LETTER III.

HAVING done with what you call the grammati

Ical evidence that Mofes was not the author of the books attributed to him, you come to your hiftorical and chronological evidence; and you begin with Genefis. Your first argument is taken from the fingle word-Dan-being found in Genefis, when it appears from the book of Judges, that the town of Laifh was not called Dan, till above three hundred and thirty years after the death of Moses; therefore the writer of Genefis, you conclude, must have lived after the town of Laifh had the name of Dan given to it. Left this objection should not be obvious enough to a common capacity, you illuftrate it in the following manner: "Havre-de-Grace was called Havre-Marat in 1793; fhould then any dateless writing be found, in after times, with the name of Havre-Marat, it would be certain evidence that such a writing could not have been written till after the year 1793." This is a wrong conclufion. Suppofe fome hot republican fhould at this day publish a new edition of any old hiftory of France, and instead of Havre-de-Grace fhould write Havre-Marat; and that two or three thousand years hence, a man, like yourself, fhould, on that account, reject the whole history as fpurious, would he be justified in fo doing? Would it not be reafonable to tell him-that the name Havre-Marat had been inferted, not by the original author of the hiftory, but by a fubfequent editor of it; and to refer him, for a proof of the genuineness of the book, to

the

the teftimony of the whole French nation? This fuppofition fo obviously applies to your difficulty, that I cannot but recommend it to your impartial attention. But if this folution does not please you, I defire it may be proved, that the Dan, mentioned in Genefis, was the fame town as the Dan, mentioned in Judges. I defire, further, to have it proved, that the Dan, mentioned in Genefis, was the name of a town, and not of a river. It is merely faid-Abram purfued them, the enemies of Lot, to Dan. Now a river was full as likely as a town to flop a purfuit. Lot, we know, was fettled in the plain of Jordan; and Jordan, we know, was compofed of the united ftreams of two rivers, called Jor and Dan.

Your next difficulty refpects its being faid in Genefis-" Thefe are the kings that reigned in Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Ifrael:-this paffage could only have been written, you fay (and I think you fay rightly,) after the first king began to reign over Ifrael; fo far from being written by Mofes, it could not have been written till the time of Saul at the leaft." I admit this inference, but I deny its application. A fmall addition to a book does not deftroy either the genuineness or the authenticity of the whole book. I am not ignorant of the manner in which the commentators have answered this objection of Spinoza, without making the conceffion which I have made; but I have no fcruple in admitting, that the paffage in question, confifting of nine verfes containing the genealogy of fome kings of Edom, might have been inferted in the book of Genefis, after the book of Chronicles (which was called in Greek by a name importing that it contained things left out in other books) was written. The learned have fhewn, that interpolations have happened to other books; but

thefe

thefe infertions by other hands have never been confidered as invalidating the authority of those books.

"Take away from Genefis," you fay," the belief that Mofes was the author, on which only the ftrange belief that it is the Word of God has flood, and there remains nothing of Genefis but an anonymous book of ftories, fables, traditionary or invented abfurdities, or of downright lies."-What! is it a story then, that the world had a beginning, and that the author of it was God? If you deem this a story, I am not difputing with a deistical philofopher, but with an atheistic madman. Is it a ftory, that our first parents fell from a paradifiacál ftate -that this earth was deftroyed by a deluge-that Noah and his family were preferved in the ark, and that the world has been repeopled by his defcendants?-Look into a book fo common that almost every body has it, and fo excellent that no perfon ought to be without it-Grotius on the truth of the chriftian religion-and you will there meet with abundant teftimony to the truth of all the principal facts recorded in Genefis The teftimony is not that of jews, chriftians, and priefts; it is the teftimony of the philofophers, historians, and poets of antiquity. The oldeft book in the world is Genefis; and it is remarkable that those books which come neareft to it in age, are those which make, either the most distinct mention, or the most evident allufion to the facts related in Genefis concerning the formation of the world from a chaotic mafs, the primeval innocence and fubfequent fall of man, the longevity of mankind in the firft ages of the world, the depravity of the antediluvians, and the destruction of the world.-Read the tenth chapter of Genefis.-It may appear to you to contain nothing but an uninterefting narration of the defcendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth; a a mere fable, an invented abfurdity, a downright lie. No,

.

fir, it is one of the most valuable, and the most venerable records of antiquity. It explains what all profane hiftorians were ignorant of the origin of nations. Had it told us, as other books do, that one nation had sprung out of the earth they inhabited; another from a cricket or a grafshopper; another from an oak; another from a mushroom; another from a dragon's tooth; then indeed it would have merited the appellation you, with fo much temerity, bestow upon it. Instead of thefe abfurdities, it gives fuch an account of the peopling the earth after the deluge, as no other book in the world ever did give; and the truth of which all other books in the world, which contain any thing on the fubject, confirm. The laft verfe of the chapter fays

This,

"Thefe are the families of the fons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by thefe were the nations divided in the earth, after the flood." It would require great learning to trace out, precifely, either the actual fituation of all the countries in which these founders of empires fettled, or to ascertain the extent of their dominions. however, has been done by various authors, to the fatisfaction of all competent judges; fo much at leaft to my fatisfaction, that had I no other proof of the authenticity of Genefis, I fhould confider this as fufficient. But, without the aid of learning, any man who can barely read his Bible, and has but heard of fuch people as the Affyrians, the Elamites, the Lydians, the Medes, the Ionians, the Thracians, will readily acknowledge that they had Affur, and Elam, and Lud, and Madai, and Javan, and Tiras, grandfons of Noah, for their respective founders; and knowing this, he will not, I hope, part with his Bible, as a fyítem of fables. I am no enemy to philofophy; but when philofophy would rob me of my Bible, I muft fay of it, as Cicero faid of the twelve tables,-This little book alone exceeds the

libraries

libraries of all the philofophers in the weight of its authority, and in the extent of its utility.

From the abuse of the Bible, you proceed to that of Mofes, and again bring forward the subject of his wars in the land of Canaan. There are many men who look upon all war, (would to God that all men faw it in the fame light!) with extreme abhorrence, as afflicting mankind with calamities not neceffary, fhocking to humanity, and repugnant to reafon. But is it repugnant to reason that God fhould, by an exprefs act of his providence, deftroy a wicked nation? I am fond of confidering the goodness of God as the leading principle of his conduct towards mankind, of confidering his juftice as fubfervient to his mercy. He punishes individuals and nations with the rod of his wrath; but I am perfuaded that all his punishments originate in his abhorrence of fin; are calcuculated to leffen its influence; and are proofs of his goodness; inasmuch as it may not be poffible for Omnipotence itself to communicate fupreme happinefs to the human race, whilft they continue fervants of fin. The deftruction of the Canaanites exhibits to all nations, in all ages, a fignal proof of God's displeasure against fin; it has been to others, and it is to ourselves, a benevolent warning. Mofes would have been the wretch you reprefent him, had he acted by his own authority alone: but you may as reasonably attribute cruelty and murder to the judge of the land in condemning criminals to death, as butchery and maffacre to Mofes in executing the command of God.

The Midianites, through the counfel of Balaam, and by the vicious inftrumentality of their women, had feduced a part of the Ifraelites to idolatry; to the impure worship of their infamous god Baalpeor: -for this offence, twenty four thousand Ifraelites had perished in a plague from heaven, and Mofes received a command from God to fmite the Midia