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the heighth of it's glory, it is probable that literature,together with arts and Sciences,flourished, as they met with encouragement under those reigns; and David gives a high character of the law of God, which fuppofes him to have been well acquainted with it, seeing he had made it his meditation day and night; but if by the law of God be meant the law of Mofes in gross, then David feems to have carried the compliment much too high; or, at least, he must have differed greatly in his opinion from St. Peter and St. Paul, touching the excellency of that law. From Solomon's time, down to the Babylonish captivity, as the glory of the Jewish nation decreased, fo they grew ignorant, and knew very little of their law; nor could the cafe well be otherwife, feeing the book of the law (by which, I fuppofe, must be meant the Pentateuch) was kept as a facred treafure in the house of God; to which, of course, none could have accefs but the high-prieft only. At the time of king Jofab's reign, it seems to appear, that there was but one copy or book of the law then in being; which, according to the hiftory, had not been fought to for a long time, as it lay concealed in the temple, and was accidentally

found

found by Hilkiah the high-prieft. And as, at that time, and, perhaps, at all times preceding, as well as the times that immediately followed, (till after the Babylonish captivity, when literature and a more general knowledge of what they esteemed to be their law took place among the Jews) the people had no copies of the Pentateuch put into their hands; fo it must have been very easy to have altered or corrupted those books, without a poffibility of a difcovery; and this of neceffity leffens the authority of the Pentateuch, and fhews it to be a foundation much too weak to build things of importance upon, fo as to render it a folid foundation of our faith. Besides, when the Jews were carried captive to Babylon, and their city and temple were deftroyed, it is not unlikely that the book of their law fhared the fame fate, and was destroyed with them, according to what Ezra or Efdras has declared concerning it, 2 Efdras xiv. 21. for the law is burnt, therefore no man knoweth the things that are (or have been) done of thee, or the works that shall begin (or will be.) And as the book of the law, according to Efdras, was burnt; fo, according to him, that injury was repaired by Sarea, Dabrea, Sele

mia, Ecanus and Afiel, who, in forty days, wrote two hundred and four books for the ufe of the Jews. But fuppofing the book of the law was not burnt, but was taken with all the veffels of the house of God great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treafures of the King and of his princes, and was carried with these to Babylon, 2 Chronicles xxxvi. 18. then this book must have been in a most ungarded ftate, and must have been greatly expofed to danger, that is, to, corruption and alteration. From what I have obferved, I think, it appears, how little certainty we can attain to, with regard to the genuineness of the pentateuch; and confequently, with refpect to the truth of the facts that are related in it.

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AND, as to that familiarity and friendfhip which, in the pentateuch, is reprefented to have taken place betwixt God and the Jewish patriarchs, fuch as the Deity's affuming human shape, and then eating and drinking, walking and talking with Abraham; his frequently converfing with, and covering Mofes's face with his hand, and fhewing his back parts to Mofes, and the like; to apply fuch appearances and fuch fa

miliarity

miliarity to the fupreme Deity, to that immenfity who is equally present in every part of infinite space, in the fame manner, kind and degree; I fay, that the one God over all fhould exercife fuch freedom, fuch familiarity, with Abraham, Mofes, &c. as aforefaid, this is what an attentive mind cannot go easily into the belief of; and therefore, it cannot be admitted but with difficulty. If it should be faid, that the person who appeared to and converfed with Abraham, Mofes, &c. was not the fupreme God himfelf, but his angel. To this it may be anfwered, that what or whomfoever the perfon was who appeared to Abraham, &c. he affumed or took to himself the file or title of the God of Abraham, the God of Ifaac and the God of Jacob; as in Exodus iii. 6, 16. which agent or perfon, I think, was ever after confidered by the Jews to be their God, or the God of Ifrael. I fay, the Jews confidered their God, or the God of Ifrael, to be the fame being, agent, or person who was the God of their fathers, who had ap'peared to and converfed with Abraham in the plains of Mamre and elsewhere ; and who had likewife converfed with Mofes and other of their patriarchs, and had bound

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himself

himself by promise and oath to them; and therefore, if that being or person who had treated with the Jewish patriarchs, as aforefaid, was not the fupreme God; then, the confequence is clear, that the God of Ifrael was not the fupreme Deity, but only fome tutelar fubordinate God, confonant to the Pagan theology. Befides, the conduct of the God of Ifrael, in many inftances, such as his commiffioning the people of Ifrael to extirpate the Canaanites, putting men, women and children to death, and to poffefs themselves of their country and habitations; his giving a bloody commiffion to Saul to deftroy the Amalekites root and branch; and the like; these inftances of cruelty will not comport with the juft and proper moral character of the fupreme Deity; and therefore, furely, are not to be placed to his account. From what I have obferved, I think, it appears, that the Jewish revelation, in the grofs (whatever may be the cafe of fome particular branches of it) cannot well be admitted as divine, without offering fome kind of violence to the human mind.

As to the MAHOMETAN revelation, I acknowledge that I know but little of it, nor do I think myself obliged to seek after it';

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