resorting to every green tree-that they "were faithful found among the faithless." And so incalculably important was the preservation 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 reference 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 savours of the contrary admits, as we have seen, of easy explanation,) having ever forfeited their claim to this

high and glorious title; however, 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 ShechemJacob desires to satisfy himself of their welfare, and sends Joseph to inquire of

them and to bring him word again. Meanwhile they had driven further a-field to

Dothan, and Joseph, informed of this by a

him

man whom he found wandering in the country, followed them thither. They beheld him when he was yet afar off; his dress was remarkable,* 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 can be more art* Genesis, xxxvii. 3.

less than this story. Nothing can bear more indisputable 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."* Now this, though by no means an obvious incident to have sug

* Genesis, xxxvii. 25.

gested 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 having 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