them in his history and to appeal to the whole nation for his veracity, if nothing had occurred beyond what may be accounted for by natural causes.

cano.

In this manner we may fairly argue, as a great writer has argued in the case of the fiery globes, which are acknowledged even by a pagan historian to have burst forth from the foundations of the temple in the days of Julian: in this manner (I say) we may fairly argue, even if we admit Sinai to have been a then active though now extinct volBut, according to the account given of that region by an intelligent traveller, there seem to be no grounds for adopting any such opinion. Without professing to have studied petralogy, I have yet always understood, that a volcanic district may be clearly ascertained, long after the extinction of its fires, by tufo, pumice, lava, obsidian, and (as some contend) basalt. Now, according to Mr. Niebuhr, the chain of mountains, to which Sinai belongs, are masses of a sort of limestone intermingled with reins of granite. In several places through them, he adds, I discovered a quantity of petrified shells, of a species, which is to be found with the living shell-fish in it in the Arabic gulf. One of those hills is entirely covered with flints. The granite becomes more and more plentiful, as we approach mount Sinai. Here then, if I mistake not, we have no indications of a volcanic region. Consequently, no part of the awful appearances, which presented themselves on the summit of the mount,

'Niebuhr's Trav. sect. vi. c. 5. p. 186.

and which were openly displayed before the whole multitude of the Israelites, can be satisfactorily ascribed to second causes: though, even if that could have been done, the whole transaction, as detailed in the public narrative of Moses, would not on that account have been the less miraculous.

5. It were easy to discuss the other miracles, which are recorded as having taken place during the abode of Israel in the wilderness, after the same manner as those which have been already considered but such a lengthened discussion, after the preceding observations, seems to be plainly superfluous. Instead therefore of prosecuting the subject with wearisome prolixity, I would rather point out a very remarkable peculiarity in the historical narrative of the Hebrew legislator.

The miracles, which it records, are not mere specious wonders, introduced for the purpose of decoration, and capable of being admitted or rejected at pleasure by one who generally acknowledges Moses to be a faithful writer in all ordinary leading facts on the contrary, they are so essentially necessary to the history itself, that without them the narrative stands still and is absolutely unable to proceed. We no way require the pretended appearance of the Dioscuri to secure the victory to a Roman general. The story will go on, and the battle will be won, just as well, if we deny the vision of the celestial cavaliers, as if we believe it. But this is not the case with the miracles, which Moses records as having occurred during the period in which he flourished. The Israel

ites are pursued by the Egyptians to a defile so circumstanced, that it was impossible for them to escape into the wilderness except by crossing a broad and deep arm of the sea. According to the history, a miracle was wrought, that their transit might be effected and by what other means shall we contrive to transport two millions of individuals, with their baggage and cattle, over a channel twelve miles broad and three fathoms deep? When arrived on the opposite shore, instead of making the best of their way to a fertile country, they plunge into the heart of the wilderness; where the entire nation remains forty years, where all who had come out of Egypt save a few excepted individuals die for the most part in the ordinary course of nature, and where an entirely new generation is born and brought up. According to the history, a standing miracle supplied them both with meat and with drink during the whole period of their abode in the desert and by what other expedient shall we manage to support such a multitude so circumstanced? If the narrative be admitted, the miracles must also be admitted: the two cannot be sepa rated from each other. Let us reject the miracles; and we shall find it absolutely necessary to reject, or at least to new-model, the narrative. But, if the history were written by Moses himself and publicly read to the whole people during his own life-time, a point already enough established; how could he persuade his contemporaries to receive unanimously, as an authentic account of their transactions, what was all the while a tissue of

fables, and what they themselves knew to be such?

II. Thus, partly from the now established position that the Pentateuch was written and made public in the days of Moses, and partly from the impossibility of the miracles recorded. being pretended miracles, we arrive at the conclusion, that his divine legation was supernaturally attested by the immediate finger of God.

The mission then of the Hebrew lawgiver possesses the evidence of undoubted miracles. But. undoubted miracles can be wrought only by a power specially derived from God. We may be certain however, that God would never enable a man to work real miracles for the purpose of establishing an imposture. Therefore from God must Moses have received both his power of working. miracles and his commission to reveal the will of heaven to the Israelites.

The sophism of a well-known infidel writer, as to the evidence afforded by miracles, has always appeared to me so puerile, as scarcely to merit a serious confutation. He argues, that, as experience is the basis of our knowledge, whatever testimony contradicts our experience cannot be admitted: because, by the law of evidence, it will always be more probable that the testimony should be false or erroneous, than that our experience should be contravened. But we can none of us say, that we have had absolute experience of a miracle: or, even if any individual or individuals should assert this to have been the case with themselves, their 2 B

VOL. I.

experience would contradict the universal experience of mankind. Therefore it is more likely, that any testimony to a miracle should be false or erroneous, than that universal experience should have been contravened by its occurrence.

It is not difficult to shew the futility of this quibble, even upon its own avowed principles.

If the secret of compounding gunpowder had perished by the accidental death of its discoverer, immediately after its extraordinary powers had been exhibited before a hundred competent witnesses; on the principles of the sophism now before us, the fact of its extraordinary powers must immediately be rejected as a manifest falsehood. For, that a small black powder should possess such powers, contradicts the universal experience of mankind. The attestation therefore of the hundred witnesses plainly contradicts universal experience. But it is more probable, that these hundred witnesses should be liars, than that the universal experience of mankind should be contravened. Therefore the pretended black powder possessed no such extraordinary powers, as those which these false witnesses would fain ascribe to it.

Now, if we try the miracles of the Hebrew lawgiver by the same rule, we shall find ourselves brought to the following alternative.

Since the Pentateuch was written and made public in the days of Moses, either the miracles there recorded must have been actually performed; or a vast multitude must have been persuaded to acknowledge, that they really beheld with their