mounts to positive proof. The credit given to fuch opinions is unwarrantable, and they who adhere to them are inexcufable.

All thefe judgments, which are founded on motives of probability are but opinions fubject to difcuffion. Judgments founded on motives in themfelves certain and manifeftly connected with them, are not in the clafs of opinions, they exclude the poffibility of deception, difcuffion may ferve to illuftrate but cannot invalidate them.

Having taking this curfory view of the motives which found our unerring judgments, and our opinions subject to error, the writer now proceeds to ex amine, whether we have motives of credibility fuffici ently ftrong to fupport a reasonable and well-founded belief that the law of Mofes was of Divine Authority; in other words did Mofes authenticate his miffion? Did he by miraculous works atteft and demonftrate to the Children of Ifrael that he was fent by God? And' have we fufficient reafon to believe it? Miraculous works are known, as other facts are, by the teftimony of their fenfes to thefe, who are prefent; and by the teftimony of witneffes to all others. Thus for exam. ple, the refurrection of a dead man is known to thefe who are prefent by the teftimony of their fenfes They fee the man dead, they feel him cold, they fmell the cadaverous odour of putrefaction. The fact is unquestionable; again they fee him, at the will of another, rife, they hear him fpeak, they feel him warm, they converfe with him, they eat with him, this fact is equally incontrovertible as the former; that a man who was dead and lives again has been raised from the dead is abfolutely certain; and that he could not be raised by any fecondary cause, ac cording to any mechanical law, is equally certain: for though Nature may produce life in a foetus predisposed

difpofed according to the established order, it cannot produce life in a dead body, in which every difpofi tion to life is extinct, and which is tending to pu trefaction. The miracle therefore may be confidered as refulting from two facts, which are natural, anḍ thefe facts must be known, as all others are, by tefti mony.

That Mofes did exift; that he conducted the children of Ifrael from Egypt; that he taught the ceremonies and rites of the Jewish worship; that he afsumed the whole tribe of Levi as minifters of religion, and confined the office of high Prieft to Aaron and his pofterity exclufively, are facts of public notoriety, which the whole Jewish nation at all times believed, and which they continue to believe, and which the whole Christian world believes; no fact either ancient or modern is better eftablished. That he wrought the most stupendous prodigies in Egypt, and during the space of forty years in the wilderness, is believed in the fame manner, a particular' defcription of these prodigies is contained in the very books, which defcribe the rites and ceremonies of their religion, the public laws of the land, by which all judicial proceedings were determined, the authentic records of all their rights and poffeffions; thefe books were written and published at the very time in prefence of an army of fix hundred and fifty thousand fighting inen, and an immenfe body of people, who were witnesses to these prodigies, without any contradiction or fufpicion of deception; thefe books were then given to the public minifters of religion, and to all the Elders of Ifrael, with an exprefs order, that on the feventh year at the great feftival of the Tabernacles, when all the people were affembled, men, wo men, and children, they fhould be read in their hearing, "that," faid Mofes, Deut. 31, Chap. "hearing

they

may learn and fear the Lord your God." And as it was impoffible for Mofes to impofe on fuch a body of people, and perfuade them to believe that they had feen all the prodigies which were wrought, if they had not feen them; that they had feen the earth open and devour Cori, Dathan and Abiron, the fire iffue. from the Tabernacle and confume two hundred and fifty men, the accomplices of their crime, that they themselves had been forty years in the defert, that their cloaths were not worn, nor their fhoes grown old ¿ that they did not eat bread nor drink wine nor beer: Deut. 29 Chap. 1 v. The immenfe number of copies given to the Levites and all the Elders with this order. to have them read in prefence of all the people on the feventh year precluded every poffibility of deception and interpolation in future,

A differtation on the miracles wrought by Mofes, by Joshua, and the other Prophets, in defence of each in particular, is totally unneceffary they all tend to the fame end, that is, to establish the truths of revealed religion, to infpire fublime ideas of the God, whom we adore, and enforce obedience to his precepts. No contradiction, no difcordance, though wrought at different periods of time, in different countries, and by different men, they have all the fame tenden cy; their coincidence forms a fort of proof against which impiety declaims in vain.

That fome have been deceived is admitted; that fome impoftors have fuppofed miracles intentionally to deceive others, is equally true; but that of all the miracles related by Mofes and the Prophets not one. has been real; that of all thefe Prophets fo eminent for piety, not one has been fincere; that all the wit nesses who attefted, and all the men of fcience who believed them, have been impoftors or dupes is an afferwhich furpaffes impudence, which no man would

tion,

dare

dare to make, who has any remains, not fimply of modefty, but even of common sense or common honesty; and if it be admitted that any one of these miracles was wrought, impiety falls defencelefs because it is impoffible that God by an immediate effect of his Almighty Power should attest a falfehood.

But after all, fays the Deift, if Pharaoh and the Egyptians faw the Prodigies wrought by Mofes why did they not believe them? Why did they perfift in refufing to permit the Children of Ifrael to depart?

66

The fpirit of intereft blinded them; the immenfe advantages, which they obtained from the labour and industry of a numerous people, which they could not prevail on themselves to renounce, whilft there was the inoft diftant hope or even poffibility of retaining them. This appears from the fupplications and promises to Mofes during the continuance of the public calamity, and their refusal to perform thefe promifes as foon as the calamity ceafed. "I have finned," faid Pharaoh, even now, the Lord is juft; I and my people are impious; pray to the Lord that the thunder and hail may ceafe," Exodus 9 Chap, 27 and 28 v. Yet after the ceflation of that terrible plague, the fpirit of intereft inducing them to believe that it might have been fome unusual accident he refufed to difmifs them, However after the death of the first born, "Pharoah calling Mofes and Aaron at night, fays, arife and de part from amongt my people, you and the Children of Ifrael; go and facrifice to your God as you fay and going blefs me: the Egyptians preffed the people to depart quickly, faying, we shall all die." Chap. 12, v. 31, yet fo great was the obftinacy of Pharaoh and his people, and fuch the blindness of understanding produced by the spirit of intereft and defire of domination, that notwithstanding all the calamities they had endured, when they faw the Chil

́dren

dren of Ifrael on their way, to return no more, they regretted the permiffion which had been extorted from them. "The King of the Egyptians was told that the people fled, and Pharaoh's heart and the heart of his fervants was changed, and they faid: what have we done to difmifs the Children of Ifrael from ferving us ? Exodus 14th Chap. 5th v.

1.

The obftinacy of the Egyptians was not greater than that of our modern Deifts, who, though they do not fee thefe prodigies in themfelves, as the Egyptians did, fee them in their effects, with an additional prodigy, which the Egyptians did not fee, à prodigy the more capable of convincing the underftanding, as it is fubject to no poffible illufion, that is, the converfion of the world according to the exprefs prediction of Jelus Chrift, and the literal accomplishment of many other propliecies contained in the New Teftament, and written at a time when every thing conspired to extinguish Chriftianity, when the doctrines of Chriflianity, and Chriftians themfelves, were in public exectation; if then the fpirit of pride and infidelity, blinds the Deift fo far as to induce kim to refuse his affent to truths established beyond the poffibility of doubt, by palpable évidence, manifeft as the Sun at mid-day, why fhould it appear fur. prifing, that the fame fpirit of infidelity, united to the spirit of intereft, blinded the Egyptians.

To fuppole that natural caufes, acting according to fmechanical laws, could produce the ftupendous prodigies related in the book of Exodus, and other books of the old law, is ridiculous in the extreme. Mofes lifts up the rod, which he held in his hand and im mediately a scorching wind blows a whole day and right, and in the morning, the wind collects and brings with it locufts in fuch numbers that they covered the furface of the ground, deftroying every