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THE PENTATEUCH WRITTEN BY MOSES.

That the Pentateuch was written by Moses, is the voice of all antiquity. It has been all along, even to this day, the received opinion of both Jews• and Christians, that Moses, being commanded and inspired by God, wrote those books, which are called the Pentateuch, except only some particular passages, which were inserted afterwards by a divine direction, for the better understanding of the history.

We read, Exodus 24:4,7,8. that Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, which before that time had been delivered from mount Sinai, in a book, which is there called The Book of the Covenant. Afterwards, when God had added more precepts, he again commands Moses to write them, Exodus 34:27. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words; for after the tenor of these words have I made a covenant with thee and with Israel.” Near 40 years afterwards, Moses was commanded to write all the commands which God had given the people, and the revelations which he had made of himself to them, in a book, to be laid up by the side of the ark of the covenant, to be kept for a testimony against Israel. Deuteronomy 31:24-26. “And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.” And the original of this book of the law was in being, as we read expressly, till the times of Josiah; 2 Kings 22:and 2 Chronicles 34:and so, doubtless, till the captivity into Babylon, This book of the law, which Moses was thus commanded to lay up beside the ark, did not only comprehend those things, which were contained in some of those preceding chapters of Deuteronomy, wherein some things of the law were repealed; but the whole system of divine law, which God gave to the children of Israel, expressing the whole of the duty which God expected of them. This appears from Joshua 1:7,8.” Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe and do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded them; turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate on them day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein,” etc. And therefore the Levites, whom Jehoshaphat sent to teach the people le their duty, did not do it in any other way than out of tie book of the law. “And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the Lord with them, and went about, throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people.” (2 Chronicles 17:9.)

And then it is further evident, that the book of the law which we have an account of Moses’s committing to the Levites, to be laid up in the side of the ark, Deuteronomy 31 did not contain merely what had then lately been delivered in some preceding chapters of Deuteronomy; because in this book of the law were contained tbe precepts concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices, and the office and business of the priesthood; which are not contained so much in Deuteronomy as in Leviticus and Numbers, as appears from 2 Chronicles 23:18. “Also Jehoiada appointed the officers of the house of the Lord, by the hands of the nests, the Levites, whom David had distributed in the ouse of the Lord to offer the burnt-offering of the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses.” 2 Chronicles 35:12. Nehemiah 10:34,35,36. Haggai 2:11, etc. Joshua 8:31. Ezra 6:18. Nehemiah 8:14,15.2 Chronicles 30:5. and 31:3. And in the book of the law were contained not merely the precepts which God delivered to Moses, but the sanctions and enforcements of those laws, the promises and threatenings; as appears from Deuteronomy 29:20,21. “The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy, shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him; and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven; and the Lord shall separate him unto evil, out of all the tribes of israel, according to all the curses of the covenant, that are written in this book of the law. See also ver. 27. and Deuteronomy 28:61. “Also every plague, and every sickness, which is not written in the book of this law, will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.” See also 2 Kings 22:13,16,19. and parallel places in 2 Chronicles 34:Daniel 9:and Joshua 8:34,35. “And afterwards he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word, of all that Moses commanded, that Joshua read not.” See Psalm 105:8,9,10, And not only the promises and threatenings were contained in the book of the law, but all the revelations which God gave, which tended to enforce it, or which in any way related to it, and even the prophecies that were there contained of what should afterwards happen to the people on their sin or on their repentance. This appears from Nehemiah 1:8,9. “ Remember, I beseech thee the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them, though there were of You cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.”

And besides, we read of Moses being expressly commanded to write histories of the acts of the Lord towards his people, as well as of the revelations which he made to them. So he was commanded to write an account of the people’s war with Amalek, with its attendant circumstances, that posterity might see the reason of this perpetual war which God had declared against Amalek. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua; for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” (Exodus 17:14.)

Now a full account could not he given of this affair without relating much of the preceding history of Israel; for an account must he given in the writing of the reason and occasion of the children of Israel’s coming to the border of the Amalekites, and what was the cause of the discord and war which subsisted between them and Israel, which would take up no small part of the history of the book of Exodus.

Besides, we are expressly told that Moses wrote the journeys of the children of Israel by God’s command. Numbers 33:2. “And Moses wrote their goings-out according to their journeys, by the commandment of the Lord;” and is it reasonably to be supposed that he would write those for the use of the children of Israel in after-generations, and not write the great and mighty acts of the Lord towards that people in Egypt and at the Red sea, at mount Sinai, and in the wilderness, which were a thousand times more worthy of a record, and of being delivered down to posterity, than a mere journal of the people’s progress in the wilderness, without those mighty acts? It is every way incredible that Moses, of whom we so often read expressly that he wrote God’s commands, threatenings, promises, and revelations, and the early histories of mankind, that he should not write those great acts of the Lord, and leave a record of them with the congregation of Israel; especially when it is evident in fact that Moses was exceeding careful that they might not forget those great acts of the Lord in future generations. Deuteronomy 4:9,10,11. “Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thine heart all the days of thy life, but teach them thy sons,and thy sons, sons specially, the day when thou stoodest before the Lord thy God in Horeb,” etc, Here the very same orders are given for the keeping the acts of the Lord in the memory of posterity, as are given for the keeping up the memory of the precepts, chap. 6:7. and 11:18, 19. Job speaks of writing words in a book, as a proper mean to keep up the memory of them, and so does God to Isaiah.

Isaiah 30:8.” Now go write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.” Moses did not trust the precepts of God merely to oral tradition, he was sensible that that way only was not sufficient, though he gave such a charge to the people to teach their children; and the memory of the war with Amalek, when God saw it needful that it should be transmitted to posterity, was not trusted to oral tradition, but Moses was commanded to write it, that other generations might know it; and so the travels of the children of Israel, when they were thought of importance to be remembered, were not trusted to tradition, but a record was written to be transmitted. Very great care was taken that these acts should be remembered, in appointing monuments of them. Thus the passover was instituted as a perpetual monument or memorial of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and the beginning of the year was appointed as a memorial of it, and the first-horn sons were consecrated to God in memory of God’s slaying the first-born of Egypt. Certain laws were appointed about strangers and the poor.

Deuteronomy 24:17,18,22. and 16:11, 12. and 15:15. 16:12. Leviticus 25:42,55. and about bondmen in remembrance of their peregrination and bondage in Egypt. To suppose that such care should be taken lest the laws themselves should be forgotten, which were appointed for the very end of keeping up the memory of the fact, and that those laws should be written down; and yet that no care should be taken that the facts themselves should be so far remembered as to write them down, when the memory of the fact is supposed to be of so great importance, that the very being and remembrance of those laws is by the supposition subordinate thereto, the memory of the fact being the end both of the existence and of the memory of the laws, is absurd. In Nehemiah 13:1,2,3. a precept is cited, with a part of the history annexed as the reason of the law, and altogether is said to be read in the book of Moses. The manna was laid up as a monument of their manner of living in the wilderness, and God’s miraculous sustaining of the people there. The feast of tabernacles was to keep in remembrance the manner of their sojourning in the wilderness; as in Leviticus 23:43. Aaron’s rod that budded, was laid up as a memorial of the great things done by that rod in Egypt, at the Red sea, and in the wilderness, and particularly of the contest with Korah and his company, and the censers of the rebels kept and turned into broad plates for the covering of the altar, as a memorial of what happened in the matter of Korah, and the fire from heaven, was kept without ever going out, as a perpetual monument of its miraculous descent from heaven, and the occasion of it; and the brazen serpent was kept as a memorial of the plague of fiery serpents, and the miraculous healing of those that were bitten. The tabernacle that was built in the wilderness, was a monument of the great manifestations which God made of himself there, and the many things that came to pass relating to the building of the tabernacle. The two tables of stone kept in the ark were a monument of those great things which happened when they were given. The rest of the Jewish sabbath was appointed as a memorial of the deliverance of the children of Israel out of bondage. The laws concerning the Moabites and Ammonites were appointed as monuments; and the gold taken in the war with the Midianites was laid up for a monument of that war. Numbers 31:54. A great many places were named to keep in remembrance memorable facts in the wilderness; and who can think that all this care was taken to keep those things in memory, and yet no history be written to be annexed to these many monuments to explain them, by him by whose hand these monuments were appointed; and he, at the same time, so great a writer, and so careful to keep up the memory of events by writing, in those instances of the writing of which we have express mention?

Another instance of Moses’s great care that these great acts might not be forgotten, is his calling together the congregation to rehearse them over to them a little before his death, as we have an account in Deuteronomy. He also left some precepts wherein the children of Israel were required themselves from time to time to rehearse over something of the general history of their ancestors the patriarchs, of whom we have an account in Genesis; and so the history of the people from that time, as in the law of him that offered the first-fruits, Deuteronomy 26.

And we find that great care was taken to erect monuments of the great acts of God towards the people after Moses’s death, as of their passing through Jordan, though less memorable than some of those. And the fact that there were monuments expressly appointed to keep in memory so many of God’s acts in Moses’s time, and not of some others more memorable, is an argument that they had a history of them instead of monuments, as particularly of the children of Israel passing through the Red sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh and his hosts there. No act of God towards that people is more celebrated through the Scriptures than this; and yet we have no account of any monuments of it, or any ordinance expressly said to be appointed in memory of it, though there was a monument of their passing through Jordan, an event much like it, but less remarkable, and far less celebrated in Scripture. No account can be given of this, but that the history and song that Moses wrote and left in the book of the law, were monuments of it. Such was the care that was taken, that some of the acts of God towards the people might be remembered, that in appointing the monuments for their remembrance, it is expressed that it was for that end, that they might have it perpetually in mind as a token on their hand, and as frontlets between their eyes, as particularly in appointing the law of consecrating the first-born, to keep up the remembrance of God’s slaying the first-born of Egypt, Exodus 13:15,16. One of the laws or precepts themselves of the book of the law was, that the people should take heed never by any means to forget the great acts of God, which they had seen, and that they should not be forgotten by future generations, Deuteronomy 4:how unreasonable, then, is it to suppose that no history was annexed to those laws, and that at the same time that such a strict injunction of great care to keep up the memory of those things in future generations was given, they should yet be left without the necessary means of it! Again, another precept is, that they should not forget their own acts and behaviour from time to time, Deuteronomy 9:7, etc. See also chap. 8:14, 15, 16, etc. and chap. 5:15. So they are strictly required to remember their bondage in the land of Egypt, Deuteronomy 16:12. and chap. 24:18, 22. And also, to remember what God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt, all those great signs and wonders, and the manner of their deliverance out of Egypt, Deuteronomy 7:18,19. So they are strictly enjoined to remember all their travel, the way that they went, and the circumstances and events of their journey, Deuteronomy 8:2-5. and 14, to the end. And they are .charged to know God’s great acts in Egypt, and from time to time, in Deuteronomy 11:at the beginning. They are commanded to remember what God did to Miriam, Deuteronomy 24:9. Writing of those works of God that are worthy to be remembered and celebrated by praises to God, is spoken of as a proper way of conveying the memory of them to posterity for that end, in Psalm 102:18. “This shall be written for the generation to come, and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.” The importance of remembering these works of God related in the Pentateuch, is mentioned not only in the Pentateuch itself, but also in other parts of Scripture, as in “Remember his marvellous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth.” (Psalm 105:5.)

By the marvellous works which God has done, and his wonders, is meant those marvellous works that he did to Abraham and his seed, from the calling of Abraham to the bringing in of the people into Canaan, as appears from the following part of the psalm; and it is observable here that the psalmist connects the wonderful works and the laws or judgments of God’s month together as in like manner worthy to be remembered. See also Chronicles 16:12. with the subsequent part of that song. The law, and covenant, and wonderful works, are in like manner connected as not to be forgotten, in Psalm 68:10,11, and in the 111th Psalm, the psalmist intimates that God has taken some special care to keep up the memory of those works ver. 4. “ He hath caused his wonderful works to be remembered,” speaking of these works, as appears from what follows in the psalm. And what other way can we suppose it to be that God hath done this, than the same with that whereby he caused his covenant and commandments spoken of in the following verses, to be remembered, viz. by causing them to be recorded? The works and commandments are joined together. Ver. 7. “The works of his hands are verity and judgment, all his commandments are sure; and again in the 9th verse, “He hath sent redemption to his people, he hath commanded his covenant for ever;” as they are doubtless connected in the record. Compare Psalm 147:19. and 103:7, In the 78th Psalm, the psalmist, after speaking of the great care that Moses took that the history of the great works of God towards Israel in Egypt and the wilderness should be remembered and delivered to future generations, (in ver. 4, 5, 6, 7.) then proceeds to rehearse the principal things in that history in a great many particulars, so as to give us, in short, the scheme of the whole history, with many minute circumstances, in such a manner as to show plainly that what is there rehearsed is copied out of the history of the Pentateuch.

It is the more likely that the history of the Pentateuch should be. a part of that which was called the law of Moses, because it is observable that the words law, doctrine, statute, ordinances, etc. as they were used of old, did not only intend precepts, but also promises, and threateriings, and prophecies, and monuments, and histories, and whatever was revealed, promulgated, and established, to direct men in their duty to God, or to enforce that duty upon them. So the blessings and the curses that were written by Moses are included in that phrase, and the words that Moses commanded. Joshua 8:34,35. So promises are called law, and the word which God commanded in Psalm 105:9. and 1 Chronicles 16:15. So promises and threatenings are called the word which God commanded his servant Moses. Nehemiah 1:8,9. Threatenings and promises are called statutes and judgments in Leviticus 26:46. Thus we read, Exodus 15:25,26. that at Marab God made for the people a statute and an ordinance, but that which is so called is only a promise. So we read in Joshua 24:25. that Joshua made a covenant with the people, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem, which was nothing else than only his establishing what had been there said by a record and a monument, as appears from the context. So when God, in the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32 calls upon heaven and earth to give ear to his doctrine, which he says shall distil as the rain, etc. therein is included both history and prophecy, as appears by what follows, and what, in Psalm 78:1. is called a law, is only a history, and the very same with the history in the Pentateuclh in epitome, those dark savings of old, which the psalmist there rehearses, as appears from what follows in the psalm; which makes it the more easily supposable that the original and more full history, of which this is an epitome, was also amongst them called a law. And it is probable, that when we read of the great things of God’s law, Hosea 8:12. and the wondrous things of God’s law, that thereby is not only intended precepts and sanctions, but the great and wondrous works of God recorded in the law. It is evident that the history is as much of an enforcement of the precepts, (atid is so made use of,) as the threatenings, promises, and prophecies; and why then should it not be included in the name of the law as well as they? There is something of history, or a declaration of the great acts or works of God in that, which is by way of eminency called the Law, viz. the Decalogue; in that there is a declaration of the two greatest works of which the history of-the Pentateuch gives an account, viz. the creation of the world, and the redemption out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: the latter is mentioned in the preface of the Decalogue, and both in the 4th commandment in Deuteronomy. But the fact that history was included in what was called the law, is so plain from nothing as from Moses’s own records. Deuteronomy 1:5. “ On this side Jordan in the land of Moab, began Moses to declare that law, saying-” and then follows in this and the ensuing chapters, that which is called this law, which consists in great part of history, being a rehearsal and recapitulation of the history in the preceding books of the Pentateuch. What follows next in this and the two next chapters is almost wholly history, which undoubtedly there is special reason to understand as intended by those words, “Moses began to declare the law, saving.” See also Deuteronomy 4:44,45. and 31:9, 24, 25, 26. and 5:1.

Again, the book of the law, and the book of the covenant, were synonymous expressions; (see among other places, Psalm 105:8,9,10.) but the word covenant, as it was then used, included history, as Deuteronomy 29:”These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses;”-and what next follows is history, such history as was introductory, or concomitant, or confirmatory to the precepts, and threatenings, and promises that follow, and of this nature is all the history of the Pentateuch, It is abundantly manifest that the manner of inditing and writing laws in the wilderness delivered by Moses, was to intermix history with precepts, counsels, warnings, threatenings, promises, and prophecies.

It may be noted, that it was very early the custom in Israel to keep records of the public transactions of the nation, and they regarded this as a matter of so great importance, as to have men appointed, whose business and office it was to keep these records. So we find it was in the days of Solomon and David, and in the days of the Judges, as early as the days of Deborah. Judges 5:14. “ Out of Zebulun, they that handle the pen of the writer.” It is probable from the context, that these were their rulers, or some of the chief officers in the land that kept records of public affairs.

Before this, also, we have express account of Joshua and Moses making records of public transactions. (See Joshua 24:26. and the forementioned place concerning Moses’s writing records.) And it is evident that these transactions which related to the bringing of that nation into a covenant relation with God, and redeeming them out of Egypt, etc. were always by that nation chiefly celebrated, and looked upon as the greatest and most memorable events of their history. Now, therefore, is it credible, that in a nation, whose custom it was all along, even from the very times of those great transactions, to keep records of all public affairs, that they should be without any written record of these transactions?

There is no other way that would be natural of writing a divine law, or a law given by God in an extraordinary manner, with wonderful and astonishing circumstances, and great manifestations of his presence and power, except that of writing it in this manner, and recording those extraordinary circumstances under which it was given: first introducing it by giving an account that it was given by God, and then declaring when, how, and on what occasion, and in what manner it was given. And this will bring in all the history, from the beginning of Exodus to the end of Deuteronomy. Who can believe that Moses wrote the law which God gave at mount Sinai, without giving an account how it was given there; when the manner of giving was so exceedingly remarkable, and so affected Moses’s mind, as appears from many things which Moses wrote in Deuteronomy, which are there expressly called by the name of a law, and which we are also expressly told that Moses wrote in the book of the law, and delivered to the priests to be laid up in the sanctuary.

There is such a dependence between many of the precepts and sanctions of the law, and other parts of the Pentateuch, that are expressly called the law, and that we are expressly told were written in the book of the law, and laid up in the sanctuary; I say, there is such a dependence between these and the history, that they cannot be understood without the history. Many of the precepts, as was observed before, were appointed to that end to keep up the remembrance of historical facts and that is expressly mentioned in the words of these laws themselves. But such laws obviously cannot he understood without the history. Thus this is mentioned as the reason of the appointment of the feasts of tabernacles, viz. that the children of Israel might remember how they dwelt in tabernacles in the wilderness; 23:43.

Now this required the history of their travels and sojourning there. So the law concerning the Amalekites, Moabites, and Amorites, appointed in commemoration of hat passed between the congregation of Israel in the wilderness in their travels there, and those nations, cannot be understood without the history of those facts; and these require the history of the travels of the children of Israel, and of the things that led to those incidents, and that occasioned them. So that great law of the passover that is said in the law to be in remembrance of their redemption out of Egypt, and the many particular rites and ceremonies of that feast, are said expressly in the law to be in remembrance of these, and those circumstances of’ that redemption. Now it is impossible to understand all these particular precepts about the passover without a history of that affair: and this requires the history of their bondage in Egypt, and the manner how they came into that bondage and this draws in the history of the patriarchs.

The preface of the ten commandments cannot be understood without the history of the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, and of their circumstances there, in the house of bondage; nor can what is given as one reason of the 4th commandment in Deuteronomy be understood without an account how they were servants in the land of Egypt, and how they were delivered from their servitude. We very often find this mentioned as an enforcement of one precept and another, viz. God’s deliverance of the people out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage and out of the iron furnace. See Leviticus 18:3. 19:34. 22:3:3. 25:42, 55. 23:43. and 26:13, 45. Numbers 15:41. Deuteronomy 4:20. 6:12. 7:8. 8:14. 13:10. and 20:1. Which shows how necessary the history is to understand the law. The many precepts about the Porn’ bondman and stranger that are expressly enforced, from the circumstances of the Israelites in Egypt, absolutely require a history of their circumstances there. And there are in the enforcement of the laws, frequent references to the plagues and diseases of Egypt, threatenings of inflicting those plagues, or promises of freedom from them, which cannot be understood without the history of those plagues. The law of no more returning again into Egypt, Deuteronomy 17:16. requires the history of their coming out from thence. The law concerning not admitting the Moabites and Ammonites into the congregation of the Lord, because they so treated them in their journey, could not be understood without the story of their treatment, and that required an account of their journey. The law concerning sins of ignorance, Numbers 15:22,23,24. depends on the history for its being intelligible: “and if ye have erred, and not observed all these commandments ‘which the Lord hath spoken unto Moses, even all that the Lord hath commanded you by the hand of Moses, from the day that the Lord commanded Moses, and henceforward among your generations, then it shall be, if ought be committed by ignorance,” etc.

Here is a reference to God’s revealing himself from time to time, iii a long series of revelations to Moses, which cannot be understood without the history. The law was written as a covenant, or as a record of a. covenant, between God and the people; and therefore the tables of the low and the tables of the covenant, the book of the law and the book of the covenant, are synonymous phrases in Scripture. And the psalmist, Psalm 105:1,10. speaking of the covenant that God made with the patriarchs, says, that God confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and unto Israel for an everlasting covenant, It is to be noted that the promise to Abraham is what is there especially called the low, and the word which God commanded. The threatenings of the law are called the words of the covenant which God made by Moses in .Jeremiah 11:8. But if Moses wrote the book of the law as a record of the covenant that was made between God and the congregation of Israel, it was necessary to write the people’s consent, or what was done on both sides, for there was a mutual transacting in this covenant. See Deuteronomy 26:17,18. “Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways,” etc .-”And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments.” Agreeable hereto is the account we have, Exodus 19:8. and 24:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. and Deuteronomy 5:27. and 26:17.

The discourse that we have in Deuteronomy 29:and 30:is introduced thus, “These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.” But the following discourse, called the words of the covenant, is made up of the following things, viz. a history of the transaction, Moses’s rehearsal of past transactions and wonderful dealings of God with them, with reproofs for their insensibility and unaffectedness as introducing what he had further to say. He then proceeds to charge them to serve the true God, and to avoid idolatry, and then to enforce this charge with awful threatenings and predictions of judgments that shall come upon them if they transgress, with the circumstances of these judgments, and promises of forgiveness on repentance and the w hole concluded with various arguments, pressing instances, solemn appeals, obtestations, exhortations, etc. to enforce their dots. If such a miscellany is called the words of the covenant, we need not wonder if the whole book, that ‘is called the book of the lure, should be a similar miscellany.

It was necessary that a record of a covenant between God and the nation of Israel, should contain the story of the transaction. But this, if fully related, would bring in very much of the history of the Pentateuch, which is extensively made up of an account of those things that were done by God, to bring the people into a covenant relation to him, and the way in which they became his covenant people. Hence the psalmist, in Psalm cv. having mentioned this covenant and law which God established with the people, proceeds in the ensuing part of the Psalm, to rehearse the series of events relating this covenant transaction, from God’s entering into covenant with the patriarchs to the children of Israel’s being brought into Canaan.

It was exceedingly necessary, in particular, when Moses was about to write a record of the covenant which God established with the people, and to give an account of the manner in which he entered into covenant with them, and brought them unto a covenant relation to him, to show the beginning of it with the patriarchs, with whom that covenant was first established, and with whom was laid the foundation of all that transaction, and that great dispensation of the Lord of heaven and earth with that people, in separating them from all the rest of the world, to be his peculiar covenant people. The beginning and groundwork of the whole affair was mainly with them, and what was done afterwards by the hand of Moses, was only in pursuance of what had been promised to them, and often established within them, and for which God made way by his acts and revelations towards them. What God said and did towards those patriarchs, is often spoken of in the words of the law (those that are expressly called the law) as the foundation of the whole, and also in other parts of the Old Testament; as most expressly in Psalm 105:8,9,10.; see also .Joshua 24:3, etc.; and many other’ parallel places.

And there is very often in the law, strictly so called, an express reference to the covenant that God had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as in Leviticus 26:42. Deuteronomy 4:31,37. Deuteronomy 6:10,18. and 7:8, 12. and 9:5, 27. and 10:11, 15. and 19:8. 26:3, 15. and 30:20. which passages are unintelligible without the history of the patriarchs, And there are many other passages in the law, wherein there is an implicit reference to the same thing; as in those in which God speaks of the land, which the Lord their God had given them, or had promised them, the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Canaanites, etc. referring to the promise made to Abraham, Genesis 15:18, to the end; where God promises to Abraham the land of those nations by name.

Again, the forementioned considerations, many of them must, at least, induce us to believe that Moses wrote the history of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, so far at least as he himself was concerned in that affair, and was made the chief instrument of it, from his being first called and sent of God on that errand. But this as naturally leads us back further still, even to what God said and did to the patriarchs; for the beginning of this history directly points and leads us to those things as the foundation of this great affair, of which God now called Moses to he the great instrument. Thus when God first appeared to Moses, and spake to him in mount Sinai out of the bush, and gave his commission, it was with these words, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Exodus 3:6. So again, ver. 13, 14, 15, 16. “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said, moreover, unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, for’ that which is done to you in Egypt.” So again, chap. 4:5. “ That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.” And chap. 6:2, 3, 4.” And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord, and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. And I have established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.” It is unreasonable on many forementioned accounts, to believe any other than that Moses should write the history, and it is most credible that he did it on this account, that those first extraordinary appearances of God to him, as is natural to suppose, made most strong impressions on his mind, and if he wrote any history it is likely he wrote this. But from these things it appears that the history of the patriarchs lays the whole foundation of the history of the redemption of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and of God’s separating them and bringing them into a covenant relation with himself.

So that it cannot be understood without the history of the patriarchs.

Would it not therefore have been an essential defect in Moses, in writing that history, to leave the children of Israel without any record of that great foundation?

There is frequent mention in that part of the Pentateuch, (which is expressly styled the law,) of several tribes of Israel and their names, and of the patriarchs who were the heads of the tribes. Deuteronomy 3:12,13,15,16. and 27:11, 13. and elsewhere. And Moses was commanded to engrave the names of the twelve patriarchs on the stones of the breast plate of the high-priest. But these things are not intelligible without the history of Jacob’s family. In Deuteronomy 10:22. there is a reference to Jacob’s going down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons, which is not intelligible without the history.

The law for him that brings the offering of the firstfruits cannot be understood without the history of Jacob’s difficulties and sufferings in Padan-Aram, and the history of his going down into Egypt with its circumstances, and the history of the great increase of his posterity there, and the history of their oppression and hard bondage there, and the history and circumstances of their deliverance from it, and the history of the great and wondrous works of God in Egypt, and the Red sea, and the wilderness, until the people came to Canaan. And if Moses left no record of these things; then, in the law, he enjoined him who offered the firstfruits, (i.e. of all the people, every individual householder, from generation to generation,) to make an explicit confession and declaration of those things that he did not understand.

What is said in the law, of the Edomites, as the children of Esau, and what God had given to him for His possession, and the favour God showed Esau, in Deuteronomy 2:4,5,6,7,8, and 22. and the law concerning the Edomites, Deuteronomy 23:7,8. how they should be treated, because Esau was their brother, cannot be understood without the history of the family of Isaac. And the kind of mention made of Moab and Ammon, as the founders of the nations of the Moabites and Ammonites, and the favour showed them on their father Lot’s account, in Deuteronomy 2:seems to suppose the history of Lot and his family, rind cannot be understood without it. And the reference there is in the law to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Deuteronomy 29:23. cannot be understood without the history of tha affair.

These things that have been mentioned, lead us up in the history of the Pentateuch, within less than eleven chapters of its beginning; so that according to what has been said, all except this very small part of the Pentateuch must have been delivered by Moses to the children of Israel; and it is unreasonable to suppose that this small part was not delivered by the same hand as part of the same record. The history of Abraham begins with the 26th verse of the 11th chapter of Genesis; and the beginning of that history is there so connected with, and as it were grows upon, the preceding history of Noah and his posterity, that to suppose any other than that they were originally the same record, having the same author, is most unreasonable. That Moses’s history began any where between that and the beginning of Genesis, or that that part of Genesis from the beginning to the 26th verse of the 11th chapter, is to be divided, as having several writers, are suppositions which, from a hare view of the history itself, any one will be convinced are erroneous. But it will appear still more unreasonable not to ascribe it to Moses, if we consider not only the connexion of the beginning of the history of Abraham with it, but the dependence of many things in the following history upon it; and also in that part of the Pentateuch that is more plainly called the Law. There is frequent mention made both in the law and history of the posterity of the sons of Ham, Mizraim and Canaan, called by the names of these their ancestors, mentioned chap. 10:6. and of those of the posterity of Mizraim, called Caphterim, mentioned ver. 14. and in Deuteronomy 2:23. and of the posterity of the sons of Canaan, mentioned ver. 15, etc. called by their names. And in the following history there is mention made of Ham, the son of Noah, Genesis 14:5. Mention is made of Elam and Shinar, Genesis 14:1, etc. of whom we have an account, chap. 10 Frequent mention is made of the land of Cush, (in our translation, Ethiopia,) so named from Cush, the son of Ham, of whom we have an account, Genesis 10:6-8. So there is in the following history frequent mention of the land of Aram, the son of Shem. In Balaam’s prophecy, referred to in the law in Deuteronomy, mention is made of Ashur, Chittim, and Eber, Numbers 24:22,24. The great event of which Moses most evidently wrote the history, and which takes up all the historical part of the Pentateuch, from Genesis 10:26. to the end of’ Deuteronomy, is God’s separating the seed of Abraham and Israel from all nations, and bringing them near to himself to be his peculiar people. But to the well understanding of this, it was requisite to be informed of the origin of nations, the peopling of the world, and the Most High dividing to the nations their inheritance: and therefore the 9th, I0th and 11th chapters of Genesis are but a proper introduction to the history of this great event, In the song of Moses, of which mention is made in the law, and which Moses in the law was required to write, and the people in the law were required to keep, and learn, and often rehearse, there is an express reference to the separating the sons of Adam, and God’s dividing the earth among its inhabitants; which is unintelligible without the 10th and 11th chapters of Genesis. In that song, also, is plainly supposed a connexion between this affair, and that great affair of separating the children of Israel from all nations to be his peculiar people, about which most of the history of the Pentateuch is taken up. The words are as follows, and in them the people are expressly called upon to keep in remembrance both these events that are so connected, which obviously supposes a history of both, Deuteronomy 32:7-9. “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee; when the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance; when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”

And by the way I would observe, that in the following words are also references to other historical facts of the Pentateuch that cannot be understood without the history.

In the fourth commandment, there is such a mention made of the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, and of God’s resting the seventh day, as is a kind of epitome of the first chapter’ of Genesis, and the beginning of the second, and is unintelligible without that history; and there is a reference, in Deuteronomy 4:32. to God’s creation of man, and there is mention in the prophetical song of Moses of the name of Adam, as the grand progenitor of mankind, Deuteronomy 32:8. And there is mention made of the garden of God, or Paradise, Genesis 13:10, And before I leave this argument from references to historical facts, I would observe, that a very great part of the thirty-one first chapters of Deuteronomy, (which are most evidently, as I observed before, a part of the law of Moses, laid up in the holy of holies,) are made up of nothing but recapitulations, brief rehearsals, references, and hints of preceding historical facts, and counsels, and enforcements from history, which cannot be understood without the knowledge of that history.

And not only does the law of Moses de rend upon the history, and bear such a relation to it, and contain such references to it that it cannot be understood without it, but the manner of writing the law shows plainly that the law and history were written together, they are so connected, interwoven, blended, in wrought, and incorporated in the writing. The history is a part of the law, its preamble from time to time being often made an introduction to laws; and there are continually such transitions from history to law, and from law to history, and such a connexion, and reference, and dependence, that all appears as it were to grow together as the several parts of a tree. These, as they stand, are parts of the continued history, and the history of the facts is only as an introduction and preamble, or reason and enforcement, of the laws, all flowing in a continued series, as the several parts of one uninterrupted stream, all as one body. So that the bare inspection of the writing, as it stands, may be enough to convince any one that all has the same author, and that both were written together. Such is the manner of writing the laws concerning the passover, the chief of all the ceremonial observances, in the 12th chapter of Exodus, and the law concerning the first-born, in the 13th chapter, and the statute and ordinance mentioned in the 15th chapter of Exodus 25,26 verses. Such also is the manner of writing that law by which is made known to the children of Israel, which particular day is the sabbath, Exodus 16:23. Such is the manner’ of writing the Decalogue itself, which in the highest sense is called the law of Moses, in Exodus 20:that it is unreasonable to think that it was recorded by Moses without any of the concomitant history, and those words in the law, Exodus 20:22,23. Such are the laws ordering the particular frame of the tabernacle, ark, anointing oil, incense, priest’s garments, with the history of the consequent building, etc. The revelation made to Moses when God proclaimed his name, Exodus 34:6,7. which is an important part of the law, together with ver. 10, 11, etc. and ver. 30, 31. The several laws given on occasion of Nadab and Abihu’s being burnt, Leviticus 10:and chap. 16:particularly ver. 1, 2. taken with what follows, together with the last words in the chapter. Sce also Leviticus 21:1 and ver. 24. and chap. 22:1-3, 17, 18. The law concerning blasphemy, with the story of the blasphemy of Shelomith’s son, Leviticus 24:The law of the Levites’ service, with the history of their being numbered and accepted instead of the first-born and consecrated, Numbers 3:and 4:and 8:The law of putting the leper out of the camp, Numbers v, at the beginning. The law of polluted persons keeping the passover, with the history that gave occasion for it, Numbers 9:6. The history of making the trumpets, with the law concerning their use, Numbers 10 The law constituting the seventy elders, which is only giving a history of their first appointment, Numbers 11:The law of the presumptuous sinner, with the history of the sabbathbreaker, Numbers 15:30, etc. The law for the priests, Numbers 18:which supposes a foregoing history of the rebellion of Korah, see ver. 5. and ver. 27. compared with the 13th verse of the preceding chapter. The law of the inheritance of daughters, with the history of Zelophehad’s daughters. The law of the cities of refuge on the east side of Jordan, with the history of the taking of the country.

History and law are every where so grafted one into another, so mutually inwrought, and do, as it were, so grow one out of and into another, and flow one from another in a continued current, that there is all appearance of their originally growing together, and not in the least of their being artificially patched and compacted together afterwards. It seems impossible impartially and carefully to view the manner of their connexion, and to judge otherwise.

Another argument that the same care was taken to preserve the memory of the facts, as to preserve the precepts of the law, vir. by making a public record of them, to be preserved with the same care, and so in like manner laid up in the sanctuary, is, that it is declared in the law, that the whole law was written, and the record of all the precepts of it transmitted to posterity as a monument of the historical facts, or to that end that the memory of those facts might be kept up in future generations. Deuteronomy 6:20, to the end. “And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and the Lord showed signs and wonders great and sore upon Pharaoh and upon all his household before our eyes, and he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day: and it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.”

It is a plain and demonstrative evidence, that the Jews had all along some standing public records of the facts that we have an account of in the history of the Pentateuch, that these facts are so abundantly, and in such a manner’, mentioned or referred to all along in other books of the Old Testament. There is scarcely any part of the history from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, but what is mentioned or referred to in other books of the Old Testament, that were the writings of after-ages, and some of them are mentioned very often, and commonly with the names of persons and places, and many particular and minute circumstances, not only that part of the history which belongs more immediately to the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, and their journey through the wilderness, but the preceding introductory history, and not only that which concerns the Jewish patriarchs, but the first part of the history of Genesis, even fl-am the very beginning. In these writings we have very often mention of God’s creating the heavens and the earth; Isaiah 65:17. and 66:22. and 40:21, 22, 28. and 51:13. and 42:5. and 44:24. and 45:12. and 37:16. And 66:1, 2. Jeremiah 10:11,12. and 32:17. and 51:15. and 14:22. 2 Kings 19:15. Psalm 89:40,12. and 102:25. Zechariah 12:1. Psalm 115:15. and 121:2. and 124:8. and 134:3. The manner of God’s creating by speaking the word, Psalm 33:6,9. and 148:5.

The world being at first without form and void, and covered with darkness, agreeably to Genesis 1:2. is referred to Jeremiah 4:23.

God’s creating the light is referred to Psalm 124:16.

God’s creating the light and darkness, Isaiah 44:7. agreeable to Genesis 1:3,4.

God’s creating the firmament, Psalm 19:1.

God’s creating the waters that are above the heavens, Psalm 148:4,6. agreeable to Genesis 1:7.

God’s gathering together the water’s, Psalm 33:7. His making the sea and the dry land, Psalm 95:5. stretching out the earth above the waters, Psalm 136:6. appointing the sea its decreed place, Jeremiah 5:22. Proverbs 8:29.

Psalm 104:9.

God’s creating the sun, Psalm 19:1,4. and 74:16.

God’s creating the sun for a light by day, anrd the moon and the stars for a light by night, Jeremiah 31:35. Psalm 148:3,6.

God’s creating great lights. The sun to rule by day, and the moon and stars to rule by night, Psalm 136:7,8,9. See also Psalm 104:19. with ver. 24.

God’s creating the sea, and the many creatures that move herein, and the whale in particular, Psalm 104:25,26.

God’s creating the heavens, the earth, and the sea, and all that is therein, Psalm 146:6; many parts of the creation is mentioned, Proverbs 8:22-29.

God’s creating man and beast, Jeremiah 27:5.

God’s creating man, Psalm 8:5.

Man being made of the dust of the earth, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

Man’s having dominion given him in His creation over the fish of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and beasts of the earth, Psalm 8:6,7,8.

Man’s having the herbs and plants of the earth given him for meat, Psalm civ. 14, 15. agreeable to Genesis 1:29. and 3:18.

The first marriage, or God’s making Adam and Eve one, is referred to, Malachi 2:15.

Adam’s name is mentioned, Hosea 6:7.

The garden of Eden is often mentioned by name, with its pleasures and delights, Isaiah 51:3. Ezekiel 28:13. and 31:8, 9, 16, 18. and 36:35. and Joel 2:3 Adam’s violating the covenant is referred to, Hosea 6:7. The curse denounced against Adam. that as he was dust, so unto dust he should return, is referred to, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

The curse denounced on the serpent, that He should eat dust all the days of his life, is referred to, Isaiah 65:25. Micah 7:17.

Mention is made of the flood of waters that stood above the mountains, and God’s rebuking and removing the flood, Psalm 104:6,7.

Noah’s name is mentioned, and His righteousness before God, and great acceptance with him, referred to, Isaiah 54:9. and Ezekiel 14:14,20.

The waters of Noah’s flood, and their going over the earth, and God’s covenant with Noah, that he could no more destroy the earth with a flood, are mentioned, Isaiah 54:9.

Many of the names of the descendants of Noah that we have an account of in Genesis 10 are mentioned in other parts of the Old Testament, and some of them very often, and every where in an agreeableness with the account we have of them there; Psalm 78:51. and 10523, 27. and 106:22. and 83:8.

Isaiah 11:11. and 23:1, 2, 12, 13. Jeremiah 2:10. and 25:20-25. and 49:34- 39. Ezekiel 27:5-15. and ver. 20-25. chap. 30:45. and 32:24, 26. and 38:2- 5,6,13. Micah 5:6. and in many other places.

The names of others also that we have an account of as heads of nations in the history of the Pentateuch before Moses’s birth, beside the patriarchs of the Jewish nation, are frequently mentioned, Psalm 83:6,7. Isaiah 11:14,15. Isaiah 60:6,7. Jeremiah 2:10. Jeremiah 25:20,25. Jeremiah throughout, and in many other places, all is in agreeableness to the history of the Pentateuch. The Philistines coming forth out of Caphtor, Amos 9:7.

Jeremiah 47:4. compared with Genesis 10:14. and Deuteronomy 2:23.

The name Babel is often mentioned. There is particular mention of the ancestors of the Jews dwelling on the other side of the river Euphrates, and particularly Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, Joshua 24.

Abraham being brought from thence of God, from the East, from the other side of the river, his coming at the call of God, and being led by him into the land of Canaan, Joshua 24:3. Isaiah 41:2.

His being called with Sarah his wife, Isaiah 41:1,2.

God’s leading Abraham throughout the