H

preserved an immovable establishment. But that God will not for ever leave the rest of the world under so miserable darkness; that a common SAVIOUR shall at length arrive; that the sole end of their polity is to prefigure and proclaim his arrival; that they were formed and constituted with express design to be the heralds of his great appearance, and to give warning to all nations that they should unite in the blessed expectation of a Redeemer!

"My adventure amongst this people, as it gives me the greatest surprise, so it seems to me to deserve the highest regard and attention, on account of the many wonderful and singular curiosities discoverable in their frame.

"They are the most ancient people that fall under our knowledge and discovery; a circumstance, which in my judgment, ought to procure them a very particular veneration, especially in regard to our present inquiry; because, if God has at any time vouchsafed to reveal himself to mankind, these are the persons from whose hands we are to receive the tradition!

"Nor are they only considerable in point of antiquity, but no less singular in their duration, from their original to this day; for while the several people of Greece, of Italy, of Sparta, of Athens, and of Rome, together with others that sprung up long after them, have been extinct many ages, these have always subsisted-and stretching themselves from the earliest to the latest memory, have caused the annals of their own nation to be co-extended with the history of the world.

"The same people are still no less to be admired for their great sincerity. They preserve with the utmost faithfulness and zeal the very book in which

THE CREDIBILITY OF THEIR RECORDS.

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Moses has left it recorded, that they were ever stubborn and ungrateful towards God, and that he foresaw they would be more perverse after his death; that he therefore calls heaven and earth to witness against them, as to the sufficiency of the warning which he had given them; that finally, God being incensed by their transgressions, should scatter them through all lands."

Much more does this great man say of the Jews, as will be seen elsewhere; at present I shall select a passage from another portion of his book, to the following effect:-" Man," says he, "is visibly made for thinking; this is all the merit which he boasts, and all the glory to which he aspires. To think as we ought is the sum of human duty; and the true art of thinking is to begin with ourselves, our Author, and our end."

Of ourselves, it must be admitted, we can form no adequate judgment or opinion, but from a proper history of the species. Of our Author, we can know nothing certain, but from what he may have been pleased to reveal; nor of our end, but through him on whom the end as much as the beginning depends.

Now, the history to which Pascal alludes in the passages above, expressly includes all these things. The history of MAN, of his MAKER, and of his future prospects. And the great point to be ascertained isCan it be true? or, to put the same question in another and perhaps a more determinate form, I shall venture to suggest the following very simple, though important alteration, namely-Can it be false?

The first answer I shall return to this question, will be to copy some remarks of my own, printed and pub

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HISTORY OF THE BIBLE ITSELF.

nitude, as to be little likely to pass into many hands. It is part of my preface to a new edition of Macklin's Bible, published in the year 1824, and dedicated by permission to his late Majesty. One thing I shall wish to premise, namely, that there may be expressions in it, apparently not very suitable to the conclusions of geologists; my explanation of such seeming discordancies shall be found elsewhere. Geology is certainly become a very fashionable study, nor do I desire to check its course; I merely wish to interpose a few cautions, for the behoof and security of those who have not lived yet so long as myself. "True fortitude of understanding," says Paley, "consists in not suffering what we know, to be disturbed by what we do not know." Having made these few preliminary observations, I shall proceed to the extract I wish to introduce.

"It would be well if every reader, before he enters upon the perusal, or rather study, of the BIBLE, be his principles what they may, would endeavour to form in his mind as comprehensive and correct ideas as possible of its history and character, independently of the particular nature and purport of its contents. For since it is impossible to undo what has undoubtedly taken place, however it may be slighted by some, or even disbelieved by others, its history and character cannot now be changed. It must have been extant and known to the world for some certain period of time. The testimony borne by those who have gone before us to its divine origin and authenticity, cannot be annihilated: hundreds of thousands in various parts of the earth, are known to have well weighed its contents, studied and meditated upon it in all its parts, examined into the evidences of its age and genuine

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

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ness, complied with its laws, obeyed its precepts, and died in the faith of all it announces, of all its promises, and all its threats.

"Even the atheist then, who would pretend to deny the very being of God, cannot possibly obliterate the indelible traces to be discovered in the Bible, of his existence, his power, his wisdom, and his providence. The deist, who denies not his existence and providence, but disputes the fact of his interposition in the way of revelation or manifestation, cannot annihilate those records in which such revelations and manifestations are related and preserved; he cannot do away those evidences of miraculous interposition, to be deduced from the fulfilment of prophecy, in which both the prediction and event conspire to prove, that nothing less than prescience and design, supported by a power absolutely irresistible, could possibly have brought them to concur.

"The Jew, who receives and acknowledges one portion only of the sacred volume, and rejects the other, cannot hinder the effects of such proofs and evidences of their connection as the NEW Testament in particular supplies; he cannot deny to any the liberty of making the comparison and reference which the New Testament claims and challenges, or of applying the one part of the Bible to the illustration of the other. Objections of this nature then can never be said to affect the character of this wonderful book. Then only will its character be changed, when it is universally acknowledged to be incapable of affording conviction of its own supernatural origin; a circumstance which we shall endeavour to show, is every day becoming less and less likely to occur.

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JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN REVELATIONS.

'Two Witnesses,' whose testimony we are bound to examine and meditate upon, if we would act like persons who have but so much common sense as to discern, that we are by nature dependent beings, who brought nothing into this world, and, it is most certain, can carry nothing out; but whose existence may undoubtedly be continued or renewed in another state as surely and as easily as it has had its commencement here. Had not such revelations been ever heard of as the Jewish and Christian religions, the same sense of our dependence, should in reason incline us, to examine any records or traditions of similar pretensions. There is no form or institute of religion, in civilized or barbarous countries, that claims to be founded on divine revelation, which would not merit our attention and consideration, if we knew no other, merely on the ground of such claims. Man, in his natural state of darkness and dependence, is bound to notice and inquire into any pretensions of this description; for the hopes of the wild African may be said to be better than no hopes at all.

"It is however, most certain, that in the present state of things, the Jewish and Christian revelations have a claim to be examined prior to all others whatsoever, inasmuch as they not only profess to be derived from heaven, but to be singular and peculiar, to the positive and avowed exclusion of all other assumptions of the same kind. If the proofs and pretensions of the Jewish and Christian revelations be such as are not to be resisted or controverted, we need search no further 1. Through these we may be perfectly as

1 "Christianity is the only religion that ever pretended that there should come a time when it should be the religion of the world in general." President Edwards.

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