must be embraced as true, unless we are content to acknowledge that Moses acted under a divine revelation, and that the people for whom he framed his laws had personal proof of his delegated authority. Can any thing be less consistent with true philosophy than to see an unquestionable phænomenon before our eyes, and yet to reject the only account that is offered, or can be offered, for its solution?

The point, therefore, of the existence of an historical record declaring the fact of the creation, has all the force of moral certainty. And the nature of the case admits of no other than moral evidence. It cannot be a matter capable of demonstration, that Moses received communications from heaven. Neither can we receive the sensible proofs of the fact, which were manifested to the Hebrews themselves when they surrounded Mount Sinai. But the sources which are open to us, and which terminate in this moral certainty, are of the most unexceptionable nature. They are almost independent of direct human testimony: they are not founded on tradition or uncertain annals; but the evidence they

furnish is derived from the internal nature and genius of the law and writings themselves, when brought into comparison with the genius of other writings, and nature of other laws. The force of this species of evidence may appear different to different readers but all must allow that it is less than other historical evidence subject to falsification or error.

CHAPTER IV.

Conclusions from the foregoing Argument.

Ir only remains to review the steps we have passed, and to bring into sight the conclusion to which they have gradually led us.

It first appeared from metaphysical reasoning, that something must have existed from eternity; and that it is absurd to suppose that something to have been the material world.

It was next briefly observed, that we should violate all the rules of probability and all the philosophical principles by which we are accustomed to form our judgment and direct our inquiries, if we referred the various instances of design with which the world confessedly abounds, to any chance or accidental concurrence of circumstances, or to any other cause than the agency of an Intelligent Contriver.

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From our own existence therefore, or that of the material world, we are brought to the knowledge of a Creator; and from the proofs of design in our own persons, or in the universe, we farther derive a conviction of the intelligence of the Crea

tor.

The brief statement of these arguments, drawn from the constitution of the world, led the way to an inquiry, whether no historical record had been preserved of an event in which mankind are so nearly interested as the creation. And the result has proved to be a moral certainty, that the Creator did originally reveal himself to the patriarchs of the human race, and afterwards caused a mode of government and a form of religion to be instituted, which should commemorate the creation of the world, and preserve the worship of the Creator.

Thus we have demonstrative evidence declaring a fact that cannot be rejected without absurdity, and analogical evidence accumulated to the highest degree, declaring that same fact probable, which histo

rical testimony records: historical testimony so strong from internal and collateral evidence, that if it stood alone and unsupported, and concerned the most improbable fact, we could not consistently reject it as long as we admit any other recorded history; but which demands immediate and unqualified assent, when it confirms and is mutually confirmed by the deductions of our reason and the analogy of our experience: all concurring to prove that the world we inhabit was created by a selfexistent and intelligent Being.

Whether a fact which is supported by

this accumulated evidence, is one that ought to bind the belief and influence the practice of mankind, will hardly be thought a reasonable question by those who consider the nature of evidence in general, and of that evidence upon which mankind are accustomed habitually to act and depend. The evidence throughout is not certainly of such a nature, that it cannot be denied without a contradiction. But what evidence is of this nature? Our own existence, of which we are intuitively conscious, and the abstract proposition derived from our con