can be given that one wrote Paradise Lost, and the other his Principia, than that they themselves declare it, and which were received as such at the time by the whole English nation? It is expressly said, Deut. xxxi. 9. 24, 25, 26. that Moses was the writer; and the books called the books of Moses, have not only been received as written by him, by the whole nation of the Jews down to the present day, but they were also acknowledged as such by the universal consent of all those ancient writers who lived nearer his time ;-Sanchoniathon, Manethos, Berosus, and others, the historians, and poets, among the Phenicians, Egyptians, Chaldeans, and other nations, whose authentic memorials are still preserved. By Pythagoras and Plato, who travelled into Judea four hundred years before Christ; copied the books of Moses, and introduced a great part of them into their writings. Also Eumenius the Pythagorean, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Tacitus, Pliny, Juvenal, and Longinus; give testimony to the writings of the venerable penman, as to time, place, and circumstance. From all which it is as certain that the Pentateuch was written by Moses, as that Homer wrote the Iliad; Milton, Paradise Lost; Euclid, his Elements; or Newton, his Principia so that there can be no doubt in the mind of any impartial man, as to the genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch. Hence it appears that the evidence which has been brought forward on this ground, has had no other tendency than to establish the advocates of the Bible more firmly in the belief that he was the writer, by showing how extremely ignorant these men have been concerning the history, circumstances, manners, customs, and usages of the ancient Hebrews.

Many questions are asked by these objectors, and to the impartial reader, the answers as naturally may be given.

OBJECTION.

"Did God create light before the sun ?"

No; it is not said that God created light. It is said, God

is light, and in him is no darkness,

OBJECTION.

"How could he divide the light from the darkness, since darkness is nothing but the mere privation of light?"

ANSWER.

When God said, Let there be light, he sent the light from himself, which he embodied in the sun, and thus the sun from the first day of the creation, divided the light from the darkness.

OBJECTION.

"The account of the flood is very embarrassing. It is described as the effects of natural agents in the hands of God."

ANSWER.

But the creation of man is much more embarrassing than the account of the flood-nay, much more astonishing than any miracle whatever; and yet objectors are under a necessity of believing that the first man was created and as God does every thing which may to us appear miraculous, by natural agents, the creation of man, for ought we know, may also have been done by natural agents. It is said, I will affect the heavens, and the heavens shall affect the earth, and the earth shall affect the corn and wine, and the corn and wine shall affect Israel. That which appears to be miraculous to man, who is only possessed with finite powers, is no miracle to the Infinite, who by his plastic power, formal existence is produced in visible nature.

Therefore when the DEIST can inform us how the Creator produced the visible creation and the creation of man, which are the greatest of all miracles, and far more embarrassing than the flood, I also will remove his embarrassment concerning the flood, and concerning all the miracles mentioned in the Bible, which he has told us are naturally mpossible.

OBJECTION.

"In Genesis iii. 22, 23. 'And behold, the Lord God said, The man is become as one of us, (one of us Gods,) to know good and evil: and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.""

ANSWER.

This and the following passages are said by objectors to be "undeniable proofs of the stupidity of the Jews, and the gross ideas they had of God."

On this verse the DEIST reasons thus: "Is it consistent with a Deity to punish this pair, and all their progeny, for their attempt to know good from evil? We here find that the priests have made God expressly after their own image. God's selfishness prevented men from eating of the other tree, which would make him live for ever. Queritur: Then at what period of the world did the soul of man become immortal ?"

The French Deists, from this part of Scripture, declared that "Death was an eternal sleep." The translation, agreably to the Hebrew, obviates these objections, and shows that eternal life was given to man by that DIVINE BREATH WHICH CAN NEVER DIE. This most important passage truly and grammatically reads thus: Behold the man was like one of us, with knowledge of good and evil : therefore now surely he shall put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, yea he shall eat and live for ever.

OBJECTION.

"God said to Adam concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil, In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. He transgressed, and nevertheless, lived at least eight hundred years afterwards."

ANSWER.

But the history informs us that this death did not allude to the death of the body; in such case the design of the Creator, which was the production of the human race for

whom he had created the world, would have been frustrated at the very beginning. Adam was created in the perfection of the divine life, which divine life he lost by his transgression. Therefore by disobeying the divine command, he introduced a death to those holy passions with which he was created. The holy passions died; a death to righteousness and a life to sin, was the consequence.

OBJECTION.

"In the very first chapter of the whole volume, containing an account of the creation, we find an inexplicable difficulty. In Genesis i. 27, 28. we are told, that God created man, male and female, blessed them, and said unto them,' &c. But in ii. 20. we find that there was not an help meet for Adam; therefore, v. 18. God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone;' and v. 22. he made a woman, and brought her to the man,' are in opposition to each other."

ANSWER.

This statement appears inexplicable to the DEIST, but there certainly is nothing inexplicable in the whole narrative. The sacred historian begins the first chapter by saying the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and he proceeds to the end of the chapter, giving a general account of the procedure of the Creator, in the whole of the creation, ending with the sixth day. He then, in the first three verses of the second chapter, proceeds to inform us that, the creation being finished, the seventh day was to be observed as a day of rest; and he describes the particulars of the days of creation, which in the first chapter he introduced generally. Thus in the 4th verse it is said, These are the generations of the heavens and the earth WHEN THEY WERE CREATED, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. In the following verse he begins to inform us what those generations of the heaven and the earth were, and referring to the time of the 11th verse of the 1st chapter, when the earth brought forth grass, he says, Every plant of the field before it was

in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew, This was a reference to the third day of the creation; and he concludes the verse thus: For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upm the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground: evidently that there was not a man created at this period referred to in the first chapter; viz. the third day of the creation. From which it will appear plain to the reader, that there is nothing inexplicable in these passages.

OBJECTION.

"In Genesis xii. 6. we find these words: And the Canaanite was then in the land. This implies another period when the Canaanite was not in the land, which we learn in the Bible did not happen till after David, and could not therefore be written by Moses."

ANSWER.

But we certainly have no such information in the Bible, that this refers to another period, when the Canaanite was not in the land, which, as these writers say, did not happen till after David. The Canaanite was in the land from the time of Canaan the son of Ham, from whom the Canaanites had their name, because he was the founder of the idolatry of his father in the land of Canaan.

In the former part of this verse it is said, And Abraham passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. This plain, or district of the country, then belonged to a person of the name of Moreh, who was a Canaanite. But the word Canaanite, does not here refer to the Canaanite as a people; the word in the original prefixed to Canaanite, is rendered by the, viz. the Canaanite: but it refers to the man Moreh, and should be rendered by the word that, viz. that Canaanite. Also the beth prefixed to erets, i. e. land, is a preposition: having respect to dignity of situation, and refers to Moreh, who in the time of Abraham was over, or governed that part of the country. See where the beth has the same meaning, Judges viii. 23.