as they are qualified to yield for the determination of causes must follow an acquaintance with their effects. "Besides, if it be granted that Moses was an inspired lawgiver, it becomes impossible to suppose that he wrote a fabulous account of the creation and fall of man, and delivered it as a divine revelation, because that would have been little, if at all, short of blasphemy; we must therefore believe this account to be true, or that it was declared and understood by the people, to whom it was addressed, to be allegorical. No such declaration was ever made; nor is there any mention of such an opinion being generally prevalent among the Jews in any early writing. The Rabbis indeed, of later times, built a heap of absurd doctrines upon this history; but this proves, if it proves any thing, that their ancestors ever understood it as a literal and true account: and, in fact, the truth of every part of the narrative contained in the book of Genesis is positively confirmed by the constant testimony of a people, who preserved a certain unmixed genealogy from father to son, through a long succession of ages and by these people we are assured, that their ancestors ever did believe that this account, as far as it fell within human cognizance, had the authority of uninterrupted tradition from their first parent Adam, till it was written by the inspired pen of Moses."

Further, in addition to the collateral testimony, already adduced,3 to the credibility and reality of the facts related in the first three chapters of the book of Genesis, that there are numerous incidental references, in the Old and New Testament, to the creation, temptation, and fall of our first parents, which clearly prove that they were considered as acknowledged FACTS, not requiring proof, and handed down from primitive tradition. Of these we select the following instances, out of very many which might have been cited:

1: Allusions to the creation.-Psal. xxxiii. 9. He SPAKE, and it was done; he COMMANDED, and it stood fast. This is manifestly an allusion to Gen. i. 3. et seq. - Psal. xxiv. 2. He (Jehovah) hath founded it (the earth) upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. -2 Pet. iii. 5. By the word of the Lord the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water. In these two passages, the sacred writers allude to Gen. i. 6. 9. - 2 Cor. iv. 6. GOD, who COMMANDED LIGHT to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face (rather person) of Jesus Christ. Here St. Paul alludes to Gen. i. 3. in so specific a manner, that it is impossible not to perceive the designed reference. From Eccl. vii. 29. and Eph. iv. 24. compared with Col. iii. 10. and James iii. 9. we learn, that the divine image in which man is said to have been created is the moral image of God, viz. uprightness or righteousness, true holiness, and knowledge. And the creation of our first parents related as fact in Gen. i. 27, 28., is explicitly mentioned as a real fact by our Lord, in Matt. xix. 4. and Mark x. 6., as also by the apostle Paul. Compare 1 Cor. xi. 9.

a

1 Penn's Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies, p. 140. In pp. 142-243. there is an elaborate examination and vindication of the literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis.

2 Bishop Tomline's Elements of Christ. Theol. vol. i. p. 64.

3 See Vol. I. pp. 161–166.

2. Allusions to the temptation and fall of our first parents, which are related in Gen. iii. Job xxxi. 33. If I covered my transgressions like Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom. Matt. xxv. 44. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. — John viii. 44. Ye are of your father the devil, and the works of your father ye will [rather, wish to] do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it. — 1 Tim. ii. 14. Adam was first formed, then Eve and Adam was not deceived: but the woman having been deceived, was in the transgression. 1 Cor. xi. 3. The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty. - 1 John iii. 8. that committeth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

The reality of the facts recorded in the first three chapters of the book of Genesis, was acknowledged by the Jews who lived previously to the time of Christ. Vestiges of this belief are to be found in the apocryphal books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. God created man to be immortal, and made him an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy of the devil, came death into the world, and they that hold of his side do find it. (Wisd. ii. 23, 24.) Wisdom, (that is, the eternal Son of God) preserved the first formed father of the world, who was created alone; and brought him out of his fall (by the promised seed of the woman), and gave him power to rule all things. (x. 1, 2.) — Of the woman came the beginning of sin; and through her we all die. (Ecclus. xxv. 24.)

If words have any meaning, surely the separate and independent testimonies, here collected together, prove that the Mosaic narrative is a relation of real facts. To consider the whole of that narrative as an allegory "is not only to throw over it the veil of inexplicable confusion, and involve the whole Pentateuch in doubt and obscurity, but to shake to its very basis Christianity, which commences in the promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent.' In reality, if we take the history of the fall in any other sense than the obvious literal sense, we plunge into greater perplexities than ever. Some well-meaning pious commentators have indeed endeavoured to reconcile all difficulties, by considering some parts of the Mosaic history in an allegorical, and other parts in a literal sense; but this is to act in a manner utterly inconsistent with the tenor and spirit of that history, and with the views of a writer, the distinguishing characteristics of whose production are simplicity, purity, and truth. There is no medium nor palliation; the whole is allegorical, or the whole is literal."

In short, the book of Genesis, understood in its plain, obvious, and literal sense, furnishes a key to many difficulties in philosophy, which would otherwise be inexplicable. Thus it has been reckoned a great difficulty to account for the introduction of fossil shells into the bowels of the earth: but the scriptural account of the deluge explains

1 Maurice's History of Hindostan, vol. i. p. 8C8.

this fact better than all the romantic theories of philosophers.1 It is impossible to account for the origin of such a variety of languages in a more satisfactory manner than is done in the narrative of the confusion of tongues which took place at Babel. (Gen. xi. 1-9.) And although some futile objections have been made against the chronology of this book, because it makes the world less antient than is necessary to support the theories of some modern self-styled philosophers: yet even here, as we have already shown by an induction of particulars, the more rigorously it is examined and compared with the extravagant and improbable accounts of the Chaldæan, Egyptian, Chinese, and Hindoo chronology, the more firmly are its veracity and authenticity established. In fine, without this history, the world would be in comparative darkness, not knowing whence it came, nor whither it goeth. In the first page of this sacred book, a child may learn more in an hour, than all the philosophers in the world learned without it in a thousand years.

SECTION III.

ON THE BOOK OF EXODUS.

I. Title.-II. Author, and date. III. Occasion and subject-matter. -IV. Scope.-V. Types of the Messiah.- VI. Synopsis of its Contents. VII. Remarks on the Plagues inflicted upon the Egyp

tians.

I. THE title of this book is derived from the Septuagint version, and is significant of the principal transactions which it records, namely, the EZOAOE, EXODUS, or departure of the Israelites from Egypt. By the Jews, and in the Hebrew copies, it is termed

Ve-ALEH SHEMOTH, "these are the words," from the initial words of the book, or sometimes merely Shemoth. It comprises a history of the events that took place during the period of 145 years, from the year of the world 2369 to 2514 inclusive, from the death of Joseph to the erection of the tabernacle. Twenty-five passages, according to Rivet, are quoted from Exodus by our Saviour and his apostles in express words; and nineteen allusions to the sense are made in the New Testament.

II. That Moses was the author of this book we have already shown, though the time when it was written cannot be precisely determined. As, however, it is a history of matters of fact, it was doubtless written after the giving of the law on Mount Sinai and the erecting of the tabernacle: for things cannot be historically related until they have actually taken place, and the author of this book was evidently an eye and ear-witness of the events he has narrated.

III. Moses having, in the preceding book, described the creation. of the world, the propagation of the nations, and the origin of the

church, now comes, in the book of Exodus, to describe the state and condition of the church, as collected out of several families, and united into one body politic or society, the head of which was Jehovah; on which account, the government of the Hebrews, from the time of Moses to the institution of royalty among them, has been termed a theocracy. Accordingly, the book of Exodus records the cruel persecution of the Israelites in Egypt under Pharaoh-Rameses II.; the birth, exposure, and preservation of Moses; his subsequent flight into Midian, his call and mission to Pharaoh-Amenophis II.; the miracles performed by him and by his brother Aaron; the ten plagues also miraculously inflicted on the Egyptians; the institution of the passover, and the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt; their passage across the Red Sea, and the destruction of the Egyptian army; the subsequent journeyings of the Israelites in the desert, their idolatry, and frequent murmurings against God; the promulgation of the law from Mount Sinai, and the erection of the tabernacle.

IV. The scope of Exodus is to preserve the memorial of the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and to represent the church of God, afflicted and preserved, the providential care of God towards her; and the judgments inflicted on her enemies. It plainly points out the accomplishment of the divine promises and prophecies delivered to Abraham, that his posterity would be very numerous (compare Gen. xv. 5. xvii. 4-6. and xlvi. 27. with Numb. i. 1-3. 46.); and that they would be afflicted in a land not their own, whence they should depart in the fourth generation with great substance. (Gen. xv. 13-16. with Exod. xii. 35. 40, 41.) Further, in Israel passing from Egypt through the Red Sea, the Wilderness, and Jordan, to the promised land, this book adumbrates the state of the church in the wilderness of this world, until her arrival at the heavenly Canaan, an eternal rest. St. Paul, in 1 Cor. x. 1., &c. and in various parts of his Epistle to the Hebrews, has shown that these things prefigured, and were applicable to, the Christian church. A careful study of the mediation of Moses will greatly facilitate our understanding the mediation of Jesus Christ.

V. TYPES OF THE MESSIAH are, Moses; (compare Deut. xviii. 15.) Aaron; (Heb. iv. 14-16. v. 45.)-the Paschal Lamb; (Exod. xii. 46. with John xix. 36. and 1 Cor. v. 7, 8.)—the Manna; (Exod. xvi. 15. with 1 Cor. x. 3.)-the Rock in Horeb; (Exod. xvii. 6. with 1 Cor. x. 4.)-the Mercy Seat; (Exod. xxxvii. 6. with Rom. iii. 25. Heb. iv. 16.)- the Tabernacle; (Exod. xl. with John i. 14. Gr.)

VI. By the Jews the book of Exodus is divided into eleven parasches or chapters, and twenty-nine siderim or sections in our Bibles it is divided into forty chapters, the contents of which are exhibited in the annexed synopsis :

PART I. Account of the transactions previously to the departure of the Israelites from Egypt.

SECT. 1. The oppression of the children of Israel. (ch. i.)
SECT. 2. The youth and transactions of Moses. (ch. ii.—vi.}

SECT. 3. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart, and the infliction of the ten plagues. (ch. vii.-xi.)

PART II. The narrative of the departure of the Israelites. (ch. xii. -xiv.)

PART III. Transactions subsequent to their Exodus. (ch. xiv.-xl.) SECT. 1. The miraculous passage of the Red Sea, and the thanksgiving of Moses and the people of Israel, on their deliverance from Pharaoh and his host. (ch. xiv. xv. 1—22.)

SECT. 2. Relation of various miracles, wrought in behalf of the Israelites. (ch. xv. 23-27. xvi. xvii.)

SECT. 3. The arrival of Moses's wife and children with Jethro. (ch. xviii.)

PART IV. The promulgation of the law on Mount Sinai.

SECT. 1. The preparation of the people of Israel by Moses, for the renewing of the covenant with God. (ch. xix.)

SECT. 2. The promulgation of the moral law. (ch. xx.)
SECT. 3. The judicial law. (ch. xxi.—xxiii.)

SECT. 4. The ceremonial law, including the construction and erection of the tabernacle. (ch. xxv.-xxxi. xxxv.-xl.) In ch. xxxii.-xxxiv. are related the idolatry of the Israelites, the breaking of the two tables of the law, the divine chastisement of the Hebrews, and the renewal of the tables of the covenant. VII. The circumstances attending the plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians are fully considered by Mr. Bryant in his learned Treatise on this subject (8vo. London, 1810,) from which the following particulars are abridged. As many of the Israelites were followers of the idolatry that surrounded them, these miracles were admirably adapted to display the vanity of the idols and false gods, adored by their oppressors, the proud and learned Egyptians.

1. By the first plague, Water turned into blood (Exod. vii. 14 -25.) was demonstrated the superiority of Jehovah over their imaginary river-gods, and the baseness of the elements which they reverenced. The Nile was religiously honoured by the Egyptians, who valued themselves much upon the excellency of its waters and esteemed all the natives of the river as in some degree sacred. The Nile was turned into blood, which was an object of peculiar abhorrence to the Egyptians.

2. In the plague of frogs (Exod. viii. 1-15.) the object of their idolatrous worship, the Nile, was made an instrument of their punishment. Frogs were deemed sacred by the Egyptians; but whether from reverence or abhorrence is uncertain. By this plague, the waters of the Nile became a second time polluted, and the land was equally defiled.

3. The plague of lice (Exod. viii. 16-19.) reproved the absurd superstition of the Egyptians, who thought it would be a great profanation of the temple into which they were going, if they entered it with any animalculæ of this sort upon them. The people, and particularly the priests, never wore woollen garments, but only linen, because linen is least apt to produce lice. The judgment, inflicted by Moses in this plague was so proper, that the priests and magicians immedi