could never, we have seen, disen- 
 gage himself, fell at once, and whilst whatever popularity 
 he might have with the army must have been fresh as 
 ever, before the arm of Solomon, a stripling, if not a beard- 
 less boy ; who, taking advantage of a fresh instance of 
 treachery in this hardened adventurer, fearlessly gave com- 
 mand to " fall upon him and bury him, that he might thus 
 take away," as he said, " the innocent blood which Joab 
 shed, from him, and from the house of his father ; when 
 he fell upon two men more righteous and better than him- 
 self, and slew them with the sword, his father David not 
 knowing thereof; to wit, Abner, the son of Ner, captain of 
 the host of Israel, and Amasa, the son of Jether, captain of 
 the host of Judah. 1 But Solomon had as yet a clear con- 
 science, which David had forfeited with respect to Joab ; 
 this it was that armed the youth with a moral courage 
 which his father had once known what it was to have, 
 when he went forth as a shepherd-boy against Goliath, 
 and which he afterwards knew what it was to want, when 
 he crouched before Joab, as a king. So true it is, the 
 " wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous is 
 bold as a lion." 
 
 And now can any say that God winked at *this wicked- 
 ness of his servant ? That the man after his own heart, 
 for such in the main he was, frail as he proved himself, 
 sinned grievously, arid sinned with impunity ! On the 
 contrary, this deed was the pivot upon which David's for- 
 tunes turned ; that done, and he was undone ; then did 
 God raise up enemies against him for it out of his own 
 house, for " the thing," as we are expressly told, " displeased 
 the Lord , ' 2 thenceforward the days of his years became 
 full of evi! and if he lived, (for the Lord caused death to 
 
 Kings, ii. 32. 2 2 Sam 
 
\RT 81. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 155 
 
 vans from himself to the child, by a vicarious dispensation, 1 ) 
 it was to be a king, with more than kingly sorrows, but 
 with little of kingly power ; to be banished by his son ; 
 bearded by his servant ; betrayed by his friends ; deserted 
 by his people ; bereaved of his children ; and to feel all, all 
 these bitter griefs, bound, as it were, by a chain of compli- 
 cated cause and effect, to this one great original transgres- 
 sion. This was surely no escape from the penalty of his 
 crime, though it was still granted him to live and breathe 
 God would not slay even Cain, nor suffer others to slay 
 him, whose punishment, nevertheless, was greater than he 
 could bear but rather it was a lesson to him and to us, 
 how dreadful a thing it is to tempt the Almighty to let 
 loose his plagues upon us, and how r true is he to his word, 
 " Vengeance is mine, I will repay," saith the Lord. 
 
 Meanwhile, by means of -the fall of David, however it 
 may have caused some to blaspheme, God may have also 
 provided in his mercy, that many since David should stand 
 upright ; the frailty of one may have prevented the mis- 
 carriage of thousands ; saints, with his example before their 
 eyes, may have learned to walk humbly, and so to walk 
 surely, when they might otherwise have presumed and per- 
 ished ; and sinners, even the men of the darkest and most 
 deadly sins, may have been saved from utter desperation 
 and self-abandonment, by remembering David and all his 
 trouble ; and that, deep as he was in guilt, he was not so 
 deep but that his bitter cries for mercy, under the remorse 
 and anguish of his spirit, could even yet pierce the ear of 
 an offended God, and move him to put away his sin. 
 
 ' 2 Sam. xii. 13. 
 
156 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 XI. 
 
 MY subject has compelled me to anticipate some of the 
 events of David's history according to the order of time. 
 I must now, therefore, revert to certain incidents in it, 
 which it would before have interrupted my argument to 
 notice, but which are too important as evidences of its cred- 
 ibility, to be altogether overlooked. 
 
 The conspiracy of Absalom being now organized, it only 
 remained to try the issue by force of arms ; and here an- 
 other coincidence presents itself. 
 
 In the seventeenth chapter of the second Book of Sam- 
 uel, we read that " David arose, and all the people that 
 were with him, and they passed over Jordan" (v. 22 ;) and 
 in the same chapter, that " Absalom passed over Jordan, he 
 and all the men of Israel with him" (v. 24 ;) and that 
 " they pitched in the land of Gilead" (v. 26). Now in the 
 next chapter, where an account is given of a review of 
 David's troops, and of their going forth to the fight, it is 
 said, " So the people went out into the field against Israel, 
 and the battle was in the wood of Ephraim" 1 But is 
 not the sacred historian, in this instance, off his guard, and 
 having already placed his combatants on one side of the 
 river, does he not now place his combat on the other ? Is 
 he not mistaken in his geography, and does he not hereby 
 betray himself and the credit of his narrative ? Certain 
 it is, that Absalom had passed over Jordan eastward, and 
 so had David, with their respective followers, pitching in 
 Gilead ; and no less certain it is, that the tribe of Ephraim 
 lay altogether west of Jordan, and had not a foot of ground 
 beyond it : how then was the battle in the wood of Eph- 
 
 i 2 Sam. xvih. 6. 
 
FART I* HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 157 
 
 aim * By any fabulous writer this seeming difficulty 
 would have been avoided, or care would have been taken 
 that, at least, it should be explained. But the Book of 
 Samuel, written by one familiar with the events he de- 
 scribes, and with the scenes in which they occurred ; writ- 
 ten, moreover, in the simplicity of his heart, probably with- 
 out any notion that his veracity could be called in ques- 
 tion, or that he should ever be the subject of suspicious 
 scrutiny, contents itself with stating the naked facts, and 
 then leaves it to the critics to reconcile them as they can. 
 Turn we then to the twelfth chapter of the Book of Judges. 
 There we are told of an attack made by the Ephraimites 
 upon Jephthah, in the land of Gilead, on pretence of a 
 wrong done them when they were not invited by the latter 
 to take part in his successful invasion of Ammon. It was 
 a memorable struggle. Jephthah, indeed, endeavored to 
 soothe the angry assailants by words of peace, but when 
 he spake of peace, they only made themselves ready for 
 battle. Accordingly. " he gathered together all the men 
 of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim.'' Ephraim was dis- 
 comfited with signal slaughter ; those who fell in the ac- 
 tion, and those who were afterwards put to death upon 
 the test of the word Shibboleth, amounting to forty-two 
 thousand men ; almost an extinction of all the fighting 
 men of Ephraim. Now an event so singular, and so san- 
 guinary, was not likely to pass away without a memorial ; 
 and what memorial so natural for the grave of a tribe, as 
 its own name forever assigned to the spot where it fell, 
 the Acaldema of their race ? 
 
 Thus, then, may we account most naturally for a " wood 
 of Ephraim" in the land of Gilead ; a point which would 
 have perplexed us not a little, had the Book of Judges 
 never come down to us ; or, coming down to us, had no 
 mention been made in it of Jephthah's victory ; and though 
 
 14 
 
J5S THE VERACITY OP THE PAPT II. 
 
 we certainly cannot prove that the battle of I/avid and 
 Absalom was fought on precisely the same field as Jiis of 
 Jephthah and the Ephraimites some hundred and twenty 
 years before, yet it is highly probable that this was the 
 case, for both the battles were assuredly in Gilead, and 
 both apparently in that part of Gilead which bordered upon 
 one of the fords of Jordan. 
 
 Thus does a seeming error turn out, on examination, to 
 be an actual pledge of the good faith of the historian ; and 
 the unconcern with which he tells his own tale, in his own 
 way, never pausing to correct, to balance, or adjust, to sup- 
 ply a defect, or to meet an objection, is the conduct of a 
 witness to whom it never occurred that he had anything 
 to conceal, or anything to fear ; or, if it did occur, to whom 
 it was well known that truth is mighty and will prevail. 
 
 XII. 
 
 DAVID having won the battle, and recovered his throne, 
 prepares to repass the Jordan, and return once more to his 
 capital. His friends again congregate around him, for the 
 prosperous have many friends. Amongst them, however, 
 were some who had been true to him in the day of his 
 adversity ; and the aged Barzillai, a Gileadite, who had 
 provided the king with sustenance whilst he lay at Maha- 
 naim, and when his affairs were critical, presents himself 
 before him. He had won David's heart. The king now 
 entreats him to accompany him to his court, " Come thou 
 over with me, and I will feed thee with me in Jerusalem." 
 But the unambitious Barzillai pleads fourscore years as a 
 bar against beginning the life of a courtier, and chooses 
 rather to die in his own city, and be buried by the grave 
 of his father and of his mother. His son, however, had 
 
PAET II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 159 
 
 life before him : " Behold thy servant Chimham, let him 
 go over with my lord and king: and do to him what shall 
 seem good unto thee." And the king answered, Chimham 
 shall go over with me, and I will do to him that which 
 shall seem good unto thee." 1 So he went with the king. 
 Thus begins, and thus ends the history of Chimbam ; he 
 passes away from the scene, and what David did for him, 
 or whether he did anything for him, beyond providing him 
 a place at his table, and recommending him, in common 
 with many others, to Solomon before he died, does not 
 appear. Singular, however, it is, and if ever there was a 
 coincidence which carried with it the stamp of truth, it is 
 this, that in the forty-first chapter of Jeremiah, an histori- 
 cal chapter, in which an account is given of the murder 
 of Gedaliah, the officer whom Nebuchadnezzar had left in 
 charge of Judea, as its governor, when he carried away 
 the more wealthy of its inhabitants captive to Babylon, we 
 read that the Jews, fearing for the consequences of this 
 bloody act. and apprehending the vengeance of the Chal- 
 deans, prepared for a flight into Egypt, so " they departed," 
 the narrative continues, " and dwelt in the habitation of 
 Chimham) which is by Bethlehem, to go to enter into 
 Egypt" (v. 17). It is impossible to imagine anything more 
 incidental than the mention of this estate near Bethlehem, 
 which was the habitation of Chimham yet how well does 
 it tally with the spirit of David's speech to Barzillai, somo 
 four hundred years before ! for what can be more probable 
 than that David, whose birth-place was this very Beth- 
 lehem, and whose patrimony in consequence lay there, 
 having undertaken to provide for Chimham, should have 
 bestowed it in whole, or in part, as the most flattering re- 
 ward he could confer, a personal, as well as a royal, mark 
 
 1 '2 Sam. xix. 37. 
 
160 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II. 
 
 of favor, on the son of the man who had saved his life, and 
 the lives of his followers in the hour of their distress; and 
 that, to that very day, when Jeremiah wrote, it should have 
 remained in the possession of the family of Chimham. and 
 nave been a land called after his own name ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 I PROCEED with the history of David, in which we can 
 scarcely advance a step without having our attention 
 drawn to some new, though perhaps subtle, incident, which 
 marks at once the reality of the facts, and the fidelity of 
 the record. No doubt the surface of the narrative is per- 
 fectly satisfactory : but beneath the surface, there is a cer- 
 tain substratum now appearing, and presently losing itself 
 again, which is the proper field of my inquiry. Here I find the 
 true material of which I am in search ; coincidences shy and 
 unobtrusive, not courting notice as far from it as possible but 
 having chanced to attract it, sustaining not only notice, but 
 scrutiny; such matters as might be over-looked on a cursory 
 perusal of the text a hundred times, and which indeed would 
 stand very little chance of any other fate than neglect, unless the 
 mind of the reader had been previously put upon challenging 
 them as they pass. Therefore it is that I feel often incapable of 
 doing justice to my subject with my readers, however familiar 
 they may be with Holy Writ. The full force of the argument 
 can only be felt by him who pursues it for himself, when he is in 
 his chamber and is still ; his assent taken captive before he is 
 aware of it; his doubts, if any he had, melting away under 
 the continual dropping of minute particles of evidence upon 
 his mind, as it proceeds in its investigation. It is difficult, 
 it is scarcely possible, to impart this sympathy to the reader. 
 
URT II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 161 
 
 And even when I can grasp an incident sufficiently substantial 
 to detach and present to his consideration, I still am conscious 
 that it is not launched to advantage ; that a thousand little 
 preparations are lacking in order that it may leave the slips 
 (if I may venture upon the expression), with a motion that 
 shall make it win its way; that the plunge with which I am 
 compelled to let it fall, provokes a resistance to which it does not 
 deserve to be exposed. I proceed, however, with the history of 
 David, and to a passage in it which has partly suggested these 
 remarks. When Saul in his fury had slain, by the hand of Doeg, 
 Ahimelech, the high-priest, and all the priests of the Lord, " one 
 of the sons of Ahimelech," we read, " named Abiathar, escaped 
 and fled after David." 1 David received him kindly, saying unto 
 him, " Abide thou with me, fear not ; for he that seeketh my life, 
 seeketh thy life ; but with me thou shalt be in safeguard." Abia- 
 thar had brought with him the ephod, the high-priest's mysterious 
 scarf; and his father being dead, he appears to have been made 
 high-priest in his stead, so far as David had it then in his power 
 to give him that office, and to have attended upon him and his 
 followers. 2 These particulars we gather from several passages of 
 the first Book of Samuel. 
 
 We hear now nothing more of Abiathar (except that he was 
 confirmed in his office, together with a colleague, when David 
 was established in his kingdom), for nearly thirty years. Then he 
 re-appears, having to play not an inconspicuous part in David's 
 councils, on occasion of the rebellion of Absalom. Now here we 
 find, that though he is still in his office of priest, Zadok (the col- 
 league to whom I alluded) appears to have obtained the first place 
 in the confidence and consideration of David. When David sends. 
 
 1 1 Sam. xxii. 20. a 1 Sam. xxx. 7. 
 
 14* 
 
162 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 the ark back, which he probably thought it irreverent to make 
 the partner of his flight, and delivers his commands to this effect, 
 it may be remarked that he does not address himself to Abiathar, 
 though Abiathar was there, but to Zadok Zadok takes the 
 lead in everything. The king says to Zadok, " Carry back the 
 Ark of God into the city :'" and again, " The king said unto 
 Zadok the priest, Art not thou a seer? return into the city in 
 peace ;" and when Zadok and Abiathar are mentioned together 
 at this period, Zadok is placed foremost. No doubt Abiathar 
 was honored by David; there is evidence enough of this (v. 35); 
 but many trifles lead us to conclude that herein he attained not 
 unto his companion. 
 
 Now, unquestionably, it cannot be asserted with confidence, 
 where there is no positive document to substantiate the assertion, 
 that Abiathar felt his associate in the priesthood to be his rival 
 in the state, his more than successful rival ; yet that such a feel- 
 ing should find a place in the breast of Abiathar seems most 
 natural, seems almost inevitable, when we take into account that 
 these two priests were the representatives of two rival houses, 
 over one of which, a prophecy affecting its honor, and well nigh 
 its existence, was hanging unfulfilled. For Zadoc, be it observed, 
 was descended from Eleazar, the eldest of the sons of Aaron ; 
 Abiathar from Ithamar, the youngest, and so from the family of 
 Eli, a family of which it had been foretold, some hundred and 
 fifty years before, that the priesthood should pass from it. Could 
 Abiathar read the signs of his time without alarm ? or fail to 
 suspect (what did prove the fact) that the curse which had tarried 
 so long, was now again in motion, and that the ancient office of 
 his fathers was in jeopardy ; a curse, too, comprising circum- 
 
 1 2 Sam. xv. 25. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 163 
 
 stances of signal humiliation, calculated beyond measure to 
 exasperate the sufferer : even that the house of Eli, which 
 God had once said should walk before him forever, should 
 be far from him ; even that he would raise up (that is from 
 another house) a faithful priest that should do according to 
 that which was in his heart and his mind ; and that the 
 house of that man should be sure built ; and that they of 
 the house of Eli which were left, " should come and crouch 
 to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and say, 
 Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priest's offices, that I 
 may eat a piece of bread ?'" Abiathar musfchave had a 
 tamer spirit than he gave subsequent proof of, if he could 
 have witnessed the elevation of one in whom this bitter 
 threat seemed advancing to its accomplishment, and in 
 whom it was in fact accomplished, with complacency ; if 
 he could see him seated by his side in the dignity of the 
 high-priesthood, and favored at his expense by the more 
 frequent smiles of his sovereign, without a wounded spirit. 
 Now liaving possessed ourselves of this secret key, 
 namely, jealousy of his rival, a key not delivered into 
 our hands directly by the historian, but accidentally found 
 by ourselves, (and here is its value,) let us apply it to the 
 incidents of Abiathar's subsequent conduct, and observe 
 whether they will not answer to it. We have seen Abia- 
 thar flying from the vengeance of Saul to David ; pro- 
 tected by David in the wilderness : made by David his 
 priest, virtually before Saul's death, 2 and formally when 
 he succeeded to Saul's throne. 3 We have seen, too, Za- 
 dok united with him in his office, and David giving signs 
 of preferring Zadok before him; a preference the more 
 marked, and the more galling, because Abiathar was un- 
 
 i 1 Saa. ii. 3& 1 Sam. xiiii. 2-6. 3 2 Sam. vfii. 17. 
 
164 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 doubtedly the high-priest (as the sequel will p ove) and 
 Zadok his vicar only, or sagan. 1 
 
 This being the state of things, let us now observe the 
 issue. When David was forced to withdraw for a season 
 from Jerusalem, by the conspiracy of Absalom, Zadok 
 and Abiathar were left behind in the capital, charged 
 with the office of forwarding to the king any intelligence 
 which his friends within the walls might communicate to 
 them, that it was for his advantage to know. Ahimaaz, 
 the son of Zadok, and Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, (the 
 sons are named after the same order as their fathers,) are 
 the secret messengers by whom it is to be conveyed ; and 
 on one occasion, the only one in which their services are 
 recorded, we find them acting together. 2 But I observe 
 that after the battle in which Absalom was slain, a battle 
 which seems to have served as a test of the real loyalty of 
 many of David's nominal friends, Ahimaaz, the son of 
 Zadok, and not Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, is at hand 
 to carry the tidings of the victory to David, who had tar- 
 ried behind at Mahanaim ; and this office he solicits from 
 Joab, who had intended it for another, with the utmost 
 importunity, and the most lively zeal for the king's cause. 3 
 This, it will be said, proves but little ; more especially as 
 there is reason to believe that David was, at least, upon 
 terms with Abiathar at a later period than this. 4 Still 
 there may be thought something suspicious in the absence 
 of the one messenger, at a moment so critical, as compared 
 with the alacrity of the other ; their office having been 
 hitherto a joint one ; it is not enough to prove that the 
 loyalty of Abiathar and his house was waxing cool, 
 though it accords with such a supposition. Let us, how- 
 ever, proceed. Within a few years of this time, probably 
 
 i See Lightfoot's Works, Vol. i. 911, 912, fol. 2 2 Sam. rvifa. 21. 
 
 Ib. xviii. 1922. * Ib. xix. 11. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 165 
 
 about eight, another rebellion against David is set on foot 
 by another of his sons. Adonijah is now the offender. He, 
 too, prepares him chariots and horsemen, after the exam- 
 ple of his brother. Moreover, he feels his way before he 
 openly appears in arms. And to whom does he make his 
 first overtures? " He confers," we read, " with Abiathar 
 the priest," 1 having good reason, no doubt, for knowing 
 that such an application might be made in that quarter 
 with safety, if not with success. The event proved that 
 he had not mistaken his man. " Abiathar," we learn, 
 "following Adonijah, helped him :" not so Zadok ; he, 
 we are told, " was not with Adonijah ;" on the contrary, 
 he was one of the first persons for whom David sent, that 
 he might communicate with him in this emergency ; his 
 stanch and steadfast friend ; and him he commissioned, 
 together with Nathan the prophet, to set the crown upon 
 the head of Solomon, and thereby to confound the coun- 
 cils of the rebels. 2 Nor should we leave unnoticed, for 
 they are facts which coincide with the view I have taken 
 of Abiathar's loyalty, and the cause of it, that one of the 
 first acts of Solomon's reign was to banish the traitor " to 
 his own fields," and to thrust him out of the priesthood, 
 " that he might fulfil" (so it is expressly said in the twenty- 
 seventh verse of the second chapter of the first Book of 
 Kings) " the word of the Lord, which he spake concerning 
 the house of Eli in Shiloh," fulfil it, not by that act only, 
 but by the other also, which followed and crowned the 
 prophecy ; for " Zadok the priest," it is added, " did Sol- 
 omon put in the room of Abiathar ;" 3 or, as the Septua- 
 gint translates it still more to our purpose, Zadok the priest 
 did the king make first priest (te leqea nqGnotyn. the room 
 of Abiathar ; so that Abiathar, as I said, had been hith- 
 
 i 1 Kings L 7. a ib. i. 32, 34. 3 H>. ii. 35. 
 
166 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II 
 
 erto Zadok's superior ; his superior in office, and his infe- 
 rior in honor ; a position of all others calculated to excite 
 in him the heart-burnings we have discovered, long smoth- 
 ered, but at last bursting forth beginning in lukewarm- 
 ness, and ending in rebellion. 
 
 This is all extremely natural ; nothing can drop into its 
 place better than the several parts of this history ; not at 
 all a prominent history, but rather a subordinate one. Yet 
 manifest as the relation which they bear to one another is, 
 when they are once brought together, they are themselves 
 dispersed through the Books of Samuel, of Kings, and of 
 Chronicles, without the smallest arrangement or reference 
 one to another ; their succession not continuous ; suspend- 
 ed by many and long intervals ; intervals occupied by 
 matters altogether foreign from this subject ; and after all, 
 the integral portions of the narrative themselves defective : 
 there are gaps even here, which I think, indeed, may be 
 filled up, as I have shown, with very little chance of error ; 
 but still, that there should be any necessity even for this, 
 argues the absence of all design, collusion, and contrivance 
 in the historians. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 W E have now followed David through the events of his 
 checkered life ; it remains to contemplate him yet once 
 more upon his death-bed, giving in charge the execution 
 of his last wishes to Solomon his son. Probably in con- 
 sideration of his youth, his inexperience, and the difficul- 
 ties of his position, David thought it well to put him in 
 possession of the characters of some of those with whom 
 he would have to deal ; of those whom he had found faith- 
 ful or faithless to himself; that, on the one hand, his own 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 167 
 
 promises of favor might not be forfeited, nor, on the other, 
 the confidence of the young monarch be misplaced. Now 
 it is remarkable, that in this review of his friends and foes, 
 David altogether overlooks Mephibosheth, the son of Jona- 
 than. Joab he remembers, and all that he had done ; 
 Shimei he speaks of at some length, and puts Solomon 
 upon his guard against him. The sons of Barzillai, and 
 the service they had rendered him in the day of his ad- 
 versity, are all recommended to his friendly consideration ; 
 but of Mephibosheth, who had played a part, such as it 
 was, in the scenes of those eventful times, which had 
 called forth, for good or evil, a Chimham, a Barzillai, a 
 Shimei, and a Joab, he does not say a syllable. Yet he 
 was under peculiar obligations to him. He had loved his 
 father Jonathan. He had promised to show kindnes to his 
 house forever. He had confirmed his promise by an oath. 
 That oath he had repeated. 1 On his accession to the 
 throne he had evinced no disposition to shrink from it ; on 
 the contrary, he had studiously inquired after the family 
 of Jonathan, and having found Mephibosheth, he gave 
 him a place at his own table continually, for his father's 
 sake, and secured to him all the lands of Saul." 2 
 
 Let us, however, carefully examine the details of the 
 history, and I think we shall be able to account satisfac- 
 torily enough for David's apparent neglect of the son of 
 his friend ; for I think we shall find violent cause to sus- 
 pect that Mephibosheth had forfeited all claims to his 
 kindness. 
 
 When David was driven from Jerusalem by the rebellion 
 of Absalom, no Mephibosheth appeared to share with him 
 his misfortunes, or to support him by his name, a name at 
 that moment of peculiar value to David, for Mephibosheth 
 
 i 1 San. xx. 17. * 2 Sam. x. 6. 7. 
 
168 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 was the representative of the house of Saul. David nat- 
 urally intimates some surprise at his absence ; and when 
 his servant Ziba appears, bringing with him a small pres- 
 ent of bread and fruits, (the line of the king's flight having 
 apparently carried him near the lands of Mephibosheth,) a 
 present, however, offered on his own part, and not on the 
 part of his master, David puts to him several questions, 
 expressive of his suspicions of Mephibosheth's loyalty : 
 " What meanest thou by these ? Where is thy master's 
 son?" 1 Ziba replies in substance, than he had tarried at 
 Jerusalem, waiting the event of the rebellion, and hoping 
 that it might lead to the re-establishment of Saul's family 
 on the throne. This might be true, or it might be false. 
 The commentators appear to take for granted that it was 
 a mere slander of Ziba, invented for the purpose of sup- 
 planting Mephibosheth in his possessions. I do not think 
 this so certain. Ziba, I suspect, had some reason in what 
 he said, though probably the coloring of the picture was 
 his own. Certain it is, or all but certain, that the tribe of 
 Benjamin, which was the tribe of Mephibosheth, did, in 
 general, take part with the rebels. When David returned 
 victorious, and Shimei hastened to make his peace with 
 him, a thousand men of Benjamin accompanied him ; and 
 it was his boast that he came the first of " all the house 
 of Joseph" to meet the king, 2 as though others of his tribe 
 (for they of Benjamin were reckoned of the house of 
 Joseph, the same mother having given birth to both) were 
 yet behind. Went not then the heart of Mephibosheth in 
 the day of battle with his brethren, rather than with his 
 benefactor ? David himself evidently believed the report 
 of Ziba. and forthwith gave him his master's inheritance. 3 
 The battle is now fought, on which the fate of the throne 
 
 1 2 Sam. xvi. 2, 3. Ib. xix. 1720. 3 Ib. xvi. 4. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 169 
 
 hung m suspense, and David is the conqueror. And now, 
 many who had forsaken, or insulted him in his distress, 
 hasten to congratulate him on his triumph, and to profess 
 their joy at his return ; Mephibosheth amongst the rest 
 There is something touching in David's first greeting of 
 him ; " Wherefore wentest thou not with me, Mephibo- 
 sheth?" A question not of curiosity, but of reproach. 
 His ass was saddled, forsooth, that he might go, but Ziba, 
 it seems, had taken it for himself, and gone unto the king, 
 and slandered him unto the king ; and meanwhile, " thy 
 servant was lame." The tale appears to be as lame as 
 the tale-bearer. I think it clear that Mephibosheth did 
 not succeed in removing the suspicion of his disloyalty 
 from David's mind, notwithstanding the ostentatious dis- 
 play of his clothes unwashed and beard untrimmed ; 
 weeds which the loss of his estate might very well have 
 taught him to put on : for otherwise, would not David, in 
 common justice both to Mephibosheth and to Ziba, have 
 punished the treachery of the latter the lie by which he 
 had imposed upon the king to his own profit, and to his 
 master's infinite dishonor and damage, by revoking alto- 
 gether the grant of the lands which he had made him, 
 under an impression which proved to be a mistake, and 
 restoring them to their rightful owner, who had been in- 
 juriously supposed to have forfeited them by treason to the 
 crown ? He does, however, no such thing. To Mephibo- 
 sheth, indeed, he gives back half, but that is all ; and he 
 leaves the other half still in the possession of Ziba ; doing 
 even thus much, in all probability, not as an act of justice, 
 but out of tenderness to a son, even an unworthy son of 
 Jonathan, whom he had loved as his own soul. And 
 then, as if impatient of the wearisome exculpations of an 
 ungrateful man, whose excuses were his accusations, he 
 abruptly puts an end to the parley, (the conversation hav- 
 
 15 
 
170 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 ing been apparently much longer than is recorded,) with a 
 " Why speakest thou any more of thy matters ? I have 
 said, Thou and Ziba divide the land." 1 
 
 Henceforward, whatever act of grace he received at 
 David's hands, was purely gratuitous. His unfaithfulness 
 had released the king from his bond ; and that he lived, 
 was perhaps rather of sufferance, than of right j a consid- 
 eration which serves to explain David's conduct towards 
 him, as it is reported on an occasion subsequent to the re- 
 bellion. For when propitiation was to be made by seven 
 of Saul's sons, for the sin of Saul in the slaughter of the 
 Gibeonites. " the king," we read, " spared Mephibosheth, 
 the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lortfs 
 oath that was between them, between David, and Jona- 
 than the son of Saul ;" 2 as though he owed it to the oath 
 only, and to the memory of his father's virtues, that he 
 was not selected by David as one of the victims of that 
 bloody sacrifice. 
 
 Now, under these circumstances, is it a subject for sur- 
 prise, is it not rather a most natural and veracious coinci- 
 dence, that David, in commending on his death-bed some 
 of his stanch and trustworthy friends to Solomon his son, 
 should have omitted all mention of Mephibosheth, dissatis- 
 fied as he was, and ever had been, with his explanations 
 of very suspicious conduct, at a very critical hour ? con- 
 sidering him, with every appearance of reason, a waiter 
 upon Providence, as such persons have been since called 
 a prudent man, who would see which way the battle went, 
 before he made up his mind to which side he belonged ? 
 This coincidence is important, not merely as carrying with 
 it evidence of a true story in all its details, which is my 
 business with it ; but also as disembarrassing the incident 
 
 i 2 Sam. xix. 29. 2 Ib. xxi. 7. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 171 
 
 itself of several serious difficulties which present themselves, 
 on the ordinary supposition of Ziba's treachery, and Me- 
 phibosheth's truth ; difficulties which I cannot better ex- 
 plain, than by referring my hearers to the beautiful " Con- 
 templations" of Bishop Hall, whose view of these two char 
 acters is the common one, and who consequently finds him- 
 self, in this instance, (it will be perceived,) encumbered 
 with his subject, and driven to the necessity of impugning 
 the justice of David. It is further valuable, as exonerating 
 the king of two other charges which have been brought 
 against him, yet more serious than the last, even of indiffer- 
 ence to the memory of his dearest friend, and disregard to 
 the obligations of his solemn oath. But these are not the 
 only instances in which the character of David, and indeed 
 of the history itself, which treats of him, has suffered from 
 a neglect to make allowance for omissions in a very brief 
 and desultory memoir, or from a want of more exact at- 
 tention to the under-current of the narrative, which would, 
 in itself, very often supply those omissions. 
 
 xv. 
 
 The history of the people of God has thus far been 
 brought down to the reign of Solomon, and its general 
 truth and accuracy (I think I may say) established by the 
 application of a test which could scarcely fail us. The 
 great schism of the tribes is now about to divide our atten- 
 tion between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah ; but be- 
 fore I proceed to offer some observations upon the effects of 
 it, both religious and political, on either kingdom, observa- 
 tions which will involve many more of those undesigned 
 coincidences which are the subject of these pages, I must 
 say a word upon the progress of events towards the schism 
 
172 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 itself; for herein I discover combinations, of a kind which 
 no ingenuity could possibly counterfeit, and to an extent 
 which verifies a large portion of the Jewish annals. " By 
 faith, Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed his children." 
 On that occasion, Judah and Ephraim were made to stand 
 conspicuous amongst the future founders of the Israelitish 
 nation. "Judah," says the prophetic old man, " thou art 
 he whom thy brethren shall praise ; thy hand shall be on 
 the neck of thine enemies : thy father's children shall bow 
 down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp : from the prey, 
 my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down, he crouched 
 as a lion, and as an old lion : who shall rouse him up ? 
 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver 
 from between his feet, till Shiloh come ; and unto him shall 
 the gathering of the people be." 1 Ail this, and more, did 
 Jacob foretell of this mighty tribe. Again, crossing his 
 hands, and studiously laying the right upon the head of 
 Ephraim, the younger of Joseph's children, " Manasseh 
 also shall be a people," he exclaimed, u and he also shall 
 be great ; but truly his younger brother shall be greater 
 than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. 
 And so he blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall 
 Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and Ma- 
 nasseh." 2 Thus did these two tribes, Judah and Ephraim, 
 enter the land of promise some two hundred and forty 
 years afterwards, with the Patriarch's blessing on their 
 heads : God having conveyed it to them by his mouth, and 
 being now about to work it out by the quiet operations of 
 his hands. As yet, neither of them was much more pow- 
 erful than his brethren, the latter less so ; Judah not ex- 
 ceeding one other of the tribes, at least, by more than 
 twelve thousand men, and Ephraim actually the smallest 
 
 i Gen. xlix. 8. 2 Ib. xlix. 20. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 173 
 
 of them all, with the single exception of Simeon. 1 The 
 lot of Ephraim, however, fell upon a fair ground, and upon 
 this lot, the disposing of which was of the Lord, turned 
 very materially the fortunes of Ephraim ; it fell nearly in 
 the midst of the tribes ; and accordingly, the invasion and 
 occupation of Canaan being effected, at Shiloh in Ephraim, 
 the Tabernacle was set up. there to abide three hundred 
 years and upwards, during all the time of the Judges* 
 Hither, we read, Elkanah repaired year by year for wor- 
 ship and sacrifice ; here the lamp of God was never suffered 
 to go out " in the Temple of the Lord," (the expression is 
 remarkable,) " where the Ark of God was ; 1>3 here Samuel 
 ministered as a child, all Israel, from Dan even to Beer- 
 sheba, speedily perceiving that he was established to be a 
 prophet, because all Israel was accustomed to resort annually 
 to Shiloh, at the feasts. 4 Shiloh, therefore, in Ephraim, 
 was the great religious capital, as it were, from the time 
 of Joshua to Saul, the spot more especially consecrated to 
 the honor of God, the resting place of his tabernacle, of his 
 prophets, and of his priests ; 5 whilst at no great distance 
 from it appears to have stood Shechemf once the political 
 capital of Ephraim, till civil war left it for a season in 
 ruins, but which, even then, continued to be the gathering 
 point of the tribes ; 7 Shechem, where was Jacob's well, 8 and 
 where, accordingly, both literally and figuratively, was the 
 prophecy of that patriarch fulfilled, " Joseph is a fruitful 
 bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches 
 run over the wall." 9 
 
 Thus was this district in Ephraim, comprising Shiloh 
 
 1 Numb. xxvi. 2 Judges xxi. 19. 31 Sam. iii. 3. 
 
 * Ib. ffi. 20, 21. 5 p s alm cxxxii. 6; Ixxviii. 67. 1 Sam. ii. 14, 
 6 Judges xxi. 19. Josh. xxiv. 25, 26. 
 
 i Josh. xxiv. 1. Judges ix. 2. 1 Kings xii. 1. 8 John iv. 6, 
 
 See Lightfoot, Vol. i. 49, fol. 
 
 15* 
 
J74 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 and Shechem, probably the most populous, certainly the 
 most important, of any in all the Holy Land during the 
 government of the Judges ; and, constantly recruited by 
 the confluence of strangers, Ephraim seems to have be- 
 come (as Jerusalem became afterwards) what Jacob again 
 foretold, a " multitude of nations." 
 
 There are other and more minute incidents left upon 
 record, all tending to establish the same fact. For I 
 observe, that amongst the Judges, many, whether them- 
 selves of Ephraim or not, do appear to have repaired 
 thither as to the proper seat of government. I find that 
 Deborah " dwelt under the palm tree, between Ramah 
 and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim" and that there the 
 children of Israel went up to her for judgment. 1 I find 
 that Gideon, who was of Ophrah in Manasseh, where he 
 appears in general to have lived, and where he was at last 
 buried, had, nevertheless, a family at Shechem^ it being 
 incidentally said, that the mother of his son Abimelech 
 resided there, and that there Abimelech himself was born ; 2 
 a trifle in itself, yet enough, I think, to suggest, that at 
 Shechem in Ephraim, Gideon did occasionally dwell ; the 
 discharge of his judicial functions, like those of Pilate at 
 Jerusalem, probably constraining him to a residence which 
 he might not otherwise have chosen. I find this same 
 Shechem the head-quarters of this same Abimelech, and 
 the support of his cause when he usurped the government 
 of Israel. 3 And I subsequently find Tola, though a man 
 of Issachar, dwelling in Shamir, in Mount Ephraim^ 
 (Shechem having been recently laid waste,) and judging 
 Israel twenty and three years. 4 
 
 Noi is this all. The comparative importance of Eph- 
 raim amongst the tribes during the time of the Judges, is 
 
 i Judges, iv. 5. a Ib. viii. 2732 ; ix. 1. 3 ib. ix. 22. 4 ib. x. 1 . 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 175 
 
 further detected in the tone of authority, not to say me- 
 nace, which it occasionally assumes towards its weaker 
 brethren. Gideon leads several of the tribes against the 
 Midianites, but Ephrairn had not been consulted. " Why 
 hast thou served us thus," is the angry remonstrance of the 
 Ephraimites, " that thou calledst us not when thou wentest 
 to fight with the Midianites ? And they did chide with 
 him harshly." 1 Gideon stoops before the storm ; he dis- 
 putes not the vast superiority of Ephraim, his gleaning 
 being more than another's grapes. Jephthah, in later times, 
 ventures upon a similar invasion of the children of Am- 
 mon, and discomfits them with great slaughter, but he, 
 too, without Ephraim's hel^ or cognizance: again the 
 pride of this powerful tribe is wounded, and " they gather 
 themselves together, and go northward, and say unto 
 Jephthah, Wherefore passedest thou over to fight against 
 the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with 
 thee ? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire." 2 
 All this, the unreasonable conduct of a party conscious that 
 it has the law of the strongest on its side, and, by virtue 
 of that law claiming to itself the office of dictator amongst 
 the neighboring tribes. Well then might David express 
 himself with regard to the support he expected from this 
 tribe, in terms of more than common emphasis, when at 
 last seated on the throne, his title acknowledged through- 
 out Israel, he reviews the resources of his consolidated 
 empire, and exclaims, " Ephraim is the strength of my 
 head" 3 Accordingly, all the ten tribes are sometimes ex- 
 pressed under tne comprehensive name of Ephraim 4 and 
 the gate of Jerusalem which looked towards Israel appears 
 to have been called, emphatically, the gate of Ephraim* 
 
 Judges viU. 1. * Ib. rii 1. Pa. Ix. 7. 
 
 2 Chron. xxv. 6 anc 7. 3 Kings nv. 13. 
 
176 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 and Ephraim and Judah together represent the whole of 
 fhe people of Israel, from Dan to Beer-sheba. 1 
 
 In tracing the seeds of the future dissolution of the ten 
 from the tvo tribes, I further remark, that whilst Samuel 
 himself remains at Ramah, a border town of Benjamin and 
 Ephraim, (for Shiloh and Shechem were probably now in 
 possession of the Philistines,) there to sit in judgment on 
 such causes as Ephraim and the northern states should 
 bring before him, he sends his sons to be judges in Beer- 
 sheba, 2 a southern town belonging to Judah, 3 as though 
 there was already some reluctance between these rival 
 tribes to resort to the same tribunal : and the fierce words 
 that passed between the men of Israel and the men of Ju- 
 dah, on the subject of the restoration of David to the throne, 
 the former claiming ten parts in him, the latter nearness of 
 kin, 4 still indicate that the breach was gradually widening, 
 and that however sudden was the final disruption of the 
 bond of union, events had weakened it long before. Indeed, 
 humanly speaking, nothing could in all probability have 
 preserved it, but a continuance of the government of judges, 
 under God ; who, taken from various tribes, and according 
 to no established order, might have secured the common- 
 wealth from that jealousy which an hereditary possession 
 f power by any one tribe was sure to create, and did cre- 
 ate ; and which burst out in that bitter cry of Israel, at the 
 critical moment of the separation, " What portion have we 
 in David ? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse 
 to your tents, O Israel : now see to thine own house, Da- 
 vid." 5 And so, by the natural motions of the human heart, 
 did God take vengeance of the people whom he had chosen, 
 
 i Isai. vii. 917, et alibi ; Ezek. xxxvii. 19. 2 1 Sam. viii. 2. 
 
 Josh. xv. 28. 4 2 Sam. xix. 43. 1 Kings xii. 16. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 177 
 
 for rejecting him for their sovereign, and a king, indeed, he 
 gave them, as they desired, but he gave him in his wrath. 
 
 Thus have we detected, by the apposition of many dis- 
 tinct particulars, a gradual tendency of the Ten Tribes 
 to become confederate under Ephraim ; an event, to which 
 the local position, numerical superiority, and the seat of 
 national worship, long fixed within the borders of Ephraim, 
 together conspired, 
 
 But meanwhile, it maybe discovered in like manner, that 
 Judah and Benjamin were also, on their part, knitting 
 themselves in close alliance ; a union promoted by conti- 
 guity ; by the sympathy of being the only two royal tribes ; 
 by the connection of the house of David with the house of 
 Saul, (the political importance of which David appears to 
 have considered, when he made it a preliminary of his 
 league with Abner, that Michal should be restored, whose 
 heart he had nevertheless lost ; ! ) and finally, and perhaps 
 above all, by the peculiar position selected by the Almighty, 2 
 for the great national temple which was soon to rob Eph- 
 raim of his ancient honors ; for it was not to be planted in 
 Judah only, or in Benjamin only, but on the confines of 
 both ; so that whilst the altars, and the holy place, were to 
 stand within the borders of the one tribe, the courts of the 
 temple were to extend into the borders of the other tribe, 4 
 and thus, the two were to be riveted together, as it were, 
 by a cramp, bound by a sacred and everlasting bond, being 
 in a condition to exclaim, in a sense peculiarly their own, 
 " The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are 
 we." 
 
 We have thus traced, by means of the hints with which 
 Scripture supplies us, (for little more than hints have we 
 
 1 2 Sam. iii. 13. a 1 Chron. xviii. 11. 3 Ps. hcxviii. 67. 
 
 Comp. Josh. xv. 63, and xviii. 28 ; and see Lightfpot, YoJ. i. p. 1050 folc 
 
178 THE VERACITY OF THE PART If. 
 
 had,) the two great confederacies into which the tribes 
 were gradually, perhaps unwittingly, subsiding ; as well as 
 some of the circumstances by which either confederacy was 
 cemented. Let us pursue the subject, but still by means 
 of the under-current of the history only, towards the schism. 
 And now Ephraim was called upon to witness prepara- 
 tions for the transfer of the seat of national worship from 
 himself to his great rival, with something, we may believe, 
 of the anguish of Phinehas' wife, when she heard that the 
 Ark of God was taken, and Shiloh to be no longer its 
 resting-place ; and I-chabod might be the name for the 
 mothers of Ephraim at that hour to give to their offspring, 
 seeing that the glory was departing from among them. 1 
 For what desolation and disgrace were felt to accompany 
 this loss, may be gathered from more passages than one in 
 Jeremiah, where he threatens Jerusalem with a like visita- 
 tion. " I will do unto this house," (saith the Lord, by the 
 mouth of the prophet,) " which is called by my name, 
 wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you, 
 and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will 
 cast you ought of my sight, as I have cast out all your 
 brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim" And again 
 " I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this 
 city a curse to all the nations of the earth." 2 With a 
 heavy heart, then, must this high-spirited and ambitious 
 tribe have found that " the place which God had chosen 
 to set his name there," (so often spoken of by Moses, and 
 the choice suspended so long.) was at length determined, 
 and determined against him ; that his expectation (for such 
 would probably be indulged) that God would finally fix his 
 seat where he had so long fixed his Tabernacle, was over- 
 thrown; that the Messiah, whom some sanguine inter 
 
 * 1 Sam. iv. 21. a J er . vii. 14. 15; xxvi. 6 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 179 
 
 preters of the prophets amongst his sons had declared 
 should come from between his feet, was not to be of him; 1 
 but that " refusing the tabernacle of Joseph, and not 
 choosing any longer the tribe of Ephraim, (mark the pa- 
 triotic exultation with which the Psalmist proclaims this,) 
 God chose the Tribe of Judah and Mount Zion, which he 
 loved." 2 
 
 Such was the posture of the nation of Israel, such the 
 temper of the times, " a branch," as it were, " ready to fall, 
 swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cornet h sud- 
 denly at an instant," when Solomon began to collect work- 
 men, and to levy taxes throughout all Israel, for those vast 
 and costly structures which he reared, even " the house of 
 the Lord and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of 
 Jerusalem," 3 besides many more ; in some of them, indeed, 
 showing himself the pious founder, or the patriot prince ; 
 but in some, the luxurious sensualist ; and in some, again, 
 the dissolute patron of idolatry. 4 On, however, he went ; 
 and as if in small things as well as great, this growing 
 division amongst the tribes (fatal as it was in many re- 
 spects to prove) was ever to be fostered ; as if the coming 
 event was on every occasion to be casting its shadow be- 
 fore, a separate ruler, we read, " was placed over all the 
 charge of the house of Joseph -" 5 that is, one individual 
 was made overseer over the work, or the tribute, or both, 
 of the ten tribes ; for so I understand the phrase, agree- 
 ably to its meaning in other passages of Scripture. 6 And 
 
 1 See on this subject, Allix, Reflections upon the Four last Books of Mo- 
 ses, p. 180. 
 
 a Ps. Ixxviii. 67. 3 i Kings ix. 15. ib. xi. 7. s ib. xi. 28. 
 
 6 See 2 Sam. xix. 20, and Pole in Inc. rrporgpi? THIC-TO? 'Iffpa>i\ Kal rixov 
 'lowrty. Sept. The rights of primogeniture, which Reuben had forfeited, 
 appear to have been divided between Judah and Joseph: to Judah, the 
 headship; to Joseph, the double portion of the eldest son, and whatever ela 
 belonged ;o the " birthright." See 1 Chron. v. 2. Thus, the people of 
 
180 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 who was he ? a young man, an industrious man, a mighty 
 man of valor, (for these qualities Solomon made choice of 
 him,) and above all, a man of Ephraim ; l Jeroboam it 
 was. 
 
 It is impossible to imagine events working more steadily 
 towards a given point, than here. The knot had already 
 shown itself far from indissoluble, and now. time, oppor- 
 tunity, and a skilful hand, combine to loose it. Here we 
 have a great body of artificers, almost an army of them- 
 selves, kept together some twenty years Ephraimites and 
 their colleagues engaged in works consecrated to the glory 
 and aggrandizement of Judah and Benjamin, rather than 
 to their own Ephraimites contributing to the removal of 
 the seat of government from Ephraim to Judah Eph- 
 raimites paying taxes great and grievous, not merely to the 
 erection of a national place of worship, (for to this they 
 might have given consent, the command being of God,) 
 but to the construction of palaces for princes, never again 
 to be of their own line ; and temples for the idols of those 
 princes, living and dead, which were expressly contrary to 
 the command of God And lastly, we have an Ephraim- 
 ite, even Jeroboam, with every talent for mischief, endowed 
 with every opportunity for exercising it ; put into an office 
 which at once invested him with authority, and secured 
 him from suspicion, so that his future crown was but the 
 
 Israel became biceps, and were comprised under the names of the two heads. 
 See Judges x. 9, where the house of Ephraim is synonymous with the house 
 of Joseph. 
 
 Lightfoot considers Joseph to have been the principal family while the 
 Ark was at Shiloh, and all Israel to have been named after it, as in Ps. 
 Ixxx. 1, but that when God refused Joseph, and chose Judah for the chief, 
 Ps. Ixxviii. 68, 69, then there began, and continued, a difference and dis- 
 tinction betwixt Israel and Judah, Joseph and Judah, Ephraim and Judah, 
 the rest of the tribes being called by all these names, in opposition to Judah. 
 Lightfoot, i. 66, fol. l 1 Kings xi. 26. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 181 
 
 consummation of his present intrigues ; the issue of his 
 own subtilty, and the people's discontent. Nor is this 
 matter of conjecture. Is it not written in the Book of 
 Kings, (most casually, however,) that the people of Israel 
 I speak of Israel as distinguished from Judah and Ben- 
 jamin in the first moment of madness, on the accession 
 of Rehoboam, wreaked their vengeance upon whom, of 
 all men ? upon Adoniram, the very man whom Solomon 
 his father had appointed to levy men and means through- 
 out Israel, the tax-gatherer for the erection of these stupen- 
 dous works ! and him, the victim of popular indignation, 
 did all Israel stone with stones till he died. 1 The wisdom 
 and policy of Solomon, indeed, in spite of his faults and 
 follies, upheld his empire till the last, and saved it from 
 falling in pieces before the time ; but how completely the 
 fulness of that time was come, is clear, when no sooner 
 was he dead, than his son, and rightful successor, found it 
 expedient to hasten to Shechem, there to meet all Israel, 
 conscious as he was, that however his title was admitted 
 by Judah, it was quite another thing whether Ephraim 
 would give in his allegiance too ; and, as the event proved, 
 his apprehensions were not without a cause. 2 
 
 And now Jeroboam, a man to seize upon any seeming 
 advantages which his situation afforded him, at once en- 
 listed the ancient sympathies of the people, by forthwith 
 rebuilding Shechem, which had been burned by Abim- 
 elech, 3 and making it his residence, though he had all the 
 northern tribes among whom to choose ; and with similar 
 policy, he proceeded to provide for them a worship of their 
 own, nor would allow that " in Jerusalem alone was the 
 place where men ought to worship'' a worship, rather, I 
 think, a gross corruption, than an utter abandonment of 
 
 i 1 Kings v. 14; xii. 18. 2 ib. xfi. 1. 3 ft. jal 25. 
 
 16 
 
182 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 the true, the idolatry of the second, more than of the first 
 commandment, though the two offences are very closely 
 connected, and almost of necessity run into one another, 
 For I observe, throughout the whole history of the kings 
 of Israel, a distinction made between the sin of Jeroboam 
 and the worship of Baal, somewhat in favor of the former ; 
 and that, offensive as they both were to the one Eternal 
 and Invisible God, Baal-worship was the greater abomina- 
 tion. Perhaps, too, it may be added, that this distinction 
 is recognized by the apostle, whose words are, that " the 
 glory of the incorruptible God was," not altogether ab- 
 jured but "changed into an image made like four-footed 
 beasts." 1 But, however this may be, a worship of their 
 own, independent of the temple, and of the regular priest- 
 hood, Jeroboam established, still building upon the rites of 
 old time, and accommodating the calendar of feasts in some 
 measure to that which had existed before ; 2 and whatever 
 might be his reason for selecting Bethel for one of his 
 calves, whether the holy character of the place itself, or 
 its vicinity to the still holier Shiloh, 3 whither the people had 
 habitally resorted, I discover a very sufficient reason for 
 his choice of Dan for the other, exclusive of all considera- 
 tion of local convenience, the curious circumstance, that in 
 this town there had already prevailed for ages a form of 
 worship, or of idolatry (I should rather say), very closely 
 resembling that which he now proposed to set up through- 
 out Israel, and furnishing him, if not with a strict pre- 
 cedent, at least with a most suitable foundation on which 
 to work. For in this town stood the teraphim, or images 
 of Micah, whatever might be their shape, which the 
 original founders of Dan had taken with them, and planted 
 there ; and a priesthood there was to minister to these 
 
 i Rom. i. 23. * I Kings xii. 32; Hosea ii. 11 ; ix. 5. 
 
 3 Judges xxi. 19. 
 
PRAT II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 183 
 
 images, precisely like that of Jeroboam, not of the sacer- 
 dotal order, for they were sons of Manassah ; and thus 
 was there an organized system of dissent from the national 
 church, existing in the town of Dan, " all the time that 
 the House of God was in Shiloh j" 1 and thus was accom- 
 plished, I suspect, that mysterious prediction of Jacob, 
 " Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, 
 that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall back- 
 ward." 2 
 
 On the present occasion, those undesigned coincidences, 
 which are the staple of my argument, have not been pre- 
 sented in so perspicuous a manner as they might have 
 been sometimes ; for the attention has, in this instance, 
 been directed not to one point, singled out of several, but to 
 the details of a continuous history. This I could not avoid. 
 At the same time, these details, on a review of them, will 
 be found to involve many minute coincidences, and those 
 just such as constitute the difference between the best-im- 
 agined story in the world and a narrative of actual facts. 
 For let this be borne in mind, that the sketch which I have 
 offered of the gradual development of the schism between 
 Israel and Judah, is by no means an abridgment of the ob- 
 vious Scripture account of it very far from it. Looking to 
 that part of Scripture which directly relates to this schism, 
 and confining ourselves to that, we might be led to think 
 the rent of the kingdom as sudden and unshapeo^an event, 
 as the rending of the prophet's mantle, which was its type : 
 for here, as elsewhere, the history is rapid and abrupt. 
 What I have offered is, strictly speaking, a theory ; a the- 
 ory by which a great many loose and scattered data, such 
 as Scripture affords to a diligent inquirer, and to no other, 
 are, with much seeming consistency, combined into a 
 
 1 Judges xviii. 31. 2 Gen. xlix. 17. 
 
184 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 whole ; it is the pattern which gradually comes out, when 
 the many-colored threads, gleaned up as we have gone 
 along, are worked into a web. 
 
 1. For instance lean conceive it very possible, without 
 claiming to myself any peculiar sagacity, for a man to read, 
 and not inattentively either, the sacred books from Joshua 
 to Chronicles, and yet never happen to be struck with the 
 fact that Ephraim was a leading tribe ; that it was the 
 head, allowed or understood, of an easy confederacy ; the 
 thing is scarcely to be discovered but by the apposition of 
 many passages, dispersed through these books, bearing, 
 perhaps, little or no relation to one another, except that of 
 having a common bias towards this one point. The same 
 may be said of the main cause of this comparative superi- 
 ority of Ephraim, the accidental, as some would call it, 
 as we will call it, the providential, establishment of the 
 Tabernacle within its borders. The circumstance of Shiloh 
 being the place whither all Israel went up to worship for 
 three centuries or more, all important as it was to the tribe 
 whom it concerned, is not put forward either as account- 
 ing for the prosperity of Ephraim above its fellows, whilst 
 in Ephraim the Ark stood ; or for the jealousy which it 
 discovered towards Judah, when to Judah the Ark had 
 been transferred ; nor yet as being the natural means by 
 which the remarkable words of Jacob were brought to pass, 
 touching the future pre-eminence of Ephraim and Judah, 
 howbeit, as tribes, they were then but in the loins of their 
 fathers. So far from this, when in the Book of Joshua we 
 are told that the Tabernacle was set up in Shiloh, not a 
 syllable is added by which we can guess where Shiloh 
 was, whether in Ephraim or elsewhere ; ! and it is only af- 
 ter some investigation, and by inference at last, that in 
 Ephraim we can fix it. 
 
 i Josh, xviii. 1. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 185 
 
 2. The same is true of the league between Benjamin 
 and Judah. What were the sympathies beyond mere 
 proximity, which cemented them so firmly, is altogether a 
 matter for ourselves to unravel, if unravel it we can. We 
 bee them, indeed, acting in concert, as we see also the other 
 tribes acting, but the books of Scripture enter into no ex- 
 planations in either case. Nevertheless, I find in one 
 place, that Saul, the first king, was of Benjamin, and in 
 another, that David, the second king, was of Judah, with 
 a prospect of a continuance of the succession in that line ; 
 and here I perceive a mutual sympathy likely to spring 
 out of the exclusive honors of the two royal tribes. Else- 
 where, I find that the two royal houses of Saul and David 
 were united by marriage, and here I detect a further ap- 
 proximation. I look again, and learn that a temple was 
 built for national worship in a city, which one text places 
 in Judah, and a parallel text in Benjamin, leaving me to 
 infer (as was the fact) that the city was on the confines 
 of both, and that upon the confines of both (as was also 
 the fact) the foundations of the temple were laid. In 
 these, and perhaps in other similar matters, which might 
 be enumerated, I certainly do discover elements of union, 
 however the writers, who record them, may never speak 
 of them as such. 
 
 3. Again ; the motives which operated with Jeroboam 
 in the selection of Shechem for his residence, or of Dan 
 for his idolatry, are not even glanced at, though, in either 
 instance, reasons there were, we have seen, to make the 
 choice judicious. And whilst we are told that he fled from 
 Solomon, when the conspirator was detected in him, or 
 when Ahijah's prophecy awakened the monarch's fears, 
 and went into Egypt, and that from Egypt, at the death 
 of Solomon, he hasted back to take his part in those stir- 
 ring times, no hint, the most remote, is thrown out, that 
 
 16* 
 
186 THE VERACITY OP THE PART lie 
 
 his sojourn in that idolatrous land, and the peculiar nature 
 of its idolatry, influenced him in the choice of a calf foi 
 the representation of his own God, though the one fact 
 does very curiously corroborate the other, and still adds 
 credibility to the whole history. 
 
 In all this I discover much of coincidence, nothing of de- 
 sign. I see an extraordinary revolution asserted, and then 
 my eyes being opened, I perceive that the seeds of it, not 
 however described as such, and often so small as to be 
 easily overlooked, had been cast upon the waters genera- 
 tions before. I see coalitions and convulsions in the body 
 politic of Israel, and I find, not without some pains-taking, 
 and after all but in part, attractive or repulsive principles 
 at work in that body, which, without being named as 
 causes, do account for such effects. I see both in persons 
 and places, so soon as I become intimately acquainted with 
 their several bearings, something appropriate to the events 
 with which they are connected, though I see nothing of 
 the kind at first, because no such propriety appears upon 
 the surface. These I hold to be the characters of truth, 
 and the history upon which they are stamped I ac- 
 cordingly receive, nothing doubting meanwhile, not fail- 
 ing to remark, and to admire, the silent transition of events 
 into those very channels which Jacob in spirit had de- 
 clared ages before ; and to acknowledge, without attempt- 
 ing fully to understand, the mysterious workings of that 
 Controlling Power, which can make men its instruments 
 without making them its tools ; at once compelling them 
 to do His will, and permitting them to do their own : 
 proving himself faithful, and leaving them free. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 187 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE next coincidences I have to offer will turn on the 
 condition of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, whether 
 political or religious, as it was affected by their separation ; 
 and will supply evidence to the truth of the history. 
 
 " And Baasha, King of Israel," we read, " went up 
 against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer 
 any to go out or come in to Asa King of Judah. 1 
 
 Ramah seems to have been a border town, between the 
 kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and to have stood in such 
 a position as to be the key to either. The King of Israel, 
 however, was the party anxious to fortify it, not the King 
 of Judah ; indeed, the latter, as we learn from the Chron- 
 icles, 2 did his best to frustrate the efforts of Baasha, and 
 succeeded, apparently not desirous of having Ramah con- 
 verted into a place of strength, though it should be in his 
 own keeping ; for Asa having contrived to draw Baasha 
 away from this work, does not seize upon it and complete 
 it for himself, but contents himself with carrying off the 
 stones and the timber, and using them elsewhere. It is 
 evident, therefore, that it was an object with the kings of 
 Israel, that this strong frontier-post, should be established, 
 with the kings of Judah, that it should be removed. 
 Now this is singular, when we remember, that after the 
 schism the numerical strength lay vastly on the side of 
 Israel, one hundred and eighty thousand men being all 
 that Judah could then count in his ranks, 3 whereas eight 
 hundred thousand were actually produced a few years 
 afterwards by Jeroboam, and even then he was not what 
 he had been. 4 It was to be expected, therefore, that the 
 
 i 1 Kings, xv. 17. 2 2 Chron. xvi. 6. 
 
 3 1 Kings xii. 21. < 2 Chron. xiii. 3. 
 
188 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II 
 
 fear of invasion would have been upon Judah alone, the 
 weaker state, and that, accordingly, Judah would have 
 gladly taken, and kept possession of a fortress which was 
 the bridle of the kingdom on that side, and have made it 
 strong for himself. Yet, as we have seen, the fact was 
 quite the other way. How is this to be explained ? By a 
 single circumstance, which accounts for a great deal be- 
 sides this ; though the explanation presents itself in the 
 most incidental manner imaginable, and without the 
 smallest reference to the particular case of Ramah. 
 
 In the twelfth chapter of the first Book of Kings, I read 
 (v. 20), that " Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the 
 kingdom return to the house of David, if this people go up 
 to sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem ;" and 
 that accordingly he set up a worship of his own in Bethel 
 and Dan. 
 
 In the eleventh chapter of the second Book of Chron- 
 icles. I read (v. 14) that " he cast off the Levites' 7 (as in- 
 deed it was most natural that he should) " from executing 
 the priest's office," and ordained him priests after his own 
 pleasure. I read further, that in consequence of this sub- 
 version of the Church of God, " the priests and the Levites 
 that were in all Israel resorted unto Judah out of all their 
 coasts ;" nor they only, the ministers of God, who might 
 well migrate, but that " after them out of all the tribes of 
 Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of 
 their fathers ; so they strengthened" (it is added) " the 
 kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam, the son of Solo- 
 mon strong," (v. 16, 17.) The son of Nebat was a great 
 politician in his own way, but he had yet to learn, that by 
 righteousness is a nation really exalted, and that its right- 
 eous citizens are those by whom the throne is in truth up- 
 held. These he was condemned to lose ; these he and hig 
 ungodly successors were to see gradually waste away 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 189 
 
 before their eyes ; depart from a kingdom founded in in- 
 iquity ; and transfer their allegiance to another and a 
 better soil. Hence the natural solicitude of Israel to put 
 a stop to the alarming drainage of all that was virtuous 
 out of their borders, and the clumsy contrivance of a forti- 
 fication at Ramah for the purpose ; as though a spirit of 
 uncompromising devotion to God, happily the most uncon- 
 querable of things, was to be coerced by a barrier of bricks. 
 Hence, too, the no less natural solicitude of Judah to re- 
 move this fortification, Judah being desirous that no ob- 
 stacle, however small, should be opposed to the influx of 
 those virtuous Israelites, who would be the strength of any 
 nation wherein they settled. Here I find a coincidence of 
 the most satisfactory kind, between the building of Ramah 
 by Israel, the overthrow of it by Judah) and the tide of 
 emigration which was setting in from Israel towards 
 Judah, by reason of Jeroboam's idolatry. Yet the relation 
 of these events to one another is not expressed in the his- 
 tory, nor are the events named under the same head, or in 
 the same chapter. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 NOR is this all. Still keeping in mind this single con- 
 sideration, that the more godly of the people of the ten 
 tribes were disgusted at the calves, and retired, we may at 
 once account for the progressive augmentation of the 
 armies of Judah, and the corresponding decrease of the 
 armies of Israel, which the subsequent history of the two 
 kingdoms casually, and at intervals displays. 
 
 Immediately after the separation, Rehoboam assembled 
 the forces of his two tribes, and found them, as I have 
 said, one hundred and eighty thousand men. Some eigh- 
 
190 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 teen years afterwards, Ahijah, his son, was able to raise 
 against Jeroboam (who still, however, was vastly stronger) 
 four hundred thousand. 1 This is a considerable step. 
 Some six or seven years later, Asa, the son of Ahijah, is 
 invaded by a countless host of Ethiopians. On this occa- 
 sion, notwithstanding the numbers which must have fallen 
 already in the battle with Jeroboam, he brings into the 
 field five hundred and eighty thousand : so rapidly were 
 the resources of Judah on the advance. About two and 
 'thirty years later still, the army of Jehoshaphat, the son of 
 Asa, consists of one million one hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand men ; 2 a prodigious increase in the population of the 
 kingdom of Judah. 
 
 On the other hand, we may trace (the act, it must be 
 observed, is altogether our own, no such comparison being 
 instituted in the history) the gradual decay and depopula- 
 tion of the kingdom of Israel. Jeroboam himself, we have 
 found, was eight hundred thousand strong. The contin- 
 ual diminution of this national army, we cannot in the 
 present instance, always trace from actual numbers, as we 
 did in the former ; but, from circumstances which transpire 
 in the history, we can trace it by inference. Thus, Ahab, 
 one of the successors of Jeroboam, and contemporary with 
 Jehoshaphat, whose immense armaments we have seen, is 
 threatened by Benhadad and the Syrians. Benhadad 
 will send men to take out of his house, and out of the 
 houses of his servants, whatever is pleasant in their eyes. 3 
 It is the insolent message of one who felt Israel to be weak, 
 and being weak, to invite aggression. Favored by a panic, 
 Ahab triumphs for the once ; but at the return of the 
 year Benhadad returns. Ahab is warned of this long 
 before. " Go strengthen thyself," is the friendly exhorta- 
 
 1 2 Chron. xiii. 3. 2 ib. xvii. 1416, 3 i Kings xx. 6. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 191 
 
 lion of the piophet (v. 22.) no doubt he did so, to the 
 best of his means, but after all, " when the children of 
 Israel were numbered, and were all present, and went 
 against them, the children of Israel pitched before the 
 Syrians like two little flocks of kids -, but the Syrians filled 
 the country" (v. 27). And in Jorarn's days, the son and 
 successor of Ahab, such was the boldness of Syria, and 
 the weakness of Israel, that the former was constantly 
 sending marauding parties, "companies," as they are 
 called, or " bands," 1 into Israel's quarters, sometimes 
 taking the inhabitants captive, and sometimes even lay- 
 ing siege to considerable towns. 8 And in the reign of 
 Jehu, the next king, Syria, with Hazael at its head, crip- 
 pled Israel still more terribly, actually seizing upon all the 
 land of Jordan eastward, Giiead, the Gadites, the Reuben- 
 ites, and the Manassites, from Aroer to Bashan. 3 And to 
 complete the picture, the whole army of Jehoahaz, the 
 next in the royal succession of Israel, consisted of fifty 
 horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot, Syria hav- 
 ing exterminated the rest ; 4 so gradually was Israel upon 
 the decline. 
 
 Now it must be remembered, in order that the force of 
 the argument may be felt, that no parallel of the kind we 
 have been drawing is found in the history itself; no invi- 
 tation to others to draw one : the materials for doing so it 
 does indeed furnish, dispersed, however, over a wide field, 
 and less definite than might be wished, were our object to 
 ascertain the relative strength of the two kingdoms with 
 exactness ; that, however, it is not ; and the very circum- 
 stance, that the gradual growth of Judah, and declension 
 of Israel, are sometimes to be gathered from other facts 
 than positive numerical evidence, is enough in itself to show 
 
 i 2 Kings v. 2; vi. 2, 3; xiii. 21. Ib. vi 14. 23. 
 
 8 Ib. x. 33. 4 Ib. xiii. 7. 
 
192 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 that the historian could have no design studiously to point 
 out the coincidence of facts with his casual assertion, that 
 the Levites had been supplanted by the priests of the calves, 
 and that multitudes had quitted the country with them, in 
 just indignation. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THERE is still another coincidence which falls under the 
 same head. 
 
 In the fifteenth chapter of the first Book of Kings (v. 28) 
 I read that " Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of 
 Issachar, conspired against him (i. e. Nadab the son of Je- 
 roboam) at Gibbet hon, which belonged to the Philistines ; 
 for Nadab and all Israel laid siege to Gibbethon." 
 
 It appears then that Gibbethon, situated in the tribe of 
 Dan, had by some means or other fallen into the hands of 
 the Philistines, and that the forces of Israel were now en- 
 gaged in recovering possession of it. It may seem a very 
 hopeless undertaking, at this time of day, to ascertain the 
 circumstances of which an enemy availed himself, in order 
 to gain possession of a particular town in Canaan, near 
 three thousand years ago. Yet, perhaps, the investigation, 
 distant as it is, is not desperate for in the twenty-first 
 chapter of Joshua (v. 23) I find Gibbethon and her suburbs 
 mentioned as a city of the Levites. Now Jeroboam, we 
 have heard, drove all the Levites out of Israel ; what then 
 can be more probable, than that Gibbethon, being thus sud- 
 denly evacuated, the Philistines, a remnant of the old en- 
 emy, still lurking in the country, and ever ready to rush in 
 wherever there was a breach, should have spied an oppor- 
 tunity in the defenceless state of Gibbethon, and claimed 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 193 
 
 it as their own 7 1 It is indeed far from improbable that this 
 story of Gibbethon is that of many other Levitical cities 
 throughout Israel ; that .this is but a glimpse of much sim- 
 ilar confusion, misery, and intestine tumult, by which that 
 kingdom was now convulsed ; and though a solitary fact 
 in itself, a type of many more ; and thus, in another way, 
 did the profane act of Jeroboam operate to the downfall of 
 his kingdom, and fatally eat into its strength. 
 
 Whether I arn right in this conjecture, it is impossible 
 to tell ; the case does not admit of positive decision either 
 way ; but, certainly, the grounds upon which it rests are, 
 to say the least, very suspicious ; and if they are sound, as 
 I think they are, I cannot imagine a point of harmony 
 more complete, or more undesigned, than that which we 
 have found between these half dozen words touching Gib- 
 bethon, a Levitical city, lapsing into the hands of the Phi- 
 listines, and the expulsion of the Levites out of Israel by 
 the sin of Jeroboam. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 NOR is this all. There is another and a still more val- 
 uable coincidence yet, connected with -this part of my sub- 
 
 1 That the Philistines were thus dispersed over the land may be gathered 
 from many hints in Scripture ; even in the kingdom of Judah they were to 
 be found, much more in Israel. " Some of the Philistines brought Jehosha- 
 phat presents and tribute silver," 2 Chron. xvii. 11. Probably the mis- 
 creants mentioned I Kings xv. 12, whom Asa expelled, and those mentioned 
 xxii. 46, whom Jehoshaphat his son drove out, and those again mentioned 
 2 Kings xxiii. 7, who were established even at Jerusalem, whom Josiah cast 
 out, were all of this nation. And there still were Hittites somewhere at 
 hand, who had even kings of their own, 1 Kings x. 29; 2 Kings vii. 6? 
 and we read of a land of the Philistines, where the Shunamitess sojourned 
 during the famine, 2 Kings viii. 2 all evident tokens, that a considerable 
 body of the primitive inhabitants of Palestine still dwelt in it. 
 
 17 
 
194 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 ject ; more valuable, because involving in itself a greater 
 number of particulars, and, therefore, more liable to a flaw, 
 if the combination was artificial. When Elijah has worked 
 his great miracle on the top of Carmel, and kindled the 
 sacrifice by fire from heaven, he has to fly from Jezebel for 
 his life, who swears that, by the morrow, she will deal with 
 him as he had dealt with the prophets of Baal her god. and 
 slay him. 1 Now when it was so common a practice, as we 
 have seen, for the godly amongst the people of Israel to 
 betake themselves to Judah in their distress, there to wor- 
 ship the God of their Fathers without scandal and without 
 persecution, it seems obvious that this was the place for 
 Elijah to repair unto ; the most appropriate, for it was be- 
 cause he had been very jealous for the Lord that he was 
 banished the most convenient, for no other was so near ; 
 he had but to cross the borders, one would think, and he 
 was safe. Yet neither on this occasion, nor yet during the 
 three preceding years of drought, when Ahab sought to lay 
 hands upon him, did Elijah seek sanctuary in Judah. 
 First he hides himself by the brook Cherith, which is be- 
 fore Jordan ; 2 then at " Zarephath which belongs to Zidon ;" 
 and though he does at last, when his case seems desperate, 
 and his hours are numbered by Jezebel's sentence " come 
 in haste to Beer-sheba, which belongeth to Judah"* still it 
 is after a manner which bespeaks his reluctance to set foot 
 within that territory, even more than if he had evaded it 
 altogether. Tarry he will not ; he separates from his ser- 
 vant, probably for the greater security of both ; goes a day's 
 
 1 1 Kings xviii. 40; xix. 2. 
 
 2 It ie true that there is a great difference of opinion as to the situation of 
 this brook Cherith ; but from the direction given to Elijah being to turn 
 Eastivard, when he was to go there, he being at the time in Samaria, it i8 
 xlear that it could not be in Judah. Consult Lightfoot, Vol. n. 318, fol. 
 
 * 1 Kings xix. 3. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 195 
 
 journey into the wilderness, and forlorn, and spirit-broken 
 and alone, begs that he may die ; then he wanders away, 
 being so taught of God, forty days and forty nights, till he 
 comes to Horeb, the Mount of God, and there conceals him- 
 self in a cave. Now all this is at first sight very strange 
 and unaccountable; strange and unaccountable, that the 
 Prophet of God should so studiously avoid Judah, the peo- 
 ple of God, governed as it then was by Jehoshaphat, a 
 prince who walked with God, 1 Judah being of all others 
 a shelter the nearest and most convenient. How is it to 
 be explained? 
 
 I doubt not by this fact; that Jehoshaphat king of 
 Judah had already married, or was then upon the point of 
 marrying, his son Jehoram to Athaliah, the daughter of 
 this very Ahab, and this very Jezebel, who were seeking 
 Elijah's life ; 2 his, therefore, was not now the kingdom in 
 which Elijah could feel that a residence was safe ; for by 
 this ill-omened match (such it proved) the houses of Je- 
 hoshophat and Ahab were so strictly identified, that we 
 find the former, when solicited by Ahab to join him in an 
 expedition against Ramoth-gilead, expressing himself in 
 such terms as these : " I am as thou art, my people as thy 
 people, my horses as thy horses ;" 3 and in allusion, as it 
 should seem, to this fraternity of the two kings, Jehosha- 
 phat is in one place actually called " King of Israel." 4 
 
 It may be demonstrated that this fatal marriage (for 
 such it was in its consequences) was, at any rate, con- 
 tracted not later than the tenth or eleventh of Ahab's 
 reign, and it might have been much earlier ; whilst these 
 scenes in the life of Elijah could not have occurred within 
 the first few years of that Veign, seeing that Ahab had to 
 
 2 Kings ixii. 43. 2 Ibv viii. 18 ; 2 Chron. rriii. X. 
 
 3 1 Kings ziii. 4. * 2 Chron. xxi. 2. 
 
196 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II. 
 
 fill up the measure of his wickedness after he came to the 
 throne, before the Prophet was cormnissioQed to take up 
 his parable against him. I mention these two facts, as 
 tending to prove that the exile of Elijah could not have 
 fallen out long, if at all, before the marriage j and there- 
 fore that the latter event, whether past or in prospect, 
 might well bear upon it. I say that it may be proved that 
 this marriage was not later than the tenth or eleventh of 
 Ahab for 
 
 1. Ahaziah, the fruit of the marriage, the son of Jehoram 
 and Athaliah, began to reign in the twelfth year of Joram. 
 son of Ahab, king of Israel. 1 
 
 2. But Joram began to reign in the eighteenth year of 
 Jehoshaphat king of Judah. 2 
 
 3. Therefore, the twelfth of Joram would answer to the 
 thirtieth of Jehoshaphat, (had the latter reigned so long ; 
 it did, in fact, answer to the seventh of Jehoram y the son 
 of Jehoshaphat ; 3 but there is no need to perplex the com- 
 putation by any reference to this reign ;) and accordingly 
 Ahaziah must have begun his reign in what would corres- 
 pond to the thirtieth of Jehoshaphat. 
 
 4. But he was twenty-two when he began it. There- 
 fore he must have been born about the eighth year of Je- 
 hoshaphat; and consequently the marriage of Jehoram 
 and Athaliah, which gave birth to him, must have been 
 contracted at least as early as the sixth or seventh of Je- 
 hoshaphat. 
 
 5. Now Jehoshaphat began to reign in the fourth of 
 Ahab, king of Israel ; therefore the marriage must have 
 been solemnized as early as the tenth or eleventh of Ahab 
 how much earlier it was solemnized, in fact, we cannot 
 tell ; but the result is extremely curious ; and without the 
 
 i 2 Kings viii. 25, 26. 2 ib, iii. 1. 
 
 3 Comp. 2 Kings iii. 1 ; viii. 18. 1 Kings xxii. 42. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 197 
 
 most remote allusion to it on the part of the sacred histo- 
 rian, as being an incident in any way governing the move- 
 ments of Elijah, it does furnish, when we are once in pos- 
 session of it, a most satisfactory explanation of the shyness 
 of Elijah to look for a refuge in a country where, almost 
 under any other circumstances, it was the most natural he 
 should have sought one ; and, where, at any other time, 
 since the division of the kingdoms, he certainly would have 
 found not only a refuge, but a welcome. 
 
 xx. 
 
 I HAVE already advanced several arguments for the 
 truth of that remarkable portion of Scripture which tells 
 the history of the great prophet Elijah, and showed, that, 
 on comparing some of the reputed events of his life with 
 the political and domestic state of his country at the time, 
 the reality of those events was established beyond all rea- 
 sonable doubt. But I have not yet done with this part of 
 my subject ; and I press on the notice of rny readers once 
 again, as I have repeatedly pressed it before, the considera- 
 tion that these casual indications of truth, found in the 
 very midst of miracles the most striking, give great support 
 to the credibility of those miracles ; that the portions of 
 the history on which these seals of truth are set, combine 
 with the other and more extraordinary portions so inti 
 mately, that if the former are to be received, the latter can- 
 not be rejected without extreme violence, and laceration 
 of the whole : that standing or falling, they must stand or 
 fall together. 
 
 I spoke before of the flight of Elijah, and gave my rea- 
 sons for believing it. I speak now of a trifling incident in 
 that magnificent scene which is said to have been the pro-, 
 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II 
 
 logue to his flight. This it is. Twelve barrels of water, 
 at the command of the prophet, are poured upon the sacri- 
 fice, and fill the trench. But is it not a strange thing, that 
 at a moment of drought so intense, when the king himself 
 and the governor of his house, trusting the business to no 
 inferior agent, actually undertook to examine with their 
 own eyes the watering-places throughout all the land, di- 
 viding it between them, to see if they could save the re- 
 mainder of the cattle alive j 1 when the prophet had been 
 long before compelled to leave Cherith, because the brook 
 was dried up, and for no reason else, and to crave at the 
 hands of the widow-woman of Zarephath, whither he had 
 removed, though a land of danger to him, a little water in 
 a vessel that he might drink ; is it not, I say, a gross oversight 
 in the sacred writer, to make Elijah, at such a time, give or- 
 der for this wanton waste of water above all things, whereof 
 scarcely a drop was to be found to cool the tongue ; and 
 not only so, but to describe it as forthcoming at once, ap- 
 parently without any search made, an ample and abundant 
 reservoir ? 2 How can these things be ? Let us but remem- 
 ber the local position of Carmel, that it stood upon the coast, 
 as an incidental remark in the course of the narrative tes- 
 tifies; that the water was therefore probably sea-water; 
 and all the difficulty disappears. But the historian does 
 not trouble himself to satisfy our surprise, being altogether 
 unconscious that he has given any cause for it ; he, honest 
 man as he was, tells his tale, a faithful one as he feels, 
 and the objection which we have alleged, and which a 
 single word would have extinguished, he leaves to shock 
 us as it may, nothing heeding. 
 
 But would not an impostor have preserved thf keeping 
 
 1 1 Kings, xviii. 5. 
 
 2 Bishop Hall in his Contemplations shows himself aware of the diffi- 
 culty in this passage, but not of its probable solution. B. xviii. Comtempl. 7 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 199 
 
 of his picture better, and been careful not to violate seem- 
 ing probabilities by this prodigal profusion of water, whilst 
 his action was laid in a miraculous drought, for the re- 
 moval of which, indeed, this very sacrifice was offered 
 or, if of these twelve barrels he must needs speak, by way 
 of silencing all insinuation, that the whole was a scene 
 got up. and that fire was secreted, would he not have 
 studiously told us, at least, that the water was from the 
 sea which lay at the foot of Carmel, and thus have guarded 
 himself against sceptical remarks ? Now when I see this 
 momentous period of Elijah's ministry compassed in on 
 every side with tokens of truth so satisfactory ; when I 
 see so much in his history established as matter of fact, 
 am I to consider all that is not so established, merely be- 
 cause materials are wanting for the purpose, as matters of 
 fiction only ? Or, taking my stand upon the good faith 
 with which his flight, at least, is recorded, an event which, 
 in itself, I look upon as proved beyond all reasonable doubt 
 by a former coincidence ; or upon the good faith with 
 which his challenge at Carmel is recorded, an event not 
 unsatisfactorily confirmed by this coincidence; or rather 
 upon the veracity of both facts, shall I not feel my way 
 along from the prophet's recoil on setting foot in Judah. to 
 the anger of Jezebel, with whom Judah was then in close 
 alliance ; from this anger of hers, to the cause assigned 
 for it in the slaughter of her priests ; from the slaughter 
 of her priests, to the authority by which he did the deed, 
 himself a defenceless individual, in a country full of the 
 inveterate worshippers of the god of those priests ; and 
 thus, finally, shall I not ascend to the mighty miracle by 
 which that authority was conveyed to him, God in pledge 
 thereof touching the mountain that it smoked ? 
 
200 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 TOWARDS the end of the famine caused by this drought 
 Elijah is commanded by God to " get him to Zerephath, 
 which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there ; where a 
 widow-woman was to sustain him." 1 He goes ; finds the 
 woman gathering sticks near the gates of the city : and 
 asks her to fetch him a little water and a morsel of bread. 
 She replies, " As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a 
 cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in 
 a cruse : and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that 1 
 may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may 
 eat it, and die." 2 
 
 This widow-woman then dwelt at Zarephath, or Sa- 
 repta, it seems, which belongeth to Zidon. Now from a 
 passage in the book of Joshua 3 we learn that the district 
 of Zidon, in the division of the land of Canaan, fell to the 
 lot of Asher. Let us then turn to the thirty-third chapter 
 of Deuteronomy, where Moses blesses the Tribes, and see 
 the character he gives of this part of the country : " of 
 Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children ; let him 
 be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in 
 oil ;" 4 indicating the future fertility of that region, and the 
 nature of its principal crop. It is likely, therefore, that at 
 the end of a dearth, of three years and a half, oil should 
 be found there, if anywhere. Yet this symptom of truth 
 occurs once more as an ingredient in a miraculous history 
 for the oil was made not to fail till the rain came. The 
 incident itself is a very minute one ; and minute as it is, 
 only discovered to be a coincidence by the juxtaposition of 
 several texts from several books of Scripture. It would 
 
 1 1 Kings xvii. 9. 2 ib. X vii. 12. 
 
 3 Josh. xix. 28. Deut. xxxiii. 24. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 201 
 
 require a very circumspect forger of the story to introduce 
 the mention of the oil ; and when he had introduced it, 
 not to be tempted to betray himself by throwing out some 
 slight hint why he had done so. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 NOT long after this period, the history of Elisha fur- 
 nishes us with a coincidence characteristic, I think, of 
 truth. It appears that " a great woman " of Shechem 
 had befriended the prophet, finding him and his servant, 
 from time to time, as they passed by that place, food and 
 lodging. In return for this he sends her a message, "Be- 
 hold thou hast been careful for us with all this care ; 
 what is to be done for thee ? wouldest thou be spoken for 
 to the king, or to the captain of the host 2" 1 Now we 
 should have gathered from previous passages in Elisha's 
 history, that Jehoram, who was then king of Israel, was 
 not one with whom he was upon such terms as this pro- 
 position to the Shunammite implies. Jehoram was the 
 son of Ahab, his old master Elijah's enemy, and appar- 
 ently no friend of his own ; for when the three kings, the 
 king of Israel, the king of Judah, and the king of Edom, 
 in their distress for water, in their expedition against 
 Moabj wished to inquire of the Lord through Elisha, his 
 answer to the king of Israel was, " As the Lord of hosts 
 liveth, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I re- 
 gard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, 1 
 would not look toward thee, nor see thee"* What then 
 had occurred in the interval betwixt this avowal, and his 
 proposal to the Shunammite to use his influence in her 
 
 2 Kings iv. 13. 2 Ib. iii. 14. 
 
202 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 favor at court, which had changed his position with re- 
 spect to the king of Israel ? It may be supposed that it 
 was the sudden supply of water, which he had furnished 
 these kings with, by God's permission, thus saving the ex- 
 pedition ; and the defeat of the enemy, to which it had 
 been instrumental. 1 This would naturally make Elisha 
 feel that the king of Israel was under obligations to him, 
 and that he could ask a slight favor of him without seem- 
 ing to sanction the character of the man by doing so. 
 And this solution of the case appears to be the more prob- 
 able, from Elisha coupling the " captain of the host" with 
 the king ; as though his interest was equally good with 
 him too, which he might reasonably consider it to be, 
 when he had done the army such signal service. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 A WORD upon the marriage of which I spoke in a 
 former paragraph. Evil was the day for Judah when the 
 son of Jehoshaphat took for a wife the daughter of Ahab, 
 and of Jezebel, ten times the daughter. Singular, indeed, 
 is the hideous resemblance of Athaliah to her mother, 
 though our attention is not at all directed to the likeness ; 
 and were the fidelity of the history staked upon the few 
 incidents in it which relate to this female fiend, it would 
 be safe so characteristic are they of the child of Jezebel 
 the same thirst for blood ; the same lust of dominion, 
 whether in the state or the household ; the same unfem- 
 inine influence over the kings their husbands ; Jezebel, 
 the setter-up of Baal in Israel ; Athaliah in Judah those 
 bitter fountains, from which disasters innumerable flowed 
 
 i 2 Kings iii. 16, 17. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 
 
 203 
 
 to either kingdom, 1 preparing the one for a Shalmanezer, 
 the other for a Nebuchadnezzar. But this by the way. 
 Whatever might be the motive which induced so good a 
 prince as Jehoshaphat to sanction this alliance ; whether, 
 indeed, it was of choice, and in the hope of re-uniting the 
 two kingdoms, which is probable ; or whether it was of 
 compulsion, the act of an impetuous son, and not his own 
 for the subsequent history of Jehoram shows how little 
 he was disposed to yield to his father's will, when his own 
 was thwarted by it 2 certain it is that it proved a sad 
 epoch in the fate and fortunes of Judah ; a calamity al- 
 most as withering in its effects upon that kingdom, as the 
 sin of Jeroboam had been upon his own. Up to the time 
 of Jehoshaphat, Judah had prospered exceedingly ; hence- 
 forward there is a taint of Baal introduced into the blood 
 royal, and a curse for a long time, though not without 
 intermissions, seems to rest upon the land. The even' 
 march with which the two kingdoms now advance hand 
 in hand is early seen ; they were now bent upon grinding 
 at the same mill ; and a remarkable instance of coinci- 
 dence without design here presents itself, which the gen- 
 eral observations I have been making may serve to intro- 
 duce. 
 
 1. Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, I read, 3 began to reign 
 over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehosha- 
 phat king of Judah. 
 
 2. But Jehoram, the son of Ahab, began to reign over 
 Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat 
 king of Judah, his brother Ahaziah being dead. 4 
 
 3. Elsewhere, however, it is said that this Jehoram, the 
 son of Ahab, began to reign in the second year of Jehoram 
 son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah. 5 
 
 i See Hosea xiii. 1. 2 2 Chron. xxi. 3, 4. 3 1 Kings xxii. 51. 
 < 2 Kings in. 1. & Ib. i. 17. 
 
204 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 4. Therefore, the second year of Jehoram son of Je- 
 hoshaphat must have corresponded with the eighteenth of 
 Jehoshaphat ; or, in other words, Jehoram must have begun 
 to reign in the seventeenth of Jehoshaphat. 
 
 It is obvious that the maze of dates and names thus 
 brought together from various places in Scripture, through 
 which the argument is to be pursued, renders all con- 
 trivance, collusion, or packing of facts, for the purpose of 
 supporting a conclusion, utterly impossible. Now the re- 
 sult of the whole is this, that Ahaziah, the son of Ahab 
 king of Israel, and Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat king 
 of Judah, both began to reign in the same year, in the 
 respective kingdoms of their fathers, their fathers being" 
 nevertlieless themselves alive, and active sovereigns at 
 the time. Is there anything by which this simultaneous 
 adoption of these young men to be their fathers' colleagues 
 can be accounted for ? An identity so remarkable in the 
 proceedings of the confederate kingdoms, can scarcely be 
 accidental. Let us then endeavor to ascertain what event 
 was in progress in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat^ 
 the year in which the two appointments were made. 
 
 Now Jehoshaphat began to reign in the fourth of Ahab. 1 
 But Ahab died in the great battle against Ramoth-gilead, 
 having reigned twenty-two years ; 2 he died therefore in 
 the eighteenth of Jehoshaphat. 
 
 Accordingly, in the seventeenth of that monarch, the 
 year in which we are concerned, the two kings were pre- 
 paring to go up against Ramoth, a measure upon which 
 they did not venture without long and grave deliberation, 
 concentration of forces, application to prophets touching 
 their prospects of success. 3 
 
 But when they approached this hazardous enterprise in 
 
 t 1 Kings xxii. 41. 2 II ivi. 29. 8 Ib. xxii. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 205 
 
 a spirit so cautious, can anything be more probable, than 
 that each monarch should then have made his son a part- 
 ner of his throne, in order that, during his own absence 
 with the army, there might be one left behind to rule at 
 home, and in case of the father's death in battle, (Ahab 
 did actually fall,) to reign in his stead? There can be 
 little or no doubt that this is the true solution of the case, 
 though the text itself of the narrative does not contain 
 the slightest intimation that it is so. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 SUCH arrangements, indeed, were not unusual in those 
 days and in those countries. Here is a further proof of it, 
 and at the same time a coincidence which is a companion 
 to the last. 
 
 1. "In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah 
 began Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, to reign over Israel 
 in Samaria." So we are told in one passage. 1 But, in 
 another, 2 that, " In the second year of Joash (Jehoash), 
 the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, reigned Amaziah, the 
 son of Joash, king of Judah." 
 
 2. Therefore, Amaziah, king of Judah, reigned in the 
 thirty-ninth of Joash, king of Judah. 
 
 3. Now we learn from a passage in the second Book of 
 Chronicles, 3 that " Joash reigned forty years in Jerusalem." 
 
 4. Therefore Amaziah must have begun to reign one 
 year at least before the death of his father Joash. 
 
 Can we discover any reason for this ?. The clue will be 
 found in a parenthesis of half a line, which the following 
 paragraph in the Chronicles presents : " And it came to 
 
 i 2 Kings xiii. 10. 2 Ib. xiv. 1. 32 Chron. xxiv. 1. 
 
 18 
 
206 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 pass at the end of the year, that the host of Syria came 
 up against him (Joash) ; and they came to Jerusalem, and 
 destroyed all the princes of the people. . . . And when they 
 were departed from him (for they left him in great dis- 
 eases) his own servants conspired against him, for the 
 blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and slew him on 
 his bed, and he died." 1 
 
 The great diseases therefore under which, it seems, 
 Josah was laboring at the moment of the Syrian invasion, 
 presents itself as the probable cause why Amaziah his son, 
 then in the flower of his age, was admitted to a share in 
 the government a little before his time. Yet how circuit- 
 ously do we arrive at this conclusion ! The Book of Kings 
 alone would not establish it ; the Book of Chronicles alone 
 would not establish it. From the former, we might learn 
 when Amaziah began to reign ; from the latter, when 
 Joash, the father of Amaziah, died ; and accordingly, a 
 comparison of the two dates would enable us to determine 
 that the reign of Amaziah began before that of Joash 
 ended ; but neither document asserts the fact that the son 
 did reign conjointly with the father. We infer it, that is 
 all. Neither does the Book of Kings make the least al- 
 lusion to any accident whatever which rendered this co- 
 partnership necessary ; nor yet the Book of Chronicles di- 
 rectly, only an incidental parenthesis, a word or two in 
 length, intimates that at the time of the Syrian invasion 
 Joash was sick. 
 
 I have adduced this coincidence, strong in itself, chiefly 
 in illustration and confirmation of the principles upon which 
 the last proceeded ; the simultaneous and premature as- 
 sumption of the sceptre by the sons of Jehoshaphat and 
 Ahab, as compared with the date of the combined expedi- 
 
 i 2 Chron. rriv. 23 25. 
 
PRAT I. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 207 
 
 tion of those two kings against Ramoth-gilead. But I 
 must not dismiss the subject altogether without calling 
 your attention to the undesignedness manifested in either 
 case. Nothing can be more latent than the congruity, such 
 as it is, which is here found ; either history might be read 
 a thousand times without a suspicion that any such con- 
 gruity was there ; investigation is absolutely necessary for 
 this discovery of it ; patient disembroilment of a labyrinth 
 of names, many being identical, where the parties are not 
 the same : scrutiny and comparison of dates, seldom so 
 given as to expedite the labors of the inquirer. All this 
 must be done, or these singular tokens of truth escape us, 
 and many, I doubt not, do escape us, after all. What im- 
 posture can be here? What contrivers could be prepared 
 for such a sifting of their plausible disclosures ? What 
 pretenders could be provided with such vouchers ; or hav- 
 ing provided them, would bury them so deep as that they 
 should run the risk of never being brought to light at all, 
 and thus frustrate their own end in the fabrication ? 
 
 Once more I commit to my readers facts which speak, I 
 think, to the truth of Scripture, as things having authority -, 
 facts, which afford proof infallible that there is a mine of 
 evidence, ' deep things of God,' in this sense, in the sacred 
 writings, which they who look upon them with a hasty 
 and impatient glance and such very generally is the 
 manner of sceptics, and almost always the manner of youth- 
 ful sceptics, leave under their feet unworked ; a treasure 
 hid in a field which they only who will be at the pains to 
 dig for it will find. 
 
 But if an investigation, such as this that we are conduct- 
 ing, leads to such a conclusion to a conclusion, I mean, 
 that there is a substratum of truth running through the 
 Bible, which none can discover but he who will patiently 
 and perseveringly sink the well at the bottom of which it 
 
208 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 lies and such is the conclusion at which we must arrive 
 is it not a lamentable thing to hear, as we are sometimes 
 condemned to hear it, the superficial objection, or supercil- 
 ious scoff, proceeding from the mouth of one whose very 
 speech bewrays that he has walked over the surface of his 
 subject merely, if even that, and who nevertheless pretends 
 and proclaims that truth he finds not ? 
 
 XXV. 
 
 IN considering the political and religious condition of the 
 two kingdoms after the division, I have looked at the es- 
 tablishment of the calves at Bethel and Dan by Jeroboam 
 as a great national epoch ; as a measure pregnant with 
 consequences far more numerous and more important, fetch- 
 ing a much larger compass, and affecting many more inter- 
 ests, than its author probably contemplated. I have now 
 to fix upon another event, the wide wasting effects of which 
 I have already hinted as another national crisis, one which, 
 in the end, most materially influenced the fortunes both of 
 Israel and Judah ; the thing in itself apparently a trifle ; 
 " but God," says Bishop Hall, " lays small accidents as 
 foundations for greater designs ;" I speak of the marriage 
 between Ahab and Jezebel. It is thus announced " And 
 it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to 
 walk -in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took 
 to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zido- 
 nians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. 
 And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, 
 which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove 
 and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to 
 anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him." 1 
 
 i 1 Kings xvi 31. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 209 
 
 Here we have the beginning of a new and more pestilent 
 idolatry in Israel. The Zidonian queen corrupts the coun- 
 try to which she is unhappily translated, with her own 
 rooted heathenish abominations, and priests of Baal, and 
 prophets of Baal, being under her own special protection 
 and encouragement, multiply exceedingly ; and so seduc- 
 tive did the voluptuous worship prove, that, with the ex- 
 ception of seven thousand persons, all Israel had, more or 
 less, partaken in her sin. Jeroboam's calf had been a base 
 and sordid representative of God, but a representative still ; 
 Jezebel's Baal was an audacious rival. Nevertheless, Is- 
 rael could not find in their hearts to put away the God of 
 their fathers altogether ; and accordingly we hear Elijah 
 exclaim, " How long halt ye between two opinions ? if the 
 Lord be God, follow him, and if Baal, then follow him." 1 
 
 I do not think sufficient notice has been taken of the 
 curious manner in which this sudden ejaculation of the 
 prophet corresponds with a number of unconnected inci- 
 dents, characteristic of the times, which lie scattered over 
 the Books of Kings and Chronicles. I shall collect a few 
 of them, that it may be seen how well their confronted 
 testimony agrees together, and how strictly, but undesign 
 edly, they all coincide with that state of public opinion 
 upon religious matters which the words of Elijah express, 
 a halting opinion. 
 
 Thus, in the scene on Mount Carmel, we find, that after 
 the priests of Baal had in vain besought their god to give 
 proof of himself, and it now became Elijah's turn to act } 
 "He repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken 
 down," 2 as though here, on the top of Carmel, were the 
 remains of an altar to the true God, (one of those high 
 places tolerated, however questionably, by some even of 
 
 1 Kings xviii. 21. 2 Ib. xviii. 30. 
 
 18* 
 
210 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II, 
 
 the most religious kings,) which had been superseded by 
 an altar to Baal since Ahab's reign had begun ; the prophet 
 not having to build, it seems, but only to renew. And 
 agreeably to this, we have Obadiah, the governor of Ahab's 
 own house, represented as a man " who feared the Lord 
 greatly, and saved the prophets of the Lord ;" he, therefore, 
 no apostate, but Ahab, in consideration of his fidelity, 
 winking at his faith ; perhaps, indeed, himself not so much 
 sold to Baal- worship, as sold into the hands of an imperious 
 woman, who would hear of no other. And so "Ahab 
 served Baal a little" said Jehu, his successor, 1 another of 
 the equivocal tokens of the times ; whilst the command of 
 this same Jehu, that the temple of Baal should be searched 
 before the slaughter of the idolaters began, lest there should 
 be there any of the worshippers of the Lord, instead of 
 the worshippers of Baal only, still argues the prevalence 
 of the same half measure of faith. Moreover, the charac- 
 ter of the four hundred prophets of Ahab, which, by its 
 contradictions, has so much perplexed the commentators ; 
 their number corresponding with that of those who ate at 
 Jezebel's table ; their parable, nevertheless, taken up in the 
 Lord's name ; still their veracity suspected by Jehoshaphat, 
 who asks if " there be no prophet of the Lord besides ;" 
 and the mutual ill-will which manifests itself between 
 them and Micaiah ; are all very expressive features of the 
 same doubtful mind. 2 Then the pretence by which Ahab, 
 through Jezebel, takes away the life of Naboth, is *' blas- 
 phemy against God and the king," against the true God, 
 no doubt, the tyrant availing herself of a clause in the 
 Levitical law ; 2 a law which was still, therefore, as it should 
 seem, the law of the land, even in the kingdom of Israel, 
 
 1 2 Kings, x. 18. 
 
 2 1 Kings xviii. 19 ; xxii. 624 ; 2 Chron. xviiL 1023. 
 
 3 Levit. xxiv. 16. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 211 
 
 howbeit standing in the anomalous position of deriving its 
 authority from an acknowledgment of Jehovah alone, and 
 yet left to struggle against the established worship of Baal, 
 too ; enough in itself to confound the people, to compromise 
 all religious distinctions, and to insure a halting creed in 
 whatever nation it obtained. Thus, whilst I see the prophets 
 of the Lord cut off under the warrant of Jezebel, and the 
 government of the Lord virtually renounced ; at another 
 time I see, as I have said, a man condemned to death for 
 blasphemy against the Lord, under the warrant of Leviti- 
 cus ; and the two sons of an Israelitish woman sold to her 
 creditor for bondsmen, under the same law ; l and the lepers 
 shut out at the gate of Samaria, still under the same, 2 and 
 contrary, as it should appear, to the Syrian practice ; for 
 Naaman, though a leper, does not seem to have been an 
 outcast, but to have had servants about him, and to have 
 executed the king's commands, and even to have expected 
 Elisha to come out to him, and put his hand upon the 
 place. What can argue the embarrassment under which 
 Israel was laboring in its religious relations more clearly 
 than all this ? the law of Moses acknowledged to be valid, 
 and its provisions enforced, though its claim to the obe- 
 dience of the people only rested upon having God for its 
 author ; that God whom Baal was supplanting. Here, I 
 think, is truth ; it would have been little to the purpose to 
 produce flagrant proofs that the worship of God and the 
 worship of Baal prevailed together in Israel ; those might 
 have been the result of contrivance ; but it is coincidence, 
 and undesigned coincidence, to find a prophet exclaiming, 
 in a moment of zeal, "How long halt ye," and then to 
 find indications, some of them grounded upon the merest 
 trifles of domestic life, that the people did halt. 
 
 1 2 Kings iv. 1 ; Levit. xxv. 39, 
 
 * Ib. vii. 3; Levit xiii.46; xiv 3; Numt. v. 23. 
 
212 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 BUT this marriage of Ahab and Jezebel, so ruinous to 
 Israel, was scarcely less so to Judah ; for in Judah the 
 same miserable alliance was to be acted over again in the 
 next generation, and with the very same consequences. 
 
 Ahab, king of Israel, had taken to himself Jezebel, a 
 heathen, for his wife, and Israel, through her, became a 
 half-heathen nation. Jehoram, king of Judah, had taken 
 to himself Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel, worthy in all 
 respects of the mother who bore her, to be his wife ; and 
 now Judah, in like manner, and for the like cause, fell 
 away. Of Ahab, it is said, " But there was none like unto 
 Ahab, who did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight 
 of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up" { Such 
 were the bitter fruits of his marriage. Of Jehoram, it is 
 said, " And he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, 
 as did the house of Ahab, for the daughter of Ahab was 
 his wife, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord." 2 Such 
 in turn was this ill-omened union to him and his. Either 
 of these women, therefore, was the curse of the kingdom 
 over which her husband ruled ; and as we have already 
 seen some of the mischief brought into Israel (faulty enough 
 before) by Jezebel, so shall we now see still more brought 
 into Judah (hitherto a righteous and prosperous people) by 
 Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel. I, however, shall not 
 enter into the subject further than to draw from it what I 
 can of evidence. 
 
 And here, before I proceed further, let me notice a cir- 
 cumstance, trivial in itself, which tends, however, to estab- 
 lish this reputed alliance of the houses of Jehoshaphat and 
 
 1 Kings ixi. 25. 2 Kings viii. 18. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 213 
 
 Ahab, as a matter of fact. There is no more cause, in- 
 deed, for calling this in question, than any other historical 
 incident of an indifferent nature ; but still, I am unwilling 
 to let any opportunity pass of drawing out these tokens of 
 truth, whether significant or not ; be the gifts great or 
 small, which are cast into the treasury of evidence, they 
 contribute to swell the amount ; they contribute to justify 
 the general conclusion, that truth is still the pervading princi- 
 ple of the sacred writings, in minute as well as in momen- 
 tous matters, in things which are, or which are not, of a 
 kind to provoke investigation. 
 
 I am told then, that a son of the King of Judah marries 
 a daughter of the King of Israel. Now agreeably to this, 
 for some time afterwards, I discover a marked identity of 
 names in the two families, so much so, as to render, while 
 it lasts, the contemporary history of the two kingdoms ex- 
 tremely complicated and embarrassing. Thus, Ahab is 
 succeeded by a son Ahaziah, 1 on the throne of Israel ; and 
 Jehoram is also succeeded by a son Ahaziah, (the nephew 
 of the other,) on the throne of Judah. 2 Again, Ahaziah, 
 King of Israel, dies, and he is succeeded by. a Jehoram ; 3 
 but a Jehoram, the brother-in-law of the former, is at the 
 same moment on the throne of Judah, as his father's col- 
 league. 4 How much longer this mutual interchange of 
 family names might have continued, it is impossible to tell, 
 for Ahab's house was cut off in the next generation by 
 Jehu, and a new dynasty was set up ; but the thing itself 
 is curious ; and however our patience may be put to the 
 proof, in disengaging the thread of Israel and Judah at this 
 point of their annals, we have the satisfaction of feeling 
 that the intricacy of the history at such a moment is a very 
 strong argument of the truth of the history. For, although 
 
 i 1 Kings xxii. 49. 2 2 Chron. xxii. 1. 
 
 3 2 Kings i. 17; Hi. 1. 4 Ib. i. 17. 
 
214 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 no remark is made upon this identity of names, nor the 
 least hint given as to the cause of it, we at once perceive 
 that it may very naturally be referred to the union which 
 is said to have taken place between the houses, and which 
 many circumstances tend to show, however extraordinary 
 it may seem, was a cordial union 
 
 XXVII 
 
 I NOW proceed to consider some of the public conse- 
 quences of this marriage to Judah. 
 
 In the eighteenth verse of the eighth chapter of the second 
 Book of Kings, we are informed of Jehoram's wickedness, 
 and at whose instigation it was wrought. In the twenty- 
 second verse, we find it said, (after some account of a rebel- 
 lion of the Edomites) " then Libnah revolted at the same 
 time." No cause is assigned for this revolt of Libnah ; the 
 few words quoted are incidentally introduced, and the sub- 
 ject is dismissed. But in the Chronicles 1 a cause is as- 
 signed, though still in a manner very brief and inexplicit ; 
 " the same time, also," (so the narrative runs,) " did Libnah 
 revolt from under his hand ; because he had forsaken the 
 Lord God of his fathers ;" that is, because, at the per- 
 suasion of Athaliah for she, we have found, 2 was his 
 state-adviser Jehoram did what Ahab, his father-in-law, 
 had done at the persuasion of the mother of Athaliah, set 
 up a strange god in his kingdom, even Baal. Thus, this 
 supplementary clause, short as it is, may serve, I think, as 
 a clue to explain the revolt of Libnah. For Libnah, it 
 appears from a passage in Joshua, was one of the cities of 
 Judah, given to the priests, the sons of Aaron ; 3 no won- 
 
 i 2 Chron. xxi. 10. s 2 Kings viii. 18. 3 Josh. xv. 42 ; xxL 13. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 215 
 
 der, therefore, that the citizens of such a city should be 
 the first to reject with indignation the authority of a mon- 
 arch, who was even then setting at nought the God whose 
 servants they especially were, and who was substituting 
 for him the abomination of the Zidonians. This is the 
 explanation of the revolt of Libnah. Yet, satisfactory as 
 it is, when we are once fairly in possession of it, the ex- 
 planation is anything but obvious. Libnah, it is said, re- 
 volts, but that revolt is not expressly coupled with the in- 
 troduction of Baal into the country as a god ; nor is that 
 pernicious novelty coupled with the marriage of Athaliah ; 
 nor is any reason alleged why Libnah should feel pecul- 
 iarly alive to the ignominy and shame of such an act ; 
 for where Libnah was, or what it was, or whereof its in- 
 habitants consisted, are things unknown to the readers of 
 Kings and Chronicles, and would continue unknown, were 
 they not to take advantage of a hint or two in the Book 
 of Joshua. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 1 AM confirmed in the supposition that the revolt of 
 Libnah is correctly ascribed to the indignation of the 
 Priests at the worship of Baal, by other circumstances in 
 the history of those times ; for many things conspire to 
 show, on the one side, the reckless idolatry of the royal 
 house of Judah, (so true to their God till the blood of the 
 house of Almb began to run in their veins,) and, on the 
 other side, the general disaffection of the ministers of God, 
 and the desperate condition to which they were reduced. 
 For when the Temple of Jerusalem was to be repaired, 
 which was done by Joash, the grandson of Athaliah, 1 the 
 
 * 2 Chron. xxiv. 4. 
 
216 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 effects of her wicked misrule incidentally come out. Not 
 only had the utensils of the Temple been removed to the 
 house of Baal, but its very walls had in many places been 
 broken up, the ample funds put into the hands of the young 
 king being principally devoted, not to decorations, but to 
 the purchase of substantial materials, timber and stones ; 
 and from a casual expression touching the rites of the 
 Temple, that " there were offered burnt-offerings in the 
 House of the Lord continually all the days of Jehoi- 
 ada" 1 it is pretty evident that, whilst Athaliah was in 
 power, even these had been discontinued ; that even Judah, 
 the tribe of God's own choice, even Zion, the hill which 
 he loved, paid him no longer any public testimony of alle- 
 giance, the faithful city herself become an harlot. So 
 wanton was the defiance of the most High God, during the 
 reigns of Jehoram, Ahaziah, and the subsequent usurpa- 
 tion of Athaliah, when these her husband and her son 
 were dead. 
 
 On the other hand, Joash, the rightful possessor of the 
 throne of Judah, an infant plucked from among his slaugh- 
 tered kindred by an aunt, and saved from the murderous 
 hands of a grandmother, grew up unobserved where, of 
 all places ? in the Lord's House, contiguous as it was to 
 the palace of Athaliah, who little dreamed that she had 
 such an enemy in such a quarter ; the High Priest his 
 protector ; the Priests and Levites his future partisans ; so 
 that when events were ripe for the overthrow of Athaliah, 
 the child was set up as the champion of the Church of 
 God, so long prostrate before Baal, but still not spirit-broken 
 cast down, but not destroyed ; and by that Church, and 
 no party else, was he established ; and the unnatural 
 usurper was hurled from her polluted throne, with the 
 
 i 2 Chron. xxiv. 14. 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 217 
 
 shriek of treason upon her lips ; and having lived like her 
 mother, like her mother she died, killed under her -own 
 walls, and among the hoofs of the horses. 1 This, I say, is 
 a very consistent consummation of a resistance, of which 
 the revolt of Libnah, some fourteen years before, was the 
 earnest : in the revolt of Libnah, a city of the Priests, the 
 disaffection of the Priests prematurely breaks out ; in the 
 dethronement of Athaliah, achieved by the Priests, that 
 same disaffection finds its final issue ; the interval between * 
 the two events having sufficed to fill up the iniquity of 
 Baal's worshippers, and to organize a revolt upon a greater 
 scale than that of Libnah, "vhich restored its dues to the 
 Church, and to God his servants, his offerings, and his 
 house. 
 
 But will any man say that the sacred historian so 
 ordered his materials, that such incidents as these which I 
 have named should successfully turn up that he guarded 
 his hands in all this wittingly that he let fall, with con- 
 summate artifice, first a brief and incidental notice (a mere 
 parenthesis) of the revolt of a single town, suppressing 
 meanwhile all mention of its peculiar constitution and 
 character, though such as prepared it above others for 
 revolt that then, after abandoning not only Libnah, but 
 the subject of Judah in general, and applying himself to 
 the affairs of Israel in their turn, he should finally revert 
 to his former topic, or rather to a kindred one. and lay 
 before us the history of a general revolt, organized by the 
 Priests ;. and all, in the forlorn hope that the uniform 
 working of the same principle of disaffection in the same 
 party, and for the same cause, in two detached instances, 
 would not pass unobserved ; but that such consistency 
 would be detected, and put down to the credit of the nar- 
 
 * 2 Kings xi. 16. 
 
 19 
 
218 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II. 
 
 rative at large ? This surely is a degree of refinement 
 much beyond belief. 
 
 Thus having traced this singular people through a long 
 and most diversified history, we are come to see planted in 
 both kingdoms of Israel and Judah the idolatrous principle 
 which was shortly to be the downfall of both. God usu- 
 ally works out his own ends in the way of natural conse- 
 quence, even his judgments being in general the ordinary 
 fruits of the offences which called for them ; and in this 
 instance the calves of Jeroboam and the groves of Baal 
 were the sin ; and from the sin were made to flow, as a 
 matter of course, the disgust of all virtuous Israelites, and 
 the intestine divisions resulting from it; the interruption 
 or suspension of all public worship ; the mischiefs of a per- 
 petual conflict between a national code of laws still in 
 force, and national idolatry, no less actually established 
 than the laws ; the depravity of morals which that idola- 
 try encouraged, and which served to sap the people's 
 strength ; all, elements of ruin which only wanted to be 
 developed in order to be fatal, and which in a very few 
 generations did their work. 
 
 It is curious to observe how the origin, the progress, and 
 the consummation of the devastating principle, correspond 
 in the two kingdoms. 
 
 Israel is the first to offend, both by the sin of Jeroboam 
 and the sin of Ahab ; and Israel is the first to have illus- 
 trious Prophets sent to him to counteract the evil, if it 
 were possible, whom, however, he persecutes or slays; 
 and Israel is the first to be carried into captivity. 
 
 Judah, after some years, follows the example of his 
 rival. Idolatry, even the worst, that of the same Baal, is 
 brought into Judah. Prophets, many and great, are now 
 in turn sent to warn him of the evil to come ; but now he 
 too has declared for the groves; and those Prophets he 
 
PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 219 
 
 stones, in one instant even between the porch and the 
 altar ; and, accordingly, by nearly the same interval as 
 Judah followed Israel in his idolatries, did he follow him 
 in his fate, and went after him to sit down and weep by 
 the waters of Babylon. There is something very coin- 
 cident in this relative scale of sin and suffering. 
 
 It was the office of those prophets of whom I spoke, not 
 only to foretell things to come, but also to denounce the 
 sins of the times in which they lived ; they were censors, 
 as well as seers. Of the earlier race, Ahijah, Elijah, 
 Elisha, and others, we have no writings at all, otherwise 
 they would have doubtless offered in their province as 
 moralists, a mirror of their own age, in their own nation 
 of Israel. Of the latter race, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and more, 
 we possess the records, and in those records not unfre- 
 quently a picture of the condition of either kingdom ; of 
 Judah more especially. Here, therefore, a new scene 
 opens before us ; a new, though limited field of argument, 
 such as I have been exploring, presents itself. It remains 
 to produce a few such allusions to contemporary transac- 
 tions, as are blended with the prophecies to examine 
 how they tally with facts, as we find them set forth else- 
 where, by the sacred historians ; and thence to derive 
 vouchers for the veracious character of the prophets them- 
 selves, such as may promote a disposition to give them at 
 least a favorable hearing. 
 

 THE VERACITY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THUS far I have been applying the test of coincidence 
 without design to the historical Scriptures, I will now do 
 the same by some of the prophetical, founding the argu- 
 ment on a comparison of these latter writings with those 
 details relating to the period in which the Prophet is said to 
 have lived, given in the concluding chapters of the books 
 of Kings and Chronicles. It is possible that these coin- 
 cidences may be thought proportionally fewer in number 
 than those which other parts of Scripture have been found 
 to supply ; but it must be remembered, that the books of 
 the Prophets are not of any great bulk, and that the chap- 
 ters in the books of Kings and Chronicles which furnish 
 materials for checking them, are neither long nor many. 
 Moreover, which is the chief consideration, that the lan- 
 guage of Prophecy, as might be expected, is commonly 
 framed in terms so general, and often so dark and figura- 
 tive, that it is easy to overlook a latent allusion to an event 
 of the day which it may really contain, even where some 
 notice of that event does happen also to be left on record 
 
PART III. THE PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 221 
 
 in the contemporary history. With regard to such coin- 
 cidences as we do find, it may be observed, 
 
 1. First, that the argument they furnish has a twofold 
 value ; since it not only demonstrates the Historian and 
 the Prophet to be veracious, the one, in the narrative of 
 facts, the other, in such allusions to them as blend with 
 passages more strictly prophetical ; but that it also serves 
 to determine the date of the Prophet himself; a date, 
 which when once obtained, fixes many other events of 
 which he clearly seems to tell, far in futurity with respect 
 to him, and so ministers to our conviction that it could not 
 be of human knowledge that he spoke. We indeed, on 
 whom the ends of the world are come, may be supposed to 
 stand less in need of such a confirmation of our faith in 
 the Prophets ; for since the objects of their prophecy are 
 two ; the more immediate events which were coming upon 
 several kingdoms of the world, and especially those of 
 Israel and Judah ; and the more distant Advent of the 
 Messiah ; the evidence for the genuineness of their claim 
 to the prophetical character arising out of this latter pro- 
 vince, where they appear as heralds of the Gospel, is strong 
 to us, because we do see the actual circumstances of Jesus 
 Christ and his coming, correspond in so express a manner 
 with the sketch made of them, by Isaiah, for example, (as 
 nobody in this instance can dispute,) so many hundred 
 years before. But their contemporaries, or the generations 
 who lived next to them (and these were the persons who 
 admitted their writings into the prophetical canon,) were 
 cut off from this ground of confidence in their message ; 
 they must have rested their belief in them upon the ac- 
 complishment of their political prophecies alone, such 
 being the only ones of which they lived to see the com- 
 pletion. Although therefore the mere fact of the Jews 
 having of old agreed to acknowledge them as Prophets, is 
 
 19* 
 
THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 enough to show that such evidence alone sufficed for them, 
 they being the best judges of what was sufficient ; still if 
 we have the means of convincing ourselves that these re- 
 markably exact prophecies, (claiming at least so to be,) 
 which related to the Assyrian invasions, the captivity, and 
 the like, were certainly delivered long before the events 
 arose, we shall have a further reason, over and above an 
 experience of the fulfilment of those concerning the Mes- 
 siah, for putting our trust in them, and considering them 
 Prophets indeed. 
 
 2. Nor is this all. For Secondly^ it may be observed, 
 that the effect of this evidence from coincidence without 
 design is to show, that the prophet sometimes occupied a 
 considerable range of years in the delivering of his predic- 
 tions thus, that the whole Book of Isaiah, was not struck 
 off at a heat, was no extempore effusion, but a collection 
 of many distinct predictions (claiming to be such) uttered 
 from time to time, as events, or the heart, hot within the 
 prophet, prompted them ; that it was in truth, as the title 
 describes it, " the vision which he saw concerning Judah 
 and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah^ Jotham, Ahaz 
 and Hezekiah, kings of Judah."* Now this is an impor- 
 tant consideration, because it argues that the prophet did 
 not deliver himself of some happy oracle for the once, and 
 earn the reputation of a seer by an accident, but maintain- 
 ed that character through a life a circumstance which 
 goes very far in itself to exclude tWe possibility of impos- 
 ture, nothing being so fatal to fraud of this kind as time. 
 
 Having made these preliminary remarks, I shall now 
 address myself to the argument itself. 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 
 
 IN the seventh chapter of Isaiah we read that Ahaz king 
 of Judah was threatened with invasion by the confederate 
 armies of Syria and Israel : and that Isaiah the prophet 
 was commissioned by God to foretell to Ahaz the result of 
 this invasion ; and not only so, but the disastrous end of 
 one of those kingdoms, if not both of them, after a period 
 of threescore and five years. And the charge is thus given 
 to Isaiah : " Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shear- 
 jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper 
 pool, in the highway of the fuller's field," (v. 3). Here 
 was to be the scene of the prophecy ; and, accordingly, 
 here it professes to have been actually spoken. To this 
 point I would draw the attention of my readers because 
 the incidental mention of the place where it was to be de- 
 livered, furnishes us with the means of showing with great 
 probability that a prophecy it was. For, why at the end 
 of the conduit of the upper pool ? No reason whatever is 
 assigned, or even hinted for the choice of this particular 
 spot, rather than the palace of Ahaz, or the city-gate. 
 But on turning to the thirty-second chapter of the second 
 Book of Chronicles, in which are described the preparations 
 made by king Hezekiah some thirty years afterwards, 
 against a similar invasion of Jerusalem by Sennacherib 
 and the Assyrians, I find this to be amongst the number, 
 that u he took counsel with his princes and his mighty 
 men to stop the waters of the fountains which were with- 
 out the city ; and they did help him. So there was gath- 
 ered much people who stopped all the fountains^ and the 
 brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, 
 Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much 
 water?" 1 
 
 1 2 Chron. mil. 35. 
 
224: THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 Here then in this passage of Hezekiah's history, have we 
 the key to the passage in the history of Ahaz, which is 
 now engaging our inquiry, and in which the prophecy of 
 Isaiah is involved. " Isaiah was to go forth to meet Ahaz, 
 at the end of the conduit of the upper pool ;" to go forth 
 the conduit of the upper pool, therefore, was without the 
 walls, open to the use of the enemy. Ahaz, therefore, we 
 may conjecture, was employed, as we know, though not 
 from Isaiah, Hezekiah under similar circumstances after- 
 wards was employed, with a number of his people in pro- 
 viding a defence for the city by stopping the fountains, of 
 which the enemy might get possession. The place, there- 
 fore, was appropriate to the subject of the message with 
 which Isaiah was charged, namely, that their labors were 
 needless, for that God would take care of their city ; and it 
 was convenient for the publication of it, because the work 
 interested and occupied both the sovereign and the people, 
 and consequently a multitude were there gathered together, 
 ready to hear it. Now it appears to me, that this casual 
 mention of Ahaz, being for some reason or other to be found 
 by the prophet at the conduit of the upper pool, to which 
 he was to go forth, without one word of note or explana- 
 tion why he should be found there, or what was its exact 
 site, or why it should be a fit place for delivering the mes- 
 sage, coupled with the satisfactory cause for his being there, 
 which by the merest chance we are enabled of ourselves to 
 supply from another quarter, does establish it as a fact, that 
 Ahaz was occupied with concerting measures of defence 
 for the city when Isaiah hailed him. But if so, Isaiah's 
 message must have necessarily been delivered when the 
 invasion was only threatened, when there was yet time for 
 making provision to meet it, and when the result of it, of 
 which he speaks, must have been as yet in futurity ; whilst 
 events still beyond it, to which his words extend to, must 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 225 
 
 have been in a futurity yet more distant ; i. e. Isaiah must 
 have been a prophet. Certainly it is a small matter of 
 fact which lays the foundation for a great conclusion : but 
 its seeming insignificance is just that which gives it extra* 
 ordinary value for the purpose for which I use it ; since it 
 is impossible to believe that a forger of pretended prophe- 
 cies, written after the event, would have hit upon such an 
 expedient for stamping his imposture with a mark of truth, 
 as to make the scene of this prediction a conduit outside the 
 walls, without adding the most remote hint about the in- 
 ference he meant to be drawn from it. 
 
 II. 
 
 THERE is another coincidence, or at least a probable 
 coincidence, between a passage in Isaiah (viii. 2), and 
 other passages in the Books of Kings, (2 Kings xvi. 10, 
 xviii. 2.) and Chronicles, (2 Chron. xxix. 1,) which goes to 
 determine that the prophet was contemporary with Ahaz ; 
 thus identifying the age of Isaiah and the date of his pro- 
 phesying, with a period a hundred and forty years before 
 the Babylonish captivity, of which event nevertheless he is 
 full to overflowing. The following is the coincidence I 
 suppose. 
 
 It appears to have been an object with this prophet, to 
 warn Judah from depending upon Assyria for help against 
 Syria and Israel He saw by the spirit more to apprehend 
 in the ally than in the adversary ; (opposed as this opinion 
 was to the judgment of a generation who did not allow for 
 the ambition of Assyria, and especially of Assyria when 
 absorbed in the Babylonish empire, 1 in its present prefer 
 
 See Lightfoot, Vol. i. p. 114, fol. 
 
226 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 sion of amity ; nor the approaching downfall of Syria and 
 Israel, in their actual strength.) However, to impress this, 
 his prophetical view of things upon Ahaz the more effect- 
 ually, (the policy of that monarch having been to court 
 Assyria, 1 ) he takes his pen, and writes in a great roll, again 
 and again, after the manner of his age and nation, when 
 symbolical teaching prevailed, one word of woe, Maher- 
 shalal-hash-baz " hasting to the spoil he hasteth to the 
 prey" which, being interpreted, spake of Assyria, that so it 
 should come to pass touching the havoc about to be wrought 
 by Assyria; first, on the kingdoms of Syria and Israel; 
 and eventually, when merged in the Chaldean kingdom, on 
 Judah itself. And to render this act more emphatic, or to 
 impress it the more memorably on the king, he calls in two 
 witnesses, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeb- 
 erechiah, (Isai. viii. 2. 2 ) 
 
 Now who are they ? Names, it may be said, of unknown 
 individuals perhaps ; nay possibly mere names ; the whole 
 being a figure, and not a fact. Yet I discern, on turning 
 to the sixteenth chapter of the second Book of Kings, that 
 one Uriah, he also a priest, was a person with whom king 
 Ahaz was in close communication, using him as a tool for 
 his own unlawful innovations in the worship of his coun- 
 try ; " when he introduced into the Temple the fashion of 
 the altar which he had seen at Damascus ;" in all which, 
 we are told, " Uriah the priest did according to all that 
 king Ahaz commanded," (v. 16.) If therefore this was the 
 same Uriah (for the coincidence turns on that) we have one 
 witness taken from the confidential servants of the king. 
 And with respect to Zechariah, the other witness, I learn 
 from the eighteenth chapter of the same Book of Kings, 
 that twenty and five years old was Hezekiah when he be- 
 
 2 Chron. xxviii. 16. 3 Lightfoot, Vol. i. p. 101. 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTUKEb. 227 
 
 gan to reign, and that " he reigned twenty and nine years 
 in Jerusalem," and that " his mother's name was Abi," 
 the daughter of Zechariah, (ver. 2.) It should seem there- 
 fore that Ahaz, who was father of Hezekiah, was son-in- 
 law of one Zechariah ; if therefore this was the same Zech- 
 ariah for the coincidence again turns on that we have a 
 second witness taken from amongst the immediate con- 
 nections of the king ; and it may be added, that the prob- 
 ability of these parties mentioned in Isaiah being the same 
 as those of the same names mentioned in the Book of 
 Kings, is increased by their being two in number : had 
 Uriah alone been spoken of in Isaiah, or Zechariah alone, 
 and a single person of the same name been met with in 
 the Book of Kings, as about the person of Ahaz, the iden- 
 tity of the two might have admitted of more dispute than 
 when Uriah and Zechariah are both produced by the pro- 
 phet, and are both found in the history. If the names had 
 been twenty instead of two, and all had been found to 
 agree, no doubt whatever of the identity could have been 
 entertained. 
 
 Here, then, we can account for the choice of Isaiah, who 
 wished the transaction in which he was engaged to be en- 
 forced upon the attention fcf Ahaz with all the advantages 
 he could command, and so selected two of the king's bo- 
 som friends to testify concerning it. 
 
 This, I say, induces the belief that the prophet really 
 was contemporary with Ahaz ; for how can we suppose, 
 that if his pretended prophecy had been a forgery of after 
 times, so happy, because so trivial an evidence of its genu- 
 ineness, should have been introduced, and the names of his 
 witnesses have been selected, according so singularly with 
 those of two men certainly about the person of Ahaz whils* 
 he lived? And how difficult it is to imagine that a forger 
 even admitting that he adopted those names by a fortu 
 
228 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 nate or astute device, should have stopped where he did, 
 and not have taken care to make it dear that by them he 
 meant the Uriah who was the priest of Ahaz, and the 
 Zechariah who was his relation, instead of leaving the 
 matter (as it is left) open to dispute. 1 
 
 III. 
 
 THE next coincidence which I shall lay before you is 
 one which tends to establish two facts of the utmost im- 
 portance ; the one, that the Assyrian army under Sen- 
 nacherib perished in some remarkable manner j the other, 
 that the Babylonish Captivity was distinctly foretold, when 
 Babylon was as yet no object of fear to Jerusalem. 
 
 With respect to the first, indeed, the sudden destruction 
 of the Assyrian host, it was to be expected that if such a 
 catastrophe did occur, it would be an epoch in the times ; 
 an event that would fill the whole East with its strange- 
 ness : and accordingly, the allusions to it, direct and in 
 direct, which are to be met with in the writings of Isaiah, 
 are very many. His mind seems much possessed by it ; 
 and this is indeed an argument for the truth of the fact, 
 not feeble in itself but the one I have to propose to you 
 is more definite and precise. 
 
 In the thirty-ninth chapter of Isaiah I read as follows : 
 "At that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, 
 king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah ; 
 for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. 
 And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the 
 
 1 It is scarcely necessary to remark that Uriah (Isaiah viii. 2) and Uri- 
 jah (2 Kings xvi. 16) are the same word in the Hebrew. Dr. Lightfoo* 
 takes for granted that the parties named in Isaiah and in Kings are thf 
 same. Vol. i. p. 101, foL 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 229 
 
 nouse of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and 
 the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of 
 his armor, and all that was found in his treasures ; there 
 was nothing in his house, nor in ail his dominion, that 
 Hezekiah showed them not. Then came Isaiah the 
 prophet to king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said 
 these men ? and from whence came they unto thee ? And 
 Hezekiah said, They are come from a. far country unto 
 me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What have they 
 seen in thy house ? And Hezekiah answered, All that is 
 in mine house have they seen ; there is nothing among 
 my treasures that I have not showed them. Then said 
 Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts : 
 Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and 
 that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, 
 shall be carried to Babylon : nothing shall be left, saith 
 the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, 
 which thou shalt beget, shall they take away ; and they 
 shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." 
 
 1. Now the first thing I would observe is this that the 
 embassy from the king of Babylon to Hezekiah was to 
 congratulate him on his recovery from his sickness ; which 
 sickness must have befallen him in the year of Sennach- 
 erib's invasion, and immediately previous to it in that 
 year, because he is said to have reigned twenty and nine 
 years ; ! and the invasion of Judah is said 2 to have occurred 
 in the fourteenth year of his reign ; leaving him still fifteen 
 years to reign, which was precisely the period by which 
 his life was prolonged beyond his sickness ; immediately 
 previous to that invasion, because the prophet, in the 
 same breath that he assures hina from God of his recovery, 
 assures him also that God would deliver the city out of the 
 
 i 2 Kings xviii. 2. 2 Ib. xviii. 13. 
 
 20 
 
230 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III 
 
 hand of the king of Assyria, and would defend the city 
 (Is. xxxviii, 6,) as though the danger was imminent. 1 
 The recovery therefore of Hezekiah, and the destruction 
 of the Assyrians, were events close upon one another in 
 point of time. And after a short interval, allowing for the 
 news of Hezekiah's recovery to reach Babylon, and an 
 embassy to be prepared, that embassy of congratulation 
 was dispatched: or in other words, the embassy from 
 Babylon must have been close upon the destruction of the 
 Assyrian army. 
 
 Now we are told, that upon the eve of the invasion of 
 Jerusalem itself, and whilst Sennacherib was already in 
 the country taking the fenced cities of Judah before him, 2 
 Hezekiah in his alarm endeavored to buy off the king of 
 Assyria : " That which thou puttest on me," said he, 
 " will I bear" " And the king of Assyria appointed unto 
 Hezekiah three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents 
 of gold," a sum which completely exhausted the means 
 of Hezekiah ; insomuch that after he had given him all 
 the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in 
 the treasures of the king's house, he was reduced to the 
 necessity of actually cutting off the gold from the doors of 
 the temple, and from the pillars which he had overlaid, to 
 give to the king of Assyria. Nothing therefore could be 
 more complete than the exhaustion of his resources, 
 whether those of the palace or of the temple, immediately 
 before the advance of Sennacherib's army on the capital 
 for in spite of this cowardly sacrifice on the part of the 
 Jews, the Assyrians broke faith with them, and marched 
 on Jerusalem. 
 
 But from the passage in Isaiah, (ch. xxxix.,) which I 
 
 1 This clearly fixes the order of the two events ; and shows that in 2 
 Chron. xxxii. 2124, the order is not observed, 
 a 2 Kings xviii. 13, 14. 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 231 
 
 have extracted, where the embassy from Babylon is men- 
 tioned, and the date of which has been already fixed, (to 
 the utmost probability at least,) we gather that Hezekiah 
 was then in possession of a treasury singularly affluent ; 
 so much so indeed as to lead him to make a vainglorious 
 display of his vast magazines to these strangers " he was 
 glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious 
 things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the 
 precious ointments, and all the house of his armor, and all 
 that was found in his treasures : there was nothing in his 
 house, nor in all his dominion, that he showed them not." 1 
 Here there seems a strange and anaccountable contra- 
 diction to the penury he had exhibited so shortly before. 
 A very brief interval had elapsed (as we have proved) 
 since he had scraped the gilding from the very doors and 
 pillars to make up a sum to purchase the forbearance of 
 the enemy ; and now his store is become so ample as to 
 betray him into the vanity of exposing it before the eyes 
 of these suspicious strangers. There is no attempt made 
 to account for the discrepancy. A passage, however, of a 
 very few lines, and very incindentally dropping out in 
 the thirty-second chapter of the second Book of Chron- 
 icles, (v. 23, 24,) and nowhere else, supplies the explanation 
 of this extraordinary and sudden mutation. There, after 
 a short account of the discomfiture of the Assyrians by the 
 angel, it is added, " Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and 
 the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennach- 
 erib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all other, 
 and guided them on every side. And many brought gifts 
 unto the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah 
 king of Judah ; so that he was magnified in the sight 
 of all nations from thenceforth" 
 
 i Isaiah xxxix. 3, 
 
232 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 This fact clears up at once the apparent contradiction, 
 though certainly introduced for no such purpose ; no man 
 can imagine it ; indeed, the order of these several events is 
 confounded in this chapter of Chronicles, and their mutual 
 dependence (on which my argument rests) deranged ; so 
 free from all suspicion of contrivance is this combination 
 of incidents in the narrative. 
 
 For only let us recapitulate the several particulars of the 
 argument From a passage in the second Book of Kings, 
 (xviii. 13, 14,) I learn that Hezekiah spent his resources to 
 the very last to bribe the Assyrian to forbearance ; but, as 
 it proved, in vain. 
 
 By a comparison of a passage in 2 Kings (xviii. 13, 14) 
 with another in Isaiah (zxxviii. 1 6), I learn that the sick- 
 ness of Hezekiah was immediately before the invasion of 
 Jerusalem by the Assyrians. 
 
 By another passage in Isaiah, (xxxix. 1,) I learn that an 
 embassage of congratulation was sent to Hezekiah from 
 Babylon, on his recovery from his sickness. By the same, 
 that these ambassadors found him then in possession of a 
 treasury full to overflowing. 
 
 I am at a loss to account for this, nor does the Scripture 
 take any pains to do it for me ; but I find, incidentally, a 
 passage in the second Book of Chronicles, which says 
 (xxxii. 24, 24) that many had brought gifts to the Lord 
 at Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah ; so that he was 
 thenceforth magnified in the sight of all nations. 
 
 This explains the change of circumstances I had ob- 
 served for myself. The several particulars, therefore, of 
 the history, gleaned from this quarter and that, perfectly 
 cohere ; are evidently component parts of one trustworthy 
 narrative ; and no reasonable doubt will remain upon our 
 minds, that Hezekiah was greatly straitened before the in* 
 
PART III. PROPHETIC SCRIPTURES. 233 
 
 vasion, and was suddenly replenished after it ; but then 
 the truth of these facts bears upon the truth of the won- 
 derful event which is said to have accompanied and ter- 
 minated that invasion ; not indeed proving the truth of it, 
 but very remarkably agreeing 1 with the supposition of its 
 truth. For certainly this extraordinary and voluntary in- 
 flux of gifts to Jerusalem from the nations round about, 
 sinking as Judah had long been in its position amongst 
 those nations, indicates some strong re-action or other in 
 its favor at that time ; as indeed does this embassage from 
 a. far country, (such is the description of it,) a country then 
 comparatively but little known. The dignity of Israel 
 seems to have once more asserted itself; and though it is 
 not to be affirmed as a positive fact, (at least on the author- 
 ity of the Book of Kings or of Isaiah, though the Book of 
 Chronicles, howbeit, in other parts of this transaction so 
 defective, does seem to imply it), that the miraculous de- 
 struction of the Assyrian army was the event which had 
 caused this strong sensation in the countries round about ; 
 yet such an event, to say the least, is very consistent with 
 it ; and accordingly, the passage of Chronicles to which I 
 refer, (xxxii. 23,) tells us, that " many brought gifts to the 
 Lord at Jerusalem," as well as " presents to Hezekiah," in 
 testimony, it may be presumed, of the work being the Lord's 
 doing, and not the act of man ; i. e. that the Assyrian host 
 fell by an infliction from heaven, and not by any ordinary 
 defeat ; and if it should suggest itself, that a part of these 
 treasures might have been derived from the spoils of the 
 Assyrian host, and that the amount of gifts from the sur- 
 rounding nations might have been augmented by the sack- 
 ing of the tents of the enemy ; even as " all the way was 
 full of garments and vessels" (we are told on another oc- 
 casion of the sudden overthrow of an army of a different 
 
 20* 
 
234 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 nation), " which the Syrians had cast away in their haste ;"' 
 the argument remains still the same. 
 
 2. Neither is this all. Hitherto, we have merely de- 
 rived from the coincidence an argument for the truth of the 
 miracle. 
 
 But it also confirms the prophecy touching the captivity 
 to Babylon; and shows the words to have been spoken 
 very long before the event. 
 
 For the aptness with which the several independent 
 particulars we have collected fit into one another, when 
 brought into juxtaposition, without being packed for the 
 purpose; viz., the threat of the Assyrian invasion; the 
 impoverishment of the exchequer of Hezekiah to avert it ; 
 the overthrow of the Assyrian host ; the influx of treasure 
 to Jerusalem from foreign nations, or from the enemy's 
 camp ; the recovery of Hezekiah ; the arrival of the em- 
 bassage of congratulation from Babylon; the wealth he 
 now exhibits to that embassage, even to ostentation ; the 
 karmony, I say, with which these several incidents concur, 
 both in details and dates, is such as could only result from 
 the truth of the whole and of its parts. If w r e take, there- 
 fore, this fact as a basis, as a fact established, for so I re- 
 gard it, that at that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Ba- 
 ladan, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah ; for he had 
 heard that he had been sick and was recovered ; and that 
 Hezekiah showed the messengers all that was found in his 
 treasures, &c., the warning of Isaiah, to which Hezekiah's 
 vanity gives occasion, rises so naturally out of the premises, 
 is so entirely founded upon them, and so intimately com- 
 bined with them, that it is next to impossible not to accept 
 it as a fact too. The folly of the king, and the reproof of 
 the prophet, must stand or fall together : the one prompts 
 
 i 2 Kings vii. 16. 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 235 
 
 the other ; the truth of the one sustains the truth of the 
 other ; the date of the one fixes the date of the other. But 
 this warning, this reproof of Isaiah, and this confession of 
 the king, runs thus: "What said these men? and from 
 whence came they unto thee?" To which Hezekiah 
 made answer, " They are come from a far country unto 
 me, even from Babylon." Then said Isaiah, "What have 
 they seen in thine house?" And Hezekiah answered, 
 " All that is in mine house have they seen ; there is noth- 
 ing among my treasures that I have not showed them." 
 Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, " Hear the word of the Lord 
 of hosts : Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine 
 house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store 
 until this day, shall be carried to Babylon, and nothing 
 shall be left, saith the Lord." 1 
 
 Thus the period of Hezekiah's display of his finances 
 being determined to a period soon after the doVnfall of the 
 Assyrians, this rebuke of the prophet which springs out of 
 it is determined to the same. Then the rebuke was a 
 prophecy ; for as yet it remained for Esar-haddon, the son 
 of Sennacherib, to ginnex Babylon to Assyria by conquest 
 it remained for the two kingdoms to continue united for 
 two generations more it remained for Nabopolassar, the 
 satrap of Babylon, to revolt from Assyria, and set up that 
 kingdom for itself and it remained for Nebuchadnezzar 
 his son to succeed him, and by carrying away the Jews to 
 Babylon, accomplish the words of Isaiah. But this inter- 
 val occupied a hundred years and upwards ; and so far, 
 therefore, must the spirit of prophecy have carried him for- 
 ward into futurity ; and that too, contrary to all present 
 appearances ; for Babylon was as yet but a name to the 
 people of Jerusalem it was a far country, and was to be 
 
 1 Isaiah, xxxix. 
 
236 THE VERACITY CF THE PART III. 
 
 swallowed up in the great Assyrian empire, and recover 
 its independence once more, before it could be brought to 
 act against Judah. 
 
 The only objection to this argument which I can im- 
 agine is, that the prophetical part of the passage might 
 have been grafted upon the historical part by a later hand ; 
 but the seaming, I think, must in that case have appeared. 
 Whereas the prophecy is in the form of a rebuke ; the re- 
 buke inseparably connected with Hezekiah's vainglorious 
 display of his treasures his possession of those treasures 
 to display, at the peculiar crisis when the embassy arrived, 
 though shortly before his poverty was excessive, confirmed 
 as a matter of fact beyond all reasonable doubt, by an un- 
 designed coincidence. The premises then being thus es- 
 tablished in truth, and the consequences flowing from them 
 being so close and so natural, it is less easy to suppose them 
 fictitious tha*n prophetical. 
 
 IV. 
 
 * 
 
 THERE is another ingredient in the details of this in- 
 vasion of Sennacherib which when compared with a pas- 
 sage in Isaiah, furnishes, I think, a probable coincidence ; 
 and tends to hem round the wonderful event which is said 
 to have attended that invasion, with still more evidence of 
 truth. 
 
 When the king of Assyria sent his host against Jeru- 
 salem on this occasion, the persons deputed by Hezekiah 
 to confer with his captains, were, we read, " Eliakim the 
 son of Hilkiah, which was over his household, and Shebna 
 the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder." 1 
 
 2 Kings xviii. 18. 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 237 
 
 Their names occur more than once, 1 and still with this 
 distinction, namely, that the parentage of Eliakim and of 
 Joah is given, but not that of Shebna : of the two former it 
 is told whose sons they were, as well as what offices they 
 held ; whilst Shebna is designated by his office only. 
 
 Now is there a reason for this, or is it merely the effect 
 of accident ? The omission certainly may be accidental, 
 but I will suggest a ground for thinking it not so, and will 
 leave my readers to be the judges of the matter. 
 
 In the twenty-second chapter of Isaiah (v. 15 et seq.) 
 we find the prophet delivering a message of wrath against 
 one Shebna, in the following terms : " Thus saith the Lord 
 God of hosts, Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto 
 Shebna, which is over the house, and say, What hast 
 thou here ? and whom hast thou here, that thou hast 
 hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him 
 out a sepulchre on high, and that grave th an habitation 
 for himself in a rock ? Behold, the Lord will carry thee 
 away with a mighty captivity, and will surely cover thee. 
 He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a ball into 
 a large country : there shalt thou die, and there the chari- 
 ots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy Lord's house. 
 And I will drive thee from thy station, and from thy state 
 shall he pull thee down." The purport of which rebuke 
 is, that whereas Shebna was busily engaged in construct- 
 ing for himself a sumptuous sepulchre at Jerusalem, as 
 though he and his posterity were to have that for their 
 burial-place forever, he might spare himself the pains, for 
 that God, for some transgression of his which is not men- 
 tioned, was about to depose him from the post of honor 
 which he held, and banish him from his city, and leave 
 him to die in a strange land. 
 
 1 1 Kings xix. 2; Isaiah zxxvi. 3. 
 
238 . THE VERACITY OF THE PART. III. 
 
 It is true that Shebna is here called the " treasurer," 
 whereas the Shebna mentioned in the book of Kings, with 
 whom the coincidence requires that he should be identified, 
 is called " the scribe," but the two periods are not neces- 
 sarily the same, and he might have been " the treasurer," 
 at the one, and " the scribe," at the other ; for that he is 
 the same man I can have no doubt, not merely from Shebna 
 in either case belonging clearly to the king's court, which 
 greatly limits the conditions ; but from Eliakim the son of 
 Hilkiah being again spoken of immediately in connection 
 with him in the passage of Isaiah (ver. 20), as he had been 
 in the passage of the Book of Kings, It being presumed, 
 then, that the Shebna of Isaiah and the Shebna of the 
 Book of Kings is the same person, I account for the omis- 
 sion of his parentage in the history from the circumstance 
 of his being a foreigner at Jerusalem, whilst Eliakim and 
 Joah were native Jews whose genealogy was known ; and 
 this fact I conclude from the expression in Isaiah which I 
 have printed in Italics, " What hast thou here, and whom 
 hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre 
 here ?" Jerusalem not having been the burial-place of his 
 family, because he did not belong to Jerusalem. 
 
 V. 
 
 IN the sixty-second chapter of this same prophet Isaiah, 
 reference is made to the future restoration of the Jewish 
 Church ; in the first sense, perhaps, and as a frame- work 
 of more, its restoration from Babylon ; in a second, its 
 eventual restoration to Christ, and the coming in of the 
 Jew and Gentile together. " And thou shalt no more be 
 termed Forsaken" so Isaiah here expresses himself con- 
 cerning Jerusalem, " neither shaL thy land any more be 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 239 
 
 termed Desolate ; but thou shall be called Hephzi-bah, 
 and thy land Beulah : for the Lord delighteth in thee ; 
 and thy land shall be married." (ver. 4.) 
 
 The figure here employed is that of a marriage ; there 
 is to be a marriage between God and his Church : that di- 
 vorce from God, which the sins of Jerusalem had effected, 
 was to be done away, and the nuptial bond be renewed. 
 Jerusalem was to be no longer as a widow, Forsaken and 
 Desolate, but to be as a bride, and to be called Heph- 
 zi-bah, i. e. " in her is my delight," and " Beulah" i. e. 
 married. The verse immediately following the one I have 
 produced, still continues the same figure : " For as a young 
 man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry (or again 
 live with) thee ; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over his 
 bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee" (ver. 5). Now 
 it is impossible to read the prophets with the least atten- 
 tion, and not discover that the incidents upon which they 
 raise their oracular superstructure are in general real mat- 
 ters of fact which have fallen in their way. When they 
 soar even into their sublimest flights, they often take their 
 spring from some solid and substantial footing. Our Lord 
 was acting quite in the spirit of the older prophets when 
 he advanced from his observations on the temple before 
 him, and the desolation it was soon to suffer, to the final 
 consummation of all things, and the breaking up of the 
 universal visible world ; and the commentary of those who 
 would endeavor to construe the whole by a reference to the 
 destruction of Jerusalem only, is not imbued with the 
 spirit of the prophets of ancient times. 
 
 From the passage before us, then, it should seem that 
 some nuptial ceremony was the accident of the day which 
 gave the prophet an opportunity of uttering his parable 
 concerning the future fortune of Jerusalem. Can we trace 
 any such event in the history of those days likely from its 
 
240 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 importance to arrest public attention, and thus to furnish 
 Isaiah with this figure ? I do not say positively that we 
 can nevertheless the name of Hephzi-bah, which he 
 assigns 'to this his new Jerusalem, may throw some light 
 upon our inquiry ; for in the twenty-first chapter of the 
 second Book of Kings I read that " Manasseh " (the son 
 of Hezekiah) " was twelve years old when he began to 
 reign, and that he reigned fifty and five years in Jeru- 
 salem, and that his mother's name was Hephzi-bah" 1 
 It is not improbable, therefore, that the royal nuptials of 
 Hezekiah occurred about the time of this prophecy ; and 
 that Isaiah, after the manner of the prophets in general, 
 availed himself of the passing event, and of the name of 
 the bride, as a vehicle for the tidings which he had to 
 communicate. This too may seem the more likely, be- 
 cause this prophecy of Isaiah does not appear to have been 
 spoken at an early period of his mission, but subsequently 
 to the sickness and recovery of Hezekiah, (if the prophecies 
 at least are arranged at all in the order in which they 
 were delivered ;) neither is it probable that the marriage of 
 Hezekiah was contracted till after that same sickness and 
 recovery, seeing that his son and successor was but twelve 
 years old at his father's death, which happened, we know, 
 fifteen years after his illness. 
 
 VI. 
 
 BUT it is not by single and separate coincidences only 
 that the authority of these prophecies is upheld : there are 
 some coincidences of a more comprehensive and general 
 kind that argue the same truth. Thus, the scenes amongst 
 
 * 2 Kings xxi. 1. 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 241 
 
 which Isaiah seems to write, indicate the commonwealth 
 of Israel to be yet standing. He remonstrates, in the 
 name of God, with the people for a hypocritical obser- 
 vance of the Fast-days (ch. Iviii. 3) ; for exacting usurious 
 profits nevertheless ; for prolonging unlawfully the years 
 of bondage (v. 6) ; for profankig the Sabbaths (v. 13) ; 
 for confounding all distinction between clean and unclean 
 meats (ch. Ixv. 4 ; Ixvi. 17.) He makes perpetual allu- 
 sions, too, to the existence of false prophets in Jerusalem, 
 as though this class of persons was very common whilst 
 Isaiah was writing ; the most likely persons in the world 
 to be engendered by troubled times. And above all, he 
 reviles the people for their gross and universal idolatry ; a 
 sin, which m all its aspects, is pursued from the fortieth 
 chapter to the last with a ceaseless, inextinguishable, un- 
 mitigated storm of mockery, contempt and scorn. With 
 what position of the prophet can these, and many similar 
 allusions, be reconciled, but with that of a man dwelling 
 in Judea before the captivity, during a period, which, as 
 historically described in the latter chapters of the Books of 
 Kings and Chronicles, presents the express counterpart of 
 those references in the prophet ? Hezekiah and Josiah, 
 the two redeeming princes of that time, serving, as break- 
 ers, to make manifest the fury with which the tide of 
 abominations of every kind was running. I say, to what 
 other period, and to what other position of the writer, does 
 the internal evidence of Isaiah point? indirectly indeed, 
 but not on that account, in a manner the less conclusive. 
 Had he taken up his parable during the Babylonish bon- 
 dage, would there not have been frequent and inadvertent 
 allusions to the circumstances of Babylon ? Could his 
 style have escaped the contagious influence of the scenes 
 around him? even as the case actually is with Daniel, 
 whose dwelling was at Babylon. Yet in Isaiah there are 
 
 21 
 
242 THE VERACITY OP THE PART III. 
 
 no allusions of this nature. It is of Jerusalem, and not of 
 Babylon, that his roll savors throughout ; of the land of 
 Israel, and not of Chaldea. Moreover, it is of Jerusalem 
 hefore the captivity ; for after that trying furnace through 
 which the Jewish nation was condemned to pass, it was 
 disinfected of idolatry. Nay, a horror of idolatry suc- 
 ceeded, great as had been the propensity to it aforetime ; 
 the whole nation baring their necks to the sword, rather 
 than admit within their walls even a Roman Eagle : 
 whilst the ritual observances of the law, so far from falling 
 into desuetude and contempt, were now kept with even a 
 superstitious scrupulosity. 
 
 I think then that the several undesigned coincidences 
 between passages in Isaiah, and others in the Books of 
 Kings and Chronicles, which have been now adduced, 
 enough to prove that the prophet was contemporary with 
 Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, and saw his vision 
 in their days, even as its title declares. The mere intro- 
 duction of the names of these princes into the pages of 
 Isaiah, is not the argument on which I rely. It might be 
 said, however improbably, that an author of a date much 
 lower, might have admitted these names, and fragments 
 of history connected with them, into his rhapsody, in order 
 to give it a coloring of fact but it is the indirect coin- 
 cidences between the prophet and the history, which veri- 
 fies the date of the former allusions, mere allusions, to 
 obscure servants of these sovereigns (known to be such) ; 
 to a marriage of the day ; to the stopping of a well ; to 
 the foolish exhibition of a treasure allusions, indeed, in 
 some cases so indistinct, that the full drift of the prophet 
 would have escaped us, but for the historian. Such an ar- 
 gument ought to satisfy us that Isaiah was as surely 
 alive, and dead, long before the Babylonish captivity, which 
 he so accurately foretold, even to the deliverance from it 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 243 
 
 a still further reach into futurity as that Ahaz and Heze- 
 kiah lived and died long before it ; an argument therefore, 
 which justifies the Jews in their enrolment of his name 
 amongst the most distinguished of their prophets, though 
 they had no other ground for so doing than their knowl- 
 edge of his exact prediction of the events of those days ; 
 and which must leave us without excuse in our incredulity, 
 born as we are after the advent of the Messiah, which 
 forms so principal a subject of Isaiah's writings besides ; 
 and whose character and Gospel we have found to corres- 
 pond in so remarkable a manner to the description of both 
 which they contain. For it is not the least singular, or 
 the least satisfactory feature in the writings of Isaiah, that 
 they should thus relate to two distinct periods, separated 
 by a wide interval of time, and be found to be. so exact in 
 both ; that they should have first taken for their field the 
 events preceding and accompanying the captivity, foretell- 
 ing them so faithfully as to convince the Jew that he was 
 one of the greatest of his prophets : that some hundreds 
 of years should then be allowed to elapse, of which they 
 are silent ; and that then they should break out again on 
 the subject of a second and altogether different series of in- 
 cidents, so deeply interesting to the Christian, and be found 
 by him, in his turn, to be so wonderfully true to them so 
 wonderfully true to them, that he cannot but be surprised 
 that the Jew whose acceptance of the prophet was even 
 already secured by the previous stage of his prophecy, of 
 which we have been now examining the evidence, should 
 still be unable to see in him the prophet of Jesus Christ 
 of Nazareth too. 
 
244 THE VERACITY OP THE PART III 
 
 VII. 
 
 WE next come to the writings of Jeremiah, which do 
 not however supply many arguments of the kind I am 
 collecting, nor perhaps any so persuasive in their character 
 as some which I have produced from Isaiah. Still there 
 are several which at least deserve to be brought before 
 you. 
 
 In the midst of a denunciation of evils to come upon 
 Jerusalem for her wickedness, which we find in the thir- 
 teenth chapter of Jeremiah ; a denunciation for the most 
 part expressed in general terms, and in a manner not con- 
 veying any very exact allusions, we read at the eighteenth 
 verse, " Say unto the King and to the Queen, Humble 
 yourselves: sit down, for your principalities shall come 
 down, even the crown of your glory." Jeremiah does not 
 here tell us the name either of the king or the queen re- 
 ferred to but as the queens of Israel do not figure prom- 
 inently in the history of that nation, except where there is 
 something peculiar in their characters or condition to bring 
 them out, it may be thought there was something of the 
 kind in this instance : and accordingly we have mention 
 made in the twenty-fourth chapter of the second Book of 
 Kings of an invasion of the Chaldeans, attended by cir- 
 cumstances corresponding to what we might expect from 
 this exclamation of Jeremiah. It was the second of the 
 three invasions which occurred at that time within a few 
 years of one another, to which I allude ; l an invasion made 
 by the servants of Nebuchadnezzar, followed by Nebuch- 
 adnezzar himself in person. On this occasion it is said, 
 that " Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king 
 
 i 2Kingsxxiv. 1, 10; XXT. 1. 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 246 
 
 of Babylon, he, and his mother ', and his servants, and his 
 princes, and his officers : and the king of Babylon took 
 him in the eighth year of his reign," (ver. 12 :) and again, 
 " and he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the 
 king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and 
 the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from 
 Jerusalem to Babylon." (ver. 15.) 
 
 As Jehoiachin was at that time only eighteen years old, 
 and had reigned no more than three months, (ver. 8,) the 
 queen dowager was no doubt still a person of consequence, 
 possibly his adviser, at any rate an influential person as 
 yet, so short a period having elapsed since the death of 
 her husband the last king : and thus an object of pity to 
 the prophet, and one that called for express notice and 
 remark. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 JEREMIAH xxii. 10 12, furnishes us with another in- 
 stance of coincidence without design, calculated to establish 
 our belief in that prophet. We there read, " Weep not for 
 the dead, neither bemoan him : but weep for him that 
 goeth away ; for he shall return no more, nor see his 
 native country. For thus saith the Lord touching Shallum 
 the son of Josiah, king of Judah, which reigned instead 
 of Josiah his father, which went forth out of this place ; 
 He shall not return thither any more : but he shall die in 
 the place whither they have led him captive, and shall see 
 this land no more." 
 
 Now this passage evidently relates to several events 
 familiar to the minds of those whom the prophet was ad- 
 dressing. It is a series of allusions to circumstances known 
 to them, but by no means sufficiently developed to put us 
 
246 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 in possession of the tale without some further key. It 
 should appear that there had been a great public mourn- 
 ing in Jerusalem : but it is not distinctly said for whom ; 
 it might be supposed for Josiah, whose name occurs in 
 the paragraph ; that another calamity had come upon 
 its heels very shortly afterwards, calling, as the prophet 
 thought, for expressions of national sorrow which might 
 even supersede the other ; a prince, the son of Josiah, led 
 away captive into a foreign land ; but whither he was thus 
 led, or by whom, is not declared. The whole evidently 
 the discourse of a man living amongst the scenes he touches 
 upon, amd conscious that he has no need to do more than 
 touch upon them to make himself understood by his 
 hearers. 
 
 Now let us turn to the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth chap- 
 ters of the second Book of Chronicles, where certain histor- 
 ical details of the events of those times are preserved, and 
 the key will be supplied. In the former chapter I find that 
 the death of Josiah, a king who had been a blessing to his 
 kingdom, and who was slain by an arrow, as he fought 
 against the Egyptians, was in fact an event that filled all 
 Jerusalem with consternation and grief: " he died, and was 
 buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Ju- 
 dah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah la- 
 mented for Josiah : and all the singing men and the sing- 
 ing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations unto this 
 day, and made them an ordinance in Israel : and, behold, 
 they are written in the Lamentations." 1 Here we hav 7 e the 
 first feature in Jeremiah's very transient sketch completed. 
 
 I look at the continuation of the history in the next 
 chapter, and I there find that the son of Josiah, Jehoahaz 
 by name, (and not called Shallum in the Chronicles,) " be- 
 
 "> 2 Chron. xxv. 24, 25. 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 247 
 
 gan to reign, and that he reigned three months in Jerusa- 
 lem ; and the king of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem, 
 and condemned the land in a hundred talents of silver and 
 a talent of gold. And the king of Egypt made Eliakim 
 his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and turned his 
 name to Jehoiakim. And Necho took Jehoahazhis brother, 
 and carried him to Egypt" Here we have the other out- 
 lines of Jeremiah's picture filled up. The second calamity 
 did come, it appears, on the heels of the first, for it was only 
 after an interval of three months. The king of Egypt, we 
 now find, was the conqueror who carried the prince away, 
 and Egypt was the country to which he was conducted. 
 And though the victim is called Jehoahaz in the history, 
 and Shallum in the prophet, the facts concerning him tally 
 so exactly, that there can be no doubt of the identity of 
 the man ; whilst the absence of all attempt on either side 
 to explain or reconcile this difficulty about the name, is a 
 clear proof that neither passage was written in reference to 
 the other : though it may be conjectured, that as Necho 
 gave a new name to Eliakim, 1 the one brother, so he might 
 have done the like by the other, and called him Shallum 
 instead of Jehoahaz. 
 
 But there is a further hint. " Weep not," says Jere- 
 miah, " for the dead ; but weep for him that goeth away, 
 for he shall return no more." This should imply that the 
 prince of whom Jerusalem was thus bereft, was acceptable 
 to his people ; more acceptable than he who was to supply 
 his place. The thing to be lamented was that he would 
 return no more. It is true that for the little time Jehoahaz 
 reigned, he did evil in the sight of the Lord : 2 but so did 
 Jehoiakim ; 3 so that in this respect there was nothing to 
 choose ; and in the condition of the Jews at that time, an 
 
 i 2 Kings xxiii. 34. Ib. xxiii. 32. 3 3 Chron. xxxvi. 5. 
 
 21* 
 
 
248 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III; 
 
 irreligious prince (for that would be the meaning of the 
 term) would not necessarily be an unpopular one. I repeat, 
 therefore, that the words of Jeremiah seem to indicate that 
 the prince who had been carried away was more accepta- 
 ble than the one who was left in his stead. I now turn, 
 once again, to the thirty-sixth chapter of the second Book 
 of Chronicles, (v. '!,) or to the twenty-third chapter of the 
 second Book of Kings, (v. 30,) and I there discover (for the 
 incident is not obvious) a particular with regard to this prince 
 who was carried away captive by Necho, and to his brother 
 who was appointed to reign in his stead, very remarka- 
 bly coinciding with these innuendoes of Jeremiah. For 
 in the former reference it is said, that on the death of Jo- 
 siah, " the people of the land took Jehoahaz^ (the Shallum 
 of the prophet) " the son of Josiah, and made him king in 
 his father's stead at Jerusalem : and Jehoahaz," it contin^ 
 ues, " was twenty and three years old when he began to 
 reign." Then comes the history of his deposal, abduction, 
 and of the substitution of his brother Eliakim to reign in 
 Jerusalem in his place, under the name of Jehoiakirn : " and 
 Jehoiakim," it is added, " was twenty and five years old 
 when he began to reign." Now inasmuch as Jehoahaz 
 had reigned only three months, Jehoahaz must have been 
 younger than Jehoiakim by nearly two years : t how then 
 came the younger son to succeed his father on the throne 
 in the first instance ? " The people of the land took him" 
 we have read ; i. e. he was the more popular character, and 
 therefore they set him on the throne in spite of the supe- 
 rior claims of the first-born. And a phrase which occurs in 
 the latter of the two references confirms this view ; for the 
 people are there said not only to have taken him, but to 
 have " anointed him" a ceremonial, which, whether inva- 
 riably observed or not in cases of ordinary descent of the 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 249 
 
 crown, never seems to have been omitted in cases of doubt- 
 ful succession. 1 
 
 This history, it will be seen, supplies with great success 
 the particulars which are incidentally omitted in the pro- 
 phecy, though clearly constructed with no such intention ; 
 and fixes the date of Jeremiah to a period long before sev- 
 eral of the events which he foretells. 
 
 IX. 
 
 OF Hosea, we read that he prophesied " in the days 
 of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Ju- 
 dah." (i. 1.) 
 
 In the course of this prophecy we find frequent inciden- 
 tal allusions to a scarcity of food in the land of Israel. 
 
 u Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the 
 time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof," (ii. 9.) " I 
 will destroy her vines and her fig-trees," (11.) "Therefore 
 shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein 
 shall languish, with the blasts of the field, and with the 
 fowls of heaven ; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be 
 taken away," (iv. 3.) " They have not cried unto me with 
 their heart, when they howled upon their beds : they as- 
 sembled themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel 
 against me," (vii. 14.) " They have sown the wind, and 
 they shall reap the whirlwind : it hath no stalk : the bud 
 shall yield no meal," (viii. 7.) " The floor and the wine- 
 press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail 
 them." (ix. 2.) 
 
 Again, Amos is said to have prophesied concerning Israel 
 " in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days 
 of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel," (i. 1 .) 
 
 i See 2 Kings ix. 3, and Patrick in loc. and also on 2 Kings xxiii. 30. 
 
250 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 In this prophet also, in like manner, as in the former, 
 we find incidental allusions to dearth in the land. " The 
 habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of 
 Carmel shall wither," (i. 2.) " I also have given you clean- 
 ness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all 
 your places, yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the 
 Lord. And also I have withholden the rain from you, 
 when there were yet three months to the harvest ... So 
 two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; 
 but they were not satisfied ... I have smitten you with 
 blasting and mildew : when ) r our gardens, and your vine- 
 yards, and your fig-trees, and your olive-trees increased, the 
 palmerworm devoured them . . . they shall call the husband- 
 man to the mourning . . . And in all vineyards shall be wail- 
 ing." (iv. 6, 7, 8, 9 ; v. 16. 17.) With more to the same 
 effect in both these prophets. 
 
 Now, if we turn to 2 Chron. xxvi. 10, where we have a 
 brief history of the reign of this same king Uzziah, under 
 whom we have seen they lived, we shall find a feature of 
 it recorded, which seems to tally extremely well with this 
 representation of the condition of Israel. For it is there 
 told of him, amongst other things, that " he built towers in 
 the desert, and digged many wells : for he had much cat- 
 tle, both in the low country and in the plains : husband- 
 men also, and vine-dressers in the mountains, and in Car- 
 mel : for he loved husbandry}'' As though the precarious 
 state of the supply of food in the country had turned the 
 king's attention in a particular manner to the improvement 
 of its agriculture. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE following is an example of a case where the hints 
 which transpire in the prophet agree very well with par- 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 251 
 
 ticulars recorded in the history ; but perhaps that is all that 
 can be said of it with safety : the language of the prophet 
 not being sufficiently specific to fix the coincidence to a 
 certainty. The reader must judge for himself of the value 
 of the argument in this particular instance. 
 
 We read in Amos (vii. 10, 11) as follows : " Then Ama- 
 ziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, 
 saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of 
 the house of Israel : the land is not able to bear all his 
 words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the 
 sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of 
 their own land." 
 
 We have here a priest of Beth-el, i. e. of the calves, de- 
 nouncing to the king of Israel the prophet Amos, as one 
 who was unsettling the minds of the people by his prophe- 
 cies prophecies which " the land was not able to bear." 
 It would seem then from this phrase that the state was in 
 a critical condition ; such a condition as gave double force 
 to a prediction which went to deprive it of its king, and to 
 consign its children to bondage. It was ill able to spare 
 Jeroboam, or bear up against evil forebodings. This we 
 gather from the passage of Amos. 
 
 Let us now turn to the fourteenth chapter of the second 
 Book of Kings. There we read, first of all, of Jeroboam, 
 that " he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the 
 son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin," (ver. 23) i. e. that 
 he strenuously supported the worship of the calves. This 
 fact then makes it highly probable that Amaziah, a priest 
 of Beth-el, would find in Jeroboam a ready listener to any 
 sinister construction he might put upon the words of a 
 prophet of the Lord, like Amos. 
 
 We further learn, that this same Jeroboam was one of 
 the most successful princes that had sat upon the throne 
 of Israel ; restoring her coasts, and recovering her posses- 
 
252 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III. 
 
 sions by force of arms (ver. 25, 28) : a sovereign, therefore 
 to be missed by the nation he ruled, whenever he should 
 be removed ; and especially if there was nobody forthcom- 
 ing calculated to replace him. Let us see how this was. 
 Jeroboam reigned forty-one years, (2 Kings xiv. 23,) but 
 in the twenty-seventh of Jeroboam, Azariah (or Uzziah as 
 he is called in the Chronicles. (2 Chron. xxvi. 1), began to 
 reign in Judah (2 Kings xv. 1) ; i. e. Jeroboam's reign ex- 
 pired in the fifteenth of Azariah. But his son and succes- 
 sor Zachariah, for some reason or other, and owing to some 
 impediment which does not transpire, did not begin his 
 reign over Samaria till the thirty-eighth of Azariah (ib. 8). 
 Therefore the throne of Samaria must have been in some 
 sort vacant twenty-three years : nor did the anarchy cease 
 even then, for Zachariah having at length ascended the 
 throne, after a reign of six months, was murdered publicly 
 " before the people ;" and Shallum, the usurper who suc- 
 ceeded him, shared the same fate after a reign of a single 
 month (ib. 13); and Menahem, the successor of Shallum, 
 was reduced to the necessity of buying off an invasion of 
 the Assyrians (the first incursion of that people) under Pul 
 (ib. 19) ; Assyria having in the meanwhile grown great, 
 and now taking advantage of the ruinous condition of 
 Israel, consequent on the death of Jeroboam, to come 
 against her. 1 
 
 Amaziah, therefore, might well declare that the land 
 was not able to bear the words of Amos, for in all proba- 
 bility he could foresee, from the actual circumstances of the 
 country, the troubles that were likely to ensue whenever 
 Jeroboam's reign should be brought to an end. 
 
 1 This is the first mention of the kingdom of Assyria since the days of 
 Nimrod (Gen. x. 11). It seems to have been inconsiderable when the 
 eighty-third Psalm was penned, in which Assur is represented as helping 
 the children of Lot. (v. 8.) 
 
PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 253 
 
 Here then, I say, the language of the prophet is at least 
 very consistent with the crisis of which he speaks, as rep- 
 resented in the Book of Kings. 
 
 I could add several other examples of this class, i. e. 
 where allusions in the prophets are very sufficiently re- 
 sponded to by events recorded in the historical Books of 
 Scripture, but still the want of precision in the terms makes 
 it difficult to affirm the coincidence between the two docu- 
 ments with confidence ; and therefore I have thought it 
 better to suppress such instances, as not possessing that 
 force of evidence which entitles them to a place in these 
 pages ; as for the same reason I drew no contingent to my 
 argument from a comparison between the Psalms and the 
 Books of Samuel ; for though many of the Psalms concur 
 very well with the circumstances in which David is repre- 
 sented to have been actually placed from time to time, in 
 the Books of Samuel ; and though the Psalms are often 
 headed with a notice that this was written when he was 
 flying before Saul, and that when he was reproached by 
 Nathan : yet the internal testimony is not so strong as to 
 carry conviction along with it, of such being really the case ; 
 and this failing, it is folly to weaken a sound argument by 
 a fanciful extension of it. 
 
THE VERACITY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GOSPELS AID ACTS 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 I NOW proceed to apply the same test of truth, the test 
 of coincidence without design, which the Scriptures of the 
 Old Testament have sustained so satisfactorily, to the 
 Gospels and Acts of the Apostles ; and I am pleased that 
 my first coincidence in order happens to be one of the 
 class where a miracle is involved in the coincidence. 
 
 IN the fourth chapter of St. Matthew we read thus : 
 " And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two 
 brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, 
 casting a net into the sea ; for they were fishers. And 
 he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you 
 fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, 
 and followed him. And going on from thence, he 
 saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, 
 and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their 
 
PART IV. THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 255 
 
 father, mending their nets; and he called thern. 
 
 And they immediately left the ship and their father, 
 
 and followed him." 
 
 Now let us compare this with the fifth chapter of St. Luke. 
 " And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him 
 to hear the Word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennes- 
 aret, and saw two ships standing by the lake, but the 
 fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their 
 nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was 
 Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little 
 from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people 
 out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said 
 unto Simon, launch out into the deep, and let down your 
 nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto him, 
 Master, we have toiled all the night, and taken nothing ; 
 nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And 
 when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude 
 of fishes, and their net brake ; and they beckoned to their 
 partners which were in the other ship, that they should 
 come and help them ; and they came, and filled both the 
 ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter 
 saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from 
 me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was aston- 
 ished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the 
 fishes which they had taken ; and so was also James, and 
 John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with 
 Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from 
 henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they had 
 brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed 
 him." 
 
 The narrative of St. Luke may be reckoned the supple- 
 ment to that of St. Matthew ; for that both relate to the 
 same event I think indisputable. In both we are told of 
 the circumstances under which Andrew, Peter, James, and 
 
256 
 
 THE VERACITY OP THE PART IV. 
 
 John, became the decided followers of Christ ; in both 
 they are called to attend him in the same terms, and those 
 remarkable and technical terms ; in both the scene is the 
 same, the grouping of the parties the same, and the obedi- 
 ence to the summons the same. By comparing the two 
 Evangelists, the history may be thus completed: Jesus 
 teaches the people out of Peter's boat, to avoid the press ; 
 the boat of Zebedee and his sons, meanwhile, standing by 
 the lake a little further on. The sermon ended, Jesus 
 orders Peter to thrust out, and the miraculous draught of 
 fishes ensues. Peter's boat not sufficing for the fish, he 
 beckons to his partners, Zebedee and his companions, who 
 were in the other ship. The vessels are both filled and 
 pulled to the shore ; and now Jesus, having convinced 
 Peter and Andrew by his preaching and the miracle which 
 he had wrought, gives them the call. He then goes on to 
 Zebedee and his sons, who having brought their boat to 
 land were mending their nets, and calls them. Such is 
 the whole transaction, not to be gathered from one, but 
 from both the Evangelists. The circumstance to be re- 
 marked, therefore, is this : that of the miracle, St. Matthew 
 says not a single word ; nevertheless, he tells us, that 
 Zebedee and his sons were found by our Lord, when he 
 gave them the call, " mending their nets." How it hap- 
 pened that the nets wanted mending he does not think it 
 needful to state, nor should we have thought it needful to 
 inquire, but it is impossible not to observe, that it perfectly 
 harmonizes with the incident mentioned by St. Luke, that 
 in the miraculous draught of fishes the nets brake. Thia 
 coincidence, slight as it is, seems to me to bear upon the 
 truth of the miracle itself. For the " mending of the nets," 
 asserted by one Evangelist, gives probability to the " break- 
 ing of the nets," mentioned by the other the breaking of 
 the nets gives probability to the large draught of fishes 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 257 
 
 the large draught of fishes gives probability to the miracle. 
 I do not mean that the coincidence proves the miracle, but 
 that it marks an attention to truth in the Evangelists ; foi 
 it surely would be an extravagant refinement to suppose, 
 that St. Matthew designedly lets fall the fact of the mend- 
 ing of the nets, whilst he suppresses the miracle, in order 
 to confirm the credit of St. Luke, who, in relating the 
 miracle, says, that through it the nets brake. 1 
 
 1 The indentity of the event here recorded by St. Matthew and St. Luke 
 is questioned, and upon the following grounds. 
 
 1. In St. Matthew, "Jesus walks by the sea of Galilee." In St. Luke, 
 " the people press upon him to hear the word as he stood by the lake." 
 The quiet walk has nothing in common with the press of the multitude. 
 But how do we know that the walk was a quiet one 1 It is not, indeed, 
 asserted that It was otherwise, but the omission of a fact is not the negation 
 of it. Nobody would suppose, from St. John's account of the crucifixion, 
 that nature was otherwise than perfectly still ; yet there was an earthquake, 
 and rending of rocks, and darkness over all the land. 
 
 2. In St. Matthew, " Jesus saw two brethren, Simon and Andrew," and 
 addressed them both, " Follow me." In St. Mark, (i. 17, who certainly 
 describes the same incident as St. Matthew,) he says, " Come ye," In St. 
 Luke, Simon only is named; and " Launch out," (Irraixiyayg) is in the sin- 
 gular. But though Simon alone is named, it is evident that there was some 
 other person with him in the boat ; for no sooner is it needful to let down 
 the nets (an operation which probably required more than one pair of 
 hands) than the number becomes plural (^aXauars). Who the coadjutor 
 was, is not hinted at ; but it strikes me that there is a coincidence, and not 
 an idle one, between the intimation of St. Luke, that though Simon only is 
 named, he was nevertheless not alone in the boat, and the direct assertion 
 of St. Matthew and St. Mark, that Andrew was with him; indeed the 
 plural is used in all the remainder of St. Luke's narrative " they inclosed" 
 " they beckoned" not meaning Jesus and Simon, but Simon and some 
 ne with him, as is manifest from Jesus himself saying, " Let ye down the 
 nets," for so the translation ought to have run. And though it is true that 
 in St. Luke the call is expressly directed to Simon alone, " thou shall catch 
 men," it was evidently considered to apply to others; for " they forsook all 
 and followed him;" amongst whom Andrew might well be included. 
 
 3. In St. Matthew, Simon and Andrew receive one call, James and John 
 another. In St. Luke one call serves for all. But where the two calls 
 
 to the same effect, and so nearly at the same time, I do not think it in- 
 
258 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 Besides, though St. Matthew does not record the mirac- 
 ulous draught, yet the readiness of the several disciples 
 
 consistent with the nature of the rapid memoranda of an Evangelist to com- 
 bine them into one, any more than that the cure of the two blind men near 
 Jericho of St. Matthew, should be comprised in the cure of one by St. Mark ; 
 for the identity of these miracles, in spite of some trifling differences, I can- 
 not doubt. 
 
 4. In St. Matthew, James and John are leisurely mending their nets. In 
 St. Luke, they are busily engaged in helping Simon. But to draw a con- 
 tradiction from this, it is necessary to show first of all, that St. Matthew and 
 St. Luke both speak to the same instant of time. The mending of the nets 
 does not imply that they had not been helping Simon, nor does the helping 
 Simon imply that they would not presently mend their nets. 
 
 5. It is further objected that, if the mending of the nets of St. Matthew 
 was subsequent to the breaking of the nets of St. Luke, or the miraculous 
 draught, Simon and Andrew casting their nets into the sea was also subse- 
 quent to it, for that v. 18 and v. 21 (Matt, iv.) relate to events all but simul- 
 taneous. It may be so, for my impression is, that when Simon and Andrew 
 cast their net into the sea, it was for the purpose of washing the net after the 
 fishing was over, and not of fishing r /JdAAoiraj d^i^narpov is the expres- 
 sion, and perhaps plunging the net would be the better translation ; and I 
 feel confirmed in this by the fact that, whatever the operation was, it was 
 done close to shore, if not on the shore, whilst Jesus was talking to them on 
 the land. Whereas, for fishing, it was necessary to move out to sea. 
 " Launch out into the deep," says our Lord, when he wants them to let 
 down their net* for a draught. 
 
 6. It is said, that according to St. Luke, Simon's net brake, and that, 
 therefore, Simon and his companion were the persons to mend it ; whereas, 
 according to St. Matthew, Zebedee and his sons were the parties employed. 
 But they were all partners, and therefore the property was, probably, com- 
 mon property; and that as the "hired servants" were with Zebedee and 
 his sons, it is not unlikely, but the contrary, that the labor of mending the 
 nets would devolve upon them, (Mark i. 20). 
 
 7. The last objection which remains is, that a comparison of St. Mark. i. 
 23 39, with St. Luke iv. 3144, shows the call in St. Mark (which is cer- 
 tainly that of St. Matthew) to have been prior to the call in St. Luke. So 
 it does, if St. Luke observes strictly the order of events in his narrative ; but 
 I see no sufficient reason for believing that what is related in ch. iv. 31 44, 
 happened before what is related in ch. v. 111. In the former passage, St. 
 Luke tells us that " Jesus came down to Capernaum, and taught them on 
 the Sabbath-days," and he then goes on to mention some Sabbath-day oc- 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 259 
 
 on this occasion to follow Jesus, (a thing which he does 
 record,) agrees, no less than the mending of the nets, with 
 that extraordinary event ; for what more natural than that 
 men should leave all for a master whose powers were so 
 commanding ? 
 
 II. 
 
 Matth. iv. 21. " And going on from thence, he saw othei 
 two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his 
 brother, in a ship with Zebedee their Father" 
 
 Ch. viii. 21. "And another of his disciples said unto him, 
 Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father " 
 
 Ch. xx. 20. " Then came to him the mother of Zebededs 
 children, with her sons, worshipping him, and desir- 
 ing a certain thing of him." 
 
 Ch. xxvii. 55, 56. "And many women were there, behold- 
 ing afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, min* 
 istering unto him. Among which was Mary Magda- 
 lene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and 
 the mother of Zebededs children. 
 WHEN the coincidence which I shall found upon these 
 
 h 
 
 currences, concluding the whole " and he preached in the synagogues of 
 Galilee." This had carried him too much in medias res, and therefore in 
 ch. v. he brings up some of the work-day events, which a wish to pursue 
 his former subject without interruption had led him to withhold for awhile, 
 though of prior date. And only let us observe how clumsily the narrative 
 would proceed upon any other supposition Jesus calls Andrew and Peter, 
 James and John, as he was walking by the sea-side then he goes to Caper- 
 naumheals Peter's wife's mother, performs other cures, and retires to a 
 solitary place (Mark i. 16 3G). Then, supposing St. Luke here to take 
 up the parable, (ch. iv. 42,) he goes again to the sea-side, and again calli 
 Peter, James, and John ; which would surely be one call too much. 
 I doubt not, therefore, tLe identity of the events described . 
 
J860 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 passages first occurred to me, I felt some doubt whether, 
 by producing it, I might not subject myself to a charge of 
 over-refinement. On further consideration, however, I am 
 satisfied that the conjecture I hazard (for it is nothing more) 
 is far from improbable ; and I am the less disposed to with- 
 hold it from having observed, when I have chanced to dis- 
 cuss any of these paragraphs with my friends, how differ- 
 ently the importance of an argument is estimated by differ- 
 ent minds ; a point of evidence often inducing conviction 
 in one, which another would find almost nugatory. 
 
 Whoever reads the four verses which I have given at 
 the head of this number in juxtaposition, will probably an- 
 ticipate what I have to say. The coincidence here is not 
 between several writers, but between several detached pas- 
 sages of the same writer. From the first of these verses it 
 appears that, at the period when James and John received 
 the call to follow Christ, Zebedee their father was alive. 
 They obeyed the call, and left him. From the last two 
 yerses it appears, in my opinion, that, at a subsequent pe- 
 riod of which they treat, Zebedee was dead. Zebedee 
 does not make the application to Christ on behalf of his 
 sons, but the mother of Zebededs children makes it. 
 Zebedee is not at the crucifixion, but the mother of Zebe- 
 dee's children. It is not from his absence on these occa- 
 sions that I so much infer his death, as from the expression 
 applied to Salome ; she is not called the wife of Zebedee, 
 she is not called the mother of James and John, but the 
 mother of Zebededs children. The term, I think, implies 
 that she was a widow. 
 
 Now from the second verse, which relates to a period 
 between these two, we learn that one of Jesus' disciples 
 asked him permission "to go and bury his father." The 
 interval was a short one ; the number of persons to whom 
 the name of disciple was given, was very small (see Matt 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 261 
 
 ix. 37) ; a single boat seems to have contained them all 
 (viii. 23). In that number we know that the sons of Zeb~ 
 edee were included. My inference, therefore, is, that the 
 death of Zebedee is here alluded to, and that St. Matthew, 
 without a wish, perhaps, or thought, either to conceal or 
 express the individual, (for there seems no assignable mo- 
 tive for his studying to do either,) betrays an event familiar 
 to his own mind, in that inadvertent and unobtrusive man- 
 ner in which the truth so often comes out. 
 
 The data, it must be confessed, are not enough to deter- 
 mine the matter with certainty either way ; it is a conjec- 
 tural coincidence. They who are not satisfied with it may 
 pass it over : I am persuaded, however, that nothing is 
 wanted but the discovery of a fifth or sixth Gospel to mul- 
 tiply such proofs of veracity as these I am collecting to a 
 great extent. It is impossible to examine the historical 
 parts of the New Testament in detail, without suspicions 
 constantly arising of facts, which, nevertheless, cannot be 
 substantiated for want of documents. We have very often 
 a glimpse, and no more. A hint is dropped relating to 
 something well known at the time, and which is not with- 
 out its value even now in evidence, by giving us to under- 
 stand that it is a fragment of some real story, of which we 
 are not in full possession. Of this nature is the circum- 
 stance recorded by St. Mark, (xiv. 51,) that when the dis- 
 ciples forsook Jesus, " there followed him a certain young 
 man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body, and 
 the young men laid hold of him ; and he left the linen 
 cloth, and fled from them naked." This is evidently an 
 imperfect history. It is an incident altogether detached, 
 and alone : another Gospel might give us the supplement, 
 and together with that supplement indications of its truth. 
 As another example of the same kind, may be mentioned 
 an expression in the beginning of the second chapter of 
 
262 THE VERACITY OP THE PART IV. 
 
 the Gospel of St. John. " and the third day there was a 
 marriage in Cana of Galilee" (ver. i.) ; the Apostle clearly 
 having some other event in his mind which does not tran- 
 spire, from which this third day dates. Meanwhile let us 
 but apply ourselves diligently to comparing together the 
 four witnesses which we have, instead of indulging a fruit- 
 less desire for more, and if consistency without design be a 
 proof that they are " true men," I cannot but consider that 
 it is abundantly supplied. 
 
 III. 
 
 Matth. viii. 14 " And when Jesus was come into Peter's 
 house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a 
 fever." 
 
 THE coincidence which I have here to mention does 
 not strictly fall within my plan, for it results from a com- 
 parison of St. Matthew with St. Paul ; if, however, it be 
 thought of any value, the irregularity of its introduction 
 will be easily overlooked. 
 
 In this passage of the Evangelist, then, by the merest 
 accident in the world, we discover that Peter was a mar- 
 ried man. It is a circumstance that has nothing what- 
 ever to do with the narrative, but is a gratuitous piece of 
 information, conveyed incidentally in the designation of 
 an individual who was the subject of a miracle. 
 
 But that Peter actually was a married man, we learn 
 from the independent testimony of St. Paul : " Have we 
 not power," says he, " to lead about a sister, a wife, as well 
 as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord and 
 Cephas ?" 1 Cor. ix. 5. Where it may be remarked that 
 the difference in name, Cephas in the one passage, Peter 
 in the other, is in itself an argument that the one passage 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 263 
 
 was written without any reference to the other that the 
 coincidence was without design. Here again, be it ob- 
 served, as in the former instance, the indication of veracity 
 in the Apostle's narrative, is found where the subject of 
 the narrative is a miracle ; for Christ having " touched her 
 hand, the fever left her, and she arose and ministered unto 
 them," (ver. 15.) 
 
 I cannot but think that any candid sceptic would con- 
 sider this coincidence to be at least decisive of the actual 
 existence of such a woman as Peter's wife's mother ; of 
 its being no imaginary character, no mere person of straw, 
 introduced with an air of precision, under the view of giving 
 a color of truth to the miracle. Yet, unless the Evan- 
 gelist had felt quite sure of his ground, quite sure, I mean, 
 that this remarkable cure would bear examination, it is 
 scarcely to be believed that he would have fixed it upon 
 an individual who certainly did live, or had lived, and who 
 therefore might herself, or her friends might for her, con- 
 tradict the alleged fact, if it never had occurred. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Matt. viii. 16. " When the even was come, they brought 
 unto him many that were possessed with devils ; and 
 he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all 
 that were sick." 
 
 THE undesignedness of many passages in the Gospels 
 is overlooked in our familiar acquaintance with them. 
 They have been so long the subject of our reading and of 
 our reflection, that the evidence they furnish of their own 
 veracity does not always present itself to us with that fresh- 
 ness which is necessary to give it its due effect. We often, 
 no doubt, fill up an ellipsis and complete a meaning almost 
 
264 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV 
 
 instinctively, without being aware how strongly the neces 
 sity for doing this, marks the absence of all caution, con- 
 trivance, and circumspection in the writers. For instance, 
 why did they bring the sick and possessed to Jesus when 
 the even was come ? I turn to the parallel passages of St. 
 Mark (i. 24) and St. Luke (iv. 31), and find that the trans- 
 action in question took place on the Sabbath-day. I turn 
 to another passage in St. Matthew, (xii. 10,) wholly inde- 
 pendent, however, of the former, and find that there was 
 a superstition amongst the Jews that it " was not lawful to 
 heal on the Sabbath-day." I put these together, and at 
 onoe see the reason why no application for a cure was 
 made to Jesus till the Sabbath was past, or in other words, 
 till the even was come. But St. Matthew, meanwhile, 
 does not offer one syllable in explanation. He states the 
 naked fact that when the even was come people were 
 brought to be healed ; and, for aught that appears to the 
 contrary, it might have been any other day of the week. 
 Suppose it had happened that St. Matthew's Gospel had 
 been the only one which had descended to us, the value 
 of these few words, " when the even was come" would 
 have been quite lost as an argument for the veracity of his 
 story ; for how could it have been conjectured that the 
 thought which was influencing St. Matthew's mind at the 
 moment when they escaped him, was this, that these things 
 were done on the evening of a Sabbath-day ? There is 
 no one circumstance in the previous narrative of the events 
 of that day as given by this Evangelist, to point to such a 
 conclusion. Jesus had entered into Capernaum he had 
 healed the centurion's servant he had healed Peter's 
 wife's mother of a fever how could it be known from any 
 of these acts that the day was the Sabbath 7 Or suppose 
 we had been in possession of the other three Evangelists, 
 but that the Gospel of St. Matthew had just been dis- 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 
 
 265 
 
 covered among the manuscripts of Milan, I ask whether 
 such an argument as this would not have had much weight 
 in establishing its authority ? 
 
 I am not concerned about the perfect intelligibility of 
 this passage in St. Matthew. Its meaning is obvious, and 
 it would be a waste of words to offer what I have done, as 
 commentary all that 1 am anxious to do, is to point out 
 the undesignedness apparent in it, which is such, I think, 
 as a writer of an imaginary narrative could not possibly 
 have displayed. 
 
 V. 
 
 Matth. ix. 9, 10. " And as Jesus passed forth from thence, 
 he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt 
 of custom ; and he saith unto him, Follow me ; and 
 he arose and followed him. And it came to pass, as 
 Jesus sat at meat in the house, 1 behold, many publi- 
 cans and sinners came and sat down with him." 
 How natural for a man, speaking of a transaction which 
 concerned himself, to forget for a moment the character of 
 the historian, and to talk of Jesus sitting down in the house, 
 without telling his readers whose house it was ! How nat- 
 ural for him not to perceive that there was vagueness and 
 obscurity in a term, which to himself was definite and 
 plain ! Accordingly we find St. Mark and St. Luke, who 
 deal with the same incident as historians, not as principals, 
 using a different form of expression. " And as they passed 
 by," says St. Mark, " he saw Levi the son of Alpheus sit- 
 ting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow 
 
 l iv TV oiVi'o. I do not observe that Bishop Middleton notices this instance 
 of the definite use of the Article. 
 
 23 
 
266 THE VERACITY OF THE PART. IV. 
 
 me : and he arose and followed him. And it came to pass, 
 that as Jesus sat at meat in his house." (ii. 15.) 
 
 " And Levij" says St. Luke, " made him a great feast in 
 his own house." (v. 29.) 
 
 It may be further remarked, that a number of publi- 
 cans sat down with Jesus and his disciples upon this oc- 
 casion ; a fact for which no reason is assigned, but for 
 which we discover a very good reason in the occupation 
 which St. Matthew had followed. 
 
 I think the odds are very great against the probability 
 of a writer preserving consistency in trifles like these, were 
 he only devising a story. I can scarcely imagine that 
 such a person would hit upon the phrase " in the house," 
 as an artful way of suggesting that the house was in fact 
 his own, and himself an eye-witness of the scene he de- 
 scribed ; still less, that he would refine yet further, and 
 make the company assembled there to consist of publicans, 
 in order that the whole picture might be complete and har- 
 monious. It may be added, that Capernaum, which was 
 the scene of St. Matthew's call, was precisely the place 
 where we might expect to meet with a man of his voca- 
 tion it being a station where such merchandise as was to 
 be conveyed by water-carriage, along the Jordan south- 
 wards, might be very conveniently shipped, and where a 
 custom-house would consequently be established. There 
 is a similar propriety in the habitat of Zaccheus (Luke xix. 
 2) ; he was a " chief among the publicans," and Jesus is 
 said to have fallen in with him near Jericho. Now Jericho 
 was the centre of the growth, preparation, and export, of 
 balsam, a very considerable branch of trade in Judea ; and 
 therefore a town which invited the presence of the tax- 
 gatherers. These are small matters, but such as bespeak 
 Iruth in those who detail them. 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 
 
 267 
 
 VI. 
 
 AKIN to this is my next instance 1 of consistency without 
 design. 
 
 Matth. x. 2. " Now the names of the twelve Apostles are 
 these : the first, Simon, who is called Peter, and An- 
 drew his brother ; James, the son of Zebedee, and 
 John his brother ; Philip, and Bartholomew ; Thomas, 
 and Matthew the publican; James, the son of Al- 
 pheus, and Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus ; 
 Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also 
 betrayed him." 
 
 This order, as far as regards Thomas and Matthew, is 
 ko verted in St. Mark and St. Luke. " Philip and Barthol- 
 omew, and Matthew and Thomas" is the succession of 
 the names in those two Evangelists, (Mark iii. 18 ; Luke 
 vi. 15 ;) and by neither of them is the odious, but distinc- 
 tive, appellation of " the publican" added. This difference, 
 however, in St. Matthew's catalogue, from that given by 
 St. Mark and St. Luke, is precisely such as might be ex- 
 pected from a modest man when telling his own tale : he 
 places his own name after that of a colleague who had no 
 claims to precedence, but rather the contrary, and, fearful 
 that its obscurity might render it insufficient merely to an- 
 nounce it, and, at the same time, perhaps, not unwilling to 
 inflict upon himself an act of self-humiliation, he annexes 
 to it his former calling, which was notorious at least, how- 
 ever it might be unpopular. I should not be disposed to 
 lay great stress upon this example of undesigned consist- 
 ency were it a solitary instance, but when taken in con- 
 
 1 In this argument I am indebted to Nelson, (Festivals and Fasts, p. 229,) 
 who advances it, however, for a different end, to prove the humility, not the 
 veracity, of St. Matthew. 
 
268 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV 
 
 junction with so many others, it may be allowed a place , 
 for though the order of names and the annexed epithet 
 might be accidental, yet it must be admitted that the} 
 would be accounted for at least as well by the veracity of 
 the narrative. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Matth. xii. 46." While he yet talked, behold, his mother 
 and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak 
 with him" 
 
 WHAT his mother's communication might be the Evan- 
 gelist does not record. It seems to have been made pri- 
 vately and apart, and was probably not overheard by any 
 of his followers. But, in the next chapter, St. Matthew 
 very undesignedly mentions, that " when he was come into 
 his own country, he taught them in the synagogue," 
 (xiii. 54). Hence then we see, that the interview with his 
 mother and brethren was shortly succeeded by a visit to 
 their town. The visit might, indeed, have nothing to do 
 with the interview, nor does St. Matthew hint that it had 
 anything whatever to do with it, (for then no argument of 
 veracity, founded upon the undesigned coincidence of the 
 two facts, could have been here advanced,) but still there 
 is a fair presumption that the visit was in obedience to his 
 mother's wish, more especially as the disposition of the in- 
 habitants of Nazareth, which must have been known to 
 Christ, was unfit for his doing there any mighty works. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE death of Joseph is nowhere either mentioned, or 
 alluded to, by the Evangelists ; yet, from all four of them 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 
 
 it may be indirectly inferred to have happened whilst 
 Christ was yet alive ; a circumstance in which, had they 
 been imposing a story upon us, they would scarcely have 
 concurred, when the concurrence is manifestly not the 
 effect of scheme or contrivance. Thus in the passage from 
 St. Matthew, quoted in the last paragraph, we find his 
 mother and brethren seeking Jesus, but not his reputed 
 father. In St. Mark we have the whole family enumerated, 
 but no mention made of Joseph. " Is not this the carpenter, 
 the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of 
 Juda, and Simon ? and are not his sisters here with us ? J> 
 (vi. 3.) 
 
 " Then came to him," says St. Luke, " his mother and 
 his brethren, and could not come at him for the press," 
 (viii. 19.) " After this," says St. John, " he went down to 
 Capernaum ; he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his 
 disciples." (ii. 12.) 
 
 Neither do we meet with any notice of Joseph's attend- 
 ance at the feast of Can a, or at the Crucifixion ; indeed, in 
 his last moments Jesus commends his mother to the care 
 of the disciple whom he loved, and that " disciple took her 
 to his own home." 
 
 Such a harmony as this cannot have been the effect of 
 concert. It is not a direct, or even an incidental agree- 
 ment in a positive fact, for nothing is asserted ; but yet, 
 from the absence of assertion, a presumption of such fact 
 :s conveyed to us by the separate narrative of each of the 
 Evangelists. 
 
 23* 
 
270 THE VERACITY OP THE PART IV 
 
 IX. 
 
 Matth. xiii. 2. "And great multitudes were gathered to* 
 gether unto him, so that he went into a ship, (els T<! 
 TiAorov), and sat." 
 
 ' IN this, and in some other places of the Evangelists, 
 says Bishop Middleton, ' we have nloiov with the article 
 (the ship, not a ship) ; the force of which, however, is not 
 immediately obvious. In the present instance the English 
 version, Newcome, and Campbell, understand TO nloiov in- 
 definitely ; but that any ship, without reference, can be 
 meant by this phrase, is grammatically impossible. Many 
 philologists, indeed, have adduced this passage amongst 
 others, to show that this article is sometimes without mean- 
 ing ; but this proves only that its meaning was sometimes 
 unknown to them. 
 
 c Mr. Wakefield observes, in his New Testament, " a par- 
 ticular vessel is uniformly specified. It seems to have been 
 kept on the lake for the use of Jesus and his apostles. It 
 probably belonged to some of the fishermen (Luke iv. 22) 
 who, I should think, occasionally at least, continued to fol- 
 low their former occupation. See John xxi. 3." Thus far 
 Mr. Wakefield, whose solution carried with it an air of 
 strong probability : and when we look at Mark iii. 9, which 
 appears to have escaped him, this conjecture becomes ab- 
 solute certainty. "And he spake to his disciples that a 
 small vessel should wait on him" (constantly be wait- 
 ing on him, n^oaxaQTfQi] ariito) because of the multitude, lest 
 they should throng him. Moreover, I think we may dis- 
 cover to whom the vessel belonged. In one Evangelist, 
 (Luke v. 3,) we find a ship used by our Saviour for the 
 very purpose here mentioned, declared expressly to be 
 Simon's ; and afterwards, in the same Evangelist, (viii. 22, 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 271 
 
 we have the ship, TO nloiov^ definitely, as if it were intended 
 that the reader should understand it of the ship already 
 spoken of. It is therefore not improbable that in the other 
 Evangelists also, the vessel so frequently used by our Sav 
 iour was that belonging to Peter and Andrew.' 1 Where 
 Bishop Middleton finds a philological solution, I find an 
 undesigned coincidence. St. Matthew speaks of " the ship" 
 (tb nloiov) into which Jesus went, as though referring to a 
 well-known vessel. St. Mark tells us that he had " a small 
 vessel to wait on him" 
 
 X. 
 
 Matth. xiv. 1. " At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard 
 of the fame of Jesus, and said unto his servants, (tot$ 
 naiaiv afoot},) This is John the Baptist, who has risen 
 from the dead." 
 
 ST. MATTHEW here declares that Herod delivered his 
 opinion of Christ to his servants. There must have been 
 some particular reason, one would imagine, to induce him 
 to make such a communication to them above all other 
 people. What could it have been? St. Mark does not 
 help us to solve the question, for he contents himself with 
 recording what Herod said. Neither does St. Luke, in the 
 parallel passage, tell us to whom he addressed himself 
 " he was desirous of seeing him, .because he had heard 
 many things of him" By referring, however, to the 
 eighth chapter of this last Evangelist, the cause why Herod 
 had heard so much about Christ, and why he talked to 
 his servants about him, is sufficiently explained, but it is 
 by the merest accident. We are there informed, "that 
 Jesus went throughout every city and village, preaching 
 
 (i Bishop Middleton on the Greek Article, p. 158.) 
 
272 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God ; and 
 the twelve were with him, and certain women who had 
 been healed of evil spirits and infirmities : Mary, called 
 Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils ; and Joanna 
 the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and 
 many others, which ministered unto him of their sub- 
 stance." 
 
 And again, in chap. xiii. ver. 1, of the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles, we read, amongst other distinguished converts, of 
 " Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the 
 Tetrarch" or, in other words, who was his foster-brother. 
 We see, therefore, that Christ had followers from amongst 
 the household of this very prince, and, accordingly, that 
 Herod was very likely to discourse with his servants on a 
 subject in which they were better informed than himself. 
 
 XI. 
 
 MATTH. xiv. 20. In the miracle of feeding the five 
 thousand with five loaves and two fishes, recorded by all 
 four Evangelists, the disciples, we are told, took up dddexa 
 xocpivovg Til^Qeis (Matth. xiv. 20 ; Mark vi. 43 ; Luke ix. 
 17 ; John vi. 13 ;) in all these cases our translation ren- 
 ders the passage " twelve baskets" 
 
 In the miracle of feeding the four thousand with seven 
 loaves and a few small fishes, recorded by two of the Evan- 
 gelists, the disciples took up tmu. anvpi'das (Matth. xv. 37 ; 
 Mark viii. 8 ;) in both these cases our translation renders 
 the passages " seven baskets ;" the term xoyitos, and anvils 
 being expressed both alike by " basket" 
 
 Yet there was, no doubt, a marked difference between 
 these two vessels, whatever that difference might be, for 
 x6q>ivos is invariably used when the miracle of the five 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 273 
 
 thousand is spoken of; and anvqig is invariably used when 
 the miracle of the four thousand is spoken of. Moreover 
 such distinction is clearly suggested to us in Matth. xvi. 9, 
 10, where our Saviour cautions his disciples against the 
 " leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees j" and in so doing, 
 alludes to each of these miracles thus : " Do ye not yet un- 
 derstand. neither remember the five loaves of the Jive thou- 
 sand, and how many baskets (xoyivovg) ye took up ? nei- 
 ther the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many 
 baskets (onvgidug) ye took up?" though here again the 
 distinction is entirely lost in our translation, both xoylvovs 
 and ffnvQidag being still rendered " baskets," alike. 
 
 The precise nature of the difference of these two kinds 
 of baskets it may be difficult to determine ; and the lexicog- 
 raphers and commentators do not enable us to do it with 
 accuracy ; though from the word anvgig being used (Acts 
 ix. 25) for the basket in which St. Paul was let down over 
 the wall, we may suppose that it was capacious ; whereas 
 from the xoyivoi^ in this instance, being twelve in number, 
 we may in like manner suppose that they were the provis- 
 ion-baskets carried by the twelve disciples, and were, con- 
 sequently, smaller. But the point of the coincidence is 
 independent of the precise difference of the vessels, and 
 consists in the uniform application of the term xoyvos to 
 the basket of the one miracle (wheresoever and by whom- 
 soever told ;) and as the uniform application of the term 
 envois, to the basket of the other miracle ; such uniform- 
 ity marking very clearly the two miracles to be distinctly 
 impressed on the minds of the Evangelists, as real events ; 
 the circumstantial peculiarities of each present to them, as 
 though they were themselves actual eye-witnesses : or at 
 least had received their report from those who were so. 
 
 It is next to impossible that such coincidences in both 
 cases, between the fragments and the receptacles, respeo 
 
274 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 lively, should have been preserved by chance ; or by a 
 teller of a tale at third or fourth hand ; and accordingly 
 we see that the coincidences is in fact entirely lost by our 
 translators, who were not witnesses of the miracles ; and 
 whose attention did not happen to be drawn to the point. 
 
 XII. 
 
 WE do not read a great deal respecting Herod the Te- 
 trarch in the Evangelists ; but all that is said of him will 
 be perceived, on examination, (for it may not strike us at 
 first sight,) to be perfectly harmonious. 
 
 When the disciples had forgotten to take bread with 
 them in the boat, our Lord warns them to " take heed and 
 beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven 
 of Herod." So says St. Mark, (viii. 15). The charge 
 which Jesus gives them on this occasion is thus worded 
 by St. Matthew, " Take heed and beware of the leaven of 
 the Pharisees and of the Sadducees" (xvi. 6). The obvious 
 interference to be drawn from the two passages is, that 
 Herod himself was a Sadducee. Let us turn to St. Luke, 
 and though still we find no assertion to this effect, he 
 would clearly lead us to the same conclusion. Chap. ix. 
 7, " Now Herod the Tetrarch heard of all that was done 
 by him ; and he was perplexed, because that it was said of 
 some, that John was risen from the dead ; and of some> 
 that Elias had appeared ; and of some, that one of the old 
 prophets was risen again. And Herod said, John have 
 I beheaded, but who is this of whom I hear such things ? 
 and he desired to see him." 
 
 The transmigration of the souls of good men was a pop- 
 ular belief at that time amongst the Pharisees ; (see Jose- 
 phus, B. J. ii. 83, 14) ; a Pharisee, therefore, would have 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 275 
 
 found little difficulty in this resurrection of John, or of an 
 old prophet ; in fact, it was the Pharisees, no doubt, who 
 started the idea : not so Herod ; he was perplexed about 
 it ; he had " beheaded John," which was in his creed the 
 termination of his existence ; well then might he ask, " who 
 is this of whom I hear such things ?" Neither do I discover 
 any objection in the parallel passage of St. Matthew, xiv. 
 1 : "At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard of the fame 
 of Jesus, and said unto his servants, This is John the Bap- 
 tist ; he is risen from the dead ; and therefore mighty works 
 do show forth themselves in him." It is the language of a 
 man, (especially when taken in connection with St. Luke,) 
 who began to doubt whether he was right in his Sadducean 
 notions ; a guilty conscience awaking in him some appre- 
 hension that he whom he had murdered might be alive 
 again that there might, after all, be a "resurrection, 
 an angel, and spirit." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Matth. xvii. 19. " Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, 
 and said, Why could not we cast him out? And 
 Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief . . . 
 Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and 
 fasting" 
 
 HERE, therefore, the words of Jesus imply that the dis- 
 ciples did not fast. Yet the observation is made in that 
 incidental manner in which a fact familiar to the mind of 
 the speaker so often comes out. It has not the smallest 
 appearance of being introduced for the purpose of confirm- 
 ing any previous assertion to the same effect. Yet in 
 Chapter ix. ver. 14, we had been told that the disciples of 
 John came to Jesus, saying, " Why do we and the Phari- 
 
276 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 sees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not ?" It may be re- 
 marked, too, that the former passage not only implies that 
 the disciples of Jesus did not fast, but that Jesus himself 
 did, and that the latter passage singularly enough implies 
 the very same thing ; for it does not run, why do we and 
 the Pharisees fast oft, but thou and thy disciples fast not? 
 (which would be the strict antithesis), but only, why do 
 thy disciples fast not ? 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Matth. xxvi. 67. " Then did they spit in his face, and 
 buffeted him ; and others smote him with the palms 
 of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us^ thou Christ, 
 who is he that smote thee ?" 
 
 I THINK undesigned ness may be traced in this passage, 
 both in what is expressed and what is omitted. It is usual 
 for one who invents a story which he wishes should be be- 
 lieved, to be careful that its several parts hang well together 
 to make its conclusions follow from its premises and to 
 show how they follow. He naturally considers that he 
 shall be suspected unless his account is probable and con- 
 sistent and he labors to provide against that suspicion. On 
 the other hand, he who is telling the truth, is apt to state 
 his facts and leave them to their fate ; he speaks as one 
 having authority, and cares not about the why or the 
 wherefore, because it never occurs to him that such par- 
 ticulars are wanted to make his statement credible, and ac- 
 cordingly, if such particulars are discoverable at all, it is 
 most commonly by inference, and incidentally. 
 
 Now in the verse of St. Matthew, placed at the head of 
 this paragraph, it is written that " they smote him with the 
 palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 277 
 
 who is he that smote thee ?" Had it happened that the 
 records of the other Evangelists had been lost, no critical 
 acuteness could have possibly supplied by conjecture the 
 omission which occurs in this passage, and yet, without that 
 omission being supplied, the true meaning of the passage 
 must forever have lain hid ; for where is the propriety of 
 asking Christ to prophesy who smote him, when he had 
 the offender before his eyes ? But when we learn from St. 
 Luke (xii. 64) that " the men that held Jesus blindfolded 
 him" before they asked him to prophesy who it was that 
 smote him, we discover what St. Matthew intended to com- 
 municate, namely, that they proposed this test of his divine 
 mission, whether, without the use of sight, he could tell 
 who it was that struck him. Such an oversight as this in 
 St. Matthew it is difficult to account for on any other sup- 
 position than the truth of the history itself, which set its 
 author above all solicitude about securing the reception of 
 his conclusions by a cautious display of the grounds whereon 
 they were built. 
 
 XV. 
 
 WHAT was the charge on which the Jews condemned 
 Christ to death? 1 
 
 Familiar as this question may at first seem, the answer 
 is not so obvious as might be supposed. By a careful pe- 
 rusal of the trial of our Lord, as described by the several 
 Evangelists, it will be found that the charges were two, of 
 a nature quite distinct, and preferred with a most appro- 
 
 1 The following argument was suggested to me by reading Wilson's 
 " Illustrations of the Method of Explaining the New Testament by the 
 Early opinions of Jews and Christians concerning Christ" 
 
 24 
 
278 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 priate reference to the tribunals before which they were 
 made. 
 
 Thus the first hearing was before " the Chief Priests 
 and all the Council" a Jewish and ecclesiastical court ; 
 accordingly, Christ was then accused of blasphemy. " 1 
 adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether 
 thou be the Son of God" said Caiaphas to him, in the hope 
 of convicting him out of his own mouth. When Jesus in 
 his reply answered that he was, " then the high-priest rent 
 his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy ; what fur- 
 ther need have we of witnesses! behold, now ye have 
 heard his blasphemy" (Matt., xxvi. 65.) 
 
 Shortly after, he is taken before Pilate, the Roman gov- 
 ernor, and here the charge of blasphemy is altogether sup- 
 pressed, and that of sedition substituted. " And the whole 
 multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate ? and 
 they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow 
 perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to 
 CcBsar, saying, that he himself is Christ, a king." (Luke 
 xxiii. 2.) And on this plea it is that they press his convic- 
 tion, reminding Pilate, that if he let him go he was not 
 Caesar's friend. 
 
 This difference in the nature of the accusation, accord- 
 ing to the quality and characters of the judges, is not forced 
 upon our notice by the Evangelists, as though they were 
 anxious to give an air of probability to their narrative by 
 such circumspection and attention to propriety on the 
 contrary, it is touched upon in so cursory and unemphatic 
 a manner, as to be easily overlooked ; and I venture to say, 
 that it is actually overlooked by most readers of the Gos- 
 pels. Indeed, how perfectly agreeable to the temper of the 
 times, and of the parties concerned, such a proceeding xvas, 
 can scarcely be perceived at first sight. The coincidence, 
 therefore, will appear more striking if we examine it some- 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 279 
 
 what more closely. A charge of blasphemy was, of all 
 others, the best fitted to detach the multitude from the 
 cause of Christ ; and it is only by a proper regard to this 
 circumstance, that we can obtain the true key to the con- 
 flicting sentiments of the people towards him ; one while 
 hailing him, as they do, with rapture, and then again 
 striving to put him to death. 
 
 Thus when Jesus walked in Solomon's Porch, the Jews 
 came round about him and said unto him, " If thou be the 
 Christ tell us plainly ? Jesus answered them, I told you, 
 and ye believed not." He then goes on to speak of the 
 works which testified of him, and adds, in conclusion, " I 
 and my Father are one." The effect of which words was 
 instantly this, that the Jews (i.e. the people) took up stones 
 to stone him, " for blasphemy, and because being a man, 
 ke made himself God." (John x. 33.) Again in the sixth 
 chapter of St. John, we read of five thousand men, who, 
 having witnessed his miracles, actually acknowledged him 
 as " that prophet that should come into the world/' nay, 
 even wished to take him by force and make him a king : 
 yet the very next day, when Christ said to these same 
 people, "This is that bread which came down from heav- 
 en," they murmured at him, doubtless considering him to 
 lay claim to divinity ; for he replies, " Doth this offend 
 you ? what and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up 
 where he was before ?" expressions, at which such serious 
 offence was taken, that "from that time many of his dis- 
 ciples went back, and walked with him no more." So 
 that it is not in these days only that men forsake Christ 
 from a reluctance to acknowledge (as he demands of them) 
 his Godhead. And again, when Jesus cured the impotent 
 man on the Sabbath-day, and in defending himself for 
 having so done, said, "ray Father worketh hitherto, and I 
 work," we are told, "therefore the Jews sought the more 
 
280 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, 
 but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal 
 with God." (John v. 18.) So, on another occasion, when 
 Jesus had been speaking with much severity in the temple, 
 we find him unmolested, till he adds, " Yerily, verily. I say 
 unto you. Before Abraham was, / am," (John viii. 58 ;) 
 but no sooner had he so said, than "they took up stones to 
 cast at him." In like manner, (to come to the last scene 
 of his mortal life,) when he entered Jerusalem he had the 
 people in his favor, for the chief priests and scribes " feared 
 them ;" yet, very shortly after, the tide was so turned 
 against him, that the same people asked Barabbas rather 
 than Jesus. And why ? As Messiah they were anxious 
 to receive him, which was the character in which he had 
 entered Jerusalem but they rejected him as the " Son of 
 God" which was the character in which he stood before 
 them at his trial : facts which, taken in a doctrinal view, 
 are of no small value, proving, as they do, that the Jews 
 believed Christ to lay claim to divinity, however they 
 might dispute or deny the right. It is consistent, there- 
 fore, with the whole tenor of the Gospel history, that the 
 enemies of Christ, to gain their end with the Jews, should 
 have actually accused him of blasphemy, as they are rep- 
 resented to have done, and should have succeeded. Nor 
 is it less consistent with that history, that they should 
 have actually waived the charge of blasphemy, when they 
 brought him before a Roman magistrate, and substituted 
 that of sedition in its stead ; for the Roman governors, it 
 is well known, were very indifferent about religious dis- 
 putes they had the toleration of men who had no creed 
 of their own. Gallio, we hear in aftertimes, " cared for 
 none of these things ;" and. in the same spirit, Lysias 
 writes to Felix about Paul, that " he perceived him to be 
 accused of questions concerning the law. but to hav* 
 
JPART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 281 
 
 nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bo?ids. n 
 (Acts xxiii. 29.) 
 
 Indeed, this case of Paul serves in a very remarkable 
 manner to illustrate that of our Lord ; and at the same 
 time in itself furnishes a second coincidence, founded upon 
 exactly the same facts. For the accusation brought against 
 Paul by his enemies, when they had Jews to deal with, 
 and, no doubt, that which was brought against him in the 
 Jewish court, was blasphemy : " Men of Israel, this is 
 the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the 
 people, and the law, and this place." 1 But when this 
 same Paul, on the same occasion, was brought before 
 Felix, the Roman governor, the charge became sedition, 
 " We have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover 
 of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world." 2 
 
 It may be remarked, that this is not so much a casual 
 coincidence between parallel passages of several Evan- 
 gelists, as an instance of singular, but undesigned har- 
 mony, amongst the various component parts of one piece 
 of history, which they all record ; the proceedings before 
 two very different tribunals being represented in a manner 
 the most agreeable to the known prejudices of all the par- 
 ties concerned. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Matth. xxvi. 71. " And when he was gone out into the 
 Porch (vbv nvl&va), another maid saw him, and said 
 unto them, This man was also with Jesus of Naza- 
 reth." 
 
 How came it to pass that Peter, a stranger, who had en- 
 tered the house in the night, and under circumstances of 
 
 i Acts xxi. 28. 2 Ib. xxiv. 5. (See Riscoe on the Acts, p. 245.) 
 
 24* 
 
282 THE VERACITY OF THE PART /IV 
 
 some tumult and disorder, was thus singled out by the 
 maid in the Porch ? 
 
 Let us turn to St. John, (ch. xviii. ver. 16,) and we shall 
 find, that, after Jesus had entered, " Peter stood at the door 
 without, till that other disciple went out which was known 
 unto the high-priest, and spake unto her that kept the 
 door, and brought in Peter." Thus was the attention of 
 that girl directed to Peter, (a fact of which St. Matthew 
 gives no hint whatever,) and thus we see how it happened 
 that he was recognized in the Porch. Here is a minute 
 indication of veracity in St. Matthew, which would have 
 been lost upon us had not the Gospel of St. John come 
 down to our times ; and how many similar indications 
 may be hid, from a want of other contemporary histories 
 with which to make a comparison, it is impossible to con- 
 jecture. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 MY next instance of coincidence without design is taken 
 from the account of certain circumstances attending the 
 feeding of the five thousand. And here again, be it re- 
 marked, an indication of veracity is found, as formerly, 
 where the subject of the narrative is a miracle. 
 
 In the sixth chapter of St. Mark we are told, that Jesus 
 said to his disciples, " come ye yourselves apart into a 
 desert place," (it was there where the miracle was wrought,) 
 " and rest a while ; for there were many," adds the 
 Evangelist, by way of accounting for his temporary seclu- 
 sion, " coming and going, and they had no leisure so 
 much as to eat." How it happened that so many were 
 coming and going through Capernaum at that time, above 
 all others, this Evangelist does not give us the slightest 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 283 
 
 hint ; neither how it came to pass, that, by retiring for a 
 while, Jesus and his disciples would escape the inconve- 
 nience. Turn we then to the parallel passage in St. John, 
 and there we shall find the matter explained at once, 
 though certainly this explanation could never have been 
 given with a reference to the very casual expression of St. 
 Mark. In St. John we do not meet with one word about 
 Jesus retiring for a while into the desert, for the purpose 
 of being apart, or that he would have been put to any in- 
 convenience by staying at Capernaum, but we are told, 
 (what perfectly agrees with these two circumstances,) " that 
 the Passover , a feast of the Jews, was nigh" (vi. 4.) 
 Hence, then, the " coming and going" through Capernaum 
 was so unusually great, and hence, if Jesus and his dis- 
 ciples rested in the desert " a while," the crowd, which 
 was pressing towards Jerusalem from every part of the 
 country, would have subsided, and drawn off to the capi- 
 tal. For it may be observed that the desert place being at 
 some distance from Capernaum, through which city the 
 gr^at road lay from the north to Jerusalem, the multitude 
 could not follow Jesus there without some inconvenience 
 and delay. 
 
 The confusion which prevailed throughout the Holy 
 Land at this great festival we may easily imagine, when 
 we read in Josephus, 1 that, for the satisfaction of Nero, his 
 officer, Cestius, on one occasion, endeavored to reckon up 
 the number of those who shared in the national rite at 
 Jerusalem. By counting the victims sacrificed, and allow- 
 ing a company of ten to each victim, he found that nearly 
 two millions six hundred thousand souls were present ; 
 and it may be observed, that this method of calculation 
 would not include the many persons who must have been 
 
 i Bel. Jud. vi. 9. 3. 
 
284 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 disqualified from actually partaking of the sacrifice, by the 
 places of their birth and the various causes of uncleanness, 
 I cannot forbear remarking another incident in the trans- 
 action we are now considering, in itself a trifle, but not, 
 perhaps, on that account, less fit for corroborating the his- 
 tory. We read in St. John, that when Jesus had reached 
 this desert place, he " lifted up his eyes and saw a great 
 multitude come unto him, and he said unto Philip, 
 Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat ?" (vi. 5.) 
 Why should this question have been directed to Philip in 
 particular ? If we had the Gospel of St. John and not 
 the other Gospels, we should see no peculiar propriety in 
 this choice, and should probably assign it to accident. If 
 we had the other Gospels, and not that of St. John, we 
 should not be put upon the inquiry, for they make no men- 
 tion of the question having been addressed expressly to 
 Philip. But, by comparing St. Luke with St. John, we 
 discover the reason at once. By St. Luke, and by him 
 alone, we are informed, that the desert place where the 
 miracle was wrought " was belonging to Bethsaida" (IK. 
 10.) By St. John we are informed, (although not in the 
 passage where he relates the miracle, which is worthy of 
 remark, but in another chapter altogether independent of 
 it, ch.i. 44,) that " Philip was of Bethsaida." To whom 
 then, could the question have been directed so properly as 
 to him, who, being of the immediate neighborhood, was 
 the most likely to know where bread was to be bought ? 
 Here again, then, I maintain, we have strong indications of 
 veracity in the case of a miracle itself; and I leave it to 
 others, who may have ingenuity and inclination for the task, 
 to weed out the falsehood of the miracle from the manifest 
 reaiity of the circumstances which attend it, arid to sepa- 
 rate fiction from fact, which is in the very closest combina- 
 tion with it. 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 285 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Mark xv. 21. " And they compel one Simon, a Cyrenian, 
 who passed by, coming out of the country, the father 
 of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross." 
 
 CLEMENT of Alexandria, who lived about the end of 
 the second century, declares, that Mark wrote this Gospel 
 on St. Peter's authority at Rome. Jerome, who lived in 
 the fourth century, says, that Mark, the disciple and inter- 
 preter of St. Peter, being requested by his brethren at 
 Rome, wrote a short Gospel. 
 
 Now this circumstance may account for his designating 
 Simon as the father of Rufus at least ; for we find that a 
 disciple of that name, and of considerable note, was resi- 
 dent at Rome, when St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the 
 Romans. " Salute Rufus" says he, " chosen in the 
 Lord" (xvi. 13.) Thus, by mentioning a man living upon 
 the spot where he was writing, and amongst the people 
 whom he addressed, Mark was giving a reference for the 
 truth of his narrative, which must have been accessible 
 and satisfactory to all ; since Rufus could not have failed 
 knowing the particulars of the crucifixion, (the great event 
 to which the Christians looked,) when his father had been 
 so intimately concerned in it as to have been the reluctant 
 bearer of the cross. 
 
 Of course, the force of this argument depends on the 
 identity of the Rufus of St. Mark and the Rufus of St. 
 Paul, which I have no means of proving : l but admitting 
 it to be probable that they were the same persons, (which, 
 I think, may be admitted, for St. Paul, we see, expressly 
 speaks of a distinguished disciple of the name of Rufus at 
 Rome, and St. Mark, writing for the Romans, mentions 
 
 i See Michaelis, Vol. in. p. 213. 
 
286 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 Rufus, the son of Simon, as well known to them,) admit- 
 ting this, the coincidence is striking, and serves to account 
 for what otherwise seems a piece of purely gratuitous and 
 needless information offered by St. Mark to his readers, 
 namely, that Simon was the father of Alexander and 
 Rufus ; a fact omitted by the other Evangelists, and appa- 
 rently turned to no advantage by himself. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Mark xv. 25. " And it was the third hour, and they cru- 
 cified him." 
 33. "And when the sixth hour was come, there was 
 
 darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour." 
 IT has been observed to me by an intelligent friend, who 
 has turned his attention to the internal evidence of the 
 Gospels, that it will be found, on examination, that the 
 scoffs and insults which were levelled at our Saviour on the 
 cross,.were all during the early part of the crucifixion, 
 and that a manifest change of feeling towards him, arising, 
 as it should seem, from a certain misgiving as to his char- 
 acter, is discoverable in the bystanders as the scene drew 
 nearer to its close : I think the remark just and valuable. 
 It is at the first that we read of those " who passed by 
 railing on him, and wagging their heads," (Mark xv. &9 ;) 
 of " the chief priests and scribes mocking him," 31 ; of 
 " those that were crucified with him reviling him," 32 ; of 
 the " soldiers mocking him and offering him vinegar," 
 (Luke xxiii. 36,) pointing out to him most likely, the " ves- 
 sel of vinegar which was set," or holding a portion of it 
 beyond his reach, by way of aggravating the pains of in- 
 tense thirst, which must have attended this lingering mode 
 of death : that all this occurred at the beginning of the 
 
PART IV. THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 287 
 
 Passion is the natural conclusion to be drawn from the 
 narratives of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke. 
 
 But, during the latter part of it, we hear nothing of this 
 kind ; on the contrary, when Jesus cried, " I thirst," there 
 was no mockery offered, but a sponge was filled with vin- 
 egar, and put on a reed and applied to his lips, with re- 
 markable alacrity ; " one ran" and did it, (Mark xv. 31 :) 
 and, from the misunderstanding of the words " Eli, Eli," 
 it is clear that the spectators had some suspicion that Elias 
 might come to take him down. Do not, then, these cir- 
 cumstances accord remarkably well with the alleged fact, 
 that " there was darkness over all the land from the sixth 
 to the ninth hour ?" (Matth. xxvii. 45 ;) Mark xv. 33. Is 
 not this change of conduct in the merciless crew that sur- 
 rounded the cross very naturally explained, by the awe 
 with which they contemplated the gloom as it took effect ? 
 and does it not strongly, though undesignedly. confirm the 
 assertion, that such a fearful darkness there actually was ? 
 
 XX. 
 
 Mark xv. 43. " And Joseph of Arimathsea, an honorable 
 counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, 
 came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the 
 body of Jesus." 
 
 IT is evident that the courage of Joseph on this occasion 
 had impressed the mind of the Evangelist he " went in 
 boldly" Tolft^aag eio^Ws he had the boldness to go in- 
 he ventured to go in. 
 
 Now by comparing the parallel passage in St. John, we 
 very distinctly trace the train of thought which was work- 
 ing in St. Mark's mind when he used this expression, but 
 which would have entirely escaped us, together with the 
 
288 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV 
 
 evidence it furnishes for the truth of the narrative, had not 
 the Gospel oT St. John come down to us. For there we 
 read (xix. 38), " And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being 
 a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, be- 
 sought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus." 
 
 It appears, therefore, that Joseph was known to be a 
 timid disciple ; which made his conduct on the present 
 occasion seem to St. Mark remarkable, and at variance 
 with his ordinary character ; for there might be supposed 
 some risk in manifesting an interest in the corpse of Jesus, 
 whom the Jews had just persecuted to the death. 
 
 Moreover, it may be observed that St. John, in the pas- 
 sage before us, continues, " And there came also Nicodemus, 
 which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a 
 mixture of myrrh and aloes" as though the timid char- 
 acter of Joseph was uppermost in his thoughts too, (though 
 he says nothing of his going in boldly,) and suggested to 
 him Nicodemus, and what he did ; another disciple of the 
 same class as Joseph ; and whose constitutional failing he 
 does intimate, occurred to him at the moment, by the no- 
 tice that it was the same who had come to Jesus by night. 
 
 I will add, that both these cases of Joseph and Nicode- 
 mus bear upon the coincidence in the last Number ; for 
 whence did these fearful men derive their courage on this 
 occasion, but from having witnessed the circumstances 
 which attended the crucifixion ? 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Luke vi. 1, 2. "And it came to pass on the second Sab* 
 bath after the first, (iv aafipfau d8vrego7rQ(biu,) that he 
 went through the corn-fields ; and his disciples plucked 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 289 
 
 the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their 
 hands. And certain of the Pharisees said," &c. 
 
 THIS transaction occurred on the first Sabbath after the 
 second day of unleavened bread ; on which day the wave 
 sheaf was offered, as the first fruits of the harvest; 1 and 
 from which day the fifty days were reckoned to the Pen- 
 tecost. 
 
 Is it not therefore very natural that this conversation 
 should have taken place at this time, and that St. Luke 
 should have especially given the date of the conversation, 
 as well as the conversation itself? 
 
 It being the first Sabbath after the day when the first 
 fruits of the corn were cut, accords perfectly with the fact 
 that the disciples should be walking through fields of stand- 
 ing corn at that season. 
 
 The Rite, which had just then been celebrated, an epc :h 
 in the church, as well as an epoch in the year, naturally 
 turned the minds of all the parties here concerned to the 
 subject of corn the Pharisees, to find cause for cavil in it 
 Jesus, to find cause for instruction in it St. Luke to 
 find cause for especially naming the second Sabbath after 
 the first) as the period of the incident. And yet, be it ob- 
 served, no connection is pointed out between the time and 
 the transaction, either in the conversation itself, or in the 
 Evangelist's history of it. That is, there is coincidence 
 
 without design in both. 
 
 i 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Luke ix. 53. "And they did not receive him, because his 
 
 face was as though he would go to Jerusalem" 
 JESUS was then going to the Passover at Jerusalem, and 
 was therefore plainly acknowledging that men ought to 
 
 1 Lev. xxiii. 10, 11, 12. 
 
 25 
 
290 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 worship there, contrary to the practice of the Samaritans, 
 who had set up the Temple at Gerizim, in opposition to 
 that of the Holy City. That this was the cause of irrita- 
 tion is implied in the expression, that they would not re- 
 ceive him, "because his face was as though he would go 
 to Jerusalem" Let us observe, then, how perfectly this 
 account harmonizes with that which St. John gives of Je- 
 sus' interview with the woman of Samaria at the well. 
 Then Jesus was coming from Judsea, and at a season of 
 the year when no suspicion could attach to him of having 
 been at Jerusalem for devotional purposes, for it wanted 
 " four months before the harvest should come," and with it 
 the Passover. Accordingly, on this occasion, Jesus and his 
 disciples were treated with civility and hospitality by the 
 Samaritans. They purchased bread in the town without 
 being exposed to any insults, and they were even requested 
 to tarry with them. 
 
 I cannot but think that the stamp of truth is very visible 
 in all this. It was natural, that at certain seasons of the 
 year (at the great feasts) this jealous spirit should be ex- 
 cited, which at others might be dormant ; and though it is 
 not expressly stated by the one Evangelist, that the insult 
 of the villagers was at a season when it might be expected, 
 yet from a casual expression, (ver. 51,) such may be in- 
 ferred to have been the case. And though it is not ex- 
 pressly stated by the other Evangelist, that the hospitality 
 of the Samaritans w r as exercised at a more propitious sea- 
 son of the year, yet by an equally casual expression in the 
 course of the chapter, (ver. 35,) that, too, is ascertained to 
 have been the fact. Surely, it is beyond the reach of the 
 most artful imposture to observe so strict a propriety even 
 in the subordinate parts of the scheme, especially where less 
 distinctness of detail would scarcely have excited suspicion ; 
 and surely it is a circumstance most satisfactory to every 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 291 
 
 reasonable mind to discover, that the evidence of the truth 
 of that Gospel (on which our hopes are anchored) is, not 
 only the more conspicuous the more minutely it is exam- 
 ined, but that, without such examination, full justice can- 
 not be done to the variety and pregnancy of its proofs. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 John ii. 7. " Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots 
 
 with water." 
 
 THERE appears to me to be in this passage an unde- 
 signed coincidence, very slight and trivial indeed in its 
 character, but not on that account less valuable as a mark 
 of truth. These water-pots had to be filled before Jesus 
 could perform the miracle. It follows, therefore, rtiat they 
 had been emptied of their contents the watt* had been 
 drawn out of them. But for what purpose was it used, 
 and why were these vessels here ? It wa^ for purifying. 
 For " all the Jews," as St. Mark tells us mare at large (vii. 3), 
 "except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the 
 tradition of the elders." The vessels therefore being now 
 empty, indicates that the guests h?d done with them that 
 the meat therefore was advanced ; for it was before they 
 sat down to it that they perfonied their ablutions a cir- 
 cumstance which accords wfch the moment when our Lord 
 is represented as doing tfrs miracle ; for the governor of 
 the feast said to the bridegroom, " Every man at the be- 
 ginning doth set forth good wine, but thou hast kept the 
 good wine until now" It is satisfactory, that in the record 
 of a great miracle, like this, the minor circumstances in 
 connection with it should be in keeping with one another. 
 
29'2 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 John iii. 1, 2. " There was a man of the Pharisees, named 
 Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews : The same came to 
 Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi," &c. 
 IT is a remarkable and characteristic feature of the dis- 
 courses of our Lord, that they are often prompted, or shaped, 
 or illustrated, by the event of the moment ; by some scene 
 or incident that presented itself to him at the time he was 
 speaking. It is scarcely necessary to give examples of a 
 fact so undisputed. Thus it was the day after the miracle 
 of the loaves, and it was to the persons who had witnessed 
 that miracle, and profited by it. that Jesus said, " Labor not 
 for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which en- 
 dureth 'into everlasting life." 1 &c. And much more to the 
 same effect. It was at Jacob's well, and in reply to the 
 question of *,he woman, " How is it that thou, being a Jew, 
 askest drink cf me, which am a woman of Samaria ?" 2 that 
 Jesus spake so much at large of the water whereof " who- 
 soever drank should never thirst," &c. It was whilst tar- 
 rying in this same inral spot, that calling the attention of 
 his disciples to the sctne around them, he said, " Say not 
 ye, There are yet four ifconths, and then cometh harvest? 
 behold, I say unto you, \Aft up your eyes, and look on 
 the fields, for they are white already to harvest ;" 3 and 
 he then goes on to remind then of sowing and reaping to 
 be done in another and higher &>nse. These are the few 
 instances out of many which migU be produced, where the 
 incident that gave rise to the remarks is actually related ; 
 and by which the habit of our Lord's Discourse is proved to 
 be such as I have described. But in other places, the incident 
 itself is omitted, and but for some casual expression which 
 
 John vi. 27 * Ib. iv. 9. 3 ib. iv. 35. 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 293 
 
 is let fall, it would be impossible to connect the discourse 
 with it ; by means, however, of some such expression, ap- 
 parently intended to serve no such purpose, we are enabled 
 to get at the incident, and so discover the propriety of the 
 discourse. In such cases we are furnished once more with 
 the argument of coincidence without design as in the fol- 
 lowing passage: "In the last day. that great day of the 
 feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying. If any man thirst, let 
 him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, 
 as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers 
 of living water ,"* &c. Now but for the expression, " In the 
 last day, that great day of the feast," we should have been 
 at a loss to know the circumstances in which that speech 
 of our Lord originated. But the day when it was delivered 
 being named, we are enabled to gather from other sources, 
 that on that day, the eighth of the Feast of Tabernacles, it 
 was a custom to offer to God a pot of water drawn from the 
 pool of Siloam. Coupling this fact, therefore, with our 
 Lord's practice, already established by other evidence, of 
 allowing the spectacle before him to give the turn to his 
 address, we may conclude that he spake these words whilst 
 he happened to be observing the ceremony of the water- 
 pot. And an argument thus arises, that the speech here 
 reported is genuine, and was really delivered by our Lord. 
 The passage then in St. John, with which I have head- 
 ed this paragraph, furnishes testimony of the same kind. 
 It describes Nicodemus as coming to Jesus by night fear, 
 no doubt, prompting him to use this secrecy. Now observe 
 9, good deal of the language which Jesus directs to him 
 tt And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the 
 world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because 
 their deeds are evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth 
 the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should 
 i John vii. 37, 38. 
 
 25* 
 
294 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 be reproved. But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light 
 that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought 
 in God (vers. 19, 22). When we remember that the in- 
 terview was a nocturnal one, and that Jesus was accus- 
 tomed to speak with a reference to the circumstances about 
 him at the instant, what more natural than the turn of 
 this discourse ? What more satisfactory evidence could 
 we have, than this casual evidence, that the visit was paid, 
 and the speech spoken, as St. John describes? that his 
 narrative, in short, is true ? x 
 
 XXV. 
 
 John iv. 5. " Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which 
 
 is called Sychar."' 
 
 HERE Jesus converses with the woman at the well. 
 She perceives that he is a prophet. She suspects that he 
 may be the Christ. She spreads her report of him through 
 the city. The inhabitants are awakened to a lively in- 
 terest about him. Jesus is induced to tarry there two 
 days ; and it was probably the favorable disposition to- 
 wards him which he found to prevail there, that drew from 
 him at that very time the observation to his disciples, "Say 
 not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh har- 
 vest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look 
 on the fields ; for they are white already to harvest. And 
 he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto 
 life eternal : that both he that soweth and he that reap- 
 eth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, 
 One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that 
 whereon ye bestowed no labor : other men labored, and ye 
 are entered into their labors." It is the favorable state of 
 
 1 I was put upon this coincidence by a passage which I heard in one of 
 Mr. Marsden's Hulsean Lectures. 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 295 
 
 Samaria for the reception of the Gospel, that suggests 
 these reflections to Jesus, he, no doubt, perceiving that God 
 had much " people in that city." 
 
 Such is the picture of the religious state of Sychar pre- 
 sented in the narrative of St. John. 
 
 Now the author of the Acts of the Apostles confirms 
 the truth of this statement in a remarkable but most unin- 
 tentional manner. From him we learn, that at a period 
 a few years later than this, and after the death of Jesus. 
 Philip, one of the deacons, " went down to the city of Sa- 
 maria," (the emphatic expression marks it to have been 
 Sychar, the capital,) " and preached Christ among them." 
 (Acts viii. 5.) His success was just what might have been 
 expected from the account we have read in St. John of the 
 previous state of public opinion at Sychar. " The people 
 with one accord gave heed to those things which Philip 
 spake,') <ver. 6 ;) and " when they believed Philip preach- 
 ing the things concerning the kingdom of God and the 
 name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and 
 women," (ver. 12.) It is evident that these histories are 
 not got up to corroborate one another. It is not at all an 
 obvious thought, or one likely to present itself to an im- 
 postor, that it might be prudent to fix upon Sychar as the 
 imaginary scene of Philip's successful labors, seeing that 
 Jesus had been well received there some years before ; at 
 least in such a case some allusion or reference would have 
 been made to this disposition previously evinced ; it would 
 not have been left to the reader to discover it or not, as it 
 might happen, where the chance was so great that it 
 would be overlooked. Moreover, his recollections of the 
 passage in St. John would probably have been studiously 
 arrested by the use of the same word " Sychar," rather 
 than " the city of Samaria," as designating the field of 
 Philip's labors. 
 
296 THE VERACITY OP THE PART IV 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 John vi. 16. "And when even was now come, his dis 
 ciples went down into the sea, and entered into a ship, 
 and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it 
 was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them. 
 And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that 
 blew. So when they had rowed about five-and-twent}^ 
 or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, 
 and drawing nigh unto the ship, and they were afraid. 
 But he saith unto them, It is I ; be not afraid. Then 
 they willingly received him into the ship, and imme- 
 diately the ship was at the land whither they went. 
 The day following, when the people which stood on 
 the other side of the sea saw that there was none 
 other boat there, save that one whereinto his dis- 
 ciples were entered, and that Jesus went not with his 
 disciples into the boat, but that his disciples were gone 
 away alone ; (howbeit there came other boats from 
 Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat 
 bread, after that the Lord had given thanks :} when 
 the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, 
 neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came 
 to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. And when they 
 had found him on the other side of the sea, they said 
 unto him, Rabbi, when earnest thou hither ?" 
 
 Matt. xiv. 22. " And straightway Jesus constrained his 
 disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto 
 the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. 
 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went 
 up into a mountain apart to pray : and when the 
 evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 297 
 
 was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with the 
 waves : for the wind was contrary" 
 
 IT appears from St. John, that the people thought that 
 Jesus was still on the side of the lake where the mira- 
 cle had been wrought. And this they inferred because 
 there was no other boat on the preceding evening, except 
 that in which the disciples had gone over to Capernaum 
 on the other side, and they had observed that Jesus went 
 not with them. It is added, however, that, " there came 
 other boats from Tiberias" (which was on the same side 
 as Capernaum,) nigh unto the place where the Lord had 
 given thanks. Now why might they not have supposed 
 that Jesus had availed himself of one of these return- 
 boats, and so made his escape in the night? St. John 
 gives no reason why they did not make this obvious in- 
 ference. Let us turn to St. Matthew's account of the same 
 transaction, (which I have placed at the head of this para- 
 graph,) and we speedily learn why they could not. In 
 this account we find it recorded, not simply that the dis- 
 ciples were in distress in consequence of the sea arising 
 " by reason of a great wind that blew," but it is further 
 stated, that " the wind was contrary" i. e. the wind was 
 blowing from Capernaum and Tiberias, and therefore not 
 only might the ships readily come from Tiberias, (the in- 
 cident mentioned by St. John,) a course for which the wind 
 (though violent) was fair, but the multitude might well 
 conclude that with such a wind Jesus could not have 
 used one of those return-boats, and therefore must still be 
 amongst them. 
 
 Indeed, nothing can be more probable than that these 
 ships from Tiberias were fishing vessels, which, having 
 been overtaken by the storm, suffered themselves to be 
 driven before the gale, to the opposite coast, where they 
 might find shelter for the night; for what could such a 
 
298 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 number of boats, as sufficed to convey the people across, 
 (ver. 24,) have been doing at this desert place, neither port, 
 nor town, nor market? so that here again is another 
 instance of undesigned consistency in the narrative ; the 
 very fact of a number of boats resorting to this "desert 
 place," at the close of day, strongly indicating (though most 
 incidentally) that the sea actually was rising, (as St. John 
 asserts,) " by reason of a great wind that blew." 
 
 I further think this to be the correct view of a passage 
 of some intricacy, from considering, first, the question which 
 the people put to Jesus on finding him at Capernaum the 
 next day. Full as they must have been of the miracle 
 which they had lately witnessed, and anxious to see the rep- 
 etition of works so wonderful, their first inquiry is, " Rabbi, 
 when earnest thou hither ?" surely an inquiry not of mere 
 form, but manifestly implying, that, under the circum- 
 stances, it could only have been by some extraordinary 
 means that he had passed across ; and second, from observ- 
 ing the satisfactory explanation it affords of the parenthesis 
 of St. John, " howbeit there came other boats from Tibe- 
 rias? .... which no longer seems a piece of purely gra- 
 tuitous and irrelevant information, but turns out to be 
 equivalent with the expression in St. Matthew, that the 
 " wind was contrary ;" though the point is not directly 
 asserted, but only a fact is mentioned from which such an 
 assertion naturally follows. 
 
 It might indeed be said, that the circumstance of the 
 ships coming from Tiberias was mentioned for the purpose 
 of explaining how the people could take shipping, (as they 
 are stated to have done to go to Capernaum,) when it had 
 been before affirmed that there was no other boat there 
 save that into which the disciples were entered. Such cau- 
 tion, however, I do not think at all agreeable to the spirit 
 of the writings of the Evangelists, who are always very 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 299 
 
 careless about consequences, not troubling themselves to 
 obviate or explain the difficulties of their narrative. But, 
 whatever may be judged of this matter, the main argu- 
 ment remains the same ; and a minute coincidence between 
 St. John and St. Matthew is made out, of such a nature as 
 precludes all suspicion of collusion, and shows consistency 
 in the two histories without the smallest design. 
 
 And here again I will repeat the observation, which I 
 have already had occasion more than once to make that 
 the truth of the general narrative in some degree involves 
 the truth of a miracle. For if we are satisfied by the un- 
 designed coincidence, that St. Matthew was certainly speak- 
 ing truth when he said, the wind was " boisterous," how 
 shall we presume to assert, that he speaks truth no longer, 
 when he tells us in the same breath that Jesus " walked on 
 the sea," in the midst of that very storm, and that when 
 " he came into the ship the wind ceased ?" 
 
 Doubtless, the one fact does not absolutely prove the 
 others, but in all ordinary cases, where one or two particu- 
 lars in a body of evidence are so corroborated as to be placed 
 above suspicion, the rest, though not admitting of the like 
 corroboration, are nevertheless received without dispute. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 THE events of the last week of our Saviour's earthly life, 
 as recorded by the Evangelists, will furnish us with sev- 
 eral arguments of the kind we are collecting. 
 1'. John xii. 1. " Then Jesus six days before the Pass- 
 over came to Bethany, where Lazarus was." 
 
 Bethany was a village at the mount of Olives (Mark 
 xi. I), near Jerusalem ; and it was in his approacji to that 
 city, to keep the last Passover and die, that Jesus now 
 
300 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 lodged there for the night, meaning to enter the capital the 
 next day. (John xii. 12.) 
 
 St. John tells us no more of the movements of Jesus on 
 this occasion with precision j however, this one date will 
 suffice to verify his narrative, as well as that of St. Mark. 
 Turn we then to the latter, who gives us an account of 
 the proceedings of Jesus immediately before his crucifixion 
 more in detail ; or rather, enables us to infer for ourselves 
 what they were, from phrases which escape from him ; and 
 we shall find that the two narratives are very consistent 
 with respect to them, though it is very evident that neither 
 narrative is at all dressed by the other, but that both are so 
 constructed as to argue independent knowledge of the facts 
 in the Evangelists themselves. 
 
 In Mark xi. 1, we read, " And when they came nigh to 
 Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of 
 Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto 
 them, Go your way into the village over against you," &c. 
 The internal evidence of this whole transaction implies, 
 that the disciples were dispatched on this errand the morn- 
 ing after they had arrived at Bethany, where Jesus had 
 lodged for the night, and not the evening before, on the in- 
 stant of his arrival ; the events of the day being much too 
 numerous to be crowded into the latter period of time the 
 procuring the ass, the triumphant procession to Jerusalem, 
 the visit to the temple, all filling up that day ; and its being 
 expressly said, when all these transactions were concluded, 
 that "the even-tide was come," (ver. 11) ; and this internal 
 evidence entirely accords with the direct assertion of St. 
 John (xii. 12), that it was " the next day." Accordingly, 
 this day closed with Jesus "looking round about upon all 
 things," in the Temple (ver. 11), and then " when the even- 
 tide was come, going out unto Bethany with the twelve." 
 This then was the second day Jesus lodged at Bethany, as 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 301 
 
 we gather from St. Mark. " On the morrow, as they were 
 coming 1 from Bethany" Jesus cursed the fig-tree (ver. 13) ; 
 proceeded to Jerusalem ; spent the day, as before, in Jeru- 
 salem and the temple, casting out of it the money-chang- 
 ers ; and again, " when even was come he went out of the 
 city," (ver. 19,) certainly returning to Bethany ; for though 
 this is not said, the fact is clear, from the tenor of the next 
 paragraph. This was the third day Jesus lodged at Beth- 
 any, according to St. Mark. 
 
 " In the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig- 
 tree dried up from the roots" (ver. 20), i. e. they were pro- 
 ceeding by the same road as the morning before, and there- 
 fore from Bethany, again to spend the day at Jerusalem, 
 and in the temple (ver. 27 ; xii. 41) ; Jesus employing him- 
 self there in enunciating parables and answering cavils. 
 After this "he went out of the temple," (xiii. 1,) to return 
 once more, no doubt, the evening being come, to Bethany ; 
 for though this again is not asserted, it is clearly to be in- 
 ferred, which is better, since we immediately afterwards find 
 Jesus sitting with the disciples, and talking with several of 
 them privately, " on the mount of Olives" (ver. 3), which 
 lay in his road to Bethany. This was the fourth day ac- 
 cording to St. Mark. St. Mark next says, "After two days 
 was the feast of the Passover." (xiv. 1.) 
 
 This, then, makes up the interval of the six days since 
 Jesus came to Bethany, according to St. Mark, which tal- 
 lies exactly with the direct assertion of St. John, that 
 " Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany." 
 
 But how unconcerted is this agreement between the 
 Evangelists ! St. John's declaration of the date of the arri- 
 val of Jesus at Bethany is indeed unambiguous ; but the 
 corresponding relation of St. Markj though proved to be in 
 perfect accordance with St. John, has to be traced with 
 pains and difficulty ; some of the steps necessary for arriv- 
 
 26 
 
302 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV 
 
 ing at the conclusion altogether inferential. How ex- 
 tremely improbable is a concurrence of this nature upon 
 any other supposition than the truth of the incident related, 
 and the independent knowledge of it of the witnesses : and 
 how infallibly would that be the impression it would pro- 
 duce on the minds of a jury, supposing it to be an ingre- 
 dient in a case of circumstantial evidence presented to them. 
 
 2. A second slight coincidence, which offers itself to our 
 notice on the events of Bethany, is the following : 
 
 It is in the evening that the Evangelists represent Jesus 
 as returning from the city to Bethany : " And now the 
 even-tide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the 
 twelve." (Mark xi. 11.) "And when even was come, he 
 went out of the city," (ver. 19,) says St. Mark. " And he 
 left them, and went out of the city unto Bethany, and 
 lodged there. Now in the morning as he returned," &c. 
 (Matth. xxi. 17,) says St. Matthew. 
 
 St. John does not speak directly of Jesus going in the 
 evening to Bethany. But there is an incidental expression 
 in him which implies that such was his own conviction, 
 though nothing can be less studied than it is. For he tells 
 us, that at Bethany, " they made him a supper" deinvor, 
 a term, as now used, indicating an evening meal. Had 
 St. John happened to employ the same phrase St. Mark 
 does when relating this same event, (Mcnatxsifi&vov aviov " as 
 he sat at meat,") the argument would have been lost ; as 
 it is, the mention of the meal by St. John, (who takes no 
 notice of the fact that Jesus lodged at Bethany, though he 
 spent the day at Jerusalem,) and such meal being an eve- 
 ning meal, is tantamount to St. Mark's statement, that he 
 passed his evenings in this village. 
 
 3. The same fact coincides with several other particulars, 
 though our attention is not drawn to them by the Evan- 
 gelists. It is obvious, from the history, that the danger to 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 303 
 
 Jesus did not arise from the multitude, but from the priests. 
 The multitude were with him, until, as I have said in a 
 former paragraph, they were persuaded that he assumed 
 to himself the character of God, and spake blasphemy, 
 when they turned against him : but till then they were on 
 his side. Judas " promised and sought opportunity to be- 
 tray him in the absence of the multitude" (Luke xxii. 6.) 
 The chief-priests and elders, in consulting on his death, 
 said, " not on the feast-day, lest there be an uproar among 
 the people" (Matth. xxvi. 5.) Jesus therefore felt himself 
 safe, nay, powerful, so that he could even clear the temple 
 of its profaners by force, in the day ; but not so in the 
 night. In the night, the chief-priests might use stratagem, 
 as they eventually did ; and the fact appears to be, that the 
 very first night Jesus did not retire to Bethany, but re- 
 mained in and about Jerusalem, he was actually betrayed 
 and seized. There is a consistency, I say, of the most 
 artless kind in the several parts of this narrative ; a con- 
 sistency, however, such as we have to detect for ourselves ; 
 and so latent and unobtrusive, that no forgery could reach it. 1 
 
 xxvm. 
 
 IT appears to me that there is a coincidence in the fol- 
 lowing particulars, relating to this same locality, not the 
 less valuable from being in some degree intricate and in- 
 volved. 
 
 1. Luke ix. 51. " And it came to pass, when the time was 
 come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set 
 his face to go to Jerusalem" 
 
 Expressions occur in the remainder of this and in the 
 following chapter, which show that the mind of St. Luke 
 
 1 Several of the thoughts in this Number are suggested to me by Mr. A. 
 Johnson's " Christus Crucifixus." 
 
304 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV 
 
 was contemplating the events which happened on this jour- 
 ney, though he does not make it his business to trace it 
 step by step : thus (ver. 52), " And they went and entered 
 into a village of the Samaritans." And again (ver. 57), 
 " And it came to pass, that as they went in the way, a 
 certain man said unto him," (fee. And again (x. 38), " And 
 it came to pass, as they went) that they entered into a 
 certain village: and a certain woman, named Martha, 
 received him into her house. And she had a sister called 
 Mary.'' The line of march, therefore, which St. Luke 
 was pursuing in his own mind in the narrative, was that 
 which was leading Jesus through Samaria to Jerusalem ; 
 and in the last of the verses I have quoted, he brings him 
 to this " certain village," which he does not name, but he 
 tells us it was the abode of Martha and Mary. 
 
 Accordingly, on comparing this passage with John (xi. 1), 
 we are led to the conclusion, that the village was Bethany ; 
 for it is there said, that Bethany " was the town of Mary 
 and her sister Martha." 
 
 But on looking at St. Mark's account of a similar journey 
 of Jesus, for probably it was not the same, 1 we find that the 
 preceding stage which he made before coming to Bethany 
 was from Jericho: (Mark x. 46.) "And they came to 
 Jericho : and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples 
 and a great number of people," &c. And then it follows 
 (xi. 1), "And when they ^ame nigh to Jerusalem, unto 
 Bethphage and Bethany" &c. This, therefore, brings us 
 to the same point as St. Luke. Thus, to recapitulate : we 
 learn from St. Luke, that Jesus, in a journey from Galilee 
 to Jerusalem, arrived at the village of Martha and Mary. 
 
 We learn from St. John, that this village was Bethany. 
 
 And we learn from St. Mark, that the last town Jesus 
 
 i See Luke xiii. 22; xvii. 11 ; xvhi. 31 ; where a subsequent journey is 
 perhaps spoken of. 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 305 
 
 left before he came to Bethany, on a similar journey, if not 
 the same, was Jericho. 
 
 Now let us turn once more to St. Luke, (x. 30,) and we 
 shall there discover Jesus giving utterance to a parable on 
 this occasion, which is placed in immediate juxtaposition 
 with the history of his reaching Bethany, as though it had 
 been spoken just before. For, as soon as it is ended, the 
 narrative proceeds, tl Now it came to pass, as they went, 
 that he entered into a certain village : and a certain 
 woman named Martha received him into her house," (x. 
 38.) And what was this parable ? That of " a certain 
 man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell 
 among thieves," &c. It seems, then, highly probable, that 
 Jesus was actually travelling from Jericho to Jerusalem 
 (Bethany being just short of Jerusalem), when he delivered 
 it. What can be more like reality than this ? Yet how 
 circuitously do we get at our conclusion ! 
 
 2. Nor is even this all. The parable represents a priest 
 and Levite as on the road. This again is entirely in keep- 
 ing with the scene : for whether it was that the school of 
 the prophets established from old at Jericho 1 had given a 
 sacerdotal character to the town ; or whether it was its 
 comparative proximity to Jerusalem, that had invited the 
 priests and Levites to settle there ; certain it is that a very 
 large portion of the courses that waited at the temple re- 
 sided at Jericho, ready to take their turn at Jerusalem 
 when duty called them ; 2 so that it was more than prob- 
 able that Jesus, on coming from Jericho to Jerusalem, on 
 this occasion, with his disciples, would meet many of this 
 order. How vivid a coloring of truth does all this give to 
 the fact of the parable having been spoken as St. Luke 
 says ! 
 
 3. Nay more still I can believe that there may be dis- 
 
 i 2 Kings ii. 5. 2 See Liffhtfoot, Vol. n. p. 45, fid. 
 
 26* 
 
306 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 covered a reason coincident with the circumstances of the 
 time, in Jesus choosing to imagine a Samaritan for the 
 benefactor at this particular moment for it had only been 
 shortly before, at least it was upon this same journey, that 
 James and John had proposed, when the Samaritans 
 would not receive him, to call down fire from heaven and 
 consume them. (Luke ix. 54.) Could the spirit they were 
 of be more gracefully rebuked than thus ? Again, how 
 real is all this ! 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 John xviii. 10. " Then Simon Peter having a sword drew 
 it, and smote the high-priest's servant, and cut off his 
 right ear. The servant's name was Malchus." 
 15. " And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another 
 disciple : that disciple was known unto the high 
 priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the 
 high-priest." 
 
 16. " But Peter stood at the door without. Then went 
 out that other disciple, which was known unto the 
 high-priest, and spake unto her that kept the door, 
 and brought in Peter" 
 
 IN my present argument, it will be needful to show, in 
 the first instance, that " the disciple who was known unto 
 the high-priest," mentioned in ver. 15, was probably the 
 Evangelist himself. This I conclude from three considera- 
 tions : 
 
 1. From the testimony of the fathers, Chrysostom, 
 Theophylact, and Jerom. 1 
 
 2. From the circumstance ;hat St. John often unques- 
 tionably speaks of himself in the third person in a similar 
 
 1 See Lardner's History of the Apostles and Evangelists, ch. ix. 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS 307 
 
 manner. Thus, chap. xx. 2, "Then she runneth and 
 cometh to the disciple whom Jesus loved ; and ver. 3, 
 " Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple." 
 The like phrase is repeated several times in the same 
 chapter and elsewhere. 
 
 3. Moreover, it may be thought, as Bishop Middleton 
 has argued, that St. John has a distinctive claim to the 
 title of " the other disciple," (6 dittos ^w^rrfc, not " another," 
 as our version has it,) where St. Peter is the colleague : for 
 that a closer relation subsisted between Peter and John 
 than between any other of the disciples. They constantly 
 act together. Peter and John are sent to prepare the last 
 Passover (Luke xxii. 8). Peter and John run together to 
 the sepulchre. John apprizes Peter that the stranger at 
 the sea of Tiberias is Jesus (John xxi. 7). Peter is anx- 
 ious to learn of Jesus what is to become of John (ver. 21). 
 After the ascension they are associated together in all the 
 early history of the Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 4. The narrative of the motions of " that disciple who 
 was known unto the high-priest," his coming out and 
 going in, is so express and circumstantial, that it bears 
 every appearance of having been written by the party 
 himself. Nor in fact do any other of the Evangelists men- 
 tion a syllable about " that other disciple ;" they tell us, 
 indeed, that Peter did enter the high-priest's huse, but 
 they take no notice of the particulars of his admission, nor 
 how it was effected, nor of any obstacles thrown in the 
 way. 
 
 For these reasons, I understand the disciple known unto 
 the high-priest to have been St. John. My argument now 
 stands thus. The assault committed by Peter is mentioned 
 by all the Evangelists, but the name of the servant is given 
 by St. John only. How does this happen ? Most natu- 
 rally ; for it seems by some chance or other St. John was 
 
308 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV, 
 
 known not only unto the high-priest, but also to his house- 
 hold that the servants were acquainted with him, and he 
 with them, since he was permitted to enter into the high- 
 priest's house, whilst Peter was shut out, and no sooner 
 did he " speak unto her that kept the door," than Peter 
 was admitted. So again, in further proof of the same 
 thing, when another of the servants charges Peter with 
 being one of Christ's disciples, St. John adds a circum- 
 stance peculiar to himself, and marking his knowledge of 
 the family, that " it was his kinsman whose ear Peter 
 cut off: 9 
 
 These facts, I conceive, show that St. John (on the sup- 
 position that St. John and " the other disciple" are one 
 and the same) was personally acquainted with the servants 
 of the high-priest. How natural, therefore, was it. that 
 in mentioning such an incident as Peter's attack upon one 
 of those servants, he should mention the man by name, 
 and the " servant's name was Malchus ;" whilst the 
 other Evangelists, to whom the sufferer was an individual 
 in whom they took no extraordinary interest, were satisfied 
 with a general designation of him, as " one of the servants 
 of the high-priest." 
 
 This incident also, in some degree, though not in the 
 same degree perhaps as certain others which have been 
 mentioned, supports the miracle which ensues. For if the 
 argument shows that the Evangelists are uttering the 
 truth when they say that such an event occurred as the 
 blow with the sword if it shows that there actually was 
 such a blow struck then is there not additional ground 
 for believing that they continue to tell the truth, when 
 they say in the same passage that the effects of the blow 
 were miraculously removed, and that the ear was healed ? 
 
 I am aware that there are those who argue for the su- 
 perior rank and station of St. John, from his being known 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 309 
 
 unto the high-priest ; and who may, therefore, think him 
 degraded by this implied familiarity with his servants. 
 Suffice it however to say, that, as on the one hand, to be 
 known to the high-priest does not determine that he was 
 his equal, so, on the other, to be known to his servants 
 does not determine that he was not their superior ; further- 
 more, that the relation in which servants stood towards 
 their betters was, in ancient times, one of much less dis- 
 tance than at present ; and, lastly, that the Scriptures 
 themselves lay no claim to dignity of birth for this. Apostle, 
 when they represent of him and of St. Peter, (Acts iv. 13,) 
 that Annas, and the elders, after hearing their defence, 
 " perceived them to be unlearned and ignorant men." 
 
 XXX. 
 
 John xviii. 36. " Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of 
 this world : if my kingdom were of this world, then 
 would my servants fight, that I should not be de- 
 livered to the Jews." 
 
 NOTHING could have been more natural than for his 
 enemies to have reminded our Lord, that in one instance 
 at least, and that too of very recent occurrence, his ser- 
 vants did fight. Indeed, Jesus himself might here be 
 almost thought to challenge inquiry into the assault Peter 
 had so lately committed upon the servant of the high- 
 priest. Assuredly there was no disposition on the part of 
 his accusers to spare him. The council sought for witness 
 against Jesus, and where could it be found more readily 
 than in the high-priest's own house ? Frivolous and un- 
 founded calumnies of all sorts were brought forward, which 
 agreed not together ; but this act of violence, indisputably 
 committed by one of his companions in his Master's cause, 
 
310 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 and, as they would not have scrupled to assert, under his 
 Master's eye, is altogether and intentionally, as it should 
 seem, kept out of sight. 
 
 The suppression of the charge is the more remarkable, 
 from the fact, that a relation of Maichus was actually 
 present at the time, and evidently aware of the violence 
 which had been done his kinsman, though not quite able 
 to identify the offender. " One of the servants of the high- 
 priest, being his kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, said, Did 
 I not see thee in the garden with him ?" (ver. 26.) Surely 
 nothing could have been more natural than for this man 
 to be clamorous for redress. 
 
 Had the Gospel of St. Luke never come down to us, it 
 would have remained a difficulty, (one of the many diffi- 
 culties of Scripture arising from the conciseness and de- 
 sultory nature of the narrative,) to have accounted for the 
 suppression of a charge against Jesus, which of all others 
 would have been the most likely to suggest itself to his 
 persecutors, from the offence having been just committed, 
 and from the sufferer being one of the high-priest's own 
 family ; a charge moreover which would have had the ad- 
 vantage of being founded in truth, and would therefore 
 have been far more effective than accusations which could 
 not be sustained. Let us hear, however, St. Luke. He 
 tells us, and he only, that when the blow had been struck, 
 Jesus said, " Suffer ye thus far : and he touched his ear 
 and healed him." (xxii. 51.) 
 
 The miracle satisfactorily explains the suppression of 
 the charge to have advanced it would naturally have led 
 to an investigation that would have more than frustrated 
 the malicious purpose it was meant to serve. It would 
 have proved too much. It might have furnished indeed 
 an argument against the peaceable professions of Jesus's 
 party, but, at the same time, it would have made manifest 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 311 
 
 his own compassionate nature, submission to the laws, 
 and extraordinary powers. Pilate, who sought occasion to 
 release him, might have readily found in it a circumstance 
 so well calculated to convince him of the innocence of the 
 prisoner, and of his being (what he evidently suspected and 
 feared) something more than human. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 John xx. 4. " So they ran both together : and the other 
 disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sep- 
 ulchre. 
 5. " And he stooping down, and looking in. saw the linen 
 
 clothes lying ; yet went he not in. 
 6. " Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went 
 
 into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie. 
 7. " And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying 
 with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place 
 by itself. 
 8. " Then went in also that other disciple, which came 
 
 first to the sepulchre." 
 
 How express and circumstantial is this narrative ! How 
 difficult it is to read it and doubt for a moment of its per- 
 fect truth ! My more immediate concern however with the 
 passage is this, that it affords two coincidences, certainly 
 very trifling in themselves, but still signs of veracity : 
 1. St. John outran St. Peter. It is universally agreed 
 by ecclesiastical writers of antiquity, that John was the 
 youngest of all the Apostles. That Peter was at this time 
 past the vigor of his age, may perhaps be inferred from an 
 expression in the twenty-first chapter of St. John " Ver- 
 ily, verily, I say unto thee," says Jesus to Peter, " when 
 tkou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst 
 
312 THE VERACITY OF THE PART. IV. 
 
 whither thou wouldest : but when thou shalt be old, thou 
 shall stretch forth thy hands, and another shalt gird thee, 
 and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." ver. 18. Or 
 (what may be more satisfactory) there being every reason 
 to believe that St. John survived St. Peter six or seven and 
 thirty years, 1 it almost necessarily follows that he must 
 have been much the younger man of the two, since the 
 term of St. Peter's natural life was probably not very much 
 forestalled by his martyrdom. 2 Accordingly, when they 
 ran both together to the sepulchre, it was to be expected 
 that John should outrun his more aged companion, and 
 come there first. 
 
 I do not propose this as a new light, but I am not aware 
 that it has been brought so prominently forward as it de- 
 serves. An incident thus trivial and minute disarms sus- 
 picion. The most sceptical cannot see cunning or con- 
 trivance in it ; and it is no small point gained over such 
 persons, to lead them to distrust and re-examine their bold 
 conclusions. This little fact may be the sharp end of the 
 wedge that shall by degrees cleave their doubts asunder. 
 Seeing this, they may by-and-by " see greater things than 
 these." But this is not all : for, 2dly, though John came 
 first to the sepulchre, he did not venture to go in till Peter 
 set him the example. Peter did not pause " to stoop 
 down" and " look in," but boldly entered at once he was 
 not troubled for fear of seeing a spirit, which was probably 
 the feeling that withheld St. John from entering, as it was 
 the feeling which, on a former occasion, caused the dis- 
 ciples (Mark xiv. 26) to cry out. Peter was anxiously 
 impatient to satisfy himself of the truth of the women's 
 report, and to meet once more his crucified Master : all 
 
 i See Lardner's History of the Apostles and Evangelists, ch. ix, sect 6. 
 and ch. xviii. sect. 5. 
 s Consult 2 Peter i. 14, and John xxi. 18. . 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 313 
 
 other considerations were with him absorbed in this one. 
 Now such is precisely the conduct we should have expect- 
 ed from a man, who seldom or never is offered to our no- 
 tice in the course of the New Testament, (and it is very 
 often that our attention is directed to him,) without some 
 indication being given of his possessing a fearless, spirited, 
 and impetuous character. Slight as this trait is, it marks 
 the same individual who ventured to commit himself to 
 the deep and " walk upon the water," whilst the other 
 disciples remained in the boat ; who " drew his sword and 
 smote the high-priest's servant," whilst they were con- 
 founded and dismayed ; who " girt his fisher's coat about 
 him and cast himself into the sea" to greet his Master 
 when he appeared again, whilst his companions came in a 
 little ship, dragging the net with fishes ; who was ever 
 most obnoxious to the civil power, so that when any of the 
 disciples are. cast into prison, there are we sure to find St. 
 Peter. (See Acts v. 18, 29 ; xii. 3 ; xvi. 25.) Again, I 
 say, I cannot imagine that designing persons, however 
 wary they might have been, however much upon their 
 guard, could possibly have given their fictitious narrative 
 this singular air of truth, by the introduction of circum- 
 stances so unimportant, yet so consistent and harmonious. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 THE Gospel of St. John contains no history whatever of 
 the Ascension of Jesus ; indeed, the narrative terminates 
 before it comes to that point. Yet there are passages in 
 it from which we may incidentally gather that the ascen- 
 sion was considered by him as a notorious fact. Passages 
 which perfectly coincide with the direct description of that 
 event, contained in Acts i. 3 13. 
 
 27 
 
314 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 Thus, John iii. 13. " And no man hath ascended up to 
 heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the 
 Son of man which is in heaven." 
 Again, vi. 62. " What and if ye shall see the Son of man 
 
 ascend up where ne was before." 
 
 Again, xx. 17. " Jesus saith unto her. Touch me not ; for 
 I am not yet ascended to my Father : but go to my 
 brethren, and say unto them, 1 ascend unto my Fa- 
 ther, and your Father ; and to my God, and your 
 God." 
 
 Had the Gospel of St. John been the only portion of the 
 New Testament which had descended to our times, and all 
 record of the ascension had perished, these casual allusions 
 to it might have been lost upon us ; but when coupled with 
 such record, a record quite independent of the Gospel of St. 
 John, they convey to us, far more strongly than any ac- 
 count he might have given of it in detail could have done, 
 the testimony of that Apostle to the truth of this last mar- 
 vellous act of the marvellous life of our blessed Lord ; and 
 of which he was himself a spectator. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 THERE is a difference in the quarter from which oppo- 
 sition to the Gospel of Christ proceeded, as represented in 
 the Gospels and in the Acts, moftt characteristic of truth, 
 though most unobtrusive in itself. Indeed, these two por- 
 tions of the New Testament might be read many times 
 over without the feature I allude to happening to present 
 itself. 
 
 Throughout the Gospels, the hostility to the Christian 
 cause manifested itself almost exclusively from the Phari- 
 sees. Jesus evidently considers them as a sect systemati- 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 315 
 
 cally adverse to it " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, 
 hypocrites. Ye are the children of them which killed the 
 
 prophets Fill ye up the measure of your fathers." 1 
 
 And before Jesus came up to the last passover, " the chief 
 priests and Pharisees" we read, "gave commandment, 
 that, if any man knew where he were, he should show it, 
 that they might take him." 2 And that when Judas pro- 
 posed to betray him, " he received a band of men and offi- 
 cers from the chief priests and Pharisees"* On the other 
 hand, throughout the Acts, the like hostility is discovered 
 to proceed from the Sadducees. Thus, " And as they" 
 (Peter and John) " spake unto the people, the priests and 
 the captain of the Temple and the Sadducees came upon 
 them." 4 And again, on another occasion, " The high priest 
 rose up, and all that were with him, which is the sect of the 
 Sadducees, and were filled with indignation ; and laid 
 hands on the apostles, and put them in the common pri- 
 son." 6 And again, in a still more remarkable case ; when 
 Paul was maltreated before Ananias, and there was danger 
 perhaps to his life, he " perceiving," we read, " that the one 
 part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, cried out 
 in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son 
 of a Pharisee ;" 6 evidently considering the Pharisees now to 
 be the friendly faction, and soliciting their support against 
 the Sadducees, whom he equally regarded as a hostile one ; 
 nor was he disappointed in his appeal. 
 
 Whence then this extraordinary change in the relations 
 of these parties respectively to the Christians 1 No doubt, 
 because the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which 
 before Christ's own resurrection, i. e. during the period 
 comprised in the Gospels, had been so far from dispersed by 
 the disciples, that they scarcely knew what it meant (Mark 
 
 i Matth. xxiii. 29, 32. 2 John xi. 57. 3 Ib. xviii. 3. 
 
 < Acts iv. 1. s ib. v . 17. 6 Ib. xxiii. 6. 
 
 of 
 
 
 &IM 
 

 
 316 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 ix. 10), had now become a leading doctrine with them ; 
 as anybody may satisfy themselves was the case by read- 
 ing the several speeches of St. Peter, which' are given in 
 the early chapters of the Acts ; in each and all of which 
 the resurrection is a prominent feature in that which he 
 delivers, on providing a successor for Judas (Acts i. 22) ; at 
 the feast of Penticost (ii. 32) : at the Beautiful Gate (iii. 12) ; 
 the next day, before the priests (iv. 10) ; again, before the 
 council (v. 31) ; once more, on the conversion of Cornelius 
 (x. 40). The coincidence here lies in the Pharisees and 
 Sadducees acting on this occasion consistently with their 
 respective tenets : " For the Sadducees say that there is no 
 resurrection, neither angel nor spirit: but the Pharisees 
 confess both." 1 The undesignedness of the coincidence 
 consists in its being left to the readers of the Gospels and 
 Acts to discover for themselves that there was this change 
 of the persecuting sect after the Lord's resurrection, their 
 attention not drawn to it by any direct notice in the docu- 
 ments themselves. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Acts iv. 36. " And loses, who by the Apostle was sur- 
 named Barnabas, a Levite, and of the country of 
 Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, 
 and laid it at the Apostles' feet." 
 
 I HAVE often thought that there is a harmony pervading 
 everything connected with Barnabas, enough in itself to 
 stamp the Acts of the Apostles as a history of perfect fidel- 
 ity. In the verse which I have placed at the head of this 
 paragraph, we see that he was a native of Cyprus ; a cir- 
 
 i Acts xxiii. 8. 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 317 
 
 cumstance upon which a good deal of what I have to say 
 respecting him will be found to turn. 
 
 1. First then, we discover him coming forward in be- 
 half of Paul, whose conversion was suspected by the disci- 
 ples at Jerusalem, with the air of a man who could vouch 
 for his sincerity, by previous personal knowledge of him. 
 How it was that he was better acquainted with the Apostle 
 than the rest, the author of the Acts does not inform us, 
 Cyprus, however, the country of Barnabas^ was usually 
 annexed to Cilicia, and formed an integral part of that 
 province, whereof Tarsus, the country of Paul, was the 
 chief city. 1 It may seem fanciful, however, to suppose that 
 at Tarsus, which was famous for its schools and the facil- 
 ities it afforded for education, 2 the two Christian teachers 
 might have laid the foundation of their friendship in the 
 years of their boyhood. Yet I cannot think this improba- 
 ble. That Paul collected his Greek learning (of which he 
 had no inconsiderable share) in his native place, before he 
 was removed to the feet of Gamaliel, is very credible ; nor 
 less so, that Barnabas should have been sent there from 
 Cyprus, a distance of seventy miles only, as to the nearest 
 school of note in those parts. Be that, however, as it may, 
 what could be more natural than for an intimacy to be 
 formed between them subsequently in Jerusalem, whither 
 they had both resorted? They were, as we have seen, all 
 but compatriots, and, under the circumstances, were likely 
 to have their common friends. Neither may it be thought 
 wholly irrelevant to observe, that when it was judged safe 
 for Paul to return from Tarsus, where he had been living 
 for a time to avoid the Greeks, Barnabas seized the oppor- 
 tunity of visiting that town in person, " to seek him," and 
 
 1 Cicer. Epist. Familiar. Lib. i. ep. vii. See also Maffei Verona Illus- 
 trata, Vol. i. p. 352. 
 
 2 See Wetstein on Acts a 11. 
 
 27* 
 
318 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV 
 
 bring him to Antioch. A journey which, as it does not 
 seem to be necessary, was possibly undertaken by Barna- 
 bas partly for the purpose of renewing his intercourse with 
 his early acquaintance. 
 
 2. Again, in another place we read, " And some of them 
 were men of Cyprus and Gyrene, which, when they were 
 come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the 
 Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them : 
 and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord. 
 Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the 
 church which was at Jerusalem. And they sent forth 
 Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch" (Acts. 
 ix. 20.) Here no reason is assigned why Barnabas should 
 have been chosen to go to Antioch, and acquaint himself 
 with the progress these new teachers were making amongst 
 the Grecians; but we may observe, that "some of them 
 were men of Cyprus ;" and having learned elsewhere that 
 Barnabas was of that country also, we at once discover 
 the propriety of dispatching him, above all others, to con- 
 fer with them on the part of the church at Jerusalem. 
 
 3. Again, when, at a subsequent period, Paul and Bar- 
 nabas went forth together to preach unto the Gentiles, we 
 perceive that " they departed unto Seleucia, and from 
 thence sailed to Cyprus." (xiii. 4.) And further, in a 
 second journey, after Paul in some heat had parted com- 
 pany with them, we read that Barnabas and Mark again 
 "sailed unto Cyprus." (xv. 32.) This was precisely 
 what we might expect. Barnabas naturally enough chose 
 to visit his own land before he turned his steps to strangers. 
 Yet all this, satisfactory as it is in evidence of the truth of 
 the history, we are left by the author of the Acts of the 
 Apostles to gather for ourselves, by the apposition of sev- 
 eral perfectly unconnected passages.^ 
 
 4. Nor is this all. "And some da *s after (so we read, 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 319 
 
 ch. xv.) Paul said unto Barnabas, Let u go again and 
 visit our brethren in every city where we have preached 
 the word of the Lord, and see how they do. And Barna- 
 bas determined to take with them John, whose surname 
 was Mark. But Paul thought not good to take him with 
 them, ivho departed from them from Pamphylia, and 
 went not with them to the work. And the contention was 
 so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one 
 from another : and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed 
 unto Cyprus" 
 
 A curious chain of consistent narrative may be traced 
 throughout the whole of this passage. The cause of the 
 contention between Paul and Barnabas has been already 
 noticed by Dr. Paley ; I need not therefore do more than 
 call to my reader's mind (as that excellent advocate of the 
 truth of Christianity has done) the passage in the Epistle 
 to the Colossians, iv. 10. where it is casually said, that 
 " Marcus was sister's son to Barnabas" a relationship 
 most satisfactorily accounting for the otherwise extraordi- 
 nary pertinacity with which Barnabas takes up Mark's 
 cause in this dispute with Paul. Though anticipated in 
 this coincidence, I was unwilling to pass it over in silence, 
 because it is one of a series which attach to the life of Bar- 
 nabas, and render it, as a whole, a most consistent and 
 complete testimony to the veracity of the Acts. 
 
 One circumstance more remains still to be noticed. Mark, 
 it seems, in the former journey, " departed from them from 
 Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work." How- 
 did this happen ? The explanation, I think, is not difficult. 
 Paul and Barnabas are appointed to go forth and preach. 
 Accordingly they hasten to Seleucia, the nearest sea-port 
 to Antioch, where they were staying, and taking with them 
 John or Mark, "sail to Cyprus," (xiii. 4). Since Barna- 
 bas was a Cypriote, it is probable that his nephew Mark 
 
320 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 
 
 was the same, or, at any rate, that he had friends and re- 
 lations in that island. His mother, it is true, had a house 
 in Jerusalem, where the disciples met, and where some of 
 them perhaps lodged (xii. 12) ; but so had Mnason, who 
 was nevertheless f Cyprus (xxi. 16). How reasonable 
 then is it to suppose, that in joining himself to Paul and 
 Barnabas in the outset of their journey, he was partly in- 
 fluenced by a very innocent desire to visit his kindred, his 
 connections, or perhaps his birth-place, and that having 
 achieved this object, he landed with his two companions in 
 Pamphylia, and so returned forthwith to Jerusalem. And 
 this supposition (it may be added) is strengthened by the 
 expression applied by St. Paul to Mark, " that he went not 
 with them to the work" as if in the particular case the 
 voyage to Cyprus did not deserve to be considered even the 
 beginning of their labors, being more properly a visit of 
 choice to kinsfolk and acquaintance, or to a place at least 
 having strong local charms for Mark. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Acts vi. 1. | " And in those days, when the number of the 
 disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of 
 the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their 
 widows were neglected in the daily ministration. 
 
 2. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples 
 unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should 
 leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, 
 brethren, look ye out among you seven men, of hon- 
 est report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom 
 we may appoint over this business. 
 
 5. And the saying pleased the whole multitude : an_ 
 they chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and of the 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 321 
 
 Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, 
 and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte 
 of Antioch." 
 
 IN this passage, I perceive a remarkable instance of 
 consistency without design. There is a murmuring of the 
 Grecians against the Hebrews, on account of what they 
 considered an unfair distribution of the alms of the church. 
 Seven men are appointed to redress the grievance. No 
 mention is made of their country or connections. The 
 multitude of the disciples is called together, and by them 
 the choice is made. No other limitation is spoken of in 
 the commission they had to fulfil, than that the men should 
 be of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost. Yet it is probable, 
 (and here lies the coincidence,) that these deacons were all 
 of the party aggrieved, for their names are all Grecian. 
 
 It is difficult to suppose this accidental. There must 
 have been Hebrews enough fitted for the office. Yet Gre- 
 cians alone seem to have been appointed. Why this 
 should be so, St. Luke does not say, does not even hint. 
 We gather from him that the Grecians thought themselves 
 the injured party ; and we then draw our own conclusions, 
 that the church having a sincere wish to maintain har- 
 mony, and remove all reasonable ground of complaint, 
 chose, as advocates for the Greeks, those who would natu- 
 rally feel for them the greatest interest, and protect their 
 rights with a zeal that should be above suspicion. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Acts xi. 26. "And the disciples were called Christians 
 
 first in Antioch." 
 
 THE mention of this fact as a remarkable one, and 
 worthy of being recorded, is natural, and coincides with 
 
322 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV; 
 
 the circumstances of the case as gathered from other pas- 
 sages of the Acts. For it should seem, from the various 
 phrases and circumlocutions resorted to in that book, by 
 which to express Christians and Christianity, that for a 
 long time no very distinctive term was applied to either. 
 We read of "all that believed" (oi TnoTsvovreg, ii. 44) ; of 
 " the disciples" (01 [tudrjTai, vi. 1) ; of " any of this way/' 
 (oi IT]? 6dov, ix. 2) ; and again, of " the way of God" (^ TOU 
 9eou 6<5o. xviii. 26) ; or simply of " that way" (^ o<S6f, xix. 
 9) ; or of " this way" (^ ^ &Ms, xxii. 4.) Indeed, the 
 name Christian occurs but in two other places in the New 
 Testament (Acts xxvi. 28 ; 1 Pet. iv. 16.) A title there- 
 fore which characterized the new sect succinctly and in a 
 word, and which saved so much inconvenient and ambigu- 
 ous periphrases, was memorable ; and even if given in the 
 first instance as a reproach, was sure to be soon adopted 
 and rendered familiar. On the supposition that the book 
 of the Acts of the Apostles was a fiction, is it possible to 
 imagine, that this unobtrusive evidence of the progress of 
 a name would have been found in it 7 1 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Acts xix. 19. " Many of them also which used curious 
 arts brought their books together, and burned them 
 before all men : and they counted the price of them, 
 and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver." 
 IT was at Ephesus where the effect of St. Paul's min- 
 istry was thus powerful and where, therefore, it seems 
 that these magical arts very greatly prevailed. 
 
 Now it was at Ephesus that Timothy was residing 
 
 * My attention was drawn to this coincidence, by a passage in Bishop 
 Pearson. Minor Theolog. Works, i. p. 367. 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 323 
 
 when St. Paul wrote to him, c: But evil men and seducers 
 (yorjies, conjurers) shall wax worse and worse, deceiving 
 and being deceived (cheats and cheated) ; but continue 
 thou in the things which thou hast learned," &c. (2 Tim. 
 iii. 13.) These were the men who dealt in curious arts 
 the trade of the place in such impostures not having alto- 
 gether ceased, it should seem, when a bonfire was made 
 of the books. 1 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 I 
 
 Acts xxiv. 23. "And he commanded a centurion to 
 keep Paul, and to let him have liberty." 
 
 RATHER "he commanded the centurion," TOJ etcawvT^Qx^ 
 
 It should seem, therefore, that St. Luke had in his mind 
 some particular centurion. Is there anything in the nar- 
 rative which would enable us to identify him ? 
 
 It will be remembered, that in the preceding chapter 
 (xxiii. 23,) the chief captain " called unto him two centu- 
 rions, saying, Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to 
 Caesarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and spearmen 
 two hundred, at the third hour of the night ; and provide 
 them beasts that they may set Paul on, and bring him safe 
 unto Felix the governor." 
 
 This escort having arrived with their prisoner at Anti- 
 patris (ver. 32,) divided ; the infantry returning to Jerusa- 
 lem, and of course the centurion Who commanded them ; 
 the horsemen and the other centurion proceeding with 
 Paul to Caesarea. 
 
 When, therefore, St. Luke tells us that Felix com- 
 manded the centurion to keep Paul, he no doubt meant 
 
 i This coincidence is suggested by Dr. Burton's Bampton Lectures, iv. p. 103. 
 
324 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV, 
 
 the commander of the horse who had conveyed him to 
 Caesarea ; whose fidelity having already experienced, he 
 consigned to him this further trust. 
 
 This is very natural : but the neglect or non-detection 
 of this touch of truth in our version, shows how delicate a 
 thing the translation of the Scripture is ; and how favor- 
 able to the evidence of its veracity is the strict and accu- 
 rate, nay, even grammatical investigation of it. 1 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 * 
 
 Acts xxiv. 26. " He (Felix) hoped also that money should 
 have been given him of Paul, that he might loose 
 him : wherefore he sent for him the oftener and com- 
 muned with him." 
 
 IT is observed by Lardner, 2 that Felix (it might be 
 thought) could have small hopes of receiving money from 
 such a prisoner as Paul, had he not recollected his telling 
 him, on a former interview, that "after many years he 
 came to bring alms to his nation, and offerings." Hence 
 he probably supposed, that the alms might not yet be all 
 distributed, or if they were, that a public benefactor would 
 soon find friends to release him. 
 
 The observation is curious, and in confirmation of its 
 truth, I will add, that the personal appearance of Paul, 
 when he was brought before Felix, was certainly not such 
 as would give the governor reason to believe that he had 
 wherewithal to purchase his own freedom, but quite the 
 contrary. For a passage in the Acts, (xxii. 28,) certainly 
 conveys very satisfactory, though indirect, evidence, that 
 
 Bishop Middleton, on the Greek Article, p. 298, finds a subject for phi- 
 ology, here again, where I find one for evidence. 
 2 Vol. i. p. 27. 8vo. edition. 
 
PART. IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 325 
 
 the Apostle wore poverty in his looks at the very period in 
 question. When Lysias, the chief captain at Jerusalem, 
 had been apprized that he was a Roman, he could scarcely 
 give credit to the fact ; and, being further assured of it by 
 Paul himself, he said, " With a great sum obtained I this 
 freedom," manifestly implying a suspicion of Paul's ve- 
 racity, whose appearance bespoke no such means of pro- 
 curing citizenship. The cupidity, therefore, of Felix was 
 no doubt excited, as has been said, by recollecting the 
 errand on which his prisoner had come so lately to Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 And this, moreover, furnishes the true explanation of 
 the orders which Felix (very far from a merciful or indul- 
 gent officer) gave to the keeper of Paul, " to let him have 
 liberty, and to forbid none of his acquaintance to min- 
 ister or come unto him ;" a free admission of his friends 
 being necessary, in order that they might furnish him with 
 the ransom. 
 
 It is true that there is no coincidence here between inde- 
 pendent writers, but surely every unprejudiced mind must 
 admit that there is an extremely nice, minute, and unde- 
 signed harmony between the speech of Paul and the sub- 
 sequent conduct of Felix ; though the cause and effect are 
 so far from being traced by the author of the Acts, that it 
 may be doubted whether he saw any connection subsist- 
 ing between them. Surety, I repeat, such a harmony must 
 convince us that it is no fictitious or forged narrative that 
 we are reading, but a true and very accurate detail of an 
 actual occurrence. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Acts xxrr. 5. " And when we had sailed over the sea of 
 and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of 
 
 28 
 
326 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV. 
 
 Lyeia. And there the centurion found a ship of 
 
 Alexandria sailing into Italy" 
 10. "Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt 
 
 and much damage, not only of the lading (TOV <p60rou) 
 
 and ship, but also of our lives." 
 38. " And when they had eaten enough, they lightened 
 
 the ship, and cast out the wheat (r6v aiw) into the sea. 
 IT has been remarked, I think with justice, that the cir- 
 cumstantial details contained in this chapter of the ship- 
 wreck cannot be read without a conviction of their truth. 
 I have never seen, however, the following coincidence in 
 some of these particulars taken notice of in the manner it 
 deserves. In my opinion it is very satisfactory, and when 
 combined with a paragraph on the same subject, which 
 will be found in the Appendix, (No. XXIII.) establishes 
 the fact of St. Paul's voyage beyond all reasonable doubt. 
 The ship into which the centurion removed Paul, and 
 the other prisoners at Myra, was a ship of Alexandria 
 that was sailing into Italy. It was evidently a merchant- 
 vessel, for mention is made of its lading. The nature of 
 the lading, however, is not directly stated. It was capa- 
 ble of receiving Julius and his company, and was bound 
 right for them. This was enough, and this was all that 
 St. Luke cares to tell. Yet, in verse 38, we find, by the 
 merest chance, of what its cargo consisted. The furniture 
 of the ship, or its " tackling," as it is called, was thrown 
 overboard in the early part of the storm ; but the freight 
 was naturally enough kept till it could be kept no longer, 
 and then we discover, for the first time, that it was wheat 
 " the wheat was cast into the sea." 
 
 Now it is a notorious fact that Rome was in a great 
 measure supplied with corn from Alexandria that in 
 times of scarcity the vessels coming from that port were 
 watched with intense anxiety as they approached the 
 
PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 327 
 
 coast of Italy 1 that they were of a size not inferior to our 
 line of battle ships, 2 a thing by no means usual in the ves- 
 sels of that day and accordingly that such an one might 
 well accommodate the centurion and his numerous party, 
 in addition to its own crew and lading. 
 
 There is a very singular air of truth in all this. The 
 several detached verses at the head of this Number tell a 
 continuous story, but it is not perceived till they are brought 
 together. The circumstances drop out one by one at in- 
 tervals in the course of the narrative, unarranged, unpre- 
 meditated, thoroughly incidental ; so that the chapter 
 might be read twenty times, and their agreement with 
 one another and with contemporary history be still over- 
 looked. I confess, it seems to me the most unlikely thing 
 in the world, that a mere inventor of St. Paul's voyage 
 should have been able to arrange it all, try how he would. 
 It is possible that he might have affected some circum- 
 stantial detail, and so have made St. Paul and his com- 
 panions change their ship at Myra ; he might have said 
 that it was a ship of Alexandria bound for Italy ; but that 
 he should have added, some thirty verses afterwards, and 
 then quite incidentally, that its cargo was wheat, a fact so 
 curiously agreeing with his former assertion that the ves- 
 sel was Alexandrian and was sailing to Italy, argues a 
 subtlety of invention quite incredible. But if the account 
 of the voyage, as far as relates to the change of ship, the 
 tempest, the disastrous consequences, &c. is found, on being 
 tried by a test which the writer of the Acts could never have 
 contemplated, to be an unquestionable fact, ho\v can the 
 rest, which does not admit of the same scrutiny, be set 
 aside as unworthy of credit ? for instance, that Paul act- 
 ually foretold the danger that again, in the midst of it, 
 
 i See Sueton. Nero. . 45. 2 See Wetstein, Acts xxvii. 6. 
 
328 THE VERACITY, ETC. PART IV. 
 
 he foretold the final escape, and that an angel had declared 
 to him God's pleasure, that for his sake not a soul should 
 perish ? I see no alternative but to receive all this, nothing 
 doubting ; unless we consider St. Luke to have mixed up 
 fact and fiction in a manner the most artful and insidious. 
 Yet who can read the Acts of the Apostles and come to 
 such a conclusion ? 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES BETWEEN THE GOS- 
 PELS AND ACTS, AND JOSEPHUS. 
 
 IT will not be out of place, if to a work which has had 
 for its object to establish the veracity of the Scriptures in 
 general, and in the last Part, that of the Gospels and Acts 
 in particular, on the evidence of undesigned coincidences 
 found in them, when compared with themselves or one 
 another, I subjoin as a cognate argument, some other in- 
 stances of undesigned coincidence between those latter 
 writings and Josephus. The subject has been treated, but 
 not exhausted, by Lardner and Paley ; the latter of whom 
 indeed did not profess to do more than epitomize that part 
 of the " Credibility of the Gospel history" which considers 
 the works of the Jewish historian. Josephus was born A. D. 
 37, and therefore must have been long the contemporary 
 of some of the Apostles. For my purpose it matters little, 
 or nothing, whether we reckon him a believer in Christi- 
 anity or not ; whether he had, or had not, seen the records 
 of the Evangelists ; since the examples of agreement be- 
 tween him and them, which I shall produce, will be such 
 as are evidently without contrivance, the result of veracity 
 in both. 
 
 If we allow him to be a Christian, if we even allow him 
 28* 
 
330 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 to have seen the writings of the Evangelists, he will never- 
 theless be an independent witness, as far as he goes, pro- 
 vided his corroborations of the Gospel be clearly unpremed- 
 itated and incidental. In short, he will then be received 
 like St. Mark or St. John, as a partisan indeed ; but yet as 
 a partisan who, upon cross-examination, confirms both his 
 own statements and those of his colleagues. 
 
 I. 
 
 BEFORE I bring forward individual examples of coinci- 
 dence between Joseph us and the Evangelists, I cannot help 
 remarking the effect which the writings of the former have, 
 when taken together and as a whole, in convincing us of 
 the truth of Gospel history. No man, I think, could rise 
 from a perusal of the latter books of the Antiquities, and 
 the account of the Jewish War, without a very strong im- 
 pression, that the state of Judaea, civil, political and moral, 
 as far as it can be gathered from the Gospels and Acts of 
 the Apostles, is portrayed in these latter with the greatest 
 accuracy, with the strictest attention to all the circum- 
 stances of the place and the times. It is impossible to im- 
 part this conviction to my readers in a paragraph ; the na- 
 ture of the case does not admit of it ; it is the result of a 
 thousand little facts, which it would be difficult to detach 
 from the general narrative, and which considered separately 
 might seem frivolous and fanciful. We close the pages of 
 Josephus with the feeling that we have been reading of a 
 country, which, for many years before its final fall, had 
 been the scene of miserable anarchy and confusion. Eve- 
 rywhere we meet with open acts of petty violence, or the 
 secret workings of plots, conspiracies, and frauds ; the laws 
 ineffectual, or very partially observed and very wretchedly 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 331 
 
 administered ; oppression on the part of the rulers ; 
 amongst the people, faction, discontent, seditions, tumults ; 
 robbers infesting the very streets, and most public places 
 of resort, wandering about in arms, thirsting for blood no 
 less than spoil, assembling in troops to the dismay of the 
 more peaceable citizens, and with difficulty put down by 
 military force ; society, in fact, altogether out of joint. 
 Such would be our view of the condition of Judaea, as col- 
 lected from Josephus. 
 
 Now let us turn to the New Testament, which, without 
 professing to treat about Judaea at all, nevertheless by glimp- 
 ses, by notices scattered, uncombined, never intended for 
 such a purpose, actually conveys to us the very counterpart 
 of the picture in Josephus. For instance, let us observe the 
 character of the parables ; stories evidently in many cases, 
 and probably in most cases, taken from passing events, and 
 adapted to the occasions on which they were delivered. In 
 how many may be traced scenes of disorder, of rapine, of 
 craft, of injustice, as if such scenes were but too familiar to 
 the experience of those to whom they were addressed ! 
 We hear of a " man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, 
 and falling among thieves, which stripped him of his rai- 
 ment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half 
 dead." (Luke x. 30.) Of another, who planted a vine- 
 yard, and sent his servants to receive the fruits : but the 
 " husbandmen took those servants, and beat one, and killed 
 another, and stoned another." (Matth. xxi. 35.) Of a 
 "judge which feared not God nor regarded man," and who 
 avenged the widow only " lest by her continual coming 
 she should weary him." (Luke xviii. 2.) Of a steward 
 " who was accused unto the rich man of having wasted his 
 goods," and who, by taking further liberties with his mas- 
 ter's property, secured himself a retreat into the houses of 
 his lord's debtors, " when he should be put out of the stew- 
 
332 
 
 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 ardship." (Luke xvi. 1.) Of 'the coming of the Son of 
 man, like that of a thief in the night," whose approach wag 
 to be watched, if the master would " not suffer his house to 
 be broken up." (Matth. xxiv. 43.) Of a " kingdom divided 
 against itself being brought to desolation." Of a " city or 
 house divided against itself not being able to stand." (Matth. 
 xii. 25.) Of the necessity of " binding the strong man" be- 
 fore "entering into his house and spoiling his goods." 
 (Matth. xii. 29.) Of the folly of " laying up for ourselves 
 treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, 
 and where thieves break through and steal/' (Matt. vi. 19.) 
 Of the enemy who had maliciously sown tares amongst his 
 neighbor's wheat, "and went his way." (Matth. xiii. 25.) 
 Of the man who found a treasure in another's field, and 
 cunningly sold all that he had, and " bought that field." 
 (xiii. 44,) These instances may suffice. Neither is it to 
 the parables only that we must look for our proofs. Many 
 historical incidents in the Gospels and Acts speak the same 
 language. Thus when Jesus would " have entered into a 
 village of the Samaritans," they would not receive him, 
 upon which his disciples, James and John, who no doubt 
 partook in the temper of the times, proposed " that fire should 
 be commanded to come down from heaven and consume 
 them. 5 ' (Luke ix. 52.) Again, when Jesus had offended 
 the people of Nazareth by his preaching, they made no 
 scruple " of rising up and thrusting him out of the city, and 
 leading him unto the brow of the hill whereon the city was 
 built, that they might cast him down headlong," (Luke iv. 
 19) ; and, on another occasion, after he had been speaking 
 in the temple at Jerusalem, " the Jews took up stones to 
 stone him," but he " escaped out of their hand." (John x. 
 31.) Again, we are told of certain " Galiheans whose blood 
 Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices." (Luke xiii. 1.) 
 And when our Lord was at last seized, it was a by a great 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 333 
 
 multitude with swords and staves," (Matth. xxvi. 47,) as 
 in a country where nothing but brute force could avail to 
 carry a warrant into execution. So again, Barabbas, whom 
 the Jews would have released instead of Jesus, was one 
 " who lay bound with them that had made insurrection 
 with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection." 
 (Mark xv. 7.) And when he was at length crucified, it 
 was between two thieves. 
 
 Let us trace the times somewhat further, and we shall 
 discover no amendment, but rather the contrary; as we 
 learn from Josephus w r as the case on the nearer approach 
 to the breaking out of the war. Thus Stephen is tumultu- 
 ously stoned to death. (Acts viii. 58.) And " Saul made 
 havoc of the church, entering into every house, and taking 
 men and women, committed them to prison." (viii. 3.) But 
 when Saul's own turn came that he should be persecuted, 
 what a continued scene of violence and outrage is presented 
 to us ! Turn we to the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd chapters of 
 the Acts. It might be Josephus that is speaking in them. 
 Paul, on his coming to Jerusalem, is obliged to have re- 
 course to a stratagem to conciliate the people, because " the 
 multitude would needs come together, for they would hear 
 that he was come." Still it was in vain. A hue and cry 
 is raised against him by a few persons who had known him 
 in Asia, and forthwith " all the city is moved, and the peo- 
 ple run together and take Paul, and draw him out of the 
 temple." The Roman garrison gets under arms and hast- 
 ens to rescue Paul : but still is it needful that " he be borne 
 of the soldiers, for the violence of the people." He makes 
 nis defence. They, however, " cry out, and cast off their 
 clothes, and throw dust in the air." He is brought before 
 the council, and the high-priest commands them that stand 
 by him to strike him on the mouth." He now, with much 
 dexterity, divides his enemies, by declaring himself a Phar- 
 
334 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 isee and a believer in the resurrection. This was enough 
 to set them again at strife ; for then there arose a dissen- 
 sion between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and such was 
 its fury, that " the captain, fearing Paul should be pulled 
 in pieces by them, commands his soldiers to go down and 
 take him by force from among them." No sooner is he 
 rescued from the multitude, than forty persons and more 
 " bind themselves by a curse to kill him" when he should 
 be next brought before the council. Intelligence of this 
 plot, however, is conveyed to the captain of the guard, who 
 determines to send him to Caesarea, to Felix the governor. 
 The escort necessary to attend this single prisoner to his 
 place of destination is no less than four hundred and sev- 
 enty men, horse and foot, and, as a further measure of 
 safety and precaution, they are ordered to set out at the 
 third hour of the night. All these things, I say, are in 
 strict agreement with the state of Judeea as it is represented 
 by Josephus. And it might be added, that independently 
 of such consideration, an argument for the truth of the 
 Gospels and Acts results from the harmony upon this point 
 which prevails throughout them all : a circumstance which 
 I might have dwelt upon in the former section, but which 
 it will be enough to have noticed here. 
 
 But further, a perusal of the writings of Josephus leaves 
 another impression upon our minds that there was a very 
 considerable intercourse between Judeea and Rome. To 
 Rome we find causes and litigations very constantly re- 
 ferred thither are the Jews perpetually resorting in search 
 of titles and offices there it is that they make known their 
 grievances, explain their errors, supplicate pardons, set forth 
 their claims to favor, and return their thanks. Neither are 
 there wanting passages in the New Testament which 
 would lead us to the same conclusion ; rather however 
 casually, by allusion, by an expression incidentally pre- 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS 3o5 
 
 senting itself, than by any direct communication on the 
 subject. Hence may we discover, for instance, the pro- 
 priety of that phrase so often occurring in the parables and 
 elsewhere, of men going for various purposes " into a far 
 country." 
 
 Thus we read that " the Son of man is as a man taking 
 a far journey, who left his house and gave authority to 
 his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded 
 the porter to watch." (Mark xiii. 34.) And again, that a 
 certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for 
 himself a kingdom, and to return. (Luke xix. 12.) And 
 again, that the prodigal son, "gathered all together, and 
 took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his 
 substance in riotous living." (Luke xv. 13). And again, 
 that " a certain householder planted a vineyard, and hedged 
 it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a 
 tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far 
 country" (Matth. xxi. 33.) Moreover, it is probable that 
 this political relationship of Judaea to Rome, the seat of 
 government, from whence all the honors and gainful posts 
 were distributed, suggested the use of those metaphors, 
 which abound in the New Testament, of the " kingdom of 
 heaven," of " seeking the kingdom of heaven," of " giving 
 the kingdom of heaven," and the like. All I mean to 
 affirm is this, that such allusions and such figures of speech 
 would very naturally present themselves to a Teacher sit- 
 uated as the Gospel represents Jesus to have been and 
 therefore go to prove that such representation is the truth. 
 
 II. 
 
 Matth. ii. 3." When Herod the king had heard these 
 things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 
 
336 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and 
 scribes of the people together, he demanded of them 
 where Christ should be born." 
 
 NOR was he yet satisfied ; for he "privily called the 
 wise men. and inquired of them diligently what time the 
 star appeared." (ver. 7.) And when they did not return 
 from Bethlehem, as he expected, he seems to have been 
 still more apprehensive, " exceeding wroth." (ver. 16.) 
 
 Such a transaction as this is perfectly agreeable to the 
 character of Herod, as we may gather it from Josepllus. 
 He was always in fear for the stability of his throne, and 
 anxious to pry into futurity that he might discover whether 
 it was likely to endure. 
 
 Thus we read in Josephus of a certain Essene, Manahem 
 by name, who had foretold, whilst Herod was yet a boy, 
 that he was destined to be a king. Accordingly, " when 
 he was actually advanced to that dignity, and in the plen- 
 itude of his power, he sent for Manahem and inquired of 
 him how long he should reign ? Manahem did not tell 
 him the precise period. Whereupon he questioned him 
 further, whether he should reign ten years or not ? He re- 
 plied, Yes, twenty, nay, thirty years ; but he did not as- 
 sign a limit to the continuance of his empire. With these 
 answers Herod was satisfied, and giving Manahem his 
 hand, dismissed him, and from that time he never ceased 
 to honor all the Essenes." (Antiq. xv. 20. 5.) 
 
 III. 
 
 Matth. ii. 22. " But when he heard that Archelaus did 
 reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he 
 was afraid to go thither." 
 ON the death of Herod, Joseph was commanded to re- 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 337 
 
 (urn to the land of Israel, and " he arose and took the 
 young child" and went. However, before he began his 
 journey, or whilst he was yet in the way, he was told that 
 Archelaus did reign in Judsea in the room of his father 
 Herod ; on which he was afraid to go thither. Archelaus, 
 therefore, must have been notorious for his cruelty (it 
 should seem) very soon indeed after coming to his throne. 
 Nothing short of this could account for the sudden resolu- 
 tion of Joseph to avoid him with so much speed. 
 
 Now it is remarkable enough, that at the very first 
 passover after Herod's death, even before Archelaus had 
 yet had time to set out for Rome to obtain the ratifica- 
 tion of his authority from the emperor, he was guilty of an 
 act of outrage and bloodshed, under circumstances above 
 all others fitted to make it generally and immediately 
 known. One of the last deeds of his father, Herod, had 
 been to put to death Judas and Matthias, two persons who 
 had instigated some young men to pull down a golden 
 eagle, which Herod had fixed over the gate of the Temple, 
 contrary, as they conceived, to the law of Moses. The 
 hapless fate of these martyrs to the law excited great com- 
 miseration at the Passover which ensued. The parties, 
 however, who uttered their lamentations aloud were 
 silenced by Archelaus, the new king, in the following 
 manner : 
 
 " He sent out all the troops against them, and ordered 
 the horsemen to prevent those who had their tents outside 
 the Temple from rendering assistance to those who were 
 within it, and to put to death such as might escape from 
 the foot. The cavalry slew nearly three thousand men, 
 the rest betook themselves for safety to the neighboring 
 mountains. Then Archelaus commanded proclamation to 
 be made, that they should all retire to their own homes. 
 
 29 
 
338 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 So they went away, and left the festival out of fear lest 
 somewhat worse should ensue" (Antiq. xvii. 9. 3.) 
 
 We must bear in mind, that at the Passover Jews from 
 all parts of the world were assembled ; so that any event 
 which occurred at Jerusalem during that great feast would 
 be speedily reported on their return to the countries where 
 they dwelt. Such a massacre, therefore, at such a season, 
 would at once stamp the character of Archelaus. The 
 fear of him would naturally enough spread itself wherever 
 a Jew was to be found ; and, in fact, so well remembered 
 was this first essay at governing the people, that several 
 years afterwards it was brought against him with great 
 effect on his appearance before Caesar at Rome. 
 
 It is the more probable that this act of cruelty inspired 
 Joseph with his dread of Archelaus, because that prince 
 could not have been much known before he came to the 
 throne, never having had any public employment, or, in- 
 deed, future destination, like his half-brother, Antipater, 
 whereby he might have discovered himself to the nation 
 at large. 1 
 
 IV. 
 
 Matth. xvii. 24. " And when they were come to Caper- 
 naum, they that received tribute-money came to 
 Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? 
 He saith, Yes." 
 
 THE word which is translated tribute-money is in the 
 original " the didrachma" of which indeed notice is given 
 m the margin of our Version ; and it is worthy of remark, 
 that this tax seems not to have been designated by any 
 
 1 Lardner briefly alludes to this transaction, but has not made the best of 
 his argument. Vol. i. p. 14. 8vo. ed. 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 339 
 
 general name, such for instance as tribute, custom, (fee., 
 but actually had the specific appellation of "the didrach- 
 mar Thus Joseph us writes : " Nisibis too is a city sur- 
 rounded by the same river (the Euphrates) ; wherefore the 
 Jews, trusting to the nature of its position, deposited there 
 the didrachma. which it is customary for each individual 
 to pay to God ; as well as their other offerings." (Antiq. 
 xviii. 10. 1.) 
 
 There is something which indicates veracity in the 
 Evangelist, to be correct in a trifle like this. He makes 
 no mistake in the sum paid to the Temple, nor does he 
 express himself by a general term, such as would have 
 concealed his ignoranee, but hits upon the exact payment 
 that was made, and the name that was given it. 
 
 It may be added, that St. Matthew uses the word 
 didrachma without the smallest explanation, which is not 
 the case, as we have seen, with Joseph us ; yet the argu- 
 ment of Jesus which follows would be quite unintelligible 
 to those who did not know for whose service this tribute- 
 money was paid. It is evident, therefore, that the Evan- 
 list thought there could be no obscurity in the term ; that 
 it was much too familiar with his readers to need a com- 
 ment. Now the use of it probably ceased with the des- 
 truction of the Temple ; after which but few years would 
 elapse before some interpretation would be necessary, more 
 especially as the term itself does not in the least imply the 
 nature of the tax, but only its individual amount. The 
 undesigned omission of everything of this kind, on the 
 part of St. Matthew, pretty clearly proves the Gospel to 
 have been written before the Temple was destroyed. 
 
340 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 V. 
 
 Matth. xxii. 23. " The same day came to him the Sad- 
 ducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and 
 asked him," &c. 
 
 IT is very unusual to find in St. Matthew a paragraph 
 like this, explanatory of Jewish opinions or practices. In 
 general it is quite characteristic of him, and a circumstance 
 which distinguishes him from the other Evangelists, that 
 he presumes upon his readers being perfectly familiar with 
 Judaea and all that pertains to it. St. Mark, in treating 
 the same subjects, is generally found to enlarge upon them 
 much more, as though conscious that he had those to deal 
 with who were not thoroughly conversant with Jewish 
 affairs. 
 
 Compare the following parallel passages in these two 
 Evangelists. 
 
 Matth. ix. 14. " Then came to him the disciples of 
 John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but 
 thy disciples fast not ?" 
 
 Mark ii. 18. " And the disciples of John and of the 
 Pharisees used to fast : and they come and say unto him, 
 Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, 
 but thy disciples fast not ?" 
 
 Matth. xv. 1. " Then came to Jesus Scribes and Phar- 
 isees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy dis- 
 ciples transgress the tradition of the Elders ? for they wash 
 not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered 
 and said unto them," &c. 
 
 Mark vii. " Then came together unto him the Phari- 
 sees, and certain of the Scribes, which came from Jerusa- 
 lem. And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread 
 with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen hands, they 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 341 
 
 found fault. For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except 
 they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition 
 of the Elders. And when they come from the market, 
 except they wash, they eat not. And many other things 
 there be, which they have received to hold, as the wash- 
 ing of cups, and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables. 
 Then the Pharisees and Scribes asked him, Why walk not 
 thy disciples according to the tradition of the Elders, but 
 eat bread with unwashen hands?" &c. 
 
 Matth. xxvii. 62. " Now the next day that followed the 
 day of the Preparation, the Chief Priests and Pharisees 
 came together," &c. 
 
 Mark xv. 42. " And now when the even was come, be- 
 cause it was the Preparation, that is, the day before the 
 Sabbath? <fec. 
 
 These examples (to which many more might be added) 
 may suffice to show the manner of St. Matthew as com- 
 pared with that of another of the Evangelists ; that it 
 dealt little in explanation. How then does it happen that 
 in the instance before us he deviates from his ordinary, al- 
 most his uniform, practice ; and whilst writing for Jews, 
 thinks it necessary to inform them of so notorious a tenet 
 of the Sadducees (for such we might suppose it) as their 
 disbelief in a resurrection ? Would not his Jewish readers 
 have known at once, and on the mere mention of the name 
 of this sect, that he was speaking of persons who denied 
 that doctrine ? 
 
 Let us turn to Josephus, (Antiq. xviii. 1. 4,) and w 
 shall find him throwing some light upon our inquiry. 
 
 " The doctrine of the Sadducees is, that the soul and 
 body perish together. The law is all that they are con- 
 cerned to observe. They consider it commendable to con- 
 trovert the opinions of masters even of their own school 
 of philosophy. This doctrine, however, has not many 
 
 29* 
 
342 
 
 THE VERACITY OP THE APPEND. 
 
 followers, but those persons of the highest rank next 
 to nothing of public business falls into their hands.'' 
 Thus, we see, it was very possible for the people of Judsea, 
 though well acquainted with most of the local peculiarities 
 of their country, to be ignorant, or at least, ill-informed, of 
 the dogmas of a sect, insignificant in numbers, removed 
 from them by station, and seldom or never brought into 
 contact with them by office ; and therefore that St. Matthew 
 was not wasting words, when he explained in this instance, 
 though in so many other instances he had withheld ex- 
 planation. 1 
 
 VI. 
 
 Matth. xxvi. 5. " But they said, Not on the feast day, 
 lest there be an uproar among" the people." 
 
 I HAVE already alluded to the insubordinate condition 
 of Judc&a in general, about the period of our Lord's min- 
 istry. We have here an example of the feverish and irri- 
 table state of the capital itself, in particular, during the 
 feast of the Passover. 
 
 " The feast of the Passover," says Josephus, (who re- 
 lates an event that happened some few years after Christ's 
 death,) " being at hand, wherein it is our custom to use 
 unleavened bread, and a great multitude being drawn to- 
 gether from all parts to the feast, Cumanus (the governor) 
 fearing that some disturbance might fall out amongst 
 them, commands one cohort of soldiers to arm themselves 
 and stand in the porticoes of the Temple, to suppress 
 any riot which might occur ; and this precaution the 
 
 i See Hug's Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. 11. p. 7. Transla- 
 tion by the Rev. D. G. Wait. 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 343 
 
 governors of Judcea before him had adopted" (Antiq. 
 xx. 4. 3.) 
 
 In spite, however, of these prudent measures, a tumult 
 irose on this very occasion, in which, according to Jose- 
 twenty thousand Jews perished. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Mark v. 1. " And they came over unto the other side of 
 the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes" &c. 
 
 11. "Now there were nigh unto the mountains many 
 swine feeding. 
 
 HERE it might at first seem that St. Mark had been 
 betrayed into an oversight for since swine were held in 
 abhorrence by the Jews as unclean, how (it might be 
 asked) did it happen that a herd of them were feeding on 
 the side of the sea of Tiberias ? 
 
 The objection, however, only serves to prove yet more 
 the accuracy of the Evangelist, and his intimate knowl- 
 edge of the local circumstances of Judea ; for on turning 
 to Josephus, (Antiq. xvii. 13. 4,) we find that " Turris 
 Stratonis, and Sebaste, and Joppa, and Jerusalem, were 
 made subject to Archelaus, but that Gaza, Gadara, and 
 Hippos, being Grecian cities, were annexed by Caesar to 
 Syria." This fact, therefore, is enough to account for 
 swine being found amongst the Gadarenes. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Mark vi. 21. " And when a convenient day was come, 
 that Herod on his birth-day made a supper to his 
 lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee ; 
 
344 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND 
 
 and when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, 
 and danced," &c. 
 
 IT is curious and worthy of remark, that a feast, under 
 exactly similar circumstances, is incidentally described by 
 Joseph us, as made by Herod, the brother of Herodias, and 
 successor of this prince in his government. " Having 
 made a feast on his birth-day, (writes Josephus,) when 
 all under his command partook of the mirth, he sent 
 for Silas," (an officer whom he had cast into prison for 
 taking liberties with him,) and " offered him his freedom 
 and a seat at the banquet." (Antiq. xix. 7. 1.) This, I 
 say, is a coincidence worth notice, because it proves that 
 these birth-day feasts were observed in the family of 
 Herod, and that it was customary to assemble the officers 
 of government to share in them. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Mark xiv. 1 3. " And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, 
 and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there 
 shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water : 
 follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye 
 to the goodman of the house. The Master saith, 
 Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the 
 Passover with my disciples ?" 
 
 WHEN Cestius wished to inform Nero of the numbers 
 which attended the Passover at Jerusalem, he counted the 
 victims, and allowed ten persons to each head, " because a 
 company not less than ten belong to every sacrifice, (for it 
 is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves,) and 
 many are twenty in company." Bell. Jud. c. vi. 9. 3. 
 
 Accordingly, the Gospel narrative is in strict conformity 
 with this custom. When Christ goes up to Jerusalem to 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 345 
 
 attend the Passover for the last time, he is not described 
 as running the chance of hospitality in the houses of any 
 of his friends, because, on this occasion, the parties would 
 be made up, and the addition of thirteen guests might be 
 inconvenient, but he sends forth beforehand, from Bethany, 
 most probably, two of his disciples to the city, with orders 
 to engage a room, (a precaution very necessary where so 
 many companies would be seeking accommodation,) and 
 there eats the Passover with his followers, a party of thir- 
 teen, which it appears was about the usual number. 1 
 
 X. 
 
 Luke ii. 42. " And when he was twelve years old, they 
 went up to Jerusalem, after the custom of the feast." 
 
 I AM aware that commentators upon this text quote the 
 Rabbins, to show that children of twelve years old amongst 
 the Jews were considered to be entering the estate of man- 
 hood, (see Wetstein.) and that on this account it was that 
 Jesus was taken at that age to the Passover. Such may 
 be the true interpretation of the passage. I cannot, how- 
 ever, forbear offering a conjecture which occurred to me 
 in reading the history of Archelaus. 
 
 The birth of Christ probably preceded the death of Herod 
 by a year and a half or thereabout. (See Lardner, Vol. i. 
 p. 352. 8vo. edit.) Archelaus succeeded Herod, and gov- 
 erned the country, it should seem, about ten years. " In 
 the tenth year of Archelaus' reign the chief governors 
 among the Jews and Samaritans, unable any longer to en- 
 dure his cruelty and tyranny, accused him before Caesar." 
 Caesar upon this sent for him to Rome, and " as soon as he 
 
 i See Whiston's Note upon Joseph. B. J. vi. 9. 3. 
 
346 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND 
 
 came to Rome, when the Emperor had heard his accusers, 
 and his defence, he banished him to Vienne in France, and 
 confiscated his goods." Antiq. xvii. c. 15. The removal, 
 therefore, of this obnoxious governor, appears to have been 
 effected in our Lord's twelfth year. Might not this circum- 
 stance account for the parents of the child Jesus venturing 
 to take him to Jerusalem at the Passover when he was 
 twelve years old, and not before? It was only because 
 " Archelaus reigned in Judaea in the room of his father 
 Herod," that Joseph was afraid to go thither on his return 
 from Egypt ; influenced not merely by motives of personal 
 safety, but by the consideration that the same jealousy 
 which had urged Herod to take away the young child's 
 life, might also prevail with his successor ; for we do not 
 find that any fears about himself or Mary withheld him 
 from subsequently going to the Passover even during the 
 reign of Archelaus, since it is recorded that " they went ev- 
 ery year." I submit it, therefore, to my readers' decision, 
 whether the same apprehensions for the life of the infant 
 Jesus, which prevented Joseph from taking him into Judsca, 
 on hearing that Archelaus was king, did not, very proba- 
 bly, prevent him from taking him up to Jerusalem till he 
 heard that Archelaus was deposed ? 
 
 XI. 
 
 Luke vi. 13. " And when it was day, he called unto him 
 his disciples ; and of them he chose twelve, whom also 
 he named Apostles." 
 
 x. 1. " After these things the Lord appointed other seventy 
 
 also, and sent them two and two before his face," &c. 
 
 THERE is something in the selection of these numbers 
 
 which indicates veracity in the narrative. They were, on 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 347 
 
 several accounts, favorite numbers amongst the Jews : the 
 one (to name no other reason) being that of the Tribes, the 
 other (taken roundly) that of the Elders. Accordingly we 
 read in Joseph us, that Yarns, who held a post in the gov- 
 ernment under Agrippa, " called to him twelve Jews of 
 Ceesarea, of the best character, and ordered them to go to 
 Ecbatana, and bear this message to their countrymen who 
 dwelt there : Varus hath heard that you intend to march 
 against the king ; but not believing the report he hath sent 
 us to persuade you to lay down your arms, counting such 
 compliance to be a sign that he did well not to give credit 
 to those who so spake concerning you.'" "He also en- 
 joined those Jews of Ecbatana to send seventy of their prin- 
 cipal men to make a defence for them touching the accu- 
 sation laid against them. So when the twelve messengers 
 came to their countrymen at Ecbatana, and found that 
 they had no designs of innovation at all, they persuaded 
 them to send the seventy also. Then went these seventy 
 down to Caesarea together with the twelve ambassadors." 
 (Life of Josephtis, 11). 
 
 This is a very slight matter to be sure, but it is still 
 something to find the subordinate parts of a history in 
 strict keeping with the habits of the people and of the age 
 to which it professes to belong. The Evangelist might 
 have fixed upon any other indifferent number for the Apos- 
 tles and first Disciples of Jesus, without thereby incurring 
 any impeachment of a want of veracity ; and therefore it 
 is the more satisfactory to discover marks of truth, where 
 the absence of such marks would not have occasioned the 
 
348 THE VERACITY OP THE APPEND. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Luke vii. 1. " Now when he had ended all these sayings 
 in the audience of the people, he entered into Caper- 
 naum." 
 
 11. " And it came to pass the day after, that he went into 
 a city called Nain ; and many of his disciples went 
 with him, and much people." 
 
 JESUS comes to Capernaum he goes on to Nain fame 
 precedes him as he approaches Judaea he arrives in the 
 neighborhood of the Baptist he travels still further south 
 to the vicinity of the Holy City, near which the Magdalen 
 dwelt St. Luke, therefore, it will he perceived, is here de- 
 scribing a journey of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. 
 
 Now let us hear Josephus (Antiq. xx. 5. 1) : "A quar- 
 rel sprung up between the Samaritans and the Jews, and 
 this was the cause of it. The Galileeans, when they re- 
 sorted to the Holy City at the feasts, had to pass through 
 the country of the Samaritans. Now it happened that 
 certain inhabitants of a place on the road, Nain by name, 
 situated on the borders of Samaria and the Great Plain, 
 rose upon them and slew many." 1 
 
 Jesus, therefore, in this his journey southwards, (a jour- 
 ney, be it observed, which the Evangelist does not formally 
 lay down, but the general direction of which we gather 
 from an incident or two occurring in the course of it. and 
 from the point to which it tended,) Jesus in this his jour- 
 ney is found to come to a city which, it appears, did actu- 
 ally lie in the way of those who travelled from Galilee to 
 
 1 Hudson reads KW/H/J Ttvaias Xeyo/ici/ijf, instead of Nai'f, the common read- 
 ing ; but see Hug's Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. i. p. 23, (trans- 
 lation), where the coincidence is suggested, and the reasons given for abid- 
 ing by the ordinary text. 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 349 
 
 Jerusalem. This is as it should be. Apart of the story is 
 certainly matter of fact. There is every reason to believe 
 the Evangelist when he says that Jesus " went into a city 
 called Nain." What reason is there to disbelieve him when 
 he goes on to say, that he met a dead man at the gate; 
 that he touched the bier ; bade the young man arise ; and 
 that the dead sat up and spake ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Luke xxiii. 6. " When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked 
 whether the man were a Galileean. And as soon as 
 he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction 
 he sent him to Herod, who himself ALSO was at Jeru- 
 salem at that time." 
 
 THE fair inference from this last clause is, that Jerusa- 
 lem was not the common place of abode either of Herod 
 or Pilate. Such is certainly the force of the emphatic ex- 
 pression, "who himself also was at Jerusalem at that 
 time," applied, as it is, directly to Herod, but with a refer- 
 ence to the person of whom mention had been made in 
 the former part of the sentence. The more circuitous this 
 insinuation is, the stronger does it make for the argument. 
 Now that Herod did not reside at Jerusalem, may be in- 
 ferred from the following passage in Josephus. 
 
 " This king" (says he, meaning the Herod who killed 
 James, the brother of John, Acts xii.) " was not at all like 
 that Herod who reigned before him, (meaning the Herod 
 to whom Christ was sent by Pilate,) for the latter was 
 stern and severe in his punishments, and had no mercy on 
 those he hated : confessedly better disposed towards the 
 Greeks than the Jews : accordingly, of the cities of the 
 strangers, some he beautified at his own expense with 
 
 30 
 
350 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 baths and theatres, and others with temples and corridors ; 
 but upon no Jewish city did he bestow the smallest decora- 
 tion or the most trifling present. Whereas the latter Herod 
 (Agrippa) was of a mild and gentle disposition, and good 
 to all men. To strangers he was beneficent, but yet more 
 kind to the Jews, his countrymen, with whom he sympa- 
 thized in all their troubles. He took pleasure therefore in 
 constantly living at Jerusalem, and strictly observed all 
 the customs of his nation." Antiq. xix. 7. 3. Thus 
 does it appear from the Jewish historian, that the Herod 
 of the Acts was a contrast to the Herod in question, inas- 
 much as he loved the Jews that dwelt at Jerusalem. Nor 
 is St. Luke less accurate in representing Pilate (o have 
 been not resident at Jerusalem. Caesarea seems to have 
 been the place of abode of the Roman governors of Judaea 
 in general. (See Antiq. xviii. 4. 1. xx. 4. 4.) Of 
 Pilate it certainly was ; for when the Jews had to com- 
 plain to him of the profanation which had been offered to 
 their Temple by the introduction of Caesar's image into it, 
 it was to Caesarea that they carried their remonstrance. 
 (Bell. Jud. 11. c. 9. 2.) 
 
 It was probably the business of the Passover which 
 had brought Pilate to Jerusalem for a few days, the pres- 
 ence of the Governor being never more needful in the 
 capital than on such an occasion. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 John iv. 15. "The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me 
 this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to 
 draw. ?J 
 IT seems, therefore, that there was no water in Sychar. 
 
 and that the inhabitants had to come to this well to draw 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 351 
 
 Most likely it was at some little distance from the town 3 
 for the woman speaks of the labor of fetching the water 
 as considerable ; and Jesus stopped short of the town at 
 the well, because he "was weaned with his journey," 
 whilst his disciples went on to buy bread. 
 
 Now, on the breaking out of the war with the Romans, 
 some of the Samaritans assembled on Mount Gerizim, 
 close to the feet of which (be it observed) ivas the city 
 of Sychar placed. 1 Upon this, Vespasian determined to 
 put some troops in motion against them. " For although 
 all Samaria was provided with garrisons, yet did the num- 
 ber and evil spirit of those who had come together at 
 Mount Gerizim give ground for apprehension ; therefore 
 he sent Cerealis, the commander of the fifth Legion, with 
 six hundred horse, and three thousand foot. Not thinking 
 it safe, however, to go up the mountain and give them 
 battle, because many of the enemy were on the higher 
 ground, he encompassed all the circuit (vnw^iuv) of the 
 mountain with his army, and watched them all that day. 
 But it came to pass, that whilst the Samaritans were 
 now without water, a terrible heat came on, for it was 
 summer, and the people were unprovided with necessaries, 
 so that some of them died of thirst that same day, 
 and many others, preferring slavery to such a death, fled 
 to the Romans." Bell. Jud. in. 7. 32. 
 
 The troops of Cerealis, no doubt, cut them off from the 
 well of Sychar, which we perceive, from St. John, was the 
 place to which the neighborhood were compelled to resort. 
 This is the more likely, inasmuch as the soldiers of the 
 Roman general do not appear to have suffered from thirst 
 at all on this occasion. 
 
 Spti. Joseph. Antiq. ii. 8. . 
 
352 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 XV. 
 
 John xix. 13. " When Pilate therefore heard that saying, 
 he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judg- 
 ment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement." 
 
 ACCORDING to St. John, therefore, (he being the only 
 one of the Evangelists who mentions this incident,) Pilate 
 comes out of his own hall to his judgment-seat on the 
 Pavement. The hall and the Pavement then were near 
 or contiguous. 
 
 Now let us turn to Josephus. " The City was strength- 
 ened by the palace in which he (Herod) dwelt, and the 
 Temple by the fortifications attached to the bastion called 
 Antonia." (Antiq. xv. 8. 5.) Hence we conclude that 
 the Temple was near the Castle of Antonia. 
 
 " On the western side of the court (of the Temple) were 
 four gates, one looking to the palace." (Antiq. xv. 11. 
 5.) Hence we conclude that the Temple was near the 
 palace of Herod. Therefore the palace was near the 
 Castle of Antonia. 
 
 But if Pilate's hall was a part of the palace, as it was. 
 (that being the residence of the Roman governor when he 
 was at Jerusalem,) then Pilate's hall was near the Castle 
 of Antonia. 
 
 Here let us pause a moment, and direct our attention to 
 a passage in the Jewish War, (vi. 1. 8,) where Josephus 
 records the prowess of a centurion in the Roman army. 
 Julianns by name, in an assault upon Jerusalem. 
 
 " This man had posted himself near Titus, at the Castle 
 of Anton :a, when observing that the Romans were giving 
 way, and defending themselves but indifferently, he rushed 
 forward and drove back the victorious Jews to the corner 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 353 
 
 of the inner Temple, single-handed, for the whole multi- 
 tude fled before him, scarcely believing such strength and 
 spirit to belong to a mere mortal. But he, dashing through 
 the crowd, smote them on every side, as many as he could 
 lay bauds upon. It was a sight which struck Caesar with 
 astonishment, and seemed terrific to all. Nevertheless his 
 fate overtook him, as how could it be otherwise, unless he 
 had been more than man ; for having many sharp nails in 
 his shoes, after the soldier's fashion, he slipped as he was 
 running upon the Pavement, (xrd Aidoarq^Tov^ and fell 
 upon his back. The clatter of his arms caused the fugi- 
 tives to turn about : and now a cry was set up by the 
 Romans in the Castle of Antonio,, who were in alarm for 
 the man." 
 
 From this passage it appears that a pavement was near 
 the Castle of Antonia ; but we have already seen that the 
 Castle of Antonia was near the palace, (or Pilate's hall :) 
 therefore this pavement was near Pilate's hall. This then 
 is proved from Josephus, though very circuitously, which 
 is not the worse, that very near Pilate's residence a pave- 
 ment (AidoaTQfbw^) there was; that it gave its name to 
 that spot is not proved, yet nothing can be more probable 
 than that it did ; and consequently nothing more probable 
 than that St. John is speaking with truth and accuracy 
 when be makes Pilate bring Jesus forth and sit down in 
 his judgment-seat in a place called the Pavement. 1 
 
 XVI. 
 
 John xix. 15. " The chief priests answered, We have na 
 
 king" but Ccesar" 
 ALTHOUGH the Roman emperors never took the title ot 
 
 i See Hug's Introd. to the New Testament, Vol. i. p. 18. 
 30* 
 
354 THE VERACITY OP THE APPEND. 
 
 kings, 1 yet it appears from Josephus that they were so 
 called by the Jews ; and in further accordance with the 
 writers of the New Testament, that historian commonly 
 employs the term Casar, as sufficient to designate the 
 reigning prince. Thus, when speaking of Titus, he says, 
 " many did not so much as know that the king was in 
 any danger." And again, shortly after, " the enemy in- 
 deed made a great shout at the boldness of Ccesar, and 
 exhorted one another to rush upon him." (Bell. Jud. v. 
 2. 2.) 
 
 This is a curious coincidence in popular phraseology, 
 and such as bespeaks the writers of the New Testament 
 to have been familiar with the scenes they describe, and 
 the parties they introduce. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Acts iii. 1, 2. " Now Peter and John went up together 
 into the Temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth 
 hour. And a certain man lame from his mother's 
 womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate 
 of the Temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms 
 of them that entered into the Temple." 
 PETER recovers the cripple. The fame of his miracu- 
 lous cure is instantly spread abroad. 
 
 " And as the lame man which was healed held Peter 
 and John, all the people ran together unto them in the 
 porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering." 
 (ver. 11.) 
 
 There is a propriety in the localities of this miracle 
 which is favorable to a belief in its truth. 
 Josephus speaks of a great outer gate, (that of the 
 
 1 For this remark I am indebted to Whiston. 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 355 
 
 Porch,) " opening into the Court of the women on the 
 East, and opposite to the gate of the Temple, in size sur- 
 passing the others, being fifty cubits high and forty wide; 
 and more finished in its decorations, by reason of the thick 
 plates of silver and gold which were upon it." (Bell. Jud. 
 v. 3.) 
 
 But in another passage of the same author we read as 
 follows : " They persuaded the king (Agrippa) to restore 
 the Eastern Porch. This was a porch of the outer 
 Temple, situated upon the edge of a deep abyss, resting 
 upon a wall four hundred cubits high, constructed of quad- 
 rangular stones, quite white, each stone twenty cubits by 
 six, the work of King Solomon, the original builder of the 
 Temple." (Antiq. xx. 8. 7.) Thus it appears that a 
 gate, more highly ornamented than the rest, looked to the 
 East ; that a porch, of which Solomon was the founder, 
 looked also to the East ; that both, therefore, were on the 
 same side of the Temple, and accordingly that it was very 
 natural for the people, hearing that a cripple who usually 
 lay at the Beautiful Gate, and who had been cured as he 
 lay there, it was very natural for them to run to Solomon's 
 Porch, to satisfy themselves of the truth of the report. 1 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Acts ix. 36. " Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple, 
 named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called 
 Dorcas" 
 
 IT may be remarked, that Josephus who (like St. Luke) 
 wrote in Greek of things which happened in a country 
 where Syriac was the common language, thinks fit to add 
 
 ' See Hug, Vol. i. p. 19. 
 
356 THE VERACITY Op THE APPEND. 
 
 a similar explanation when he alludes to this same proper 
 name. 
 
 " They sent one John, who was the most bloody-minded 
 of them all, to do that execution. This man was also 
 called the son of Dorcas in the language of our counr 
 try? (Bell. Jud. iv. 3. 5.) 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Acts vi. 1. " And in those days, when, the number of the 
 
 disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring 
 
 of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their 
 
 widows were neglected in the daily ministration." 
 
 IN the first section I found an instance of consistency 
 
 without design in this passage, on comparing it with the 
 
 context ; I now find a second like instance, on comparing 
 
 it with Josephus. It seems that when the disciples became 
 
 more numerous, a jealousy began to discover itself between 
 
 the Grecians and the Hebrews. The circumstance is 
 
 casually mentioned by St. Luke, as the accident which 
 
 gave occasion to the appointment of deacons ; yet how 
 
 strictly characteristic is it of the country and times in 
 
 which it is said to have happened. 
 
 " There was a disturbance at Csesarea," writes Josephus, 
 "between the Jews and Syrians respecting the equal en- 
 joyment of civil rights ; the Jews laying claim to prece- 
 dence because Herod, who was a Jew, had founded the 
 city : the Syrians, on the other hand, admitting this, but 
 maintaining that Csesarea was originally called the Tower 
 of Straton, and did not then contain a single Jew." 
 (Antiq. xx. 7. 7.) In the end the two parties broke out 
 into open war. This was when Felix was governor. 
 On one occasion, under Florus, we read of 20,000 Jews 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 357 
 
 perishing at Caesarea by the hands of the Greek or Syrian 
 part of the population. (Bel. Jud. n. 18. 1.) And again, 
 we are told that " fearful troubles prevailed throughout all 
 Syria, each city dividing itself into two armies, and the 
 safety of the one consisted in forestalling the violence of 
 the other. Thus the people passed their days in blood and 
 their nights in terror." (Bel. Jud. n. 15. 2.) 
 
 It is most improbable that the writer of the Acts, if he 
 were making up a story, should have bethought himself 
 of a circumstance at once so unimportant as this murmur- 
 ing of the Grecians against the Hebrews, and yet so truly 
 descriptive of the people where his scene was laid? This 
 little incident (the more trifling the better for our purpose) 
 carries with it the strongest marks of truth ; and, like the 
 single watch-word, is a voucher for the general honesty of 
 the party that utters it. Indeed, the establishment of one 
 fact may be thought in itself to entail the credibility of 
 many more. If it be certain that there was a murmuring 
 of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows 
 were neglected in the daily ministration, then it is probable 
 that there was a common fund out of which widows were 
 maintained ; that many sold their possessions to contribute 
 to this fund ; that it must have been a strong motive 
 which could urge to such a disposal of their property : that 
 no motive could be so likely as their conviction of the truth 
 of Christianity ; and that such a conviction could spring 
 out of nothing so surely as the evidence of miracles. I do 
 not say that all these matters necessarily follow from the 
 certainty of the first simple fact, but I say that admitting 
 it, they all follow in a train of very natural consequence. 
 
358 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Acts xxv. 13. " And after certain days King Agrippa 
 and Bernice came unto Ccesarea to salute Festus" 
 
 THIS Agrippa (Agrippa Minor) had succeeded, by per- 
 mission of Claudius, to the territories of his uncle Herod ; 
 at least, Trachonitas, Batanaea, and Abilene, were con- 
 firmed to him. From this passage in the Acts it appears, 
 as might be expected, that he was anxious to be well with 
 the Roman Government, and accordingly that he lost no 
 time in paying his respects to Festus, the new representa- 
 tive of that Government in Judaea. It is a singular and 
 minute coincidence well worth our notice, that Josephus 
 records instances of this same Agrippa's obsequiousness to 
 Roman authorities, of precisely the same kind. " About 
 this time," says he, " King Agrippa went to Alexandria, 
 to salute Alexander, who had been sent by Nero to gov- 
 ern Egypt." (Ke\. Jud. n. 15. 1.) 
 
 And again, (what is yet more to our purpose,) we read, 
 on another occasion, that Bernice accompanied Agrippa 
 in one of these visits of ceremony ; for having appointed 
 Varus to take care of their kingdom in their absence, " they 
 went to Berytus with the intention of meeting Gessius 
 (Florus,) the Roman governor of Judcea" (Jos. Life, 
 11.) 
 
 This is a case singularly parallel to that in the Acts : 
 for Gessius Florus held the very same office, in the same 
 country, as Felix. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Acts xxv. 23. " And on the morrow, when Agrippa was 
 come, and Bernice, with great pomp, and was entered 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 359 
 
 into the place of hearing, with the chief captains and 
 principal men of the city, at Festus' commandment 
 Paul was brought forth.'* 
 
 IT might seem extraordinary that Bernice should be 
 present on such an occasion that a woman should take 
 any share in an affair, one would have supposed, foreign 
 to her, and exclusively belonging to the other sex. But 
 here again we have another proof of the veracity and ac- 
 curacy of the sacred writings. For when Agrippa (the 
 same Agrippa) endeavored to combat the spirit of rebel- 
 lion which was beginning to show itself amongst the Jews, 
 and addressed them in that famous speech given in Jose- 
 phus, which throws so much light on the power and pro- 
 vincial polity of the Romans, he first of all "placed his 
 sister Bernice (the same Bernice) in a conspicuous situa- 
 tion, upon the house of the Asamonaeans, which was above 
 the gallery, at the passage to the upper city, where the 
 bridge joined the Temple to the gallery ;" and then he 
 spoke to the people. And when his oration was ended, we 
 read that " both he and his sister shed tears, and so re- 
 pressed much violence in the multitude." (Bel. Jud. n. 
 16. 3.) 
 
 There is another passage, occurring in the life of Jose- 
 phus, which is no less valuable ; for it serves to, show yet 
 further the political importance of Bernice, and how much 
 she was in the habit of acting with Agrippa on all public 
 occasions. One Philip, who was governor of Gamala and 
 the country about it, under Agrippa, had occasion to com- 
 municate with the latter, probably on the subject of his 
 escape from Jerusalem, where he had been recently in dan- 
 ger, and of his return to his own station. The transaction 
 is thus described : 
 
 " He wrote to Agrippa and Bernice, and gave the let- 
 ters to one of his freedmen to carry to Varus, who at that 
 
360 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND. 
 
 time was procurator of the kingdom, which the sovereigns 
 (i. e. the king and his sister-wife) had intrusted him withal, 
 while they were gone to Berytus to meet Gessius. When 
 Varus had received these letters of Philip, and had learned 
 that he was in safety, he was very uneasy at it, supposing 
 that he should appear useless to the sovereigns (fi 
 now Philip was come." (Josephus's Life, 11.) 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Acts xxviii. 1 1, 12, 13. " And after three months we de- 
 parted in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered 
 in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux. And 
 landing at Syracuse, we tarried there three days. 
 And from thence we fetched a compass, and came to 
 Rhegium : and after one day the south wind blew, 
 and we came the next day to Puteoli" 
 PUTEOLI then, it should seem, was the destination of 
 this vessel from Alexandria. Now, we may collect, from 
 the independent testimony ol the Jewish historian, that 
 this was the port of Italy to which ships from Egypt 
 and the Levante in those times commonly sailed. Thus 
 when Herod Agrippa went from Judaea to Rome, for the 
 purpose of paying his court to Tiberias, and bettering his 
 fortune, he directed his course first to Alexandria, for the 
 sake of visiting a friend, and then crossing the Medi- 
 terranean, he landed at Puteoli. (Antiq. xviii. 7. 4.) 
 Again, when Herod the Tetrarch, at the instigation of 
 Herodias, undertook a voyage to Rome, to solicit from 
 Caligula a higher title, which might put him upon a level 
 with his brother-in-law, Herod Agrippa, the latter pursued 
 him to Italy, and both of them (says Josephu.s,) landed 
 
APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 361 
 
 at Dichcearchia (Puteoli,) and found Caius at Baiee. 
 (Antiq. xviii. 8. 2.) 
 
 Take a third instance. Josephus had himself occasion, 
 when a young man, to go to Rome. On his passage the 
 vessel in which he sailed foundered, but a ship from Gyrene 
 picked him up, together with eighty of his companions ; 
 "and, having safely arrived (says he) at Dichcearchia, 
 which the Italians call Puteoli, I became acquainted with 
 Aliturus," &c, (Josephus's Life, 3.) 
 
 In this last passage there is a singular resemblance to 
 the circumstances of St. Paul's voyage. Josephus, though 
 not going to Rome as a prisoner who had himself appealed 
 from Felix to Caesar, was going to Rome on account of two 
 friends, whom Felix thought proper to send to Caesar's 
 judgment-seat he suffered shipwreck he was forwarded 
 by another vessel coming from Africa and finally he 
 landed at Puteoli. 
 
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