attestation of this fact, after reciting these commandments:* "These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the "mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the "thick darkness, with a great voice, and he added no more."

Equally signal was the miraculous nature of the punishment inflicted on Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Had the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up without any previous notice on the part of Moses, and had this been afterwards ascribed by him to a divine interference for the punishment of his enemies, some shadow of objection might have been advanced. But what can we say, when before the event, on Korah's, Dathan's, and Abiram's resistance to the authority of Moses and Aaron, we find Moses telling Korah, "Be thou and all thy company before the "Lord, thou and they, and Aaron to-morrow?" On to-morrow they gather all the congregation unto the door of the tabernacle. On the warning of Moses, the people got up from the tents of these rebels on every side; Dathan and Abiram stand in the doors of their tents with their families, in defiance of Moses, and he pronounces this awful sentence:+ "Hereby ye shall know that the "Lord hath sent me to do all these works: for I have not done "them of mine own mind. But if the Lord make a new thing, and "the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit, then "shall ye understand that these men have provoked the Lord. "And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: they, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into "the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and there went out a "fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty "men that offered incense." What human power could thus command the earth and the heavens to unite in executing instantaneous vengeance on these rebels, who despised that God, whose interference to secure obedience to his legislator, they had so often seen? An authority, the opposition to which was thus fearfully punished by the God of nature, was assuredly divine.

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And to close this enumeration; the passage by Joshua over Jordan was assuredly as miraculous as any of the facts which we have recounted; it was not an accidental occurrence, magni

Deut. v. particularly 22, 23.

Numb. xvi. particularly 28, &c.

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fied into a miracle. * Joshua said unto the people, "Sanctify "yourselves, for to-morrow the Lord will do wonders among you." And on the morrow he said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive "out from before you the Canaanites, &c Behold, the ark of "the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth before you "into Jordan. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles "of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord "of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the "waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come "down from above, and they shall stand upon an heap." To make this miracle more signal, the river was then naturally most impassable; for, says the sacred historian, "Jordan overfloweth all "his banks all the time of harvest. And it came to pass, when "the feet of the priests that bore the ark, were dipped in the brim "of the water, that the waters which came down from above "stood, and rose up 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 ark of the Covenant of the Lord, stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, until all the people were "passed clean over Jordan." It requires no argument to prove this fact miraculous. It was not accidental, or it could not have been foreseen. It was not natural, for the river was at its height; and the waters that had been descending stood on a heap. It was not the effect of art, for any artificial alteration of the channel the people must have known; and besides, the effect would not have been instantaneous.

On the whole, may we not conclude certainly; that no sucn facts as these could have been imposed upon any nation, at the time they are said to have taken place: and that if they took place, they were assuredly miraculous?

Let us next consider, whether it is credible, that the belief of these facts could have been introduced at any period subsequent to the supposed time of their existence, if they had never really taken place. Now we assert this is impossible. Because not only public monuments were preserved, but many publi institutions and cere

* Josh. iii.

monies were constantly performed amongst the Jews, in memory of the facts thus publicly wrought; and these monuments and observances state themselves to have been instituted, and to have commenced at the very time when these facts took place. To prove this, we must again resort to the narrative of the Pentateuch. But the proof may be brief, for the fact is notorious.

We find then many public memorials of the most signal miracles, not only in the names given to the places where they had been wrought, from the event and at the time, but in sensible objects and monuments set up at the moment the miracles had taken place, and constantly preserved with the most religious reverence. Thus the tables of stone in the ark, were a monument of the miraculous deliverance of the Law of Sinai : the vessel of manna, of the miraculous food in the wilderness: Aaron's rod that budded, and the censer of Korah and his company formed into large plates for covering the altar, were a memorial to the children of Israel of their offence, and miraculous punishment.* The Brazen Serpent, by looking on which God ordered the people should be healed of the bites inflicted by the serpents in the wik derness, was preserved even to the days of king Hezekiah.†

Thus also twelve stones were taken out of the midst of Jordan, at the time of the miraculous passage over it, and set up by Joshua at Gilgal, as a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever. How irresistible is the reasoning of Leslie on this last monument: "To form our argument," says he, "let us "suppose that there never was any such thing as that passage over Jordan; that these stones at Gilgal were set up on some "other occasion, in some after age: and then that some de"signing man invented this book of Joshua, and said it had "been written at that time, and gave this stonage at Gilgal for "a testimony of its truth. Would not every body say to him, "We know the stonȧge at Gilgal, but we never before heard "of this reason, nor of this book of Joshua. Where has it "been all this time; and when, and how came you, after so "many ages to find it? Besides, this book tells us, that after "this passage over Jordan, it was ordained to be taught our "children from age to age, and therefore, that they were always

* Vide Heb. ix. 4. Exod. xvi. 33. Numb. xvii. 3. and 10, and xvi. 39. Vide Numb. xxi, and 2 Kings, xviii.

Vide Leslie's Short Method with the Deists, p. 16, in the 3d edit. Dublin, 1758.

"to be instructed in the meaning of this monument.

But we

were never taught it, nor did we ever teach our children any "such event. Thus impossible would it be to gain credit for a "fact thus circumstanced, after the period when it was supposed "to take place; and surely at the time it would be as strange "such a fact should gain credit, as that all the inhabitants of "London should be persuaded that any man had divided the "Thames, and let them pass through it at noon-day on dry "ground, the waters standing in a heap. How is it possible to suppose such a fact, or the memorial of such a fact, should gain "credit in any age or nation, if unsupported by reality?"

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But we have still stronger proofs, that the belief of the miracles on which the Jewish Law was supported, could never have been imposed upon the nation at any subsequent age, from the very nature of their religion and government, and the meaning and purport of almost all their rites and institutions. These were confessedly cotemporary with Moses, commencing at the very time the miracles are supposed to have been wrought; and were so directly and clearly commemorative of them, and it may be truly said, we have two histories of Moses. and his miracles; one in the books which bear his name, the other engraved in the laws and ceremonies of the Jews; the practice of which is, as it were, a living witness, not only of the general history of the Pentateuch, but of the most signal miracles which it contains. A few instances will prove this

beyond dispute.

The tribe of Levi was set apart,* not merely for the service of religion, but in memory of the miraculous destruction of the first-born in Egypt. For the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, +"Behold, I, even I, have taken the Levites from amongst the "Children of Israel, instead of all the first-born; for all the "first-born are mine: for on the day that I smote all the first"born in the land of Egypt, I hallowed unto me all the first-born “in Israel, both man and beast: mine shall they be: I am the

* Vide Exod. xiii. compared with Numb. iii, and viii. particularly Numb. iii. from ver. 40 to end.

I beg leave to call my reader's attention to one circumstance, connected with this separation of the Levites for the first-born of the Children of Israel, which (as it seems to me) it is scarcely to be conceived, any thing but reality could have suggested to the mind of any writer; or that any writer but an eye-witness of the

"Lord." And this separation of the Levites for the first-born of men, and this consecration of all the first-born of the flocks, and of the herds, as devoted to God, was not an institution for which this singular reason was arbitrarily assigned at a remote period from its original, when the true reason might be forgotten; but it was assigned at the time it took place, to be perpetually recorded as its true cause. "It shall be," saith the Lord, "when thy son asketh thee in time to come, What is this? thou "shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us "out from Egypt, and slew all the first-born in Egypt, both of

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man and beast: therefore I sacrifice unto God all the first-born "of beasts, but the first-born of my children I redeem.”*

event, would have thought of recording. On the destruction of the first-born of the Egyptians. "God spake unto Moses, (Exod. xiii. 1.) saying, Sanctify unto me all the "first-born among the Children of Israel, both of man and beast it is mine." We are afterwards told, that in about fourteen months after this, "The Lord spake unto "Moses, (Numb. iii. 11.) saying, And I, behold, I have taken the Levites from "among the Children of Israel, instead of all the first-born among the children of "Israel: therefore the Levites shall be mine; because all the first-born are mine: for "on the day that I smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, I hallowed unto me "all the first-born in Israel, both man and beast: mine they shall be: I am the Lord." The importance of this general fact, in proof of the miracle thus commemorated I have noticed in this Lecture; and this statement of the general substitution of the Levites for the first born is, I conceive, the only circumstance which any historian, not an immediate eye-witness, would have thought of recording. But we are shortly after told, that Moses was cominanded to number all the males of the Levites from a month old and upwards; and that they were found to amount to 22,000. He is then commanded to number all the first-born of the males of the Children of Israel, and to "take the Levites instead of all the first-born among the Children of Israel, and the "cattle of the Levites instead of all the firstlings among the cattle of the Children of "Israel." On thus numbering them, the first-born males of the Children of Israel were found to amount to 22,273; and we are told, (Numb. iii. 46,) that the Lord commanded Moses, "For those that are to be redeemed of the two hundred and "threescore and thirteen of the first-born of the Children of Israel, which are more "than the Levites; thou shalt even take five shekels apiece by the poll, after the "shekel of the Sanctuary shalt thou take them (the shekel is twenty gerahs:) and thou "shalt give the money wherewith the odd number of them is to be redeemed, unto "Aaron, and to his sons. And Moses took the redemption-money of them that were " over and above them that were redeemed by the Levites: of the first-born of the "Children of Israel took he the money; a thousand, three hundred, and three-score "and five shekels, after the shekel of the Sanctuary. And Moses gave the money of "them that were redeemed unto Aaron and to his sons, according to the word of the "Lord, as the Lord commanded Moses." Now, on this narrative I ask, could any thing but REALITY have suggested such a circumstance? Would any but an EYEWITNESS have recorded it.

*Exod. xiii. 14 and 15.