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UIDESIGNED COINCIDENCES

IN THE WRITINGS BOTH OF

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT,

AN ARGUMENT OF THEIR VERACITY ;

AN APPENDIX,

CONTAINING

UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES BETWEEN THE GOSPELS,
AND ACTS, AND JOSEPHUS.

BY THE

REV. J. J.'^iBLUNT. B. D.

MARGARET PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY.

FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION.

NEW YORK:

ROBERT CARTER, 5 8 CANAL STREET;
AND PITTSBURG, 56 MARKET STREET.

1847.

PREFACE.

The present Volume is a republication, with corrections
and large additions, of several short Works which I printed
a few years ago separately; and which, having passed
through more or fewer editions, have become out of print :
I have thus been furnished with an opportunity of revising
and consolidating them. These works were : " The Ve-
racity of the Books of Moses ;" " The Veracity of the His-
torical Scriptures of the Old Testament ;" and " The Ve-
racity of the Gospels and Acts," argued from undesigned
coincidences to be found in them when compared in their
several parts ; and in the last instance, when compared
also with the Writings of Josephus. They were all of
them originally the substance of Sermons delivered before
the University, some in a Course of Hulsean Lectures,
others on various occasions. And though two of them,
the Veracity of the Books of Moses, and the Veracity of
the Gospels and Acts, were divested of the form of Ser-
mons before publication ; the third. The Veracity of the
Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament (which consti-
tuted the Hulsean Lectures) still retained it. I have
thought that by reducing this to the same shape as the
rest, and combining it with them, the whole would present
a continued argument, or rather a continued series of in-

1*

IV PREFACE.

dependent arguments, for the Veracity of the Scriptures,
of which the effect would be greater than that of the
separate works could be, which might be read perhaps out
of the natural order, and which were not altogether uni-
form in their plan. But as this test of veracity proved ap-
plicable, though in a less degree, for reasons I have as-
signed elsewhere, to the Prophetical Scriptures also, I have
introduced into the present Volume in its proper place, evi-
dence of the same kind which had been long lying by me,
for the Veracity of some of those Writings ; thus employ-
ing one and the same touchstone of truth, to verify suc-
cessively the Books of Moses, the Historical Scriptures of
the Old Testament, the Prophetical, and the Gospels and
Acts, in their order.

The argument, as my readers will of course be aware,
is an extension of that of the Horcc PaulincB, and which
originated, as was generally supposed, with Dr. Paley.
But Dr. Turton,' the present bishop of Ely, has rendered
the claims of Dr. Paley to the first conception of it doubt-
ful, by producing a passage from the conclusion of Dr.
Doddridge's Introduction to his Paraphrase and Notes on
the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, to the following
effect.

" Whoever reads over St. Paul's Epistles with atten-
tion will discern such intrinsic characters in their genuine-
ness, and the divine authority of tbe doctrines they con-

1 In his " Natural Theology considered with reference to Lord Brougham's '
Discourse," &c. p. 23.

PREFACE.

tain, as will pefliaps produce in him a stronger conviction
than all the external evidence with which they are attend-
ed. To which we may add, that the exact coincidence ob-
servable between the many allusions to particular facts, in
this, as well as in other Epistles, and the account of the
facts themselves as they are recorded in the History of the
Acts, is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of each."

Be this however as it may, Dr. Paley first brought the
argument to light in support of the Epistles of St. Paul ;
and I am not aware that it has since been deliberately ap-
pUed to any other of the sacred books, except by Dr. Graves,
in two of his Lectures on the Pentateuch, to that portion
of holy writ. Much, however, of the same kind of testi-
mony I have no doubt has escaped all of us ; and still re-
mains to be detected by future writers on the Evidences.
For myself, though I may not lay claim to the merit (what-
ever it may be) of actually discovering all the examples of
consistency without contrivance, which I shall bring for-
ward in this volume,— indeed, I could not myself now trace
to their beginnings thoughts which have progressively ac-
cumulated'— and though in many cases, where the detec-
tion was my own, I may have found, on examination, that
there were others who had forestalled me, qui nostra ante

1 I have avaUed myself in this republication, of several suggestions on the
subject of the Patriarchal Church, (No. i. Part i.) offered to me some years
ago in a letter by the Rev. J. W. Burgon of Worcester College, Oxford ; and
of one coincidence (No. xi. Part iv.) communicated to me in substance, by
letter also, by the Rev. J. Daniel, of St. John's College, Cambridge, soon
after the first Edition of the Veracity of the Gospels came out.

VI PREFACE.

nos, yet most of them I have not seen noticed by com-
mentators at all, and scarcely any of them in that light in
which only I regard them, as grounds of Evidence. It
is to this application, therefore, of Expositions, often in
themselves sufficiently familiar, that I have to beg the can-
did attention of my. readers ; and if I shall frequently bring
out of the treasures of God's word, or of the interpretation
of God's word, " things old^^- the use that I make of them
may not perhaps be thought so.

As the argument for the Veracity of the Gospels and
Acts, derived from undesigned coincidences, discoverable
between them and the Writings of Josephus, does not fall
within the general design of this work, as now constructed,
and yet is related to it, and important in itself, I have
thought it best not to suppress, but to throw it into an Ap-
pendix.

Cambridge,
May 3, 1847.

THE VERACITY

OF

THE BOOKS OF MOSES

PART I.

It is my intention to argue in the following pages the
Veracity of the Books of Scripture, from the instances they
contain of coincidence without design, in their several
parts. On the nature of this argument I shall not much
enlarge, but refer my readers for a general view of it to the
short dissertation prefixed to the HorcB PmdincB of Dr.
Paley, a work where it is employed as a test of the veracity
of St. Paul's Epistles with singular felicity and force, and
for which suitable incidents were certainly much more
abundant than those which any olher portion of Scripture
of the same extent provides ; still, however, if the instances
which I can offer, gathered from the remainder of Holy
Writ, are so numerous and of such a kind as to preclude
the possibility of their being the effect of accident, it is
enough. It does not require many circumstantial coinci-
dences to determine the mind of a jury as to the credibihty
of a witness in our courts, even where the Ufe of a fellow-
creature is at stake. I say this, not as a matter of charge,
but as a matter of fact, indicating the authority which at-
taches to this species of evidence, and the confidence uni-

8 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

versally entertained that it cannot deceive. Neither should
it be forgotten, that an argument thus popular, thus ap-
plicable to the affairs of common life as a test of truth,
derives no small value when enlisted in the cause of
Revelation, from the readiness with which it is appre-*
hended and admitted by mankind at large ; and from the
simplicity of the nature of its appeal ; for it springs out of
the documents, the truth of which it is intended to sustain,
and terminates in them ; so that he who has these, has
the defence of them.

2. Nor is this all. The argument deduced from coinci-
dence without design has further claims, because, if well
made out, it establishes the authors of the several books
of Scripture as independeiit witnesses to the facts they
relate ; and this, whether they consulted each other's
writings, or not; for the coincidences, if good for any-
thing, are such as could not result from combination,
mutual understanding, or arrangement. If any which I
may bring forward may seem to be such as might have so
arisen, they are only to be reckoned ill-chosen, and dis-
missed. For it is no small merit of this argument, that it
consists of parts, one or more of which (if they be thought
unsound) may be detached without any dissolution of the
reasoning as a whole. Undesignedness must be apparent
in the coincidences, or they are not to the purpose. In
our argument we defy people to sit down together, or
transmit their writings one to another, and produce the
like. Truths known independently to each of them, must
be at the bottom of documents having such discrepancies
and such agreements as these in question. The point,
therefore, whether the authors of the books of Scripture
have or have not copied from one another, which in the
case of some of them has been so much labored, is thus
rendered a matter of comparative indifference. Let them

PART I, BOOKS OP MOSES. 9

have SO done, still by our argument their independence
would be secured, and the nature of their testimony be
shown to be such as could only result from their separate
knowledge of substantial facts.

3. I will add another consideration which seems to me
to deserve serious attention : that in several instances the
probable truth of a miracle is involved in the coincidence.
This is a point which we should distinguish from the
general drift of the argument itself The general drift of
our argument is this, than when we see the writers of the
Scriptures clearly telling the truth in those cases where we
have the mean^s of checking their accounts, — v.'hen we
see that they are artless, consistent, veracious writers,
where we have the opportunity of examining the fact, it
is reasonable to believe that they are telling the truth in
those cases where we have not the means of checking
them, — that they are veracious where we have not the
means of putting them to proof. But the argument I am
now pressing is distinct from this. We are hereby called
upon, not merely to assent that Moses and the author of
the Book of Joshua, for example; or Isaiah and the author
of the Book of Kings ; or St. Matthew and St. Luke ;
speak the truth when they record a miracle, because we
know them to speak the truth in many other matters,
(though this would be only reasonable where there is no
impeachment of their veracity whatever,) but we are called
upon to believe a fai'ticular miracle, because the very cir-
cumstances which attend it furnish the coincidence. I
look upon this as a point of very great importance. I do
not say that the coincidence in such a case establishes
the miracle, but that by establishing the truth of ordinary
incidents which involve the miracle, which compass the
miracle round about, and which cannot be separated from

10 THE VERACITY OP THE PART I.

the miracle without the utter laceration of the history
itself, it goes very near to establish it.

4. On the whole, it is surely a striking fact, and one
that could scarcely happen in any continuous fable, how-
ever cunningly devised, that annals written by so many
hands, embracing so many generations of men, relating to
so many different states of society, abounding in super-
natural incidents throughout, when brought to this same
touchstone of truth, undesignedness, should still not flinch
from it ; and surely the character of a history, like the
character of an individual, when attested by vouchers not
of one family, or of one place, or of one date only, but by
such as speak to it under various relations, in different
situations, and at divers periods of time, can scarcely
deceive us.

Perhaps I may add, that the turn which biblical criti-
cism has of late years taken, gives the peculiar argument
here employed the advantage of being the word in season :
and whilst the articulation of Scripture (so to speak),
occupied with its component parts, may possibly cause it
to be less regarded than it should be in the mass and as a
whole, the effect of this argument is to establish the gen-
eral truth of Scripture, and with that to content itself ; its
general truth, I mean, considered with a reference to all
practical purposes, which is our chief concern : and thus
to pluck the sting out of those critical diflficulties, however
numerous and however minute, which in themselves have a
tendency to excite our suspicion and trouble our peace. Its
effect, I say, is to establish the general truth of Scripture,
because by this investigation I find occasional tokens of ve-
racity, such as cannot, I think, mislead us, breaking out, as
the volume is unrolled, unconnected, unconcerted, unlocked
for ; tokens which I hail as guarantees for more facts than
they actually cover ; as spots which truth has singled out

PART I.

BOOKS OP MOSES. 11

whereon to set her seal, in testimony that the whole docu-
ment, of which they are a part, is her own act and deed ;
as pass-words, with which the Providence of God has taken
care to furnish his ambassadors, which, though often trifling
in themselves, and having no proportion (it may be) to the
length or importance of the tidings they accompany, are
still enough to prove the bearers to be in the confidence of
their Almighty Sovereign, and to be quahfied to execute
the general commission with which they are charged
under his authority.

I shall produce the instances of coincidence without
design which I have to offer, in the order of the Books of
Scripture that supply them, beginning with the Books of
Moses. But before I proceed to individual cases, I will
endeavor to develop a principle upon which the Book of
Genesis goes as a whole, for this is in itself an example
of consistency.

I.

There may be those who look upon the Book of
Genesis as an epitome of the general history of the world
in its early ages, and of the private history of certain
families more distinguished than the rest. And so it is,
and on a first view it may seem to be Uttle else ; but if we
consider it more closely, I think we may convince ourselves
of the truth of this proposition, that it contains fragments
[as it were) of the fabric of a Patriarchal Churchy frag-
ments scattered indeed and imperfect, but capable of com-
bination, and when combined, consistent as a whole.
Now it is not easy to imagine that any impostor would
set himself to compose a book upon a plan so recondite ;
nor, if he did, would it be possible for him to execute it as

12 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

it is executed here. For the incidents which go to prove
this proposition are to be picked out from among many
others, and on being brought together by ourselves, they
are found to agree together as parts of a system, though
they are not contemplated as such, or at least are not pro-
duced as such, by the author himself.

I am aware that, whilst we are endeavoring to obtain a
view of such a Patriarchal Church by the glbnpses af-
forded us in Genesis, there is a danger of our theology
becoming visionary : — it is a search upon which the imagi-
nation enters with alacrity, and readily breaks its bounds
— it has done so in former times and in our own. Still
the principle of such investigation is good ; for out of God's
book, as out of God's world, more may be often concluded
than our philosophy at first suspects. The principle is
good, for it is sanctioned by our Lord himself, who re-
proaches the Sadducees with not knowing those Scriptures
which they received, because they had not deduced the
doctrine of a future state from the words of Moses, " I am
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob," though the doctrine was there if they would but
have sought it out. One consideration, however, we must
take along Avith us in this inquiry, that the Books of
Moses are in most cases a ver}^ incomjjlete history of facts
— telling something and leaving a great deal untold —
abounding in chasms which cannot be filled up — not,
therefore, to be lightly esteemed even in their hints, for
hints are often all that they offer.

The proofs of this are numberless ; but as it is impor-
tant to my argument that the thing itself should be dis-
tinctly borne in mind, I will name a few. Thus if we
read the history of Joseph as it is given in the 37th chapter
of Genesis, where his brethren first put him into the pit
and then sell him to the Ishmaehts, we might conclude

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 13

that he was himself quite passive in the whole tiansaction.
Yet when the brothers happen to talk together upon this
same subject many years afterwards in Egypt, they say
one to another, " We are verily guilty concerning our
brother, in that we saw the a?ig-uish of his soul ivhen he
besought us, and we would not hear."^ All these fervent
entreaties are sunk in the direct history of the event, and
only come out by accident after all. As another instance.
The simple account of Jacob's reluctance to part with Ben-
jamin, would lead us to suppose that it was expressed and
overcome in a short time, and with no great effort. Yet
we incidentally hear from Judah that this family struggle
(for such it seems to have been) had occupied as much
time as would have sufficed for a journey to Egypt and
back.2 As a third instance. The several blessings which
Jacob bestows on his sons have probably a reference to the
past as well as to the future fortunes of each. In the case
of Reuben, the allusion happens to be a circumstance in
his life, with which we are already acquainted ; here,
therefore, we understand the old man's address^ ; but in
the case of several at least of his other sons, where there
are probably similar allusions to events in their lives too,
which have not, however, been left on record^ there is much
that is obscure— the brevity of the previous narrative not
supplying us with the proper key to the blessing. As a
fourth instance. The address of Jacob on his death-bed to
Reuben, to which I have just referred, shows how deeply
Jacob resented the wrong done him by this son many years
before, and proves what a breach it must have made be-
tween them at the time ; yet all that is said of it in the
Mosaic history is, '' and Israel heard it,"* — not a syllable
more. It is needless to multiply instances ; all that I wish
to impress is this, that in the Book of Genesis a hint is
1 Gen. xlii. 21. 2 xM. 10. 3 x]ix. 4. < xxxv. 22.

2

14 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

not to be wasted, but improved ; and that he who expects
every probable deduction from Scripture to be made out
complete in all its parts before he will admit it, expects
more than he will in many cases meet with, and will learn
much less than he might otherwise learn.

Having made these preliminary remarks, I shall now
proceed to collect the detached incidents in Genesis which
appear to point out the existence of a Patriarchal Church.
And the circumstance of so many incidents tending to this
one centre, though evidently without being marshalled or
arranged, implies veracity in the record itself; for it is a
very comprehensive instance of coincidence without design
in the several parts of that record.

1. First, then, the Patriarchs seem to have had places
set apart for the worship of God, consecrated, as it were,
especially to His service. To do things " before the Lord,^^
is a phrase not unfrequently occurring, and generally in a
local sense. Cain and Abel appear to have brought their
offerings to the same spot — it might be, (as some have
thought,)' to the East of the Garden, where the symbols
of God's presence were displayed ; and when Cain is ban-
ished from his first dwelling, and driven to wander upon
the earth, he is said to have "gone out from the presence
of the Lord ;"* as though, in the land where he was hence-
forward to live, he would no longer have access to the spot
where God had more especially set his name : or it might
be a sacred tent, for it is told Cain, " if thou doest not well,
sin, (i. e. a sin-offering) lieth at the door ;"^ and we know-
that the sacrifices were constantly brought to the door of
the Tabernacle, in later times.^ Again, when the angels
had left Abraham, and were gone towards Sodom, " Abra-

1 Hooker, Eccl. Pol. b. v. ^ 11. Vide Mr. Faber's Three Dispensations,.
Vol. I. p. 8; and comp. Wisdom, ix, 9.

2 Gen. iv. 16. 3 ib. iv. 7. 4 See Lightfoot, i. 3.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 16

ham," we read, " stood yet before the Lord^^^^ i. e. he staid
to plead with God for Sodom in the place best suited to
such a service, the place where prayer was wont to be
made ; and accordingly it follows immediately after, " and
Abraham drew near and said ;"* and again, the next day,
" Abraham gat up early in the morning," (probably his
usual hour of prayer,) " to the place where he stood before
the Lord,''^^ the same where he had put up his intercessions
to God the day before ; in short, the place where he " built
an altar unto the Lord," when he first came to dwell in
the plain of Mamre,^ for that was still the scene of this
transaction. Again, of Rebekah we read, that when the
children struggled within her, " she went to inquire of the
Lord," and an answer was received prophetic of the different
fortunes of those children.^ And when Isaac contempla-
ted blessing his son, which was a religious act, a solemn
appeal to God to remember His covenant unto Abraham,
it was to be done " before the LordJ^^ The place might
be as I have just said, an altar such as was put up by
Abraham at Hebron, by Isaac at Beer-sheba, or by Jacob
at Beth-el, where they respectively dwelt ;'' it might be, as
I have also suggested, a separate tent, and a tent actually
was set apart by Moses outside the camp, before the Tab-
ernacle was erected, where every one repaired who sought
the Lord f or it might be a separate part of a chamber
of the tent ; but however that was, the expression is a defi-
nite one, and relates to some appointed quarter to which
the family resorted for purposes of devotion. Accord-
ingly the very same expression is used in after-times, when
the Tabernacle had been set up, confessedly as the place
where the people were to assemble for prayer and sacrifice.

1 Gen. xviii. 22. 2 lb. xviii. 23. 3 lb. xix. 27.

4 lb. xiii. 18. 5 lb. XXV. 22. s ib. xxvii. 1.

7 See Gen. xiii. 18: xxvi. 25; xxxv. 6. ^ Exod. xxxiii. 7,

♦

16

THE VERACITY OP THE PART I.

" He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of
the Tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, and
he shall kill the bullock before the Lord.''' " Three times
in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy
God in the place which he shall choose."^ Here there can
be no question as to the meaning of the phrase ; it occurs,
indeed, some five-and-thirty times in the last four books of
Moses, and in all as significant of the place set apart for
the worship of God. I conclude therefore that in those pas-
sages of Genesis which I have quoted, Moses employs the
same expression in the same sense.

Such are some of the hints which seem to point to
places of patriarchal worship.

2. In like manner, and by evidences of the same indirect
and imperfect kind, I gather that there were jjersons
whose business it was to perform the rites of that worship
— not perhaps their sole business, but their appropriate
business. Whether the first-born was by right of birth
the priest also has been doubted ; at the same time it is
obvious that this circumstance would often, perhaps gener-
ally where there was no impediment, point him out as the
fit person to keep alive in his own household the fear of
that God who alone could make it to prosper. Persons,
however, invested with the sacerdotal office there undoubt-
edly were ; such was Melchizedeck " the Priest of the
Most High God," as he is expressly called,^ and the func-
tions of his ministry he publicly performs towards Abraham,
blessing him as God's servant, as the instrument by which
His arm had overthrown the confederate kings, and re-
ceiving from Abraham a tenth of the spoil, which could be
nothing but a religious offering, and which indeed, as such,
is the ground of St. Paul's argument for the superiority of

1 Lev. i. 3. 2 Deut. xvi. 16. 3 Qen. xiv. 18.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. ' 17

Christ's priesthood over the Levitical* Such probably was
Jethro •' the Priest of Midian."^ Moreover, we find the
priests expressly mentioned as a body of functionaries ex-
isting amongst the Israelites even before the consecration of
Aaron and his sons ;^ the "young men" who offered burnt-
offerings, spoken of Exod. xxiv. 5, being the same under a
different name, probably the first-born. Then if we read
of Patriarchal Priests, so do we of Patriarchal " Preachers
of Righteousness," as in Noah.* So do we of Patriarchal
Prophets, as in Abraham,^ as in Balaam, as in Job, as in
Enoch. All these are hirits of a Patriarchal Church, dif-
fering perhaps less in its construction and in the manner
in which God was pleased to use it, as the means of keeping
himself in remembrance amongst men, from the churches
which have succeeded, than may be at first imagined.

3. Pursue we the inquiry, and I think a hint may be
discovered of a peculiar dress assigned to the Patriarchal
Priest when he officiated; for Jacob, being already pos-
sessed of the birthright, and probably in this instance of
the priesthood with it, since Esau by surrendering the
birthright became '^profaiie,'''^ goes in to Isaac to receive
the blessing, a rehgious act, as I have already said, to be
done before the Lord. Now on this occasion, Rebekah
took ^'•goodly raimenf^ (such is our translation) "of her
eldest son Esau, which were with her in the house, and
put them upon Jacob her youngest son."'' Were these the
sacerdotal robes of the first-born? It occurred to me
that they might be so ; and on reference I find that the
Jews themselves so interpreted them,^ an interpretation
which has been treated by Dr. Patrick more contemptu-

1 Heb. vii. 9. 2 Exod. ii. 16. 3 Exod. xix. 22.

* 2 Peter ii. 5. 5 Gen. xx. 7. « Heb. xii. 16.

7 Gen. XX vii. 15. « Vide Patrick in loc.

2*

18

THE VERACITY OP THE PART 1.

ously than it deserved to be ;' for I look upon it as a trifle
indeed, but still as a trifle which is a component part of
the system I am endeavoring to trace out ; had it stood
alone it would have been fruitless perhaps to have haz-
arded a word upon it — as it stands in conjunction with so
many other indications of a Patriarchal Church it has its
weight. Now I do not say that the Hebrew expression^
here rendered " raiment" (for of the epithet " goodly" 1 will
speak by and by,) is exclusively confined to the garments
of a priest ; it is certainly a lerm of considerable latitude,
and is by no means to be so restricted; still when the
priest's garments are to be expressed by any general term
at all, it is always by the one in question. Yet there is
another term in the Hebrew,^ perhaps of as frequent oc-
currence, and also a comprehensive term ; but w^iilst this
latter is constantly applied to the dress of other mdividuals
of both sexes, I do not find it ever applied to the dress of
the priests. The distinction and the argument will be best
illustrated by examples : — Thus we read in Leviticus,^ ac-
cording to our version, " the high-priest that is consecrated
to put on the gartiients^ shall not uncover his head, nor
rend his clothes.'''' The word here translated "garments"
in the one clause, and "clothes" in the other, is in the
Hebrew in both clauses the same — is the word in question
— is the raiment of Esau which Rebekah took, and in
both clauses the priests' dress is meant, and no other. So
again, what are called* " the clothes of service," is still the

I More especially as he quotes in another place (on Exod. xxviii. 2,) an
opinion of the Hebrew Doctors, that vestments were inseparable from the
priesthood, so that Adam, Abel, and Cain did not sacrifice without them ; see
Gen. iii. 22 : and again, (on Exod. xxviii. 35,) a maxim among the Jews,
that when the priests were clothed with their garments they wer6 priests ;
when they were not so clothed, they were not priests.

2 D"i53 ^ njabb nbaia * Chap. xxi. 10.

s Exod. XXXV. 19.

PART T. BOOKS OF MOSES. 19

same word, as implying Aaron^s clothes, or those of his
sons, and no other. And again, Moses says,' " uncover
not your heads, neither rend your clothes^ lest ye die ;"
still the word is the same, for he is there speaking to
Aaron and his sons, and to none other. But when he
says,2 " your clothes are not waxed old." the Hebrew word
is no longer the same, though the English word is, but is
the other word of which I spoke ;^ for the clothes of the
people are here signified, and not of the priests.

This, therefore, is all that can be maintained, that the
term used to express the " raiment'' which Rebekah
brought out for Jacob, is the term which should express
appropriately the dress of the priest, though it certainly
would not express it exclusively. But again, the epithet
•' goodlif (or " desirahy"^ as the margin renders it more
closely,) annexed to the raiment is still in favor of our in-
terpretation, though neither is this word, any more than
the other, conclusive of the question. Certainly, however,
it is, that though the word translated " goodly" is not re-
stricted to sacred things^ it does so happen that to sacred
things it is attached in very many instances, if not in a
majority of instances where it occurs in Holy Writ. Thus
the utensils of the Temple which Nebuchadnezzar carried
away are called in the Book of Chronicles^ the goodly
vessels of the House of the Lord." And Isaiah writes,
" all our pleasant things are laid waste,"^ meaning the
Temple — the word here rendered " pleasant." being the
same as that in the former passages rendered '' goodly ;"
and in the Lamentations'' we read, " the adversary hath
spread out his hand upon all our pleasant things," where
the Temple is again understood, as the context proves ;

1 Lev. X. 6. 2 Deut. xxix. 5. '' nabiU

^ n^Tsrin ^ 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10. « Isa. Ixiv. 11.

7 Lam. i. 10.

20 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

and in Genesis/ " a tree to be desired to make one wise."
the term perhaps meant to convey a hint of violated
sanctity as entering into the offence of our first parents.
In other places it occurs in a bad sense, as relating to what
was held sacred by heathens only, but still what was held
sacred — " The oaks which ye have desired,^^^ •' all pleasant
pictures,"^ objects of idolatry, as the tenor of the passage
indicates — " their delectable things shall not profit,"* that
is, their idols. I may add too, that the aioXri of the Sep-
tuagint, (for this answers to the " raiment" of our version,)
though not limited to the robe of the altar, is the term
used in the Greek as the appropriate one for the robe
of Aaron ; and finally, that the care with which this ves-
ture had been kept by Rebekah, and the perfumes with
which it was imbued when Jacob wore it, (for Isaac
" smelled the smell of his raiment,") savor of things per-
taining unto God.

Again, it seems to be by no means improbable that
•' the coat of many colors^'' {xn^iiva noixdop, as the LXX.
understands it^) which Jacob made for Joseph, was a
sacerdotal garment. It figures very largely in a very
short history. It appears to have been viewed with great
jealousy by his brothers; far greater than an ordinary
dress, which merely bespoke a certain partiality on the
part of a parent, would have been likely to inspire. They
strip him of it, when they put him in the pit ; they dip it
in the blood of the goat, when they want to persuade
Jacob that a wild beast had devoured him. Reuben, Jacob's
first-born, and naturally therefore the Priest of the family,
had forfeited his father's affection and disgraced his station
by his conduct towards Bilhah. Jacob might feel that

1 Gen. iii. 6. 2 isa. i. 29. 3 Ibid. ii. i6.

* Ibid. xliv. 9. ^ Gen. xxxvii. 3.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 21

the priesthood was open under the circumstances ; and his
fondness for Joseph might suggest to him, that he might
in justice be considered his first-born : for that lie sup-
posed Rachel, Joseph's mother, to be his wife, when Leah,
Reuben's mother, had been deceitfully substituted for her.
He might give him therefore, '• this coat of many colors,"
as a token of his future office. Hannah brought Samuel
" a httle coat " from year to year, when she came up with
her husband to offer Ms yearly sacrifice:^ and, though
Aaron's coat is not called a coat of many colors, it was so
in fact : " and of the blue and jnirple and scarlet they
made cloths of service, to do service in the holy place, and
made the holy garments for Aaron.'"^ On the whole,
therefore, I think there was a meaning in this "coat of
many colors," beyond the obvious one ; and that it was
emblematical of priestly functions which Jacob was anxious
to devolve upon Joseph.

4. Furthermore, the Patriarchal Church seems not to
have been without its forms. Thus Jacob consecrates
the foundation of a place of worship with oil ;^ the incident
here alluded to being apparently a much more detailed
and emphatic one than it seems at first sight : for we find
him, by anticipation, calling " this the house of God, and
this the gate of heaven,"* and promising eventually to
endow it with tithes :^ and we hear God reminding him of
this solemn act long afterwards, when he was in Syria,
and appropriating to himself the very title of this Temple :
" I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar,
and where thou vowedst a vow unto me."^ And accord-
ingly we are told at much length, and with several of the
circumstances of the case described, that Jacob, after his

1 1 Sam. u. 19. 2 Exod. xxxix. 1. 3 Gen. xxviii. 18.

4 lb. xxviii. 17. 5 ib. xxviii. 22. e Ibid. xxxi. 13.

^ THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

return from Haran, actually fulfilled his pious intentions,
and "built an altar," and "set up a pillar," and " poured a
drink-offering thereon.'"

Then there appears to have been the rite of imposition
of hands existing in the Patriarchal Church : and when
Jacob blessed Joseph's children he is very careful about
the due observance of it ; the narrative, succinct as on the
whole it is, dwelling upon this point with much amplifi-
cation.-

Again, the shoes of those who trod upon holy ground,
or w4io entered consecrated places were to be put off their
feet ; the injunction to this effect, of which we read in the
case of Moses at the bush, implies a usage already estab-
lished f and this usage, though nowhere expressly com-
manded in the Levitical Law, appears to have continued
amongst the Israelites by tradition from the Patriarchal
times ; and is that which a passage in Ecclesiastes^ probably
contemplates in its primary sense, " Look to thy foot when
thou comest to the House of God.'"^ And finally the
Patriarchal Church had its posture of worship, and men
bowed themselves to the ground when they addressed
God.«

But if there were Patriarchal Places for worship — if
there were Priests to conduct the worship — if there were
decent Robes wherein those priests ministered at the wor-
ship — if there were Forms connected with that worship ;
so do I think there were stated Seaso7is set apart for it :
though here again we have nothing but hints to guide us
to a conclusion.

5. I confess that the Divine institution of the Sabbath

1 Gen. XXXV. 1. 15. 2 ibid, xlviii. 13—19. 3 Exod. iii. 5.

< Eccles. V. 1. 5 See Mede's Works, b. ii. p. 340 et seq.

6 Gen. xxiv. 26—52; Exod. iv. 31 ; xii. 27.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 23

as a day of religious duties, seems to me to have been
from the beginning ; and though we have but glimpses
of such a fact, still to my eye they present themselves as
parts of that one harmonious whole which I am now
endeavoring to develop and draw out— even of a Patriar-
chal Church, whereof we see scarcely anything but by
glimpse.

"And it came to pass that on the sixth day they
gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man,
and all the rulers of the congregation came, and told
Moses. And he said unto them. This is that which the
Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the Holy Sab-
bath unto the Lord. Six days ye shall gather it ; but on
the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be
none."^ And again, in a few verses after, "And the Lord
said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my com-
mandments and my laws ? See, for that the Lord hath
given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the
sixth day the bread of two days." Now the transaction
here recorded is by some argued to be the first institution
of the Sabbath. The inference I draw from it, I confess,
is different. I see in it, that a Sabbath had already been
appointed — that the Lord had already given it ; and that,
in accommodation to that institution already understood,
he had doubled the manna on the sixth day. But even
supposing the Institution of the Sabbath to be here formally
proclaimed, or supposing (as others would have it, and as
the Jews themselves pretend,) that it was not now pronuil-
gated, strictly speaking, but was actually one of the two
precepts given a little earlier at Marah,'^ still it is not un-
common in the writings of Moses, nor indeed in other
parts of Scripture, for an event to be mentioned as then

' Exod. xvi. 22. 2 Exod. xv. 25, and compare Deut. v. 12.

24

THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

occurring for the first time, which had in fact occurred,
and which had been reported to have occurred, long before.
For instance, Isaac and Abimelech meet, and swear to do
each other no injury. "And it came to pass the same
day, that Isaac's servants came and told him concerning
the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We
have found water : and he called it Shebah ; therefore the
name of the city is BeerSheba unto this dayP^ Now
who would not say that the name was then given to the
place by Isaac, and for the first time ? Yet it had been
undoubtedly given by Abraham long before, in commemo-
ration of a similar covenant which he had struck with
the Abimelech of his day. "These seven ewe-lambs,"
said he to that Prince, " shalt thou take at my hand, that
they may be a witness unto thee that I have digged this
well ; wherefore he called the place Beer-iSheba, beause
they sware both of them."^ Again, •' So Jacob came to
Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Beth-el, he
and all his people that were with him. And he built there
an altar, and called the place El-Beth-el, because there
God appeared unto him when he fled from the face of his
brother.''* Who would not conclude that the new name
was given to Luz now for the first time ? Yet Jacob had
in fact changed the name a great many years before,
when he was on his journey to Haran. " And Jacob rose
up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had
put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured
oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that
place Beth-el: but the name of the city was called Luz at
the first."^ Or, as another instance : — "And God appeared
unto Jacob again when he came out of Padan-Aram, and

1 Gen. xxvi. 32. 2 Gen. xxi. 31.

3 lb. XXXV. 6, 7. i lb. xxviii. 18, 19.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 25

blessed him : and God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob,
thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel
shall be thy name, and he called his name Israel."^ Who
would not suppose that the name of Israel was now given
to Jacob for the first time? Yet several chapters before
this, when Jacob had wrestled with the angel, (not at
Beth-el, which was the former scene, but at Peniel,) we
read, that " the angel said, What is thy name ? and he
said Jacob : and he said. Thy name shall be called no
more Jacob, but Israel ; for as a prince hast thou power
with God, and with man, and hast prevailed. "^

Thus again, to add one example more, we are told in
the Book of Judges,^ that a certain Jair, a Gileadite, a
successor of Abimelech in the government of Israel, " had
thirty sons that rode on thirty ass-colts, and they had thirty
cities, which are called Havoth-Jair unto this day, which
are in the land of Gilead." Who would not conclude that
the cities were then called by this name for the first time,
and that this Jair was the person from whom they de-
rived it? Yet we read in the Book of Numbers,* that
another Jair, who lived nearly three hundred years earlier,
"went and took the small towns of Gilead" (apparently
these very same,) " and called them Havoth-Jair^ So that
the name had been given nearly three centuries already.
Why, then, should it be thought strange that the institu-
tion of the Sabbath should be mentioned as if for the first
time in the 16th chapter of Exodus, and yet that it should
have been in fact founded at the creation of the world, as
the language of the 2nd chapter of Genesis,^ taken in its
obvious meaning; implies ; and as St. Paul's argument in
the 4th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews (I think) re-

1 Gen. XXXV. 10. 2 ib. xxxii, 28. 3 Judges x. 4.

* Num. xxxii. 41. 5 Gen. ii. 3.

26 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

quires it to have been '} — Nor is such a case without a
parallel. " Moses gave unto you circumcision," says our
Lord ; yet there is added, " not because it is of Moses, but
of the Fathers ;"' — and the like may be said of the Sab-
bath ; thai Moses gave it, and yet that it was of the
Fathers. And surely sucli observance of the Sabbath
from the heginning is in accordance with many hints
which are conveyed to us of some distinction or other be-
longing to that day from the beginning — as when Noah
sends forth the dove three times successively at intervals of
seven days : as when Laban invites Jacob to " fulfil his
week,''^ after the marriage of Leah ; the nuptial festivities
being probably terminated by the arrival of the Sabbath :'-
as when Joseph makes a mourning for his father of seven
days ;3 the lamentation most likely ceasing with the return
of that festival : these and other hints of the same kind
being, as appears to me, pregnant with meaning, and in-
tended to be so, in a history of the rapid and desultory
nature of that of Moses. Neither is there much difficulty
in the passage of Ezekiel,^ with which those, who main-
tain the Sabbath to have been for the first time enjoined
in the wilderness, support themselves. " Wherefore," says
that Prophet, " I caused them to go forth out of the land
of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness — and I
gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments,
which if a man do, he shall even live in them — moreover
also I gave them my Sabbaths^ Here, then, it is alleged,
Ezekiel affirms, or seems to affirm, that the Almighty gave
the Israelites his Sabbaths when he was leading them out
of Egypt, and that He had not given them till then. Yet
His statutes and judgments are also spoken of as given

1 John vii. 23. 2 Gen. xxix. 27.

3 lb. 1. 10. 4 Ezek. xx. 10, 11, 13.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 27

at the same time, whereas very many of those had surely
been given long before. It would be very untrue to assert
that, until the Israelites were led forth from Egypt, no
statutes or judgments of the same kind had been ever
given : it was in the wilderness that the law respecting
clean and unclean beasts was promulgated, yet tliat law
had certainly been published long before ;* and the same
may be said of many others, which I will not enumerate
here, because I shall have occasion to do it by and by.
My argument, then, is briefly this : — that as Ezekiel speaks
of statutes and judgments given to the Israelites in the
wilderness, some of which were certainly old statutes and
judgments repeated and enforced, so w4ien he says that
the Sabbaths were given to the Israelites in the wilderness,
he cannot be fairly accounted to assert that the Sabbaths
had never been given till then. The fact indeed probably
was, that they had been neglected and half forgotten dur-
ing the long bondage in Egypt, (slavery being imfavorable
to morals,) and that the observance of them was re-as-
serted and renewed at the time of the promulgation of the
Lav,' in the Desert. In this sense, therefore, the Prophet
might well declare, that on that occasion God gave the
Israelites his Sabbaths. It is true, that in addition to the
motive for the observance of the Sabbath, (hinted in the
2nd chapter of Genesis, and more fully expressed in the
20th of Exodus,) which is of universal obligation, other
motives were urged upon the Israelites specially applicable
to them — as that " the day should be a sign between
God and thera"'^— as that it should be a remembrance of
their having been made to rest from the yoke of the Egyp-
tians.3 Yet such supplementary sanctions to the per-
formance of a duty (however well adapted to secure the

1 Gen. vii. 2. '5 Exod. xxxi. 17. ^ Deut. v. 15.

28 THE VERACITY OP THE PART I.

obedience of the Israelites) are quite consistent with a pre-
vious command addressed to all, and upon a principle
binding on all.'

I have now attempted to show, but very briefly, lest
otherwise the scope of my argument should be lost sight of,
that there were among the Patriarchs places set apart for
worship — persons to officiate — a decent ceremonial — an
appointed season for holy things — I will now suggest in
very few words, (still gathering my information from such
hints as the Book of Genesis supplies from time to time,)
something of the duties and doctrines which were taught
in that ancient Church : and here, I think it will appear,
that the Law and the Prophets of the next Dispensation
had their prototypes in that of the Patriarchs — that the
Second Temple was greater indeed in glory than the First,
but was nevertheless built up out of the First, the one
body " not unclothed," but the other rather '•' clothed upon."

6. In this primitive Church, then, the distinction of
clean and unclean is already known, and known as much
in detail as under the Levitical Law, every animal being
arranged by Noah in one class or the other j*^ and the clean
being, exclusively used by him for sacrifice. ^ The blood,
which is the life of the animal, is already withheld as food.*
Murder is already denounced as demanding death for its
punishment.^ Adultery is already forbidden, as we learn
from the cases of Pharaoh and Abimelech,® of Reuben,'
and Joseph.^ Oaths are already binding. ^ Fornication is

1 Justin Martyr, it is true, frequently speaks of the Patriarchs as observ-
ing no Sabbaths, (See e. g. Dial. ^ 23 ;) but it is certain that his meaning
was, that the Patriarchs did not observe the Sabbaths accordins; to tiie pe-
culiar rites of the Jcwhh Law, his use of the word (raffilaTi^civ has always a
reference to that Law ; and by no means that they kept no Sabbaths at all.
2 Gen. vii. 2. 3 Ibid. viii. 20.

* lb. ix. 4. 5 lb. ix. 6; xlii. 22. 6 ib. xii. 18; xxvi. 10.

» Ib. xlix. 4. 8 lb. xxxix. 9. » Ib. xxvi. 28.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 29

already condemned, as in the case of Shechem, who is
said " to have wrought folly in Israel, which thing ought
not to be done.'" Marriage with the uncircumcised or
idolater is already prohibited.^ A curse is already de-
nounced on him that setteth light by his father or his mo-
ther.3 Purifications are aheady enjoined those who
approach a holy place, for Jacob bids his people " be clean
and change their garments" before they present themselves
at Bethel.^ The brother is already commanded to marry
the brother's widow, and to raise up seed unto his brother.*
The daughter of the Priest (if Judah as the head of his
own family may be considered in that character, is already
to be Ijrought forth and burned, if she played the harlot.®
These laws, afterwards incorporated in the Levitical, are
here brought together and reviewed at a glance; but as
they occur in the book of Genesis, be it remembered, they
drop out incidentally, one by one, as the coarse of the nar-
rative happens to turn them up. They are therefore to be
reckoned fragments of a more full and complete code which
was the groundwork in all probability of the Levitical code
itself ; for it is difficult to suppose that where there were
these there were not others like to them. But this is not
all — the Patriarchs had their sacrifices, that great and
leading rite of the Church of Aaron ; the subjects of those
sacrifices fixed ; useless without the shedding of blood ; for
what but the violation of an express command full of
meaning, could have constituted the sin of Cain V Their
sacrifices, how far regulated in their details by the injunc-
tions of God himself, we cannot determine , yet it is im-

1 Gen. xxxiv. 7.

2 lb. xxxiv. 14, and comp. Exod. xxxiv. 16, and Dr. Patrick's Comment,

3 lb. ix. 25, and comp. Deut. xxvii. 16. ^ Gen, xxxv. 2.
5 lb. xxxviii. 8. s lb. xxxviii. 24.

7 See lb. iii. 21 ; iv. 4, 5, 7

3*

30 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

possible to read in the 15th chapter of Genesis the particu-
lars of Abraham's offering of the heifer, the goat, the ram,
the turtle-dove, and the pigeon — their ages, their sex, the
circumspection with which he dissects and disposes them — •
whether all this be done in act or in vision, without feehng
assured that very minute directions upon all these points
were vouchsafed to the Patriarchal Church. She had
her Sacraments ; for sacrifice of which I have just been
speaking, was one, and circumcision was the other.

Then as she had her sacrifices and sacraments, so had
she her types — types which in number scarcely yield to
those of the Levitical Law, in precision and interest per-
haps exceed them. For we meet with them in the names
and fortunes of individuals whom the Almighty Disposer
of events, without doing violence to the natural order of
things, exhibits as pages of a living book in which the
Promise is to be read — as characters expressing His coun-
sels and covenants writ by His own finger — as actors,
whereby he holds up to a world, not yet prepared for less
gross and sensible impressions, scenes to come. It would
lead me far beyond the limits of my argument were I to
touch upon the multitude of instances, which will crowd,
however, I doubt not, upon the minds of my readers. I
might tell of Adam, whom St. Paul himself calls the " fig-
ure" or type •' of Him who was to come."- I might tell of
the sacrifice of Isaac (though not altogether after him
whose vision upon this subject, always bright though often
baseless, would alone have immortalized his name) — of
that Isaac whose birth was preceded by an annunciation
to his mother*^ — whose conception was miraculous^ — ^who
was named of the angel before he was conceived in the
womb^ and Joy, or Laughter, or Rejoicing was thatname^

1 Rom. V. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 45. 2 Gen. xviii. 10.

3 Gen. xviii. 14 < lb. xvii. 19. s ih. xxi. 6.

PART r.

BOOKS OF MOSES. 31

— who was, ill its primary sense, the seed in which all the
nations of the earth were to be blessed^ — whose projected
death was a rehearsal (as it were), almost two thousand
years beforehand, of the great offering of all — the very
mountain, Moriah, not chosen by chance, not chosen for
convenience, for it was three days' journey from Abraham's
dwelling-place, but no doubt appointed of God as the future
scene of a Saviour's passion too^ — a son, an only son the
victim — the very instruments, of the oblation, the iDood^
not carried by the young men, not carried by the ass which
they had brought with them, but laid on the shoulders of
him who was to die, as the cross was borne up that same
ascent of Him, who, in the fulness of time, was destined to
expire upon it. But indeed I see the Promise all Genesis
through, so that our Lord might well begin with Moses in
expounding the things concerning Himself;^ and well
might Philip say, " We have found him of whom Moses
in the Law did write."* I see the -Promise all Genesis
through, and if I have constructed a rude and imperfect
Temple of Patriarchal Worship out of the fragments which
offer themselves to our hands in that history, the Messiah
to come is the spirit that must fill that Temple with His
all- pervading presence, none other than He must be the
Shekinah df the Tabernacle we have reared. For I con-
fess myself wholly at a loss to explain the nature of that
Book on any other principle, or to unlock its mysteries by
any other key. Couple it with this consideration, and I
see the scheme of Revelation, Hke the physical scheme,
proceeding with beautiful uniformity — an unity of plan
connecting (as it has been well said by Paley) the chicken
roosting upon its perch with the spheres revolving in the

1 Gen. xxii. 18. 2 ib. xxii. 2; 2 Chron. iii. 1.

3 Luke xxiv. 27. i John i. 45.

32

THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

firmament ; and an unity of plan connecting in like man-
ner the meanest accidents of a household with the most
illustrious visions of a prophet. Abstracted from this con-
sideration, I see in it details of actions, some trifling, some
even offensive, pursued at a length (when compared with
the whole) singularly disproportionate ; while things which
the angels would desire to look into are passed over and
forgotten. But this principle once admitted, and all is
consecrated — all assumes a new aspect — trifles that seem
at first not bigger than a man's hand, occupy the heavens ;
and wherefore Sarah laughed, for instance, at the prospect
of a son, and wherefore that laugh was rendered immortal
in his name, and wherefore the sacred historian dwells on
a matter so trivial, whilst the world and its vast concerns
were lying at his feet, I can fully understand. For then 1
see the hand of God shaping everything to his own ends,
and in an event thus casual, thus easy, thus unimportant,
telling forth his mighty design of Salvation to the world,
and working it up into the web of his noble prospective
counsels.^ I see that nothing is great or little before Him
who can bend to his purposes whatever He willeth, and
convert the light-hearted and thoughtless mockery of an
aged woman into an instrument of his glory, effectual as
the tongue of the seer which He touched with Mving coals
from the altar. Bearing this master-key in my hand, I can
interpret the scenes of domestic mirth, of domestic strata-
gem, or of domestic wickedness, with which the history of
Moses abounds. The Seed of the Woman which was to
bruise the Serpent's head,* however indistinctly understood,
(and probably it was understood very indistinctly,) was
the one thing longed for in the families of old, was " the
desire of all nations," as the Prophet Haggai expressly calls

1 Gen. xxi. 6. 2 Gen. iii. 15.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 33

it;* and provided they could accomplish this desire, they
(like others when urged by an overpowering motive) were
often reckless of the means, and rushed upon deeds which
they could not defend. Then did the wife forget her jeal-
ousy, and provoke, instead of resenting, the faithlessness
of her husband :^ then did the mother forget a mother's
part, and teach her own child treachery and deceit ;^ then did
daughters turn the instincts of nature backward, and delib-
erately work their own and their fathers shame ;^ then did
the daughter-in-law veil her face, and court the incestuous
bed ;« and to be childless was to be a bye-word ;« and to
refuse to raise up seed to a brotlier was to be spit upon •?
and the prospect of the Promise, like the fulfilment of it,
did not send peace into famihes, but a sword, and three
were set against two, and two against three f and the elder
who would be promoted unto honor, was set against the
younger, whom God would promote,' and national differ-
ences were engendered by it, as individuals grew into na-
tions ;'" and even the foulest of idolatries may be traced,
perhaps, to this hallowed source ; for the corruption of the
best is the worst corruption of all.'' It is upon this prin-
ciple of interpretation, and I know not upon what other
so well, that we may put to silence the ignorance of foolish
men, who have made those parts of the Mosaic History
a stumbling-block to many, which, if rightly understood,
are the very testimony of the covenant ; and a principle,
which is thus extensive in its application and successful in
its results, which explains so much that is difficult, and
answers so much that is objected against, has, from this

1 Hag. ii. 7. 2 Gen. xvi. 2; xxx. 3 ; xxx. 9.

3 lb. XXV. 23; xxvii. 13. « lb. xix. 31. s lb. xxxviii. 14.

fi lb. xvi. 5; xxx. 1. 7 lb. xxxviii. 26; Deut. xxv. 9.

s Gen. xxvii. 41. 9 lb. iv. 5 ; xxvii. 41.

10 lb. xix. 37; xxvi. 35. » Numb. xxv. 1, 2, 3.

34 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

circumstance alone, strong presumption in its favor, strong
claims upon our sober regard.*

Such is the structure that appears to me to unfold itself,
if we do but bring together the scattered materials of
which it is composed. The place of worship — the priest
to minister — the sacerdotal dress — the ceremonial forms
—the appointed seasons for holy things — jireachers —
prophets — a code of laws — sacrifices — sacraments — types
— and a Messiah in prospect, as leading a feature of the
whole scheme, as he now is in retrospect of a scheme
which has succeeded it. Complete the building is not, but
still there is symmetry in its component parts, and unity
in its whole. Yet Moses was certainly not contemplating
any description of a Patriarchal Church. He had other
matters in his thoughts : he was the mediator not of this
system, but of another, which he was now to set forth in
all its details, even of the Levitical. Hints, however, of
a former dispensation he does inadvertently let fall, and
these we find, on collecting and comparing them, to be, as
far as they go, harmonious.

Upon this general view of the Book of Genesis, then,
I found my first proof of consistency ivithout design in
the writings of Moses, and my first argument for their
veracity — for such consistency is too uniform to be acci-
dental, and too unobtrusive to have been studied. Such
a view is, doubtless, important as far as regards the doc-
trines of Scripture ; I, however, only urge it as far as re-
gards the evidences. I shall now enter more into detail,
and bring forward such specific coincidences amongst in-
dependent passages of the Mosaic writings, as tend to prove
that in them we have the Word of Truth, that in them we
may put our trust with faith unfeigned.

1 See Allix, " Reflections on the Books of Holy Scripture," where this
interesting subject is most ingeniously pursued.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES, 33

II.

In the 18th chapter of Genesis we find recorded a very
singular conversation which Abraham is reported to have
held with a superior Being, there called the Lord. It
pleased God on this occasion to communicate to the Father
of the Faithful his intention to destroy forthwith the cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah, of which the cry was great, and
the sin very grievous. Now the manner in which Abra-
ham is said to have received the sad tidings, is remarkable.
He does not bow to the high behest in helpless acquies-
cence — the Lord do what seemeth good in his sight — but,
with feehngs at once excited to the uttermost, he pleads
for the guilty city, he implores the Lord not to slay the
righteous loith the vncked : and when he feels himself
permitted to speak with all boldness, he first entreats that
fifty good men may purchase the city's safety, and, still en-
couraged by the success of a series of petitions, he rises in
his merciful demands, till at last it is promised that even
if te?i should be found in it, it should not be destroyed for
ten's sake.

Now was there no motive beyond that of general hu-
manity which urged Abraham to entreaties so importu-
nate, so reiterated ? None is named — perhaps such gen-
eral motive will be thought enough — I do not say that it
was not ; yet I think we may discover a special and ap-
propriate one, which was likely to act upon the mind of
Abraham with still greater effect, though we are left en-
tirely to detect it for ourselves. For may we not imagine,
that no sooner was the intelligence sounded in Abraham's
ears, than he called to mind that Lot his nephew, with all
his family^ was dwelling in this accursed town,' and that

1 Gen. xiv. 13.

36 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

this consideration both prompted and quickened his prayer ?
For while he thus made his supphcation for Sodom, I do
not read that Gomorrah and the other cities of the plain^
shared his intercession, though they stood in the same need
of it — and why not ? except that in them he had not the
same deep interest. It may be argued too, and without
any undue refinement, that in his repeated reduction of
the number which was to save the place, he was governed
by the hope that the single family of Lot (for he had sons-
in-law who had married his daughters, and daughters un-
married, and servants,) would in itself have suppUed so
many individuals at least as would fulfil the last condition
— te7i righteous persons who might turn away the wrath
of God, nor suffer his whole displeasure to arise.

Surely nothing could be more natural than that anxiety
for the welfare of relatives so near to him should be felt
by Abraham — nothing more natural than that he should
make an effort for their escape, as he had done on a former
occasion at his own risk, when he rescued this very Lot
from the kings who had taken him captive — nothing more
natural than that his family feelings should discover them-
selves in the earnestness of his entreaties — yet we have to
collect all this for ourselves. The whole chapter might be
read without our gathering from it a single hint that he
had any relative within ten days' journey of the place.
All we know is, that Abraham entreated for it with great
passion — that he entreated for no other place, though others
were in the same peril — that he endeavored to obtain such
terms as seemed likely to be fulfilled if a single righteous
family could be found there. And then we know, from
what is elsewhere disclosed, that the family of Lot did ac-
tually dwell there at that time, a family that Abraham

1 Gen. xix. 28 ; Jude, 7.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES 37

might well have reckoned on being more prolific in virtue
than it proved.

Surely, then, a coincidence between the zeal of the uncle
and the danger of the brothefs soji is here detailed, though
it is not expressed ; and so utterly undesigned is this coin-
cidence, that the history might be read many times over,
and this feature of truth in it never happen to present
itself.

And here let me observe, (an observation which will be
very often forced upon our notice in the prosecution of this
argument,) that this sign of truth (whatever may be the
importance attached to it), offers itself in the midst of an
incident in a great measure miraculous: and though it
cannot be said that such indications of veracity in the nat-
ural parts of a story, prove those parts of it to be true
which are super nattir al ; yet where the natural and
supernatural are in close combination, the truth of the
former must at least be thought to add to the credibility
of the latter ; and they who are disposed to believe, from
the coincidence in question, that the petition of Abraham
in behalf of Sodom was a real petition, as it is described
by Moses, and no fiction, will have some difficulty in
separating it from the miraculous circumstances connected
with it — the visit of the angel — the prophetic information
he conveyed — and the terrible vengeance with which he
was proceeding to smite that adulterous and sinful genera-
tion.

III.

The 24th chapter of Genesis contains a very beautiful
and primitive picture of Eastern manners, in the mission
of Abraham's trusty servant to Mesopotamia, to procure a
wife for Isaac from the daughters of that branch of the

4

38 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

Patriarch's family which conlinued to dwell in Haran.
He came nigh to the city of Nahor — it was the hour when
the people were going to draw water. He entreated God
to give him a token whereby he might know which of the
damsels of the place he had appointed to Isaac for a wife.
" And it came to pass that behold Rebekah came out, who
was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor,
Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder."
— " Drink, my lord," was her greeting, " and I will draw
water for thy camels also." -This was the simple token
which the servant had sought at the hands of God; and
accordingly he proceeds to impart his commission to her-
self and her friends. To read is to believe this story.
But the point in it to which I beg the attention of my
readers is tliis, that Rebekah is said to be, " the daughter
of Bethuel, the son of Milcah lohich she bare unto Nahor.''
It appears, therefore, that the grand-daughter of Abia-
ham's brother is to be the wife of Abraham's son — i.e. that
a person of the third generation on Nahor's side is found
of suitable years for one of the second generation on Abra-
ham's side. Now what could harmonize more remarkably
with a fact elsewhere asserted, though here not even
touched upon, that Sarah the wife of Abraham was for a
long time barren, and had no child till she was stricken
in yearsV Thus it was that a generation on Abraham's
side was lost, and the grand-children of his brother in
Haran were the co-evals of his own child in Canaan. I
nmst say that this trifling instance of minute consistency
gives nie very great confidence in the veracity of tiie his-
torian. It is an incidental point in the narrative — most
easily overlooked — I am free to confess, never observed by
myself till I examined the Pentateuch with a view to this

• Gen. xviii. 12.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 39

species of internal evidence. It is a point on which he
might have spoken differently, and yet not have excited
the smallest suspicion that he was speaking inaccurately.
Suppose he had said that Abraham's son had taken for
a wife the daughter of Nahor, instead of the grand-
daughter, who would have seen in this anythmg im-
probable ? and to a mere inventor would not that alh-
ance have been much the more likely to suggest itself?.

Now here, again, the ordinary and extraordinary are so
closely united, that it is extremely difficult indeed to put
them asunder. If, then, the ordinary circumstances of
the narrative have the impress of truth, the extraordinary
have a very valid right to challenge our serious considera-
tion too. If the coincidence almost establishes this as a
certain fact, which I think it does, that Sarah did not bear
Isaac while she was young, agreeably to what Moses af-
firms ; is it not probable that the same historian is telling
the truth when he says, that Isaac was born when Sarah
was too old to bare him at all except by miracle ? — when
he says, that the Lord announced his future birth, and
ushered him into the world by giving him a name fore-
telUng the joy he should be to the nations ; changing the
names of both his parents with a prophetic reference to
the high destinies this son was appointed to fulfil ?

Indeed the more attentively and scrupulously we ex-
amine the Scriptures, the more shall we be (in my opinion)
convinced, that the natural and supernatural events re-
corded in them must stand or fall together. The spirit
of miracles possesses the entire body of the Bible, and can-
not be cast out without rending in pieces the whole frame
of the history itself, merely considered as a history.

40

THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

IV.

There is another indication of truth in this same
portion of patriarchal story. It is this — The consistent
insignificance of Bethuel in this whole affair . Yet he
was ahve, and as the father of Rebekah was Hkely, it
might have been thought, to have been a conspicuous
person in this contract of his daughter's marriage. For
there was nothing in the custom of the country to warrant
the apparent indifference in the party most nearly con-
cerned, which we observe in Bethuel. Laban was of the
same country and placed in circumstances somewhat simi-
lar ; he too had to dispose of a daughter in marriage, and
that daughter also, like Rebekah, had brothers ;' yet in
this case the terms of the contract were stipulated, as was
reasonable, by the father alone ; he was the active person
throughout. But mark the difference in the instance of
Bethuel — whether he was incapable from years or imbecil-
ity to manage his own affairs, it is of course impossible to
say, but something of this kind seems to be implied in all
that relates to him. Thus, when Abraham's servant meets
with Rebekah at the well, he inquires of her, '■ whose
daughter art thou ; tell me, I pray thee, is there room in
ihy father's house for us to lodge in?"^ She answers, that
she is the daughter of Bethuel, and that there is room ;
and when he thereupon declared who he was and whence
he came, " the damsel ran and told them of her mother^s
house " (not of her father''s house, as Rachel did when
Jacob introduced himself,)^ "these things." This might
be accident ; but " Rebekah had a brother ^^^ the history
continues, and " his name was Laban, and Lahan rarx

' Gen. xxxi. 1. 2 lb. xxiv. 23. 3 ib. xxix. 13.

PART I.

BOOKS OF MOSES. 41

out unto the man" and invited him in.^ Still we have no
mention of Bethuel. The servant now explains the na-
ture of his errand, and in this instance it is said, that
Laban and Bethuel answered \^ Bethuel being here in this
passage, which constitutes the sole proof of his being alive,
coupled with his son as the spokesman. It is agreed, that
she shall go with the man, and he now makes his pres-
ents, but to whom ? " Jewels of silver, and jewels of gold,
and raiment, he gave to Rebekah" He also gave, we are
told, " to her brother- and to her mother precious things ;"3
but not it seems to her father ; still Bethuel is overlooked,
and he alo7ie. It is proposed that she shall tarry a few
days before she departs. And by whom is this proposal
made ? Not by her father, the most natural person surely
to have been the principal throughout this whole affair ;
but " by her brother and her mother."* In the next gen-
eration, when Jacob, the fruit of this marriage, flies to his
mother's country at the counsel of Rebekah to hide him-
self from the anger of Esau, and to procure for himself
a wife, and when he comes to Haran and inquires of the
shepherds after his kindred in that place, how does he ex-
press himself? ''Know ye," says he, " Laban the son of
Nahor T'^ This is more marked than even the former
instances, for Laban was the so7i of Bethuel, and only the
grandson of Nahor ; yet still we see Bethuel is passed
over as a person of no note in his own family, and Laban
his own child designated by the title of his grandfather,
instead of his father.

This is consistent — and the consistency is too much of
one piece throughout, and marked by too many particu-
lars, to be accidental. It is the consistency of a man who
knew more about Bethuel than we do, or than he hap-

1 Gen. xxiv. 29. 2 lb. xxiv. 50. 3 lb. xxiv. 53.

4 lb. xxiv. 55. 5 lb. xxix. 5.

4*

43

THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

pened to let drop from his pen. It is of a kind, perhaps,
the most satisfactory of all for the purpose I use it, because
the least liable to suspicion of all. The uniformity of ex-
pressive silence — repeated omissions that have a meaning
— no agreement in a positive fact, for nothing is asserted ;
yet a presumption of the fact conveyed by mere negative
evidence. It is like the death of Joseph in the New Tes-
tament, which none of the Evangelists affirm to have
taken place before the Crucifixion, though all imply it.
This kind of consistency I look upon as beyond the reach
of the most subtle contriver in the world.

V.

On the return of this servant of Abraham, his embassy
fulfilled, and Rebekah in his company, he discovers Isaac
at a pistance, who was* gone out (as our translation has it)
" to meditate^'' or (as the margin has it) " to jtray in the
field at eventide.'"

Now in this subordinate incident in the narrative there
are marks of truth, (very slight indeed it may be,) but
still, I think, if not obvious, not difficult to be perceived
and not unworthy to be mentioned. Isaac went out to
tneditate or to fray — but the Hebrew word does not relate
to religious meditation exclusively^ still less exclusively
to direct prayer. Neither does the corresponding expres-
sion in the Septuagint {i'>.SoKFax^{(jixi) convey either of these
senses exclusively, the latter of the two perhaps not at all.
The leading idea suggested seems to be an anxious, a
reverential, a painful, a depressed state of mind — " out of
the abundance of my complahif (or meditation^ for the

1 Gen. xxiv. 63, }i!|iy^ pnS"^ KS'I

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 4*

word is the same here, only in the form of a substantive,)
" out of the abundance of my meditation and grief have
I spoken," are the words of Hannah to Eh.' " Who hath
woe, who hath sorrow, who hath contentions, who hath
babbling, (the word is here still the same and evidently
might be rendered with more propriety melancholy,) who
liath wounds without cause, who hath redness of eyes '.^"^
Isaac therefore went out into the field not directly to pray,
but to give ease to a wounded spirit in solitude. Now
the occasion of this his trouble of mind is not pointed out,
and the passage indeed has been usually explained with-
out any reference to such a feeling, and merely as an in-
stance of religious contemplation in Isaac worthy of imita-
tion by all. But one of the last things that is recorded to
have happened before the servant went to Haran, whence
he was now returning, is the death and burial of Sarah,
no doubt a tender mother (as she proved herself a jealous
one), to the child of her old age and her only child. What
more likely than that her loss was the subject of Isaac's
mournful meditation on this occasion ? But this conjec-
ture is reduced almost to certainty by a few words inciden-
tally dropped at the end of the chapter ; for having hfted
up his eyes and beheld the camels coming, and the ser-
vant, and the maiden, Isaac " brought her into his mother
Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah and she became his wife ;
and he loved her, and was comforted after his mother's
deathr^

The agreement of this latter incident with what had
gone before is not set forth in our version, and a scene of
very touching and picturesque beauty impaired, if not
destroyed.

I 1 Sam. i. 16. 2 Prov. xxiii. 39. 3 Gen, xxiv. 67.

44 THE VERACITY OF THE PARt I.

VI.

We have now to contemplate Isaac in a different scene,
and to remove with him (after the fashion of this earthly
pilgrimage), from an occasion of mirth to one of mourn-
ing.

Being now grown old, as he says, and " not knowing
the day of his death,^^ he prepares to bless his first-born
son " before he diesJ^^ So spake the Patriarch. This
looks very hke one of the last acts of a life which time
and natural decay had brought near its close ; yet it is cer-
tain that Isaac continued to live a great many years after
this, nay, that probably a fourth part of his whole life yet
remained to him — for he was still alive when Jacob re-
turned from Mesopotamia ; when even many of .Jacob's sons
were grown up to manhood who were as yet in the loins
of their father ;2 and even after that Patriarch had re-
peatedly migrated from dwelling-place to dwelling-place in
the land of Canaan. For " Jacob," we read when all these
other events had been related in their order, " came unto
Isaac his fat he?', unto Mamre, unto the city of Arbah,
which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned.^"

How then is this seeming discrepancy to be got over ?
I mean, the discrepancy between Isaac's anxiety to bless
his son before he died, and the fact of his being found
alive perhaps forty or fifty years afterwards ? My answer
is this — that it w^as probably at a moment of dangerous
sickness when he bethought himself of imparting the
blessing — and I feel my conjecture supported by the fol-
lowing minute coincidences. That Isaac was then de-
sirous to have " savory meat such as he loved," as though
he loathed his ordinary food : that Jacob bade him " arise

1 Gen. xxvu. 2, 4. 2 ib. xxxiv. 5. 3 ib, ixxv. 27,

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 45

and sit that he might eat of his venison," as though he
was at the time stretched upon his bed ; that he " trembled
very exceedingly^'' when Esau came in and he was ap-
prised of his mistake, as though he was very weak ; that
the words of Esau, when he said in his heart " the days
of mourning for my father are at hand," are as though
he was thought sick unto death ; and that those of Re-
bekah, when she said unto Jacob " should I be deprived
of you both in one day," are as though she supposed the
time of her widowhood to be near.

I will add that the prolongation of Isaac's life unex-
pectedly (as it should seem), may have had its influence
in the continued protection of Jacob from Esau's anger,
the latter, even in the first burst of his passion, retaining
that reverence for his father which determined him to put
off the execution of his evil purposes against Jacob, till he
should be no more. And this affection seems to have been
felt by him to the last ; for wild and wandering as was
his life, the sword or the bow ever in his hand, we never-
theless find him anxious to do honor to his father's grave,
and assisting Jacob at the burial.' The filial feehngs
therefore which had stayed his hand at first, were still
tending to soothe him during Jacob's absence, and to pro-
pitiate him on Jacob's return ; for the days of mourning
for his father were still not come.

VII.

My next coincidence may not be thought in itself so
convincing as some others, yet as it at once furnishes an
argument for the truth of Genesis and an answer to an

1 Gen. XXXV. 29.

46 THE VERACITY OP THE PART I.

objection, I will not pass it over. When Jacob is about to
remove with his family to Beth-el, a place already conse-
crated in his memory by the vision of angels, and thence-
forward to be distinguished by an altar to his God, he gives
the following extraordinary command to his household and
all that are with him : " Put away the strange gods that
are among you, and be clean, and change your garments ;"^
or as it might be translated with perhaps more closeness,
" the gods of the stranger^ Had Jacob, then, hitherto
tolerated the worship of idols among his attendants 1
Had he connived so long at a defection from the God of
his fathers, even whilst he was befriended by Him, whilst
he was living under his special protection, whilst he was in
frequent communication with Him ? This is hard to be
believed ; indeed it would have seemed incredible altogether,
had it not been remembered that Rachel had linages
which she stole from her father Laban, and which he at
least considered as his household gods. Those images,
however, might be taken by Rachel as valuables, silver or
gold perhaps, a fair prize as she might think, serving to bal-
ance the portion w^hich Laban had withheld from her, and
the money which he had devoured. That she used them
herself as idols does not appear, but rather the contrary —
and that Jacob was perfectly unconscious of their being
at all in his camp, whether as objects of worship or as ob-
jects of value, is evident from his giving Laban free leave
to put to death the party on whom they should be found. '^
He therefore was not an idolater himself; nor, as far as
we know, did he wink at idolatry in those about him.
Whence then this command, issued to his attendants on
their approach to Beth-el, that holy ground, " to put away
the strange gods that were amongst them, and to make
themselves clean ?"

> Gen XXXV. 2. " Ibid, xxxi, 32.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 47

Let us only refer to an event of a former chapter/ and
all is plain. The sons of Jacob had just been destroying
the city of the Shechemites — they had slain the males, but
" all their wealth, and all their httle ones, and their wives
took they captive, and spoiled all that was in the house."
These captives, then, so lately added to the company of
Jacob, were in all probabiUty the strangers alluded to,
and the idols in their possession the gods of the strangers,
which accordingly the Patriarch required them to put
away forthwith before Beth-el was approached. Moreover,
it may be observed, that the terms of the command extend
to " all that toere with him^'' which may well have respect
to the recent augmentation of his numbers, by the addition
of the Shechemite prisoners : and the further injunction,
that not only the idols were to be put away, but that all
were to be clean and change their garments, may have
a like respect to the recent slaughter of that people, whereby
all who were concerned in it were polluted.

Yet surely nothing* can be more incidental than the con-
nection between the sacking of the city, and the subse-
quent command to put the idols of the stranger away —
though nothing can be more natural and satisfactory than
that connection when it is once perceived. Indeed so little
solicitous is Moses to point out these two events as cause
and consec[uence, that he has left himself open to miscon-
struction by the very unguarded and artless manner in
which he expresses himself, and has even placed the char-
acter of Jacob, as an exclusive worshipper of the true God,
unintentionally in jeopardy.

1 Gen. xxxiv.

48

THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

VIII.

In the character of Jocob I see an individuality which
marks it to belong to real hfc : and this is my next argu-
ment for the veracity of the writings of Moses. The par-
ticulars we read of him are consistent with each other, and
with the lot to which he was born ; for this more or less
models the character of every man. The lot of Jacob had
not fallen upon the fairest of grounds. Life, especially the
former part of it, did not run so smoothly with him as with
his father Isaac — so that he might be tempted to say to
Pharaoh towards the close of it naturally enough, that
" the days of the years of it had been evil." The faults of
his youth had been visited upon his manhood with retrib-
utive justice not unfrequent in God's moral government of
the world, where the very sin by which a man offends is
made the rod by which he is corrected. Rebekah's undue
partiality for her younger son, which leads her to deal cun-
ningly for his promotion unto honor, works for her the
loss of that son for the remainder of her days — his own
unjust attempts at gaining the superiority over his elder
brother, entail upon him twenty years slavery in a foreign
land — and the arts by which he had made Esau to suffer,
are precisely those by which he suffers himself at the hands
of Laban. Of this man, the first thing we hear is, his
entertainment of Abraham's servant when he came on his
errand to Rebekah. Hospitality was the virtue of his age
and country ; in his case, however, it seems to have been
no little stimulated by the sight of " the earring and the
bracelets on his sister's hands," which the servant had
already given her' — so he speedily made room for the

1 Gen. xiiv. 30.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 49

camels. He next is presented to us as beguiling that sis-
ter's son, who had sought a shelter in his house, and whose
circumstances placed him at his mercy, of fourteen years
service, when he had covenanted with him for seven only —
endeavoring to retain his labor when he would not pay
him his labor's worth — himself devouring the portion which
he should have given to his daughters, counting them but
as strangers.' Compelled at length to pay Jacob wages,
he changes them ten times, and in the spirit of a crafty
griping worldling, makes him account for whatever of the
flock was torn of beasts or stolen, whether by day or night.
When Jacob flies from this iniquitous service with his fam-
ily and cattle, Laban still pursues and persecutes him, in-
tending, if his intentions had not been over-ruled by a
mightier hand, to send him away empty, even after he
had been making, for so long a period, so usurious a profit
of him.

I think it was to be expected, that one who had been
disciplined in such a school as this, and for such a season,
would not come out of it without bearing about him its
marks ; and that oppressed first by the just fury of his
brother, which put his hfe in hazard, and drove him into
exile, and then still more by the continued tyranny of a
father-in-law, such as we have seen, Jacob should have
learned, like maltreated animals, to have the year of man
habitually before his eyes. Now that it Avas so, is evident
from all the latter part of his history.

He is afraid that Laban will not let him go, and there-
fore takes the precaution to steal from him unawares,
when he is gone to a distance to shear his sheep. He ap-
proaches the borders of Edom, but here the ancient dread
of his brother revives, and he takes the 'precaution to pro-

1 Gen. xxii. 15.

5

50 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

pitiate him or to escape him by measures which breathe
the spirit of the man in a singular manner. He sends
him a message — it is from " Jacob thy servant" to " Esau
my lord." Esau advances, and he at once fears the worst.
Then does he divide his people and substance into two
bands, that if the one be smitten, the other may escape —
he provides a present of many cattle for his brother — he
commands his servants to put a space between each drove,
apparently to add effect to the splendor of his present — he
charges them to deliver severally their own portion, with
the tidings that he was behind who sent it — he appoints
their places to the women and children with the same pru-
dential considerations that mark his whole conduct ; first
the handmaids and their children ; then Leah and her
children ; and in the hindermost and least exposed place,
his favorite Rachel and Joseph. Such are his •precautions.
They are all however needless — Esau owes him no wrong
— he even proposes to escort him home in peace, or to
leave him a guard out of the four hundred men that were
with him. But Jacob evades both proposals ; ajiprehend-
ing, most likely, more danger from his friends than from
his foes ; and dismisses his brother Vv'ith a word about " fol-
lowing my lord to Seir ;" an intention which, as far as we
know, he was in more haste to express than accomplish.
All this ended, the honor of his house is violated by She-
chem, a son of a prince of that country. Even this insult
does not throw him off his guard. He heard it, " but he
held his peace,^^ till his sons, who were with the cattle in
the field, should come home. They soon proceed to take
summary vengeance on the Shechemites. The fear of
man, however, which had restrained the wrath of Jacob
at the first, besets him still, and he now says to his sons —
" Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the
inhabitants of the land ; and I being few in number, they

PART I, BOOKS OF MOSES 51

shall gather themselves together against me and slay me ;
and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.'" Jacob would
have been better pleased with more compromise and less
cruelty — he was not prepared to give utterance to that
feehng of turbulent indignation, reckless of all conse-
quences, which spake in the words of Simeon and Levi.
"Shall he deal with our sister as with an harlot?" Here
again, however, his fears proved groundless. Many years
now pass away, but when we meet him once more he is
still the same — the same leading feature in his character
continues to the last. His sons go down into Egypt for
corn in the famine — they return with an injunction from
Joseph to take back with them Benjamin, or else to see
his face no more. This is urged upon Jacob, and the re-
ply it extorts from him is in strict keeping with all that
has gone before :— " Wherefore dealt ye so ill with me, as
to tell the man lohether ye had yet a brother ?"2 Still we
see one whom suffering had rendered distrustful— who
would lend many his ear, but few his tongue. The fam-
ine presses so sore, that there is no alternative but to
yield up his son. Still he is the same individual. Judah
is in haste to be gone— he will be surety for the lad— he
will bring him again, or bear the blame forever. But
Jacob gives Httle heed to these vaporing promises of a
sanguine adviser, and as stooping before a necessity which
was too strong for him, he prudently sets himself to devise
means to disarm the danger ; and " if it must be so now,"
says he, « do this, take of the best fruits of the land in
your vessels, and carry doicn the m.an a present, a little
balm and a little honey, spices and myrrh, nuts and al-
monds—and take double money in your hand ; and the
money that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks,

' Gen. xxxiv. 30. 2 lb. xliij. 6.

m

52 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

carry it again in your hand ; peradventure it was an over-
sight.'"

I cannot persuade myself that these are not marks of a
real character — especially when I consider that this iden-
tity is found in incidents spread over a period of a hundred
years or more — that they are mere hints, as it were, out
of which w.e are left to construct the man ; hints inter-
rupted by a multitude of other matters; the geneal-
ogy and adventures of Esau and his Arab tribes; the
household affairs of Potiphar ; the dreams of Pharaoh ;
the pohty of Egypt — that the facts thus dispersed and
broken are to be brought together by ourselves, and the
general induction to be drawn from them by ourselves,
nothing being more remote from the mind of Moses than
to present us with a portrait of Jacob ; nay, that of Isaac,
who happens to be less involved in the circumstances of
his history, he scarcely gives us a single feature. Surely,
with all this before us, it is impossible to entertain the idea
for a moment of any studied uniformity. Yet an uni-
formity there is ; casual, therefore, on the part of Moses,
who was thinking nothing about it — but complete, because,
without thinking about it, he was by some means or other
drawing from the hfe.

And now am I thought to disparage the character of
this holy man of old ? God forbid ! I think that in the
incidents I have named his conduct may be excused, if not
justified. But were it otherwise, I am not aware that any
of the Patriarchs has been set up, or can be set up, as a
genuine pattern of Christian morals. They saw the
Promise, (and the more questionable parts of Jacob's con-
duct are to be accounted for by his impatience to obtain
the Promise, and by his consequently using unlawful

» Gen. xliii. 12.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 53

means to obtain it,) but " they saw it afar ofl" — " they
beheld it, but not nigh." They Uved under a code of laws
that were not absolutely good, perhaps not so good as the
Levitical, for as this was but a preparation for the more
perfect Law of Christ, so possibly was the Patriarchal but
a preparation for the more perfect Law of Moses. Indeed
I have already observed, that many scattered hints may
be gathered from this latter law, which show that it was
but the Law under which the Patriarchs had lived re-
constructed, augmented, and improved — and I apprehend
that such a scheme of progressive advancement, first the
dawn, then the day, then the perfect day, is analogous to
God's dealings in general. But the broad light in which
the Fathers of Israel are to be viewed is this, that they
were exclusive worshippers of the One True Everlasting
God, in a world of idolaters — that they were living de-
positaries of the great doctrine of the Unity of the God-
head, when the nations around were resorting to every
green tree — that they " were faithful found among the
faithless." And so incalculably important was the preser-
vation of this Great Article of the Creed of man, at a time
when it rested in the keeping of so few, that the language
of the Almighty in the Law seems ever to have a respect
unto it : fury, anger, indignation, jealousy, hatred, being-
expressions rarely, if ever, attributed to him, except in ref-
erence to idolatry — and, on the other hand, enemies of
God, adversaries of God, haters of God, being there —
chiefly and above all, idolaters. But in this sense God
was emphatically the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob : none of them, not even the last,
(for the only passage which savors of the contrary admits,
as we have seen, of easy explanation,) having ever for-
feited their claim to this high and glorious title ; however,

5*

#'

54 THE VERACITY OF THE PART f-

such title may not be thought to imply that their moral
characters and conduct were faultless, and worthy of all
acceptation.

IX.

The marks of coincidence without design, which I have
brought forward to prove the truth of the Books of Moses
as successively presenting • themselves in the history of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, I shall now follow up by
others in the history of Joseph.

By the ill-concealed partiality of his father, and his own
incaution in declaring his dreams of future greatness,
Joseph had incurred the hatred of his brethren. They
were feeding the flock near Shechem — Jacob desires to
satisfy himself of their welfare, and sends Joseph to in-
quire of them and to bring him word again. Meanwhile
they had driven further a-field to Dothan, and Joseph, in-
formed of this by a man whom he found wandering in
the country, followed them thither. They beheld him
when he was yet afar off; his dress was remarkable,' and
the eye of the shepherd in the plain country of the East,
like that of the mariner now, was no doubt practised and
keen. They take their counsel together against him.
They conclude, however, not to stain their hands in the
blood pf their brother, but to cast him into an empty pit,
which, in those countries, where the inhabitants were
constantly engaged in a fruitless search for water, was a
very Ukely place to be on the spot. There he was to be
left to die, or, as Reuben intended, to remain till he could
rid him out of their hands. Nothing could be more artless
than this story. Nothing can bear more indisputable

' Gen. xxxvii. 3.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 55

signs of truth than its details. But the circumstance, on
which I now rest, is another that is mentioned. The
brothers having achieved their evil purpose, sat down to
eat bread — possibly some household present which Jacob
had sent them, and Joseph had just conveyed, such as on
a somewhat similar occasion, in after-times, Jesse sent and
David conveyed to his elder brethren in the camp — though
on this, as on a thousand touches of truth of the like kind,
the reader of Moses is left to make his own speculations.
And now " they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold
a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their
camels, hearing spicery and halm and myrrh^ going to
carry it dowti to Egypt."^ Now this, though by no
means an obvious incident to have suggested itself, does
seem to me a very natural one to have occurred ; and
what is more, is an incident which tallies remarkably well
with what we read elsewhere, in a passage however hav-
ing no reference whatever to the one in question. For
have we not reason to know, that at this very early period
in the history of the world, this first of caravans upon
record was charged with a cargo for Egypt singularly
adapted to the wants of the Egyptians at that time?
Expunge the 2nd and 3rd verses of the 50th chapter of
Genesis, and the symptoms of veracity in the narrative
which I here detect, or think I detect, would never have
been discoverable. But in those verses I am told that
" Joseph commanded the Physicians to emhalm his father
— and the Physicians cmhalmed Israel — and forty days
were fulfilled to him ; for so are fulfilled the days of those
which are embalmed, and the Egyptians mourned three-
score and ten days." I conclude, therefore, from this, that
in these very ancient times it was the practice of the

• Gen. xxxvii. 25.

56 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

Egyptians (for Joseph was here doing that which was the
custom of the country where he hved), to embahii their
dead — and we know from the case of our Lord that an
hundred pounds weight of myrrh and aloes was not more
than enough for a single body.' Hence, then, the camel-
loads of spices which the Ishmaelites were bringing from
Gilead, would naturally enough find an ample market in
Egypt. Now, is it easy to come to any other conclusion
when trifles of this kind drop out. fitted one to another
like the corresponding parts of a cloven tally, than that
both are true? — that the historian, however he obtained
his intelligence, is speaking of particulars which fell within
his own knowledge, and is speaking of them faithfully ?
Surely nothing can be more incidental than the mention
of the lading of these camels of the Ishmaelites — it has
nothing to do with the main fact, which is merely this,
that the party, whoever they were, and whatever they
were bent upon, were ready to buy Joseph, and that his
brethren were ready to sell him. On the other hand no
one can suspect, that when Moses relates Joseph to have
caused his father's body to be embalmed, he had an eye to
corroborating his account of the adventure which he had
already told concerning the Ishmaelitish merchants, who
might thus seem occupied in a traffic that was appropriate.
I think that this single coincidence would induce an un-
prejudiced person to believe, that the ordinary parts of
this story are matters of fact fully known to the historian,
and accurately reported by him. Yet it is an integral
portion of this same story, uttered by the same historian,
that Joseph had visions of his future destinies, which were
strictly fulfilled — that the wliole proceeding with regard
to him had been under God's controlling influence from

1 John xix. 39.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 57

beginning to end — that though his brethren " thought evil
against him, God meant it unto good," to bring to pass, as
he did at a future day, "to save much people ahve.'"

X.

Nor is this all with regard to Egypt wherein is seen
the image and superscription of truth. An argument for
the Veracity of the New Testament has been found in the
harmony which pervades the very many incidental notices
of the condition of Judea at the period when the New
Testament professes to have been written. A similar
agreement without design may be remarked in the oc-
casional glimpses of Egypt which open upon us in the
course of the Mosaic History. For instance, I perceive in
each and all of the following incidents, indirect indications
of this one fact, that Egypt ivas already a great corn
country — though I do not believe that such a fact is
directly asserted in any passage in the whole Pentateuch.
Thus, when Abram found a famine in the land of Canaan,
he " went down into Egypt to sojourn there."^ There
was a second famine in a part of Canaan in the days of
Isaac : he, however, on this occasion went to Gerar, which
was in the country of the Philistines, but it appears as
though this was only to have been a stage in a journey
which he was projecting into Egypt ; for we read, that
" the Lord appeared unto him and said. Go not down into
Egypt ; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of."^
There is a third famine in Canaan in the time of Jacob,
and then " all countries came unto Egyj^t to buy corn,
because the famine was so sore in all lands."^ Again, I

I Gen. 1. 20. 2 ib, xii. 10. 3 ib. xxvi. 2. 2 lb. xli. 57.

58 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

read of Pharaoh being wroth with two of his officers —
they are spoken of as persons of some distinction in the
court of the Egyptian King — and who are they? One
was the chief of the Butlers, but the other was the chief
of the Bakers.^ Still I see in this an indication of Egypt
being a corn country ; of bread being there literally the
staff of life, and the manufacturing and dispensing of it
an employment of considerable trust and consequence.
So again I find, that in the fabric of the bricks in Egypt
straw was a very essential element ; and so abundant
does the corn-crop seem to have been — so widely was it
spread over the face of the country, that the task-masters
of the Israelites could exact the usual tale of the bricks,
though the people had to gather the stuhhle for themselves
to supply the place of the straw, which was w^ithheld.'^
Still I perceive in this an intimation of the agricultural
fertility of Egypt, — there could not have been the stubble-
land here implied unless corn had been the staple crop of
the country. Then when Moses threatens to plague the
Egyptians with a Plague of Frogs, what are the places
which at once present themselves as those which are likely
to be defiled by their presence? "The river shall bring
forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into
thine house, and into thy bed-chamber, and upon thy bed,
and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people,
and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading-troughs^^
And of these kneading-troughs we again read, as utensils
possessed by all, and without w4iich they could not think
even of taking a journey — for on the dehvery of the Israel-
ites from Egypt, we find that "they took their dough
before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs being
bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders."*

» Gen. il. 1. 8 Exod, v. 7. 3 lb. viji. 3. * lb. xii. 34.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 59

Now it may be said, that we all know Egypt to have
been a great corn-country — that the thing admits of no
doubt, and never did — I allow it to be so — and if such a fact
had been asserted in the writings of Moses as a broad fact,
I should have taken no notice of it, for it would then have
afforded no ground for an argument like this ; in such a
case, Moses might have come at the knowledge as we
ourselves may have done, by having visited the country
himself, or by having received a report of it from others
who had visited it, and so might have incorporated this
amongst other incidents in his history ; but I do not ob-
serve it asserted by him in round terms ; it is not indeed
asserted by him at all — it is intimated — intimated when
he is manifestly not thinking about it, when his mind and
his pen are quite intent upon other matters ; intimated very
often, very indirectly, in very various ways. The fact
itself of Egypt being a great corn-country was no doubt
perfectly well known to Dr. Johnson, but though so much
of the scene of Rasselas is laid in Egypt, 1 will ventvue to
say, that there are in it no hints of the nature I am de-
scribing ; such, I mean, as would serve to convince us that
the author was relating a series of events which had hap-
pened under his own eye, and that the places with which
he combines them were not ideal, but those wherein they
actually came to pass.

Surely then it is very satisfactory to discover concur-
rence thus uniform, thus uncontrived, in particulars falling
out at intervals in the course of an artless narrative which
is not afraid to proclaim the Almighty as manifesting
himself by signal miracles, and which connects those mir-
acles too in the closest union with the subordinate matters
of which we have thus been able to ascertain the probable
truth and accuracy.

60 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

XI.

Before we dismiss this question of the Corn in Egypt,
we may remark another trifling instance or two of con-
sistency without design, declaring themselves in this part
of the narrative and tending to strengthen our belief in it.
Joseph, it seems, ^ advised Pharaoh before the famine
began, to appoint oflftcers over the land, that should " take
up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plen-
teous years." After this we have several chapters occu-
pied with the details of the history of Jacob and his sons
— the journey of the latter to Egypt — their return to their
father — the repetition of their journey — the discovery of
Joseph — the migration of the Patriarch with all his family,
of whom the individuals are named after their respective
heads — the introduction of Jacob to Pharaoh, and his final
settlement in the land of Goshen. Then the affair of the
famine is again touched upon in a few verses, and a per-
manent regulation of property in Egypt is recorded as the
accidental result of that famine. For the people who had
sold both themselves and their lands to Pharaoh for corn
to preserve life, are now permitted to redeem both on the
payment of a fifth of the produce to the King forever.
" And Joseph made it a laiv over the land of Egypt imto
this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part."^ Now
this was, as we had been told in a former chapter,
precisely the proportion which Joseph had "taken up"
before the famine began. It was then an arrangement
entered into with the proprietors of the soil prospectively,
as likely to insure the subsistence of the people ; the ex-
periment was found to answer and the opportunity of

1 Gen. xli. 34. 2 lb. xlvii 26.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 61

perpetuating it having occurred, the arrangement was now
made lasting and compulsory. Magazines of corn were
henceforth to be estabhshed which should at all times be
ready to meet an accidental failure of the harvest. Can
anything be more natural than this? anything more
common than for great civil and poUtical changes to
spring out of provisions which chanced to be made to meet
some temporary emergency? Has not our own constitu-
tion, and have not the constitutions of most other countries,
ancient and modern, grown out of occasion— out of the
impulse of the day ?

Further still. Though Joseph possessed himself on his
royal master's account of all the land of Egypt besides,
and disposed of the people throughout the country just as
he pleased,' "Ae did not buy the land of the priests, for
the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and
did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them, wherefore
they sold not their lands." The priests then, we see,
were greatly favored in the arrangements made at this
period of national distress. Now does not this accord with
what we had been told on a former occasion, — that Pha-
raoh being desirous to do Joseph honor, causing him to
ride in the second chariot that he had, and crying before
him, Bow the knee, and making him ruler over all the
land of Egypt,2 added yet this as the final proof of his
high regard, that "he gave him to wife Asenath, the
daughter of Potipherah, Priest of On?"^ When therefore
the priests were thus held in esteem by Pharaoh, and
when the minister of Pharaoh, under whose immediate
directions all the regulations of the polity of Egypt were
at that time conducted, had the daughter of one of them
for his wife, is it not the most natural thing in the world
to have happened, that their lands should be spared ?
1 Gen. xlvii. 22. / 2 lb. xU. 43. ^ ib. xU. 45.

6

62 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

XII.

I HAVE already found an argument for the veracity of
Moses in the identity of Jacob's character : I now find an-
other in the identity of that of Joseph. Tliere is one quahty
(as it has been often observed, though with a different view
fi-orn mine), which runs like a thread through his whole
history, his affection for his father. Israel loved him,
we read, more than all his children — he was the child of
his age — his mother died whilst he was yet young, and a
double care of him consequently devolved upon his survi-
ving parent. He made him a coat of many colors — ^he
kept him at home when his other sons were sent to feed
the flocks. When the bloody garment was brought in,
Jacob in his affection for him, (that same affection which
on a subsequent occasion, when it was told him that after
all Joseph was alive, made him as slow to believe the
good tidings as he was now quick to apprehend the sad,)
in this his affection for him, I say, Jacob at once concluded
the worst ; and " he rent his clothes and put sackcloth
upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days, and
all his daughters rose up to comfort him ; but he refused
to be comforted, and he said, For I will go down into the
grave of my son mourning."

Now what were the feelings in Joseph which responded
to these ? When the sons of Jacob went down to Egypt,
and Joseph knew them though they knew not him, for
they (it may be remarked, and this again is not like fic-
tion), were of an age not to be greatly changed by the
lapse of years, and were still sustaining the character in
which Jose{)h had always seen them, whilst he himself •
had meanwhile grown out of the striphng into the man,
and from a shepherd-boy was become the ruler of a king-

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 63

dom — when his brethren thus came before him, his ques-
tion was, " Is your father yet alive ?"* They went down
a second time, and again the question was, " Is your fa-
ther well, the old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive ?"
More he could not venture to ask, whilst he was yet in
his disguise. By a stratagem he now detains Benjamin,
leaving the others, if they would, to go their way. But
Judah came near unto him, and entreated him for his
brother, telling him how that he had been " surety to his
father'^ to bring him back, how that " h.\s father was an
old man," and that this was the " child of his old age, and
that he loved him," — ^how it would come to pass that if he
should not see the lad with him he would die, and his
gray hairs be brought with sorrow to the grave ; for " how
shall I go to my father, and the lad be not with me ? —
lest, peradventure, I see the evil that shall come on myfa-
ther.''^ Here, without knowing it, he had struck the string
that was the tenderest of all. Joseph's firmness forsook
him at this repeated mention of his father, and in terms
so touching — he could not refrain himself any longer, and
causing every man to go out, he made himself known to
his brethren. Then, even in the paroxysm which came
on him, (for he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard,)
still his first words uttered from the fulness of his heart
were, " Doth my father yet live V He now bids them
hasten and bring the old man down, bearing to him tokens
of his love and tidings of his glory. He goes to meet him
— he presents himself unto him, and falls on his neck and
weeps on his neck a good while — he provides for him and
his household out of the fat of the land — he sets him
before Pharaoh. By and by he hears that he is sick, and
hastens to visit him— he receives his blessing — watches

1 Gen. xliii. 7.

64 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

his death-bed — embahiis his body — mourns for him three-
score and ten days — and then carries him (as he had de-
sired), into Canaan to bury him. taking with him as an
escort to do him honor, " all the elders of Egypt, and
all the servants of Pharaoh, and all his house, and the
house of his brethren, chariots and horsemen, a very
great company." How natural it was now for his breth-
ren to think that the tie by which alone they could
imagine Joseph to be held to them was dissolved, that
any respect he might have felt or feigned for them,
must have been buried in the Cave of Machpelah, and
that he would now requite to them the evil they had
done ! " And they sent a message unto Joseph, saying,
Thy father' did command before he died, saying, So shall
ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the tres-
pass of thy brethren and their sin, — for they did unto thee
evil." And then they add of themselves, as if well aware
of the surest road to their brother's heart, " Forgive, we
pray thee, the trespass of the servants of the God of thi/
father." In everything ihefathefs name is still put fore-
most : it is his memory which they count upon as their
shield and buckler. Moreover, it may be added, that
though all intercourse had ceased for so many years be-
tween Joseph and his family, still the lasting affection he
bore a parent is manifested in the name which he gave to
his son born to him only two years before the famine, even
Manasseh, or forgetting, for God, said he, " hath made
me forget all my hire and all my father's house ;'" as
though ' instead of his father he must have children' to
fill up the void in his heart which a parent's loss had
created.

It is not the singular beauty of these scenes, or the

I Gen. xli. 51.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 65

moral lesson they teach, excellent as it is, with which I
am now concerned, but simply the perfect artless consist-
ency which prevails through them all. It is not the con-
stancy with which the son's strong affection for his father
had lived through an interval of twenty years' absence,
and what is more, through the temptation of sudden pro-
motion to the highest estate — it is not the noble-minded
frankness with which he still acknowledges his kindred,
and makes a way for them, " shepherds" as they were, to
the throne of Pharaoh himself— it is not the simphcity and
singleness of heart, which allow him to give all the first-
born of Egypt, men over whom he bore absolute rule, an
opportunity of observing his own comparatively humble
origin, by leading them in attendance upon his father's
corpse, to the valleys of Canaan and the modest cradle of
his race— it is not, in a word, the grace, but the klentitxj
of Joseph's character, the light in which it is exhibited by
himself, and the light in which it is regarded by his breth-
ren,' to which I now point as stamping it with marks of
reality not to be gainsaid.

XIII.

I WILL now follow the Israelites out of Egypt into the
wilderness, on their return to the land from which their
fathers had wandered, and which they, or at least their
children, v.'ere destined to enjoy.

In the tenth chapter of Leviticus we are told that " Na-
dab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his
censer and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and
offered strange fire unto the Lord, which he commanded
them not. And there went out fire from the Lord and de-
voured them, and they died before the Lord." Now it is

6*

66 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

natural to ask, how came Nadab and Abihu to be guilty
of this careless affront to God, lighting their censers proba-
bly from their own hearths, and not from the hallowed fire
of the altar, as they were commanded to do. Possibly we
cannot guess how it happened — it may be one of those
many matters which are of no particular importance to be
known, and concerning which we are accordingly left in
the dark. Yet when I read shortly afterwards the follow-
ing instructions given to Aaron, I am led to suspect that
they had their origin in some recent abuse which called
for them, though no such origin is expressly assigned to
them. I cannot help imagining, that the offence of Nadab
and Abihu was at the bottom of the statute, " Do not drink
vnne nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when
ye go into the Tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die
—it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations :
and that ye may put difference between holy and unholy,
and between clean and unclean, and that ye may teach
the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath
spoken unto them by the hands of Moses." Thus far at
least is clear, that a grievous and thoughtless insult is of-
fered to God by two of his Priests, for which they are cut
off—that without any direct allusion to their case, but still
very shortly after it had happened, a law is issued forbid-
ding the Priests the use of wine when about to mi?iisfer.
I conclude, therefore, that there ivas a relation (though it
is not asserted) between the specific offence and the gen-
eral law ; the more so, because the sin against which that
law is directed is just of a kind to have produced the rash
and inconsiderate act of which Aaron's sons were guilty.
If, therefore, this incidental mention of such a law at such
a moment, a moment so likely to suggest the enactment
of it, be thought enough to establish the law as a matter
of fact, then have we once more ground to stand upon ;

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 67

for the enactment of the law is coupled with the sin of
Aaron's sons ; their sin with their punishment ; their pun-
ishment with a miracle. Nor, it may be added, does the
unreserved and faithful record of such a death, suffered for
such an offence, afford an inconsiderable argument in favor
of the candor and honesty of Moses, who is no respecter
of persons it seems ; but when God's glory is concerned,
and the welfare of the people intrusted to him, does not
scruple to be the chronicler of the disgrace and destruction
even of the children of his own brother.

XIV.

Another coincidence suggests itself, arising out of
this same portion of history, whether however founded in
fact or in fancy, be my readers the judges. From the 9th
chapter of Numbers, v. 15, we learn that the Tabernacle
was erected in the wilderness preparatory 16 the celebra-
tion of the first Passover kept by the Israelites after their
escape from Egypt. From the 40th chapter of Exodus
we find, that it was reared on the first day of the first
month, (v. 2,) or thirteen days before the Passover,^ and
that at the same time Aaron and his sons were consecrated
to minister in it (v. 13.) In the 8th and 9th chapters of
Liviticus are given the particulars of their consecration,
(8!h, 6, 12, 30,) and the ceremony is said to have occupied
seven days, (v. 33,) during which they were not to leave
the Tabernacle day or night. On the eighth day they of-
fered up sin-offerings for themselves and for the people. It
was on this same dayj as we read in the tenth chapter,^
that Nadab and Abihu were cut off because of the strange

I Lev. xxiii. 5. 2 See ch. ix. H, 12; x. 19.

68 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

fire which they offered, and their dead bodies were dis-
posed of as follows : — " Moses called Mishael and Eliza-
phan the sons of Uzziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said unto
them, Come near, carry your brethren from before the
sanctuary out of the camp. So they went near, and car-
ried them in their coats out of the camp." (x. 4.) All this
happened on the eighth day of the first month, or just six
days before the Passover.

Now in the 9th chapter of the Book of Numbers, which
speaks of this identical Passover, (v. 1,) as will be seen
by a reference to tlie first verse of that chapter, (indeed
there is no mention of more than this one Passover having
been kept in the whole march,') in this 9th chapter I am
told of the following incidental difficulty ; — that " there
were certain men who were defiled by the dead body of
a man, that they could not keep the Passover on that day
— and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that
day — and those men said unto him, We are defiled by the
dead body of a man, wherefore we are kept back that we
may not offer an offering to the Lord in his appointed sea-
son among the children of Israel." (v. 6, 7.) The case is
spoken of as a solitary one.

• Now it may be observed, by way of limiting the ques-
tion, that the number of Israelites who paid a tax to the
Tabernacle a short time, and only a short time, before its
erection, were 603,550, being all the males above twenty
years of age, the Levites excepted'^ — at least this exception
is all but certain, that tribe being the tellers, being already
consecrated, and set apart from the other tribes, and it not
being usual to take the sum of them among the children
of Israel.^ Moreover, the number is likely, in this instance,
to be correct, because it tallies with the number of talents

I See also Josh. v. 9, 10. 2 Exod. xxxviii. 26.

3 See Numb, i. 47, 49, and xxvi. 62.

PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 69

to which the poll-tax amounted at half a shekel a head.
But shortly after the Tabernacle had been set up, (for it
was at the beginning of the second month of the second
year.) the number of the people was again taken accord-
ing to the families and tribes/ and still it is just the same
as before, 603,550 men. In this short interval, therefore,
(which is that in which we are now interested,) it should
seem, that no man had died of the males who were above
twenty, not being Levitos — for of these no account seems
to have been taken in either census — indeed in the latter
census they are expressly excepted. The dead body,
therefore, by which these " certain men" were defiled,
could not have belonged to this large class of the Israel-
ites. But of a case of death, and of defilement in conse-
quence, which had happened only six days before the
Passover, amongst the Levites, we had been told (as we
have seen) in the 9th chapter of Leviticus. My con-
clusion, therefore, is, that these " ♦ertain men," who were
defiled, were no others than Mishael and Elizaphan, who
had carried out the dead bodies of Nadab and Abihu.
Neither can anything be more likely than that, witji the
lively impression on their minds of God's wrath so recently
testified against those who should presume to approach him
unhallowed, they should refer their case to Moses, and run
no risk.

I state the conclusion and the grounds of it. To those
who require stronger proof, I can only say, I hav« none to
give ; but if the coincidence be thought well founded, then
surely a more striking example of consistency without de-
sign camiot be well conceived. Indeed, after it had been
suggested to me by a hint to this effect, thrown out by Dr.
Shuckford, unaccompanied by any exposition of the argu-

1 Numb. i. 46.

70 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

ments which might be urged in support of it, I had put it
aside as one of those gratuitous conjectures in which that
learned Author may perhaps be thought sometimes to in-
dulge — till by searching more accurately through several de-
tached parts of several detached chapters in Exodus. Levit-
icus, and Numbers, I was able to collect the evidence I have
produced, whether satisfactory or not — be my readers, as I
have said, the judges. For myself, I confess, that though
it is not demonstrative, it is very persuasive.

XV

" All the congregation of the children of Israel," we
read,' "journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their
journeys according to the commandment of the Lord, and
•^pitched in Rephidim, and there was no icater for the peo-
ple to drink.'''' — " And the people thirsted there for water ;
and the people murmured against Moses, and said. Where-
fore is this, that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to
kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst ?" (v. 3.)
Moses upon this entreats the Lord for Israel ; and the nar-
rative proceeds in the words of the Almighty — "Behold, I
will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and
thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of
it, that my people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight
of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the
place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the
children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, say-
ing. Is the Lord among us, or not?'' " Then came Ama-
lek,''^ the narrative continues, " and fought with Israel in
RephidimJ'

1 Exod. xvii. 1.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 71

Now this last incident is mentioned, as must be perceived
at once, without any other reference to wiiat had gone be-
fore than a reference of date. It was " then'''' that Amalek
came. It is tlie beginning of another adventure which
befell the Israelites, and which Moses now goes on to relate.
Accordingly in many copies of our English version a mark
is here introduced indicating the commencement of a fresh
paragraph. Yet 1 cannot but suspect, that there is a coin-
cidence in this case between the production of the water,
in an arid wilderness, and the attack of the Amalekites —
that though no hint whatever to this effect is dropped,
there is nevertheless the relation between them of cause
and consequence. For what in those times and those
countries was so common a bone of contention as the pos-
session of a well ? Thus we read of Abraham reproving
Abimelech " because of a well of water, which Abime-
lech's servants had violently taken away."' And again
we are told, that " Isaac's servants digged in a valley and
found there a well of springirig water — and the herds-
men of Gerar did strive with Isaac's herdsmen, saying,
The water is ours, and he called the name of the well
Esek, because they strove with him. And they digged
another well, and strove for that also ; and he called the
name of it Sitnah. And he removed from thence, and
digged another well, and for that they strove not ; and he
called the name of it Rehoboth ; and he said, For now the
Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in
the land."'^ In like manner when the daughters of the
Priest of Midian " came and drew water, and filled the
troughs to water their father's flock, the shepherds," we
find, " came a7id drove them away : but Moses stood up
and helped them, and watered their flock."^ And again,

1 Gen. xxi. 25. 2 ib. xxvi. 22. » Exod. ii. 17.

72 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

when Moses sent messengers to the King of Edoni with
proposals that he might be permitted to lead the people of
Israel through his territory, the subject of water enters very
largely into the terms : "Let me pass, I pray thee, through
thy country : we will not pass through the fields and
through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the luater
of the wells : we will go by the king's highway — we will
not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have
passed thy borders. And Edom said unto him. Thou shalt
not pass by me lest I come out against thee with the sword.
And the children of Israel said unto him, AVe will go by the
highway : and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then
I willjiayfor it.''^^ Again, on a subsequent occasion, Moses
sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, with the
same stipulations : — " Let me pass through thy land : we
will not turn into the fields or into the vineyards ; we will
not drink of the waters of the well, but we will go along
by the king's highway, until we be past thy borders."^
And when Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy recapitulates
some of the Lord's commands, one of them is, as touching
the children of Esau, " Meddle not with them ; for I will
not give you their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth,
because I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession.
Ye shall buy meat of them for money that ye may eat. and
ye shall also buy water of them for money that ye may
drink.^''^ Indeed the loell is quite a feature in the narra-
tive of Moses, brief as that narrative is. It unobtrusively
but constantly re-minds us of our scene lying ever in the
East — just as the Forum could not fail to be perpetually
mixing itself up with the details of any history of Rome
which was not spurious. The loell is the spring of life.
It is the place of meeting for the citizens in the cool of the

' Numb. XX. 17. ^ lb. xxi. 22. 3 Deut. ii. 6.

PART I. BOOKS OP MOSES. 73

day — the place of resort for the shepherds and herdsmen
— it is here that we may witness the acts of courtesy or of
stratagem— acts of rehgion — acts of civil conipact — acts
commemorative of things past — it is here that the journey
ends — it is by this that the next is regulated — hither the
fugitive and the outcast repair — here the weary pilgrim
rests himself — the lack of it is the curse of a kingdom,
and the prospect of it in abundance the blessing which
helps forward the steps of the stranger when he seeks
another country. It enters as an element into the lan-
guage itself of Holy Writ, and the simile, the illustration,
the metaphor, are still telling forth the great Eastern
apophthegm, that of "all things water is the first." Of
such value was the well — so fruitful a source of contention
in those parched and thirsty lands was the possession of a
well !

Now applying these passages to the question before us,
I think it will be seen, that the sudden gushing of the
water from the rock, (which was the sudden discovery of
an invaluable treasure,) and the subsequent onset of the
Amalekites at the very same place — for both occurrences
are said to have happened at Rephidim, tiiough given as
perfectly distinct and independent matters, do coincide very
remarkably with one another ; and yet so undesigned is
the coincidence, (if indeed coincidence it is after all,) that
it might not suggest itself even to readers of the Pen-
tateuch v/hose lot is cast in a torrid clime, and to whom
the value of a draught of cold water is therefore well
known : still less to those who live in a land of brooks, like
our own, a land of fountains and depths that spring out of
the valleys and hills, and who may drink of them freely
without cost and without quarrel.

If then it be admitted, that the issue of the torrent from
the rock synchronizes very singularly with the aggression

7

74 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

of Amalek, yet that the narrative of the two events does
not hint at any connection whatever between them, I
think that all suspicion of contrivance is laid to sleep, and
that whatever force is due to the argument of consistency
without contrivance as a test, and as a testimony of truth,
obtains here. Yet here, as in so many other instancea
already adduced, the stamp of truth, such as it is, is found
where a miracle is intimately concerned ; for if the coinci-
dence in question be thought enough to satisfy us that
Moses was relating an indisputable matter of fact, when
he said that the Israelites received a supply of water at
Rephidim, it adds to our confidence that he is relating an
indisputable matter of fact too, when he says in the same
breath, that it was a miraculous supply — where we can
prove that there is truth in a story so far as a scrutiny of
our own, which was not contemplated by the party whose
words we are trying, enables us to go, it is only fair to
infer, in the absence of all testimony to the contrary, that
there is truth also in such parts of the same story as our
scrutiny cannot attain unto. And indeed it seems to me,
that the sin of Amalek on this occasion, a sin which was
so offensive in God s sight as to be treasured up in judg-
ment against that race, causing Him eventually to destroy
them utterly, derived its heinousness from this very tiling,
that the Amalekites were here endeavoring to dispossess
the Israelites of a vital blessing which God had sent to
them by miracle, and which he could not so send witliout
making it manifest even to the Amalekites themselves,
that the children of Israel were under his special care —
that in fighting therefore against Israel, they were fighting
against God. And such, I persuade myself, is the true
force of an expression in Deuteronomy used in reference
to this very incident — for Amalek is there said to " have'
smitten them when they were weary, and to have feared

PART 1.

BOOKS 01 MOSES. 75

not God ;'" that is, to have done it in defiance of a mira-
cle, which ought to liave impressed them with a fear of
God, indicating, as of course it did, that God willed not
the destruction of this people.

XVI.

Amongst the institutions established or confirmed by
the Almighty whilst the Israelites were on their march,
for their observance when they should have taken posses-
sion of the land of Canaan, this was one — " Tluee times
thou shall keep a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt
keep the Feast of Unleavened bread — thou shalt eat un-
leavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the
time appointed of the month Abib ; for in it thou camest
out from Egypt ; and none shall appear before me empty :
— and the Feast of Harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors,
whicli thou hast sown in thy field : — and the feast of In-
gathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou
hast gathered in thy labors out of the field."^

Such then were the three great annual feasts. The
first, in the month Abib, which was the Passover. The
second, which was the Feast of Weeks. The third, the
Feast of In-gathering, when all the fruits, wine and oil, as
well as corn, had been collected and laid up. The season
of the year at which the first of these occurred is all that
I am anxious to settle, as bearing upon a coincidence
whicli I shall mention by and by. Now this is deter-
mined with sufficient accuracy for my purpose, by the
second of the three being the Feast of Harvest, and the
fact that the interval between the first and second was

1 Deut. XXV. 18. " Exod. xxiii. 14.

76 THE VERACITY OP THE PART I.

just seven weeks:' "And ye shall count unto you from
the morrow after the Sabbatli," (this was the Sabbath of
the Passover,) " from the day that ye brought the sheaf
of the wave-offering- ; seven Sabbaths shall be complete.
Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye
number fifty days, and ye shall offer a new meat-offering
unto the Lord. Ye shall bring out of your habitations
two wave-loaves, of two tenth-deals, they shall be of fine
flour, they shall be baken with leaven. They are the
first-fruits unto the Lord."

At the Feast of Weeks, therefore, the corn was ripe and
just gathered, for then were the first-fruits to be offered, in
the loaves made out of the new corn. If then the wheat
was in this state at the second great festival, it must have
been very far from ripe at the Passover, which was seven
weeks earlier ; and the wsive-sheaf, which, as v/e have
seen, was to be offered at the Passover, must have been
of some grain which came in before wheat — it was in fact
barley.^ Now does not this agree in a remarkable, but
most incidental manner, with a circumstance mentioned
in the description of the Plague of the Hail ? The hail, it
is true, was sent some little time previous to the destruc-
tion of the first-born, or the date of the Passover, for the
Plague of Locusts and the Plague of Darkness intervened,
but it was evidently only a Httle time ; for Moses being
eighth/ years old when he went before Pharaoh,' and hav-
ing walked fortt/ years in the wilderness,* and being only
a hundred and twenty years old when he died,^ it is plain
that he could have lost very little time by the delay of the
plagues in Egypt, the period of his life being filled up
without any allowance for such delay. I mention this,
because it will be seen that the argument requires the

1 Lev. xxiii. 15. 2 See Ruth ii. 23. 3 Exod. vii. 7.

* Joshua V. 6. 5 Deut. xxxiv. 7.

PART j_ BOOKS OF MOSES. 77

time of the hail and that of the death of the first-born (or
in other words the Passover) to be nearly the same. Now
the state of the crops in Egypt at the period of the hail
we happen to know— was it then such as we might have
reason to expect from the state of tiie crops of Jiidea at or
near the same season ?— i. e. the barley ripe, the wheat
not ripe by several weeks ?

It is fortunate, inasmuch as it mvolves a point of evi-
dence, that one of the Plagues chanced to be that of Hail
—for it is the only oi.e of them all of a nature to give us
a clue to the time of year when they came to pass, and
this it does in the most casual manner imaginable, for the
mention of the hail draws from the historian who records
it the remark, that " the flax and the barley were smitten,
for the barley was in the ear and the flax was boiled ; but
the icheat and the rye were not smitten, for they were not
grown up," (or rather perhaps, were not out of sheath.')
Now this is precisely such a degree of forwardness as we
should have respectively assigned to the barley and wheat
—deducing our conclusion from the simple circumstance
that the seasons in Egypt do not greatly diflfer from those
of Judea, and that in the latter country wheat was ripe
and just gathered at the Feast of Weeks, barley just fit
for putting the sickle into fifty days sooner, or at the Pass-
over, which nearly answered to the time of the hail. Yet
so far from obvious is this point of harmony, that nothing
is more easy than to mistake it ; nay, nothing more likely
than that we should even at first suspect Moses himself to
have been out in his reckoning, and thus to find a knot
instead of an argument. For on reading the following
passage,^ where the rule is given for determining the sec-
ond feast, we might on the instant most naturally suppose

I Exod. ix. 32. ^ Deut. xvi. 9.

78 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

that the great ic heat-haw est of Judea was in the month
Abib, at the Passover — " Seven weeks shalt thou number
unto thee, begin to number the seven weeks from such
time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corii^
Now this " putting the sickle to the corn " is at once per-
ceived to be at the Passover when the wave-sheaf was
offered, the ceremony from which we see the Feast of
Weeks was measured and fixed. Yet had the wheat-
harvest been here actually meant, it would have been
impossible to reconcile Moses with himself; for he would
then have been representing the wheat to be ripe in Judea
at a season when, as we had elsewhere gathered from him,
it was not grown up or out of the sheath in Egypt. But
if the sickle was to be put into some grain much earlier
than wheat, such as barley, and if the barley-harvest is
here alluded to as falling in wdth the Passover, and not
the wheat-harvest, then all is clear, intelligible, and free
from difficulty.

In a word then my argument is — that at the Passover
the barley in Judea was ripe, but that the wheat was not,
seven weeks having yet to elapse before the first-fruits of
the loaves could be offered. This I collect from the history
of the Great Jewish Festivals. Again, that at the Plague
of Hail (which corresponds with the time of the Passover
to a few days), the barley in Egypt Avas smitten being in
the ear, but that the wheat was not smitten, not being yet
boiled. This I collect from the history of the Great Egyp-
tian Plagues. The two statements on being compared
together, agree together.

I cannot but consider this as very far from an unimpor-
tant coincidence — tending, as it does, to give us confidence
in the good faith of the historian, even at a moment when
he is telling of the Miracles of Egypt, " the wondrous
works that were done in the land of Ham." For, sup-

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 79

ported by this circumstantial evidence, which, as far as it
goes, cannot lie, I feel that I have very strong reason for
believing that a hail-storm there actually was, as Moses
asserts ; that the season of the year to which he assigns
it, was the season when it did in fact happen ; that the
crops were really in the state in which he represents
tliem to have been — more I cannot 'prove — for further my
test will not reach. It is not in the nature of miracles to
admit of its immediate application to themselves. But
when I see the ordinary circumstances which attend upon
them, and which are most closely combined with them,
yielding internal evidence of truth, I am apt to think that
these in a great measure vouch for the truth of the rest.
Indeed, in all common cases, even in judicial cases of life
and death, the corroboration of the evidence of an un-
impeached witness in one or two particulars is enough to
decide a jury that it is worthy of credit in every other par-
ticular — that it may be safely acted upon in the most aw-
ful and responsible of all human decisions.

XVII.

The argument which I have next to produce has been
urged by Dr. Graves,' though others had noticed it before
him ;2 I shall not, however, scruple to introduce it here in
its order, connected as it is with several more, all relating
to the economy of the camp. The incident on which it
turns is trifling in itself, but nothing can be more charac-
teristic of truth. On the day when Moses set up the
Tabernacle and anointed and sanctified it, the princes of
the tribes made an offering consisting of six waggons and

1 On the Pentateuch, Vol. I. p. 111.

2 See Dr. Patrick on Numb. vii. 7, 8.

80 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

twelve oxen. These are accordingly assigned to the ser-
vice of the Tabernacle : "And Moses gave them unto the
Levites ; Two waggons and four oxen he gave unto the
sons of Gershon according to their service, and four wag-
gons and eight oxen he gave unto the sons of Merari ac-
cording to their service."' Now whence this unequal di-
vision ? Why twice as many waggons and oxen to Merari
as to Gershon ? No reason is expressly avowed. Yet if
I turn to a former chapter, separated however from the one
which has supplied this quotation, by sundry and divers
details of other matters, I am able to make out a very
good reason for myself. For there, amongst the instruc-
tions given to the families, of the Leyites, as to the shares
they had severally to take in removing the Tabernacle
from place to place, I find that the sons of Gershon had to
bear " the curtains," and the " Tabernacle" itself, {i. e. the
linen of whicli it was made), and " its covering, and the
covering of badgers' skins that was above upon it, and the
hanging for the door," and " the hangings of the court, and
the hanging for the door of the gate of the court," and
" their cords, and all the instruments of their service ;"2 in
a word, all the lighter part of the furniture of the Taber-
nacle. But the sons of Merari had to bear " the boards
of the Tabernacle, and the bars thereof, and the pillars
thereof, and the sockets thereof, and the pillars of the court
round about, and their sockets, and their pins, and their
cords, with all their instruments ;"' in short, all the cum-
brous and heavy part of the materials of which the frame-
work of the Tabernacle was constructed. And hence it is
easy to see why more oxen and waggons were assigned to
the one family than to the other. Is chance at the bottom
of all this 1 or, cunning contrivance ? or, truth and only
truth ?
1 Numb. vii. 7, 8. « lb. iv. 25. 3 ib. iv. 32,

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 81

XVIII

In the tenth chapter of the Book of Numbers we have
a particular account of the order of march which was ob-
served in the Camp of Israel on one remarkable occasion,
viz. when they broke up from Sinai. " In the first place
went the standard of the camp of Judah according to their
armies," (v. 14). Does this precedence of Judah agree
with any former account of the disposition of the armies
of Israel ? In the second chapter of the same book I read.
" on the East side toward the rising of the sun shall they
of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout
their armies," (v. 3). All that is to be gathered from this
passage is, that Judah pitched East of the Tabernacle.
I now turn to the tenth chapter, (v. 5,) and I there find
amongst the orders given for the signals, " when ye blow
an alarm. (*'. e. the first alarm, for the others are mention-
ed successively in their turn,) then the camps that lie on
the East parts shall go forward." But from the last pas-
sage it appears that Judah lay on the East parts, there-
fore when the first alarm was blown, Judah should be the
tribe to move. Thus it is implied fiom two passages
brought together from two chapters, separated by the in-
tervention of eight otheis relating to things indifTerent.
that Judah was to lead in any march. Now we see in the
account of a specific movement of the camp from Sinai,
with which I introduced these remarks, that on that occa-
sion Judah did in fact lead. This then is as it should be.
The thi^ee passages agree together as three concurring
witnesses — in the mouth of these is the word established.
Yet there is some Uttle intricacy in the details — enough at
least to leave room for an inadvertent slip in the arrange-

82 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

inents, whereby, a fiction would have run a risk of being
self-detected.

Pursue we this inquiry a little further ; for the next
article of it is perhaps rather more open to a blunder of
this description than the last. It may be thought that the
leading tribC; the van-guard of Israel, was an object too
conspicuous to be overlooked or misplaced. In the 1 8th
verse of the same chapter of Numbers, it is said, that after
the first division was gone, and the Tabernacle, " the
standard of the camp of Reuben set forward according to
their armies." — The camp of Reuben, therefore, was that
which moved second on this occasion. Does this accord
with the position it w^as elsewhere said to have occupied ?
It is obvious that a mistake might here most readily have
crept in ; and that if the writer had not been guided by a
real knowledge of the facts which he was pretending
to describe, it is more than probable he would have be-
trayed himself. Turn we then to the second chapter,
(v. 10,) where the order of the tribes in their tents is given,
and we there find that " on the south side was to be the
standard of the camp of Reuben, according to their
armies." Again, let us turn to the tenth chapter, (v. 6,)
where the directions for the signals are given, and we are
there told, •' When ye blow the alarm the second time,
then the camps on the south side shall take their journey ;"
— but the passage last quoted, (which is far removed from
this,) informs us that Reubeii was on the south side of the
Tabernacle ; the camp of Reuben therefore it was, which
was appointed to move when the alarm was blown the
second time. Accordingly we see in the description of the
actual breaking up from Sinai, with which I set out, that
the camp of Reubeti was in fact the second to move.
The same argument maybe followed up, and the same'
satisfactory conclusions obtained in tlie other two camps

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 83

of Ephraim and Dan ; though here recourse must be had
to the Septuagint, of which the text is more full in these
two latter instances than the Hebrew text of our own ver-
sion, and more full precisely upon those points which are
wanted in evidence.' On such a trifle does the practica-
bility of establishing an argument of coincidence turn ;
and so perpetually, no doubt, (were we but aware of it.)
are we prevented from doing justice to the veracity of the
writings of Moses, by the lack of more abundant details.

In all this, it appears to me, that without any care or
circumspection of the historian, as to how he should make
the several parts of his tale agree together — without any
display on the one hand, or mock concealment on the
other, of a harmony to be found in those several parts —
and in the meantime, with ample scope for the admission
of unguarded mistakes, by which a mere impostor would
soon stand convicted, the whole is at unity with itself, and
the internal evidence resulting from it clear, precise, and
above suspicion.

XIX.

1. The arrangements of the camp provide us with an-
other coincidence, no less satisfactory than the last — for it
may be here remarked, that in proportion as the history
of Moses descends to particulars, (which it does in the
camp,) in that proportion is it fertile in the arguments of
which I am at present in search. It is in general the
extreme brevity of the history, and nothing else, that
baffles us in our inquiries ; often affording (as it does) a
hint which we cannot pursue for want of details, and ex-

• Septuagint, Numb. x. 6.

84

THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

hibiting a glimpse of some corroboiative fact which it is
vexatious to be so uear grasping, and still to be compelled
to relinquish it.

In the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Numbers we
read, " Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath
tlie son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of
Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took
men, and they rose up before Moses with certain of the
congregation of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of
the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown.
And they gathered themselves together against Moses and
against Aaron, and said unto them. Ye take too much
upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one
of them, and the Lord is among them ; wherefore then
lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord.'"
Such is the history of the conspiracy got up against the
authority of the leaders of Israel. The principal parties
engaged in it, we see, were Korah of the family of Kohath,
and Dathan, Abiram, and On, of the family of Reuben.
Now it is a very curious circumstance that some thirteen
chapters before this — chapters occupied with matters of
quite another character — it is mentioned incidentally that
" the families of the sons of Kohath were to pitch on the
side of the Tabernacle southwai'd.'^'^ And in another
chapter yet further back, and as independent of the latter as
the latter w^as of the first, we read no less incidentally, " on
the south side (of the Tabernacle) shall be the standard of
the camp of Reuben, according to their armies."^ The
family of Kohath, therefore, and the family of Reuben,
both pitched on tlie same side of the Tabernacle — they
were neighbors, and were therefore conveniently situated
for taking secret counsel together. Surely this singular

1 Numb. xvi. 1. 2 lb. iii. 29. 3 lb. ii. 10.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 85

coincidence comes of truth — not of accident, not of design ;
— not of accident, for how great is the improbabiUty that
such a peculiar propriety between the relative situations
of the parties in the conspiracy should have been the mere
result of chance ; when three sides of the Tabernacle were
occupied by the families of the Levites, and all four sides
by the families of the tribes, and when combinations
(arithmetically speaking), to so great an extent might

have been formed Ijetwecn these in their several members,

•«

without the one in questioh being of the number. It does
not come of design, for the agreement is not obvious
enough to suit a designer's purpose — it might most easily
escape notice: — it is indeed only to be detected by the
juxtaposition of several unconnected passages falling out
at long intervals. Then, again, had no such coincidence
been found at all ; had the conspirators been represented
as drawn together from more distant parts of the camp,
from such parts as afforded no peculiar facilities for leaguing
together, no objection whatever would have lain against
the accuracy of the narrative on that account. The argu-
ment, indeed, for its veracity would then have been lost,
but that would have been all ; no suspicion whatever
against its veracity would have been thereby incurred.

2. But there is yet another feature of truth in this
same most remarkable portion of Mosaic history ; and this
has been enlarged upon by Dr. Graves.' I shall not how-
ever scruple to touch upon it here, both because I do not
take quite the same view of it throughout, and because
this incident combines with the one 1 have just brought
forward, and thus acquires a value beyond its own, from
being a second of its kind arising out of one and the same
event — the united value of two incidental marks of truth

» On the Pentateuch, Vol. I, p. 155.

86 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

being more than the sum of their separate values. In-
deed, these two instances of consistency without design,
taken together, hedge in the main transaction on the right
hand and on the left, so as almost to close up every avenue
through which suspicion could insinuate the rejection of it.
On a common perusal of the whole history of this re-
bellion, in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers, the impres-
sion left w^ould be, that, in the punishment of Korah, Da-
than, and Abiram, there was no distinction or difference ;
that their tents and all the men that appertained unto
Korah, and all their goods, were destroyed alike. Never-
theless, ten chapters after, v^hen the number of the chil-
dren of Israel is taken, and when in the course of the num-
bering, the names of Dathan and Abiram occur, there is
added the following incidental memorandum — "This is
that Dathan and Abiram who were famous in the congre-
gation, who strove against Moses and against Aaron, in
the company of Korah, when they strove against the
Lord." Then the death which they died is mentioned, and
last of all it is said, " Notwithstanding the children of
Korah died not.^'^ This, at first sight, undoubtedly looks
like a contradiction of what had gone before. Again, then,
let us turn back to the 16th chapter, and see whether we
have read it right. Now. though upon a second perusal I
still find 710 express assertion that there was any differ-
ence in the fate of these several rebellious households, I
think upon a close inspection I do find (what answers my
purpose better) some difference implied. For, in verse 27,
we are told, " So they gat up from the Tabernacle of Ko-
rah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side ;" — i. e. from a
Tabernacle which these men in their political rebeUion and
rehgious dissent (for they went together) had set up in

1 Numb. XX vi. 11.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 87

common for themselves and their adherents, in opposition
to the great Tabernacle of the congregation. " And Da-
than and Abiram," it is added, " came out and stood in the
door of their tents ; and their wives, and their sons, and
their little children." Here we perceive that mention is
made of the sons of Dathan and the sons of Abiram, but
not of the sons of Korah. So that the victims of the ca-
tastrophe about to happen, it should seem from this ac-
count too, were indeed the sons of Dathan and the sons
of Abiram, but not (in all appearance) the sons of Korah.
Neither is this difference difficult to account for. The Le-
vites pitching nearer to the Tabernacle than the other
tribes, forming, in fact, three sides of the inner square,
whilst the others formed the four sides of the outer, it
would necessarily follow, that the dwelling-tent of Korah,
a Levite, would l)e at some distance from the dwelling-
tents of Dathan and Abiram. Reiibenites, and, as brothers,
probably contiguous ; at such a distance at least, as might
serve to secure it from being involved in the destruction
which overwhelmed the others ; for, that the desolation
was very limited in extent, seems a fact conveyed by the
terms of the warning — " Depart from the tents of these
wicked men," (i. e. the tabernacle which the three leaders
had reared in common, and the two dwelling-tents of Da-
than and Abiram,') as if the danger was confined to the
vicinity of those tents.

In this single event, then, the rebellion of Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram, I discover tv/o instances of coincidence with-
out design, each independent of the other — the one, in the
conspiracy being laid amongst parties whom I know, from
information elsewhere given, to have dwelt on the same
side of the Tabernacle, and therefore to have been conve-

1 See chap, xvi, verse 27. An attention to this verse shows these to
have been the tents meant.

88 THE VERACI'J'Y OF THE PART I.

niently situated for such a plot — the other, in the different
lots of the families of the conspirators, a difference of which
there is just hint enough in the direct history of it, to be
brought out by a casual assertion to that effect in a subse-
quent casual allusion to the conspiracy, and only just hint
enough for this — a difference, too, which accords very re-
markably with the relative situations of those several fam-
ihes in their respective tents.

But if the existence of a conspiracy be by this means
established, above all dispute, as a matter of fact — if the
death of some of the families of the conspirators, and the
escape of others, be also by the same means established,
above all dispute, as another matter of fact — if the testi-
mony of Moses, after having been submitted to a test which
he could never have contemplated or been provided against
turn out in these particulars at least to be quite worthy of
credit — to what are we led on ? Is not the historian still
the same: is he not still treating of the same incident,
when he informs us that the punishment of this rebellious
spirit was a miraculous punishment? that the ground
clave asunder that was under the ringleaders, and swal-
lowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that ap-
pertained unto them, and all their goods ; so that they,
and all that appertained unto them, went down alive into
the pit, and the earth closed upon them, and they per-
ished from among the congregation?

^ XX

The arrangements of the camp suggest one point of
coincidence more, not perhaps so remarkable as the last,
yet enough so to be admitted amongst others as an indi-
cation of truth in the historv.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 89

In the 32nd chapter of Numbers, (v. 1,) it is said,
" Now the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad,
had a very great multitude of cattle ; and when they saw
the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that behold the
place was a place for cattle, the children of Gad and the
children of Reuben came and spake unto Moses, and to
Eleazer the priest, and imto the princes of the congrega-
tion, saying, Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah,
and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Shebam, and Nebo, and
Beon, even the country which the Lord smote before the
congregation of Israel, is a land for cattle, and thy servants
have cattle ; wherefore, said they, if we have received
grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants
for a possession, and bring us not over Jordan."

Here was a petition from the tribes of Renben and of
Gad, to have a portion assigned them on the east side of
Jordan, rather than in the land of Canaan. But how
came the request to be made conjointly by the children of
Reuben and the children of Gad ? — Was it a mere acci-
dent? — Was it the simple circumstance that these two
tribes being richer in cattle than tlie rest, and seeing that
the pasturage was good on the east side of Jordan, desired
on that account only to establish themselves there to-
gether, and to separate from their brethren? Perhaps
something more than either. For I read in the 2nd chap-
ter of Numbers, (v. 10, 14,) that the camp of Reuben was on
the south side of the tabernacle, and that the tribe of Gad
formed a division of the camp of Reuben. It may very
well be imagined, therefore, that after having shared to-
gether the perils of the long and arduous campaign through
the wilderness, these two tribes, in addition to considera-
tions about their cattle, feeling the strong bond of well-tried
companionship in hardships and in arms, were very hkely
to act with one common council, and to have a desire still

90 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

to dwell beside one another, after the toil of battle, as quiet
neighbors in a peaceful country where they were finally
to set up their rest. Here again is an incident, I think,
beyond the reach of the most refined impostor in the
world. What vigilance, however alive to suspicion, and
prepared for it — what cunning, however bent upon giving
credibility to a worthless narrative, by insidiously scatter-
ing through it marks of truth which should turn up from
time 10 time and mislead the reader, would have suggested
one so very trivial, so very far fetched, as a desire of two
tribes to obtain their inheritance together on the same
side of the river, simply upon the recollection that such a
desire would fall in very naturally with their having
pitclied their tents side by side in their previous march
through the wilderness ?

XXI

Some circumstances in the history of Balak and Balaam
supply me with another argument for the veracity of the
Pentateuch. But before I proceed to those which I have
more immediately in my eye, I would observe, that the sim-
ple fact of a King of Moab knowing that a Prophet dAvelt
in Mesopotamia, in the mountains of the East, a country
so distant from his own, in itself supplies a point of harmony
favoring the truth and reality of the narrative. For I am
led by it to remark this, that very many hints may be picked
up in the writings of Moses, all concurring to establish one
position, viz. that there was a communication amongst the
scattered inhabitants of the earth in those early times, a
circulation of intelligence, scarcely to be expected, and not
easily to be accounted for. Whether the caravans of mer-
chants which, as we have seen, traversed the deserts of the

PART I. BOOKS' OF MOSES. 91

East — whether tlie unsettled and vagrant habits of the
descendants of Ishmael and Esau, which singularly fitted
them for being the carrier.-:^ of news, and with whom the
great wilderness was alive — whether the pastoral life of
the Patriarchs, and of those who more immediately sprung
from them, which led them to constant changes of place
in search of herbage — whether the frequent petty wars
which were waged amongst lawless neiglibors — whether
the necessary separation of families, the parent hive cast-
ing its little colony forth to settle on some distant land,
and the consequent interest and curiosity which either
branch would feel for the fortunes of the other — whether
these were the circumstances that encouraged and main-
tained an intercourse among mankind in spite of the
numberless obstacles which must then have opposed it,
and which we might have imagined would have inter-
cepted it altogether ; or whether any other channels of in-
telligence were open of which we are in ignorance, sure it
is, that such intercourse seems to have existed to a very
considerable extent.

Thus, far as Abraham was removed from the branch
of his family which remained in Mesopotamia, " it came
to pass that it was told him, saying. Behold, Milcah, she
hath also borne children unto thy brother Nahor;" and
their names are then added.' In like manner Isaac and
Rebekah appear in their turn to have known that Laban
had marriageable daughters f — and Jacob, when he came
back to Canaan after his long sojourn in Haran, seems to
have known that Esau was alive and prosperous, and that
he lived at Seir, whither he sent a message to him ;^— and
Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, who went with her to Canaan
on her marriage, is found many years afterwards in the

1 Gen. xxii. 20. ^ lb. xxviii. 2. 3 lb. xxxii. 3.

92 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

family of Jacob, for she dies in his camp as he was return-
ing from Haran/ and therefore must have been sent back
again meanwhile, for some purpose or other, from Canaan
to Haran ;— and at Elim, in the desert, the Israelites dis-
cover twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palms,
the numbers, no doubt, not accidental, but indicating that
some persons had frequented this secluded spot acquainted
with the sons and grandsons of Jacob ]^ — and Jethro, the
father-in-law of Moses, is said " to have heard of all that
God had done for Moses and for Israel his people."^ And
when 'Moses, on his march, sends a message to Edom, it
is worded, " thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen
us — how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have
dwelt in Egypt a long time ;"^ together with many more
particulars, all of which Moses reckons matters of notoriety
to the inhabitants of the desert. And on another occasion
he speaks of " their having heard that the Lord was
among his people, that he was seen by them face to face,
that his cloud stood over them, and that he went before
them by day-time in a pillar of cloud, and in a pillar of
fire by night."^ And this may, in fact, account for the
vestiges of so many laws which we meet with throughout
the East, even in this very early period, as held in common
— and the many just notions of the Deity, mixed up,
indeed, with much alloy, which so many nations possessed
in common — and the rites and customs, whether civil or
sacred, to which in so many points they conformed in
common. Now all these unconnected matters hint at this
one circumstance, that intelligence travelled through the
tribes of the Desert more freely and rapidly than might
have been thought, and the consistency with which the

1 Gen. XXXV. 8. 2 Elxod. xv. 27. ^ lb. xviii. 1.

i Numb. XX. 15. s ib. xiv. 14.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 93

writings of Moses imply such a fact, (for they neither affirm
it, nor trouble themselves about explaining it,) is a feature
of truth in those writings.

XXII.

Through some or other of the channels of information
enumerated in the last paragraph, Balak, King of Moab,
is aware of the existence of a Prophet at Pethor, and
sends for him. It is not unUkely, indeed, that the Moab-
ites, who were the children of Lot, should have still main-
tained a communication with the original stock of all
which continued to dwell in Aram or Mesopotamia. Nei-
ther is it unlikely that Pethor, which was in that country,'
the country whence Abraham emigrated, and where Nahor
and that branch of Terah's family remained, should pps-
sess a Prophet of the true God. Nor is it unlikely again,
that, living in the midst of idolaters, Balaam should in a
degree partake of the infection, as Laban had done before
him in the same country ; and that whilst he acknowl-
edged the Lord for his God, and offered his victims by
sevens, (as some patriarchal tradition perhaps directed
him,2) he should have had recourse to enchantments also
—mixing the profane and sacred, as Labaft did the wor-
ship of his images with the worship of his Maker. All
this is in character. Now it was not Balak alone who
sent the embassy to Balaam. He was but King of the
Moabites. and had nothing to do with Midian. With the
elders of Midian, however, he consulted, they being as
much interested as himself in putting a stop to the tri-
umphant march of Israel. Accordingly we find that the

1 Numb, xxiii. 7. 2 See Job xlii. 8.

94 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

mission to the Propliet came from the two people conjoint-
ly J — " the elders of Moab and the elders of Micliim de-
parted, with the rewards of divination in their hamd."^ In
the remainder of this interview, and in the one which
succeeded it, all mention of Midian is dropped, and the
" princes of Balak," and the " servants of Balak," are the
titles given to the messengers. And when Balaam at
leno"th consents to accept their invitation, it is to Moab, the
kingdom of Balak, that he comes, and he is received by
the King at one of his own border-cities near the river of
Araon. Then follows the Prophet's fruitless struggle to
curse the people whom God had blessed, and the conse-
quent disappointment of the King, who bids him " flee to
his place, the Lord having kept him back from honor ;"
'• and Balaam rose up," the history concludes, " and went
and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way."-
So they parted in mutual dissatisfaction.

Hitherto, then, although the elders of Midian were con-
cerned in inviting the Prophet from Mesopotamia, it does
not appear that they had any intercourse whatever with
him on their own account — Balak and the Moabites had
engrossed all his attention. The subject is now discon-
tinued : Balaam disappears, gone, as we may suppose, to
his own country again, to Pethor, in Mesopotamia, for he
had expressly said on parting, " Behold, I go unto my
peopleP^ Meanwhile the historian pursues his onward
course, and details, through several long chapters, the
abandoned profligacy of the Israehtes, the numbering of
them according to their families, the method by which
their portions were to be assigned in the land of promise,
the laws of inheritance, the choice and appointment of a
successor a series of offerings and festivals of various

' Numb. xxii. 7. ^ ib. xxiv. 25. 3 lb. xxiv. 14.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 95

kinds, more or less important, the nature and obligation
of vows, and the diflerent complexion they assumed under
different circumstances enumerated, and then, (as it often
happens in the history of Moses, where a battle or a rebel-
lion perhaps interrupts a catalogue of rites and cere-
moniesj) then, I say, comes an account of an attack made
upon the Midianites in revenge for their having seduced
the people of Israel by the wiles of their women. So
" they slew the kings of Midian, besides the rest of them
that were slain, viz. Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur,
and Reba, five kings of Midian ;" and lastly, there is ad-
ded, what we might not perhaps have been prepared for,
•' Balaam also, the son of Beor, they sleio with the

It seems then, but how incidentally ! that the Prophet
did not, after all, return to Mesopotamia, as we had sup-
posed. Now this coincides in a very satisfactory manner
with the circumstances under which, we have seen, Ba-
laam was invited from Pethor. For the deputation, which
then waited on him, did not consist of Moabites exclusively,
but of Midianites also. When dismissed, therefore, in
disgust by the Moabites, he would not return to Mesopota-
mia until he had paid his visit to the Midianites, who
were equally concerned in bringing him where he was.
Had the details of his achievements in Midian been given,
as those in Moab are given, they might have been as nu-
merous, as important, and as interesting. One thing only,
however, we are told, that by the counsel which he sug-
gested during this visit concerning the matter of Peor, and
which he probably thought was the most likely counsel to
alienate the Israelites from God, and to make Him curse
instead of blessing them, he caused the children of Israel

1 Numb. XXXI. 8.

% THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

fo commit the trespass he anticipated, and to fall into the
trap which he had provided for them. Unluckily for him,
however, his stay amongst the Midianites was unseason-
ably protracted, and Moses coming upon them, as we have
seen, by command of God, slew them and him together.
The undesigned coincidence lies in the Elders of Moab
and the Elders of Midiaji going to Balaam ; in Midian
being then mentioned no more, till Balaam, having been
sent away from Moab, apparently that he might go home,
is subsequently found a corpse amongst the slaughtered
Midianites.

XXIII

In the consequences which followed from this evil coun-
sel of Balaam, I fancy I discover another instance of coin-
cidence without design. It is this.— As a punishment for
the sin of the Israelites in partaking of the worship of
Baal-Peor, God is said to have sent a plague upon them.
Who were the leaders in this defection from the Almighty,
and in this shameless adoption of the abomination of the
Moabites, is not disclosed — nor indeed whether any one
tribe were more guilty before God than the rest — only it
is said that the number of " those who died in the Plague
was twenty and four thousand.'" I read, however, that
the name of a certain Israelite that was slain on that oc-
casion, (who in the general humiliation and mourning, de-
fied, as it were, the vengeance of the Most High, and de-
termined, at all hazards, to continue in the lusts to which
the idolatry had led,) I read, I say, that " the name of
this Israehte that was slain, even that was slain with the

1 Numb. XXV. 9.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 97

Midianitish woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince
of a chief house among the Simeonites."^ And very great
importance is attached to this act of summary punishment
— as though this one offender, a pjHnce of a chief house
of his tribe, was a representative of the offence of man}'^ —
for on Phinehas, in his lioly indignation, putting him to
instant death, the Plague ceased. " iSo the Plague wa;?
stayed from the children of Israel."^

Shortly after this a census of the people is taken. All
the tribes are numbered, and a separate account is given
of each. Now in this I observe the following particular —
that, although on comparing this census with the one
which had been made nearly forty years before at Sinai, it
appears that the majority of the tribes had meanwhile in-
creased in numbers, and none of them very materially di-
minished,' the tribe of Simeon had lost almost two-thirds
of its whole body, being reduced from ^'fifty-nine thousand
and three hundred,"^ to '■'• twenty-Uvo thousand and two'
hundred."^ No reason is assigned for this extraordinary
depopulation of this one tribe—no hint whatever is given
as to its eminence in suffering above its fellows. Nor can
I pretend to say that we can detect the reason with any
certainty of being right, though the fact speaks for itself
that the tribe of Simeon must have experienced disaster
beyond the rest. Yet it does seem very natural to think,
that, in the recent Plague, the tribe to which Zimri be-
longed, who is mentioned as a leading person in it witli
great emphasis, icas the tribe upon lohich the chief fury
of the scourge fell — as having been that which had been
the chief transgressors in the idolatry.

Moreover, that such was the case, I am further inclined
to believe from another circumstance. One of the last

1 Numb. XXV. 14. 2 xb. xxv. 8. 3 Comp. lb. i. and xtvi.

4 lb. i. 23. 5 lb. XXVI. 14.

9

98 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

great acts which Moses was commissioned to perform be-
fore his death, has a reference to this very affair of Baal-
Peor. " Avenge the children of Israel/' says God to him,
"of the Midianites ; afterward thou shalt be gathered
unto thy people."' Moses did so : but before he actually
was gathered to his people, and while the recent extermi-
nation of this guilty nation must have been fresh in his
mind, he proceeds to pronounce a parting blessing on the
tribes. Now it is singular, and except upon some such
supposition as this I am maintaining, unaccountable, that
whilst he deals out the bounties of earth and heaven with
a prodigal hand upon all the others, the tribe of Simeon he
passes over in silence, and none but the tribe of Simeon
— for this he has no blessing^ — an omission which should
seem to have some meaning, and which does in fact, as I
apprehend, point to this same matter of Baal Peor. For if
that was pre-eminently the offending tribe, nothing could
be more likely than that Moses, fresh, as I have said, from
the destruction of the Midianites for their sin, should re-
member their principal partners in it too, and should think
it hard measure to slay the one, and forthwith bless the

' Numb. xxxi. 2.
2 Deut. xxxiii. 6. It is nothing but fair to state that the reading of the

Codex Alexandr. is, ^I'lrtj 'PovPnv kuI nn diroOavCTd), xal TiVf/cibv lartd TTu\vi ev

dptd^S). " Let Reuben Hve and not die, and let Simeon be many in num-
ber." This reading, however, the Codex Vaticanus, the rival MS. of the
Alexandrine, and at least its equal in authority, does not recognize : neither
is it found in the Hebrew text, nor in any of the various readings of that
text as given by Dr. Kennicott, nor in the Samaritan, nor in the early Ver-
sions. It is difficult to believe that the name of Simeon should have been
omitted in so many instances by mistake ; whilst it is easy to suppose that
it might have been introduced in some one instance by design, the tran-
scriber not aware of any cause for the exclusion of this one tribe, and say-
ing, " Peradventure, it is an oversight." Moreover, the blessing of Reuben
thus curtailed, " Let Reuben Live and not die," seems tame, and unworthy
the party and the occasion.

c

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 99

Other. Nor can I help remarking, in further support of
this conjecture, that the Httle consideration paid to this
tribe by their brethren shortly afterwards, in the allotment
of the portions of the Holy Land, implies it to have been
in disgrace — their inheritance being only the remnant of
that assigned to the children of Judah, which was too much
for them ;' and so inadequate to their wants did it prove,
that in after-times they sent forth a colony even to Mount
Seir.

Admitting, then, the fact to be as I have supposed, it sup-
ports (as in so many other cases already mentioned) the
credibihty of a miracle. For the name of the audacious
offender points incidentally to the offending tribe— the ex-
traordinary diminution of that tribe points to some extra-
ordinary cause of the diminution — the pestilence presents
itself as a probable cause — and if the real cause, then it
becomes the judicial punishment of a transgression, a mir-
acle wrought by God (as Moses would have it), in token
that his wrath was kindled against Israel.

So much for the Books of Moses ; not that I believe the
subject exhausted, for I doubt not that many examples of
coincidence without design in the writings of Moses have
escaped me, which others may detect, as one eye will often
see what another has overlooked. Still I cannot account
for the number and nature of those which I have been
able to produce on any other principle than the veracity
of the narrative which presents them ; — accident could not
have touched upon truth so often — design could not have
touched upon it so artlessly ; the less so, because these co-
incidences do not discover themselves in certain detached
and isolated passages, but break out from time to time as
the history proceeds, running witnesses (as it were) to the

1 Josh. zix. 9.

100 THE VERACITY OF THE ' PART I.

accuracy not of one solitary detail, but of a series of de-
tails extending through the lives and actions of many dif-
ferent individuals, relating to many different events, and
dating at many different points of time. For, I have trav-
elled through the writings of Moses, beginning from the
histor}'^ of Abraham, when a sojourner in the land of
Canaan, and ending with a transaction which happened
on the borders of that land, when the descendants of
Abraham, now numerous as the stars in heaven, were
about to enter and take possession. I have found in the
progress of the checkered series of events, the marks of
truth never deserting us — I have found (to recapitulate as
l)riefly as possible) consistency ui'ithoiit design in the
many hints of a Patriarchal Church incidentally scattered
through the Book of Genesis taken as a whole — I have
found it in partictdar instances ; in the impassioned terms
wherein the Father of the Faithful intercedes for a devoted
city of which his hrotJier^s son was an inhabitant — in
th€ circumstance of his own son receiving in marriage
the grand-daughter of his brother, a singular confirma-
tion that he was the child of his parent's old age, the mi-
raculous offspring of a sterile bed — I have found it in the
several oblique intimations of the imbecility and insig-
nificance of Bethuel — in the occurrence of Isaac's medita-
tion in the field, with the fact of his mother's recent death
— and in the desire of that Patriarch on a subsequent oc-
casion to impart the blessing, as compared with what seem
to be symptoms of a present and serious sickness — I have
found it in the singular command of Jacob to his followers,
to put away their idols, as compared with the sacking of
an idolatrous city, and the capture of its idolatrous in-
habitants shortly before — I have found it in the identity
of the character of Jacob, a character offered to us in many
aspects and at many distant intervals, but still ever the

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 101

same — I have found it in the lading of the camels of the
Ishmaelitish merchants, as compared with the mode of
sepulture amongst the Egyptians — in the aUusions to the
com-croj} of Egypt, thrown out in such a variety of ways,
and so inadvertently in all, as compared one with another
— I have found it in the proportion of that crop perma-
nently assigned to Pharaoh, as compared with that which
was taken up by Joseph for the famine ; and in the very
natural manner in whicli a great revolution of the state is
made to arise out of a temporary emergency — I have found
it in the tenderness with which the property of the priests
was treated, as compared with the honor in which they
were held by the king, and the alliance which had been
formed wath one of their families by the minister of the
king — I have found it in the character of Joseph, which,
however and whenever we catch a glimpse of it, is still
one: and whether it be gathered from his own words or
his own deeds, from the language of his father or from
the language of his brethren, is still uniform throughout —
I have found it in the death of Nadab and Abihu, as com-
pared with the remarkable law which follows touching the
use of wine — and in the removal of their corpses by the
sons of Uzziel, as compared with the defilement of certain
in the camp about the same time by the dead body of ;i
man — I have found it in the gushing of water from the
rock at Rephidim, as compared with the attack of tbe
Amalekites which followed — in the state of the crops in
Judea at the Passover, as compared with that of the
crops in Egypt at the plague of Hail — in the proportion
of oxen and waggons assigned to the several families of
the Levites, as compared with the different services they
had respectively to discharge — I have found it in the order
of march observed in one particular case, when the Israel-
ites broke up from Mount Sinai, as compared with the

102 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

general directions given in other places for pitching the
tents and sounding the alarms — I have found it in the
peculiar propriety of the groujnng of the conspirators
against Moses and Aaron, as compared with their relative
situations in the camp — consisting, as they do, of such a
family of the Levites and such a tribe of the Israelites as
dwelt on the same side of the Tabernacle, and therefore
had especial facilities for clandestine intercourse — I have
found it in an inference from the direct narrative, that the
famihes of the conspirators did not perish alike, as com-
pared with a subsequent most casual assertion, that though
the households of Dathan and Abiram were destroyed,
the children of Korath died not — I have found it in the
desire expressed conjointly by the Tribe of Reuben and
the Tribe of Gad to have lands allotted them together
on the east side of Jordan, as compared with their contig-
uous position in the camp during their long and trying
march through the wilderness — I have found it in the uni-
formity with which Moses implies a free communication
to have subsisted amongst the scattered inhabitants of the
East — in the unexpected discovery of Balaam amongst
the dead of the Midiauites, though he had departed
from Moab apparently to return to his own country, as
compared with the united embassy that was sent to invite
bim — and, finally, I have found it in the extraordinary
diminution of the Tribe of Simeon, as compared with the
occasion of the death of Zimri, a chief of that tribe, the
only individual whom Moses thinks it necessary to name,
and the victim by which the Plague is appeased.

These indications of truth in the Mosaic writings, (to
which, as I have said, others of the same kind might
doubtless be added,) may be sometimes more, sometimes
less strong ; still they must be acknowledged, I think, on
a general review and when taken in the aggregate, to

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 103

amount to evidence of great cumulative weight — evidence
the more valuable in the present instance, because the ex-
treme antiquity of the documents precludes any arising
out of contemporary history. But though the argument
of coincidence without design is the only one with which
I proposed to deal, I may be allowed, in closing my re-
marks on the Books of Moses, to make brief mention of a
few other points in favor of their veracity, which have
naturally presented themselves to my mind whilst I have
been engaged in investigating that argument — several of
these also bespeaking undesignedness in the narrative
more or less, and so far allied to my main proposition —
For example —

1. There is a Tninuteness in the details of the Mosaic
writings, which argues their truth ; for it often argues the
eye-witness, as m the adventures of the wilderness ; and
often seems intended to supply directions to the artificer,
as in the construction of the Tabernacle.

2. There are touches of nature in the narrative which
argue its truth, for it is not easy to regard them otherwise
than as strokes from the life — as where " the mixed mul-
titude," whether half-casts or Egyptians, are the first to
sigh for the cucumbers and melons of Egypt, and to
spread discontent through the camp' — as, the miserable
exculpation of himself, which Aaron attempts, with all the
cowardice of conscious guilt — "I cast into the fire, and
there came out this calf:" the fire, to be sure, being in the
fault.2

3. There are certain little inco7ivetiiences represented
as turning up unexpectedly, that argue truth in the story ;
for they are just such accidents as are characteristic of the
working of a new system and untried machinery. What

• Numb. xi. 4. 2 Exod. xxxii. 24.

104

THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

is to be done with the man who is found gathering sticks
on the Sa.bbath-day' — (could an impostor have devised
such a trifle?) How the inheritance of the daughters of
Zelopiiehad is to be disposed of, there being no heir-male. ^
Either of them inconsiderable matters in themselves, but
both giving occasion to very important laws ; the one
touching life, and the other property.

4. There is a swiplicity in the manner of Moses when
telling his tale, which argues its truth — no parade of lan-
guage, no pomp of circumstance even in his miracles — a
modesty and dignity throughout all. Let us but compare
him in any trying scene with Josephus ; his description,
for instance, of the passage through the Red Sea,^ of the
murmuring of the Israelites and the supply of quails and
manna, with the same as given by the Jewish historian,
or rhetorican, we might rather say — and the force of the
observation will be felt.^

5. There is a candor in the treatment of his subject by
Moses, which argues his truth ; as when he tells of his
own want of eloquence, w^hich unfitted him for a le«ider^
— his own want of faitii, which prevented him from enter-
ing the promised iand^ — the idolatry of Aaron his brother'^
— the profaneness of Nadab and Abihu, his nephews^ —
the disaffection and punishment of Miriam, his sister.'^
The relationship which Amram his father bore to Joche-
bed his mother, which became afterwards one of the
prohibited degrees in the marriage Tables of the Levitical
Law.="

6. There is a disinterestedness in his conduct, which

1 Numb. XV. 32. » lb. xxxvi. 2.

3 Exod. xiv. Joseph. Antiq. b. 2. c. xvi.

< lb. xvi. Joseph. Antiq. b. 3, c. i. 5 lb. iv. 10. 6 Numb. xx. 12.

'I Exod. xxxii. 21. 8 Lev. x. 1. » Numb. xii. 1.

'" Exod. vi. 20. Lev. xxviii. 12.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 105

argues him to be a man of truth ; for though he had sons,
he apparently takes no measures during his Hfe to give
them offices of trust or profit; and at his death he appoints
as his successor one who had no claims upon him, either
of alliance, of clan-ship, or of blood.

7. There are certain projihetical passages in the writ-
ings of Moses, which argue their truth ; as several respect-
ing the future Messiah ; and the very sublime and literal
one respecting the final fall of Jerusalem.'

8. There is a simple key supplied by these writings to
the meaning of many ancient traditions current amongst
the heathens, though greatly disguised, which is another
circuiiistance that agues their truth — as, the golden age —
the garden of the Hesperides— the fruit tree in the midst
of the garden which the dragon guarded — the destruction
of mankind by a flood, all except two persons, and those
righteous persons —

" Innocuos ambos, cultores numiras ambos:2"

the rainbow, " which Jupiter set in the cloud, a sign to
men"^ — tiie seventh day a sacred day^ — with many others :
all conspiring to estabHsh the reality of the facts which
Moses relates, because tending to show that vestiges of the
like present themselves in the traditional history of the
world at large.

9. The concurrence which is found between the writ-
ings of Moses and those of the New Testament, argues
their truth : the latter constantly appeaUng to them, being
indeed but the completion of the system which the others
are the first to put forth. Nor is this an illogical argument
— for, though the credibility of the New Testament itself
may certainly be reasoned out from the truth of the Pen-

1 Deut. xxviii. 2 Ovid, Met. i. 327. 3 Horn. II. xi. 27, 28,

4 Hesiod. Oper. et Di. 770. See Grot, de Verit. Rel. Christ. 1. 1, xvi.

106 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

tateuch once established, it is still very far from depending
on that circumstance exclusively, or even principally.
The New Testament demands acceptance on its own
merits, on merits distinct from those on which the Books
of Moses rest — therefore (so far as it does so) it may fairly
give its suffrage for their veracity — valeat quantum valet
— and surely it is a very improbable thing, that two dis-
pensations, separated by an interval of some fifteen hun-
dred years, each exhibiting prophecies of its own, since
fulfilled — each asserting miracles of its own, on strong evi-
dence of its own — that two dispensations, with such indi-
vidual claims to be beheVed. should also be found to stand
in the closest relation to one another, and yet both turn out
impostures after all.

10. Above all, there is a comparative purity in the theol-
ogy and morality of the Pentateuch, which argues not only
its truth, but its high original ; for how else are we to ac-
count for a system like that of Moses, in such an age and
amongst such a people ; that the doctrine of the unity, the
self-existence, the providence, the perfections of the great
God of heaven and earth, should thus have blazed forth
(how far more brightly than even in the vaunted schools of
Athens at its most refined era !) from the midst of a na-
tion, of themselves ever plunging into gross and grovelling
idolatry ; and that principles of social duty, of benevo-
lence, and of self-restraint, extending even to the thoughts
of the heart,' should have been the produce of an age.
which the very provisions of the Levitical Law itself show
to have been full of savage and licentious abominations?

Such are some of the internal evidences for the veracity
of the Books of Moses.

11. Then the situation in which the Jews actually

1 Exod. XX. 3; Deut. vi. 4; Exod. iii. 14; Deut. xi. 14; Lev. lii. 2;
lb. xix. 18 ; Deut. xxx. 6 ; Exod. xx. 17.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 107

found themselves placed, as a matter of fact, is no slight
argument for the truth of the Mosaic accounts; reminded,
as they were, by certain memorials observed from year to
year, of the great events of their early history, just as they
are recorded in the writings of Moses — memorials, univer-
sally recognized both in their object and in their authority.
The Passover, for instance, celebrated by all — no man
doubting its meaning, no man in all Israel assigning to it
any other origin than one, viz. that of being a contempo-
rary monument of a miracle displayed in favor of the peo-
ple of Israel : by right of which credentials, and no other,
it sunmioned from all quarters of the world, at great cost,
and inconvenience, and danger, the dispersed Jews — none
disputing the obligation to obey the summons.

12. Then the heroic devotion with which the Israelites
continued to regard the Law, even long after they had
ceased to cultivate the better part of it, even when that
very Law only served to condemn its worshippers, so that
they would offer themselves up by thousands, with their
children and wives, as martyrs to the honor of their temple,
in which no image, even of an emperor, who could scourge
them with scorpions for their disobedience, should be suf-
fered to stand, and they Hve» — so that rather than violate
the sanctity of the Sabbath Day, the bravest men in arms
would lay down their lives as tamely as sheep, and allow
themselves to be burnt in the holes where they liad taken
refuge from their cruel and cowardly pursuers.^ All this
points to their Law, as having been at first promulgated
under circumstances too awful to be forgotten even after
the lapse of ages.

13. Then again, the extraordinary degree of national
pride with which the Jews boasted themselves to be God's

1 Joseph. Bell. Jud. b. 2, c. 10. ^ 4. 2 Antiq. Jud. b. 12, c. 6. ^ 2,

108 THE VERACITY OF THE PART I.

peculiar people, as if no nation ever was or ever could be
so nigh to Him ; a feeling which the early teachers of
Christianity found an insuperable obstacle to the progress
of the Gospel amongst them, and which actually did effect
its ultimate rejection — this may well seem to be founded
upon a strong traditional sense of uncommon tokens of the
Almighty's regard for them above all other nations of the
earth, which they had heard with their ears, or their
fathers had declared unto them, even the noble works that
He had done in the old time before them.

14. Then again, the constant craving after " a sign,"
which beset them in the latter days of their history, as a
lively certificate of the prophet ; and not after a sign only,
but after such an one as they would themselves prescribe :
" What sign shewest thou that we may see and believe ?...
our fathers did eat manna in the desert ;"^ this desire, so
frequently expressed, and with which they are so fre-
quently reproached, looks like the relic of an appetite en-
gendered in other times, when they had enjoyed the privi-
lege of more intimate communion with God— it seems the
wake, as it were, of miracles departed.

15. Lastly, the very onerous nature of the Law — so
studiously meddUng with all the occupations of hfe, great
and small — this yoke would scarcely have been endured,
without the strongest assurance on the part of those who
were galled by it, of the authority by which it was im-
posed. For it met them with some restraint or other at
every turn. Would they plough ? — Then it must not be
with an ox and an ass.^ Would they sow ? — Then
must not the seed be mixed. ^ Would they reap? — Then
must they not reap clean.* Would they make bread ? —
Then must they set apart dough enough for the consecra-

1 John vi. 31. « Deut. xxii. 10. 3 lb. 9. 4 Lev. xix. 9.

PART I. BOOKS OF MOSES. 109

ted loaf.^ Did they find a bird's nest? — Tlien must they
let the old bird fly away.'^ Did they hunt ? — Then they
must shed the blood of their game, and cover it with dust.^
Did they plant a fruit tree? — For three years was the
fruit to be uncircumcised.* Did they shave their beards ?
— They were not to cut the corners.' Did they weave a
garment ? — Then must it be only with threads prescribed.^
Did they build a house? — They must put rails and bat-
tlements on the roof." Did they buy an estate ? — At the
year of Jubilee back it must go to its owner.^ This last
in itself and alone a provision which must have made itself
felt in the whole structure of the .Jewish commonwealth,
and have sensibly affected the character of the people ;
every transfer of land throughout the country having to
l)e regulated in its price according to the remoteness or
proximity of the year of release ; and the desire of accu-
mulating a species of property usually considered the most
inviting of any, comiteracted and thwarted at every turn.
All these (and how many more of the same kind might
be named) ! are enactments which it must have required
extraordinary influence in the Lawgiver to enjoin, and
extraordinary reverence for his powers to perpetuate.

1 Numb. XV. 20. 2 Deut. xxii. 6. 3 Lev. xvii. 13.

< lb. xix. 23. 5 lb. 27. « lb. 19.

7 Deut. xxii. 8. » Lev. xxv. 13.

10

THE VERACITY

OF THE

HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES.

PART n.

Hitherto I have endeavored to prove the veracity of
the Mosaic writings by the instances they contain of coiii-
cidence ivithout design in their several parts ; and I hope
and beheve that I have succeeded in pointing out such
coincidences as might come of truth, and could come of
nothing but truth. These presented themselves in the
history of the Patriarchs from Abraham to Joseph ; and
in the history of the chosen race in general, from their
departure out of Egypt to the day when their great Law-
giver expired on (he borders of that land of Promise into
which Joshua was now to lead them — a long and eventful
history. I shall now resume the subject ; pursue the ad-
ventures of this extraordinary people, as they are unfolded
in some of the subsequent books of holy writ ; and, still
using the same test as before, ascertain whether these por-
tions of Scripture do not appear to be equally trustworthy,
and whilst, like the former, they assert, often without any
recourse to the intervention of second causes, miracles
many and mighty, they do not challenge confidence in'
those miracles by marks of reality, consistency, and accu-

PART II. THE HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. Ill

racy, which the ordinary matters of fact combined with
them constantly exhibit. " For this credibility of the com-
mon scripture history," says Bishop Butler, " gives some
credibihty to its miraculous history ; especially as this is
interwoven with the common, so as that they imply each
other, and both together make up one revelation."'

Moses then being dead, Joshua takes the command of
the armies of Israel, and marches them over Jordan to the
possession of the land of Canaan. It was a day and a
deed much to be remembered. " It came to pass, when the
people removed from their tents to pass over Jordan, and
the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the peo-
ple ; and as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan,
and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped
in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his
banks in the time of harvest,) that the waters which came
down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very
far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan : and
those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even
the salt sea, failed and were cut off: and the people passed
over right against Jericho. And the priests that bare the
ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on the dry
ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israehtes passed
over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean
over Jordan.''^

Such is the language of the Book of Joshua. Now in
the midst of this miraculous narrative, an incident is men-
tioned, though very casually, which dates the season of

I Analogy, p. 389. 2 josh. iii. 14—17.

112 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

the year when this passage of the Jordan was effected.
The feet of the priests, it seems, were dipped in the brim
of the water ; and this is explained by the season being
that of the periodical inundation of Jordan, that river
overflowing his banks all the time of harvest. The har-
/ey-harvest is here meant, or the former harvest, as it is
elsewhere called, in contradistinction to tlie ivheat, or latter
harvest ; for in the fourth chapter (v. 19) we read, " the
people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the Jirst
month,^' that is, four days before the Passover, Avhich fell
in with the barley-harvest ; the wheat-harvest not being
fully completed till Pentecost, or fifty days later in the
year, when the wave-loaves of the first-fruits of the wheat
were offered up.^ The Israelites passed the Jordan then,
it appears, at the time of 6ar/ey-harvest. But we are told
in Exodus that at the Plague of Hail, which was but a
day or two before the Passover, '•' the flax and the barley
were smitten, for the barley was in the ear and the flax
was boiled, but the wheat and the rye were not smitten,
for they were not grown up."^ It should seem, therefore,
that the flax and the barley were crops which ripened
about the same time in Egypt ; and as the climate of Ca-
naan did not differ materially from that of Egypt, this, no
doubt, was the case in Canaan too ; there also these two
crops would come in at the same time. The Israelites,
therefore, who crossed the Jordan, as we have seen in one
passage, at the harvest, and that harvest, as we have seen
in another passage, the iarZey-harvest, must, if so, have
crossed it at the^a^-harvest.

Now, in a former chapter, we are informed, that three
days before Joshua ventured upon the invasion, he sent

1 This question of the harvests is examined in greater detail in Part I,
No. xvi. ♦

2 Exod. ix. 31.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 113

two men, spies, to view the land, even Jericho.' It was a
service of peril : they were received by Rahab, a woman
of that city, and lodged in her house : but the entrance of
these strangers at night-fall was observed : it was a mo-
ment, no doubt, of great suspicion and alarm : an enemy's
army encamped on the borders. The thing was reported
to the King of Jericho, and search was made for the men.
Rahab, however, fearing God — for by faith she felt that
the miracles wrought by him in favor of Israel were proofs
that for Israel he fought, — by faith, which, living as she
did in the midst of idolaters, might well be counted to her
for righteousness, and the like to which, in a somewhat
similar case, was declared by our Lord, enough to lead
those who professed it into the kingdom of God, even be-
fore the chief priests and elders themselves*^ — she, I say,
having this faith in God, and true to those laws of hospi-
tality which are the glory of the eastern nations, and more
especially of the females of the East, even to this day. at
much present risk protected her guests from their pursuers.
But how ! " She brought them up to the roof of her
house, and hid them with the stalks of flax"^ — the stalks
of flax, no doubt just cut down, which she Aad spread upon
the roof of her house to steep and to season.

Here I see truth. Yet how very minute is this incident I
how very casually does it present itself to our notice ! how
very unimportant a matter it seems in the first instance,
under what the spies were hidden ! enough that, whatever
it was, it answered the purpose, and saved their lives.
Could the historian have contemplated for one moment the
effect which a trifle about a flax-stalk might have in cor-
roboration of his account of the passage of the Jordan ?
Is it possible for the most jealous examiner of human les-

1 Josh, i. 2; ii. 1, 22; iii. 2. « Heb. xi. 31. Matt. xxi. 31.

» Josh. ii. 6.

10*

114

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

timony lo imagine tiiat these flax-stalks were fixed upon
above all things in the world for the covering of the spies,
because they were known to be ripe with the barley, and
the barley was known to be ripe at the Passover, and the
Passover was known to be the season when the Israelites
set foot in Canaan ? Or rather, would he not fairly and
candidly confess, that in one particular, at least, of this
adventure, (the only one which we have an opportunity of
checking,) a religious attention to truth is manifested ; and
that when it is said, " the feet of the Priests Avere dipped
in the brim of the water," and when a reason is assigned
for this gradual approach to the bed of a river, of which
the banks were in general steep and precipitous, we are
put in possession of one unquestionable fact at least, one
particular upon which we may safely repose, whatever may
be said of the remainder of the narrative, and that assur-
edly truth leads us by the hand to the very edge of the
miracle, if not through the miracle itself?

II

The Israelites having made this successful inroad into
the land of Canaan, divided it amongst the Tribes. But
the Canaanites, though panic-struck at their first ap-
proach, soon began to take heart, and the covetous policy
of Israel (a policy which dictated attention to present pe-
cuniary profits, no matter at what eventual cost to the
great moral interests of the Commonwealth) had satisfied
itself with making them tributaries, contrary to the com-
mand of God, that they should be driven out ;' and, ac-
cordingly, they were suflTered, as it was promised, to be-

1 Exod. xiiii. 31.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 115

come thorns in Israel's side, always vexing, often resisting,
and sometimes oppressing them for many years together.
Meanwhile the Tribe of Dan had its lot cast near the
Amorites. It struggled to work out for itself a settlement ;
but its fierce and warlike neighbors drove in its outposts,
and succeeded in confining it to the mountains. • The
children of Dan became straitened in their borders, and,
unable to extend them at home, " they sent of their fam-
ily five men from their coasts, men of valor, to spy out
the land and to search it." So these five men departed,
and, directing their steps northwards, to the nearest parts
of the country which held out any prospect to settlers,
" they came," we are told, " to Laish, and saw the people
that were therein, how they dwelt careless, after the man-
ner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure, and there was no
magistrate in the land that might put them to shame in
anything, and they were far from the Zidonians, and
had no business with any man."*^ Thus the circumstan-
ces of the place and the people were tempting to the views
of the strangers. They return to their brethren, and
advise an attempt upon the town. Accordingly they
march against it, take it, and, rebuilding the city, which
was destroyed in the assault, change its name from Laish
to Dan, and colonize it. From this it should appear that
Laish, though far from Sidon, was in early times a town
belonging to Sidon, and probably inhabited by Sidonians,
for it was after their maymer that the people lived.

Such is the information furnished us in the eighteenth
chapter of the Book of Judges.

I now turn to the third chapter of the Book of Deuter-
onomy, and I there find the following passage : " We took
at that time," says Moses, "out of the hand of the two

1 Judges i. 34. 2 lb. xviii. 7.

116

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

I

kings of the Amorites the land that was on this side Jor-
dan, from the river of Arnon unto Mount Hermon — which
Hermon the Sidonians call iSirion, and the Amorites call
it Shenir.'" But why this mention of the Sidonian name
of this famous mountain ? It was not near to Sidon — it
does not appear to have belonged to Sidon, but to the king
of Bashan.2 The reason, though not obvious, is neverthe-
less discoverable, and a very curious geographical coinci-
dence it affords between the former passage in Judges and
this in Deuteronomy.

For Hermon, we know, was close to Csesarea Philippi.
But Ceesarea Philippi, we are again informed, was the
modern name of Paneas, the seat of Jordan's flood : and
Paneas, we further learn, was the same as the still more
ancient Dan or Laish.^ Now Laish, we have seen, was
probably at first a settlement of the Sidonians, after whose
manner the people of Laish lived. Accordingly it appears
— but how distant and unconnected are the passages from
which such a conclusion is drawn ! — that although this
Hermon was far from Sidon itself, still at its foot there
was dwelling a Sidonian colony, a race speaking the Si-
donian language ; and, therefore, nothing could be more
natural than that the mountain which overhung the town
should have a Sidonian name, by which it was commonly
known in those parts, and that this should suggest itself,
as well as its Hebrew name, to Moses.

' Deut. iii. 8, 9. 2 Josh. xii. 4, 5,

3 " Dan Phoenices oppidum, quod nunc Paneas dicitur. Dan autem

unus e fontibus est Jordanis." — Hieronym. in Quaestionibus in Genesin i,

p. 382. It was also Cjesarea Philippi.— Euseb. Eccl. Hist. vii. c. xvii.
' The Hierusalem Targum, Numb. xxxv. writes thus, " The mountain of

Snow at Cffisarea (Philippi)— this was Hermon.' "— Lightfoot, Vol. u. p.

62, fol. See also Psalm xlii. 8.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. lll^

III

Connected with the circumstances of this same colony
of Laish is another coincidence which I have to offer, and
I introduce it in this place, because it is so connected, for
otherwise it anticipates a point of Jewish history, which,
in the order of the books of Scripture, hes a long way be-
fore me. The construction of Solomon's Temple at Jeru-
salem is the event at which it dates.

In the seventh chapter of the First Book of Kings I
*• read, " And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of
Tyre. He was a widow's son of the Tribe of Naphtali,
and his father was a man of T]/re, a worker in brass ;
and he was filled with wisdom and understanding, and
cunning to work all works in brass. And he came to
king Solomon, and wrought all his work." (v. 13.) But
in the parallel passage in the second chapter of the Second
Book of Chronicles, (v. 13), where we have the answer
which king Hiram returned to Solomon, when the latter
desired him to " send him a man, cunning to work in
gold, and in silver, and in brass ;" I find it running thus :
— " Now I have sent a cunning man, endued with under-
standing, of Huram my father's, (or perhaps Huram-Abi
by name,) the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan,
and his father was a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold.''
It is evident, that the same individual is meant in both
passages ; yet there is an apparent discrepancy between
them : the one in Kings asserting his mother to be a wo-
man of the Tribe of Naphtali ; the other, in Chronicles,
asserting her to be a woman of the daughters of Dan.
The diflliculty has driven the critics to some intricate ex-
pedients, in order to resolve it. " She herself was of the
Tribe of Dan," says Dr. Patrick ; " but her first husband

IIS THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

was of the Tribe of Naphtali, by whom she had this son.
When she was a widow, she married a man of Tyre, who
is called Hiram's father, because he bred him up, and was
the husband of his mother." All this is gratuitous. The
explanation only serves to show that the interpreter was
aware of the knot, but not of the solution. This difficulty,
however, like many others in Scripture, when once ex-
plained, helps to confirm its truth. We have seen in the
last paragraph, that six hundred Danites emigrated from
their own Tribe, and seized upon Laish, a city of the Si-
donians. Now the Sidonians were subjects of the king of
Tyre, and were the selfsame people as the Tyrians ; for
in the fifth chapter of the First Book of Kings, where Sol-
omon is reported of sending to the king of Tyre for work-
men, he is said to assign as a reason for the appUcation,
'• Thou knowest that there is not among us any that can
skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians.''^ (v. 6.)
The Tyrians, therefore, and the Sidonians were the same
nation. But Laish or Dan, we found, was near the
springs of Jordan; and therefore, since the "outgoings"
of the territory of Naphtali are expressly said to have been
at Jordan, there is good reason to believe that Laish or
Dan stood in the Tribe of NaphtaU. But if so, then is
the difficulty solved ; for the woman was, by abode, of
Naphtali; Laish, where she dwelt, being situated in
that Tribe, as Jacob is called a Syrian, from his having
lived in Syria;' and by birth, she was of Dan, being
come of that Httle colony of Danites, which the parent
stock had sent forth in early times to settle at a distance.
Meanwhile, the very circumstance which interposes to
reconcile the apparent disagreement, accounts no less nat-
urally for the fact, that she had a Tyrian for her husband.

' Deut. xxvi. 5.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 119

Now upon what a very trifle does this mark of truth
turn ! Who can suspect anything insidious here ? any
trap for the unwary inquisitor after internal evidence in
the domestic circumstances of a master-smith, employed by
Solomon to build his temple ?

I am glad to have it in my power to produce this geo-
graphical coincidence, because it is rare in its kind — the
geography of Canaan, owing to its extreme perplexity,
scarcely furnishing its due contingent to the argument I
am handling. However, that very intricacy may in itself
be though to say something to our present purpose ; aris-
ing, as it in a great degree does, out of the manifold in-
stances in which different places are called by the same
name in the Holy Land. Now whilst this accident creates
a confusion, ver}^ unfavorable to determining their respec-
tive sites, and consequently stands in the way of such un-
designed tokens of truth as might spring out of a more
accurate knowledge of such particulars ; still it accords very
singularly with the circumstances under which Scripture
reports the land of Canaan to have been occupied : — I
mean, that it was divided amongst Twelve Tribes of one
and the same nation ; each, therefore, left to regulate the
names within its own borders after its own pleasure ; and
all having many associations in common, which would
often over-rule them, no doubt, however unintentionally,
io fix upon the same. We have only to look to our own
colonies, in whatever latitude dispersed, to see the like
workings of the same natural feeling familiarly exemplified
in the identity of local names, which they severally present.
And it may be added, that such a geographical nomencla-
ture was the more likely to establish itself in the new
settlements of the Israehtes, amongst whom names of
places, from the earliest times downwards, seem to have
been seldom, if ever, arbitrary, but still to have carried

120 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

\dth them some meaning, which was, or which was
thought to be, significant.

IV

I HAVE said that the Canaanites, who were spared by
the Israehtes after the first encounter with them, partly
that they might derive from the conquered race a tribute,
and partly that they might employ them in the servile
offices of hewing wood and drawing water, by degrees
recovered their spirit, urged war successfully against their
invaders, and for many years mightily oppressed Israel.
The Philistines, the most formidable of the inhabitants of
Canaan, and those under whom the Israelites suffered the
most severely, added policy to power. For at their bidding
it came to pass, (and probably the precaution was adopted
by others besides the Philistines,) that " there was no
smith found throughout all the land of Israel ; for the
Philistines said. Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords
and spears. But all the Israelites went down to the Phil-
istines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter,
and his axe, and his mattock.'" Such is said to have
been the rigorous law of the conquerors. The workers in
iron were everywhere put down, lest, under pretence of
making implements for the husbandman, they should
forge arms for the rebel. Now that some such law was
.•actually in force, (I am not aware that direct mention is
made of it except in this one passage,) is a fact confirmed
by a great many incidents, some of them very trifling and
inconsiderable, none of them related or connected, but all
of them turned by this one key.

1 1 Sam. xiii. 19.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 121

Thus, when Ehud prepared to dispatch Eglon the king
of Moab, to whom the Israehtes were then subject, " he
made hinf (we are told) " a dagger, which had two edges,
of a cubit length, and he did gird it under his raiment
upon his rigltt thighf^^ he made it himself, it seems, ex-
pressly for the occasion, and he bound it upon his right
thigh, instead of his left, which was the sword-side, to
baffle suspicion ; whilst, being left-handed, he could wield
it nevertheless. Moreover it may be observed in passing,
that Ehud was a Benjamite ]'^ and that of the Benjamites,
when their fighting men turned out against Israel in the
affair of Gibeah, there were seven hundred choice slingers
left-handed;^ and that of this discomfited army, six hun-
dred persons escaped to the rock Rimmon, none so likely
as the light armed ; and that this escape is dated by o«e
of our most careful investigators of Scripture, Dr. Lightfoot,
at thirteen years before Ehud's accession/ What then is
more probable, — yet I need not say how incidental is this
touch of truth, — than that this left-handed Ehud, a Ben-
jamite, was one who survived of those seven hundred left-
handed shngers, who were Benjamites ?

Thus again, Shamgar slays six hundred of the Phihs-
tines with an ox-goad;^ doubtless having recourse to an
implement so inconvenient, because it was not permitted
to carry arms or to have them in possession.

Thus Samson, when he went down to Timnath, with
no very friendly feeUng towards the Philistines, however
he might feign it, nor at a moment of great political tran-
quillity, was still unarmed ; so that when " the young lion
roared against him, he rent him, as he would have rent a

1 Judges iii. 16. 2 Ibid. iii. 15. 3 Jbid. xx. 16.

< Lightfoot's Works, i. 44 — 47. ^ Judges iii. 31.

11

122 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

kid, and he had nothing in his hand.'" And when the
same champion slew a thousand of the PhiUstines, it w^as
with a jaw-bone, for he had no other choice. " Was there
a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel ?"2

All these are indications, yet very oblique ones, that no
smith or armorer wrought throughout all the land of
Israel ; for it will be perceived, on examination, that every
one of these incidents occurred at times when the Israel-
ites were under subjection.

Moreover, it was probably in consequence of this same
restrictive law, that the sling became so popular a wea-
pon amongst the Israelites. It does not appear tliat it was
known, or at least used, under Moses. Whilst Israel was
triumphant, it was not needed : in those happier days, her
fighting-men were men that " drew the sword." In the
days of her oppression they were driven to the use of more
ignoble arms. The sling was readily constructed, and
readily concealed. Whilst a staff or hempken-stalk grew
in her fields, and a smooth stone lay in her brooks, this
artillery at least was ever forthcoming. It was not a very
fatal weapon, unless wielded with consummate skill. The
Philistines despised it : Goliath, we may remember, scorns
it as a weapon against a dog : but by continual applica-
tion to the exercise of it, (for it was now their only hope.)
the IsraeUtes converted a rude and rustic plaything into a
formidable engine of war. That troop of Benjamites,
of whom I have already spoken, had taken pains to make
themselves equally expert with either hand — (every one
could sling stones at an hairbreadth, and not miss) — and
the precision with which David directed it, would not per-
haps be thought extraordinary amongst the active and
practised youths of his day.

» Judges xiv. 5, 6, 2 Ibid. v. 8.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 123

These particulars, it will be perceived, are many and
divers ; and though they might not of themselves have
enabled us to draw them into an induction that the inhabi-
tants of Canaan withheld from Israel the use of arms ;
yet, when we are put in possession of the single fact, that
no smith was allowed throughout all Israel, we are at once
supplied with the centre towards which they are one and
all perceived to converge.

I know not how incidents of the kind here produced can
be accounted for, except by the supposition that they are
portions of a true and actual history; and they who may
feel that there is in them some force, but who may at the
same time feel that fuller evidence is wanted to compel
their assent to a Scripture which makes upon them de-
mands so large ; who secretly whisper to themselves, in
the temper of the incredulous Jew of old, " We would see
a sign ;" or of him who mocked, saying, "Let Him now
come down from the cross, and we will believe" — let such
calmly and dispassionately consider, that there could be no
room for faith, if there were no room for doubt ; that the
scheme of our probation requires, perhaps as a matter of
necessity, that faith should be in it a very chief ingredi-
ent ; that the exercise of faith, (as we may partly perceive,)
both the spirit which must foster it, and the spirit which
must issue from it, is precisely what seems fit for mould-
ing us into vessels for future honor ; that natural religion
lifts up its voice to tell us, that in this world we are un-
doubtedly living under the dispensation of a God, who has
given us probability, and not demonstration, for the prin-
y^ ciple of our ordinary guidance ; and that he may be there-
^/-^ fore well disposed to proceed under a similar dispensation,
^ with regard to the next world, trying thereby who is the
" wise servant" — who is reasonable in his demands for evi-
dence, for such he rejects not ; and who is presumptuous,

124

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

for such he still further hardens, — saying to the one with
complacency and satisfactionj " Because I said unto thee,
I saw thee under the fig-tree, beUevest thou ? Thou shalt
see greater things than these.'" And to the other, in sor-
row and rebuke, " Because thou hast seen me, thou hast
beHeved ; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have
beUeved.'"

It is most satisfactory to find, as the history of the Israel-
ites unfolds itself, the same indications of truth and accu-
racy still continuing to present themselves — the same sig-
natures (as it were) of a subscribing witness of credit,
impressed on every sheet as we turn it over in its order.
The glory of Israel is now brought before us : David comes
upon the scene, destined to fill the most conspicuous place
in the annals of his country, and furnishing, in the details
of his long and eventful Ufe, a series of arguments such
as we are in search of, decisive, I think, of the reality of
his story, and of the fidelity with which it is told. With
these I shall be now for some time engaged.

The circumstances under which he first appears be-
fore us, are such as give token at once of his intrepid char-
acter, and trust in God. " And there went out a champion,"
(so we read in the seventeenth chapter of the First Book
of Samuel,) '• out of the camp of the Philistines, GoHath
of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span." The
point upon which the argument for the veracity of the his-
tory which ensues will turn, is the incidental mention
here made of Gath, as the city of Goliath, a patronymic

» John i. 50. i Ibid xx. 29.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 125

which might have been thought of very httle importance,
either in its insertion or omission ; here, however, it stands.
Gohath of Gath was David's gigantic antagonist. Now let
us mark the value of this casual designation of the formi-
dable Philistine. The report of the spies whom Moses sent
into Canaan, as given in the thirteenth chapter of the Book
of Numbers, was as follows : — " The land through which we
have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhab-
itants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it were
men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants,
the sons of Anak, which came of the giants. And we
were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in
their sight.'" Moses is here a testimony unto us, that these
Anakims were a race of extraordinary stature. This fact
let us bear in mind, and now turn to the Book of Joshua.
There it is recorded amongst the feats of arms of that val-
iant leader of Israel, whereby he achieved the conquest of
Canaan, that " He cut off the Anakims from the moun-
tains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from the
mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel :
Joshua destroyed them utterly, with their cities. There
was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of
Israel, only" (observe the exception) " in Gaza, in Gath,
and in Ashdod, there remained."^ Here, in his turn,
comes in Joshua as a witness, that when he put the Ana-
kims to the sword, he left feome remaining in three cities,
and in no others ; and one of these three cities was Gath.
Accordingly, when in the Book of Samuel we find Gath
most incidentally named as the country of Goliath, the fact
squares very singularly with those two other independent
facts, brought together from two independent authorities —
the Books of Moses and Joshua — the one, that the Ana-

» Nvunb. xiii. 32, 33. a Josh. li. 21. 22.

ir

126 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

kiras were persons of gigantic size; the other, that some
of this nearly exterminated race, who survived the sword
of Joshua, did actually continue to dwell at Gath. Thus
in the mouth of three witnesses — Moses, Joshua, and
Samuel, is the word established ; concurring as they do, in
a manner the most artless and satisfactory, to confirm one
particular at least in this singular exploit of David. One
particular, and that a hinge upon which the whole moves,
is discovered to be matter of fact beyond all question ; and
therefore, in the absence of all evidence whatever to the
contrary, I am disposed to believe the other particulars of
the same history to be matter of fact too. Yet there are
many, I will not say miraculous, but certainly most provi-
dential circumstances involved in it ; circumstances argu-
ing, and meant to argue, the invisible hand by which
David fought, and Gohath fell. The stripling from the
sheepfold withstanding the man of war from his youth —
the ruddy boy, his carriage and his cheeses left for the
moment, hearing and rejoicing both to hear and accept
the challenge, which struck terror into the veterans of
Israel — the shepherd's bag, with five smooth stones, and no
more, (such assurance did he feel of speedy success,) op-
posed to the helmet of brass, and the coat of brazen mail,
and the greaves of brass, and the gorget of brass, and the
shield borne before him, and the spear with the staff like a
weaver's beam — the first sUng of a pebble, the signal of
panic and overthrow to the whole host of the Philistines —
all this claims the character of more than an ordinary
event, and asserts, (as David declared it to do,) that " The
Lord saveth not with sword and spear ; but that the bat-
tle is the Lord's, and that he gave it into Israel's hands."'

' 1 Sam. xvii. 47.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 127

VI

I PROCEED with the exploits of David : for though the
coincidences themselves are distinct, they make up a story
which is almost continuous. David, we are told, had now
won the hearts of all Israel. The daughters of the land
sung his praises in the dance, and their words awoke the
jealousy of Saul. "Saul had slain his thousands — David
his ten thousands." Accordingly the king, forgetful of his
obligations to the gallant deliverer of his country from the
yoke of the Philistines, and regardless of the claims of the
husband of his daughter, sougiit his life. Twice lie at-
tacked him with a javelin as he played before him in his
chamber : he laid an ambuscade about his house : he pur-
sued him with bands of armed men as he fled for his life
amongst the mountains. David, however, had less fear for
himself than for his kindred, — for himself he could pro-
vide — his conscience was clear, his courage good, the hearts
of his countrymen were with liim, and God was on his
side. But his name might bring evil on his house, and
tlie safety of his jparents was his first care. How then did
he secure it ? " And David," we read, " went thence to
Mizpeh of Moab, and he said unto the king of Moab,
Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth,
and be with you till I know what God will do for me.
And he brought them before the king of Moab ; and they
dwelt with him all the time that David continued in the
hold."i

Now why should David be disposed to trust his father
and mother to the protection of the Moabites above all
others? Saul, it is true, had been at war with them,*^

1 I Sam. xxii. 3, 4. * Ibid. xiv. 47.

128 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

whatever he might then be, — but so had he been with
every people round about ; with the Ammonites, with the
Edomites, with the kings of Zobah. Neither did it fol-
low that the enemies of Saul, as a matter of course, would
be the friends of David. On the contrary, lie was only re-
garded by the ancient inhabitants of the land, to which-
ever of the local nations they belonged, as the champion of
Israel; and with such suspicion was he received amongst
them, notwithstanding Saul's known enmity towards him,
that before Achish king of Gath he was constrained to
feign himself mad, and so effect his escape. And though
he afterwards succeeded in removing the scruples of that
prince, and obtained his confidence, and dwelt in his land,
yet the princes of the Phihstines, in general, continued to
put no trust in him ; and when it was proposed by Achish,
that he, with his men, should go up with the armies of the
Philistines against Israel, — and when he had actually
joined, — " the princes of the Philistines said unto him,
Make this fellow return, that he may go to the place which
thou hast appointed him ; and let him not go down with
us to battle, lest in the battle he be an adversary to us :
for wherewith should he reconcile himself unto his master ?
should it not be with the heads of these men ?'"

Whether, indeed, the Moabites proved themselves to be
less suspicious of David than these, his other idolatrous
neighbors, does not appear ; nor whether their subsequent
conduct warranted the trust which he was now compelled
to repose in them. Tradition says, that they betrayed it.
and slew his parents ; and certain it is, that David, some
twenty years afterwards, proceeded against them with sig-
nal severity ; for " he smote Moab, and measured them
with a line, casting them down to the ground ; even with

1 1 Sam. zxix. 4.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 129

two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full
line to keep alive."' Something, therefore, had occurred in
the interval to excite his heavy displeasure against them :
and if the punishment seems to have tarried too long to
be consistent with so remote a cause of offence, it must be
remembered that for fourteen of those years the throne of
David was not established amongst the Ten Tribes ; and
that, amidst the domestic disorders of a new reign, leisure
and opportunity for taking earlier vengeance upon this
neighboring kingdom might well be wanting. But how-
ever this might be, in Moab David sought sanctuary for
his father and mother ; perilous this decision might be, —
probably it turned out so in fact, — but he was in a great
strait, and thought that, in a choice of evils, this was the
least.

Now what principle of preference may be imagined to
have governed David when he committed his family to the
dangerous keeping of the Moabites ? Was it a mere mat-
ter of chance ? It might seem so, as far as appears to the
contrary in David's history, given in the Books of Samuel ;
and if the Book of Ruth had never come down to us, to
accident it probably would have been ascribed. But this
short and beautiful historical document shows us a pro-
priety in the selection of Moab above any other for a place
of refuge to the father and mother of David : since it is
there seen that the grandmother of Jesse, David's father,
was actually a Moahitess ; Ruth being the mother of
Obed, and Obed the father of Jesse.^ And, moreover, that
Orpah, the other Moabitess, who married Mahlon at the
time when Ruth married Chilion his brother, remained be-
hind in Moab after the departure of Naomi and Ruth, and
remained behind with a strong feeling of affection, never-

1 2 Sam. vjii. 2. a Ruth iv. 17.

130 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

theless, for the family and kindred of her deceased hus-
band, taking leave of them with tears.' She herself then,
or, at all events, her descendants and friends, might still
be alive. Some regard for the posterity of Ruth, David
would persuade himself, might still survive amongst them.
An interval of fifty years, for it probably was not more,
was not likely, he might think, to have worn out the
memory and the feelings of the relationship, in a country
and at a period which acknowledged the ties of family to
be long and strong, and the blood to be the life thereof

Thus do we detect, not without some |)ains, a certain
fitness in the conduct of David in this transaction, which
marks it to be a real one. The forger of a story could not
have fallen upon the happy device of sheltering Jesse in
Moab, simply on the recollection of his Moabitish extrac-
tion two generations earlier ; or, having fallen upon it, it is
probable he would have taken care to draw the attention
of his readers towards his device by some means or other,
lest the evidence it was intended to afford of the truth of
the history might be thrown away upon them. As it is,
the circumstance itself is asserted without the smallest at-
tempt to explain or account for it. Nay, recourse must be
had to another book of Scripture, in order that the coinci-
dence may be seen.

VII

Events roll on, and another incident in the life of Da-
vid now offers itself which also argues the truth of what
we read concerning him. " iVnd Michal, Saul's daughter,
loved David," we are told.'^ On becoming his wife, she

1 Ruth i. 17. 2 1 Sam. xviii. 20.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 131

gave further proof of her affection for him, by risking the
vengeance of Saul her father, when she let David through
the window that he might escape, and made an image and
put it in the bed, to deceive Saul's messengers.' After this,
untoward circumstances produced a temporary separation
of David and Michal. She remains in her father's custody.
— and Saul, who was the tyrant of his family, as well as
of his people, gives her '• unto Phaltiel, the son of Laish,"
to wife. Meanwhile David, in his turn, takes x\bigail
the widow of Nabal, and Ahinoam of Jezreel, to be his
wives ; and continues the fugitive life he had been so long
constrained to adopt for his safety. Years pass away, and
with them a multitude of transactions foreign to the sub-
ject I have now before me. Saul however is slain ; but a
formidable faction of his friends, and the friends of his
house, still survives. Abner, the late monarch's captain,
and Ish-bosheth, his son and successor in the kingdom of
Israel, put themselves at its head. But David waxing
stronger every day, and a feud having sprung up between
the prince and this his officer, overtures of submission are
made and accepted, of which the following is the substance :
" And Abner sent messengers to David on his behalf, say-
ing. Whose is the land ? saying, also. Make thy league
with me, and behold, my hand shall be with thee to bring
about all Israel unto thee. And he said. Well, I will make
a league with thee ; but one thing I require of thee — that
is, Thou shalt not see my face, except thou first bring Mi-
chal, Saul's daughter, when thou comest to see my face.
And David sent messengers to Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, say-
ing. Deliver me my wife Michal, whom I espoused to me.
And Ish-bosheth sent and took her from her husband, even
from Phaltiel the son of Laish. And her husband went

• 1 Sam. xix. 12.

132

THE VERACITY OF THE PART fl.

with her along, iveeping behind her to Bahurim. Then
said Abner unto him, Go, return ; and he returned.'" It
is probable, therefore, that Miclial and Phaltiel parted very
reluctantly. She had evidently gained his affections ; he,
most likely, had won hers : and in the meantime she had
been supplanted, (so at least she might think,) in David's
house and heart, by Abigail and Ahinoam. These were
not propitious circumstances, under which to return to
.the husband of her youth. The effect, indeed, they were
likely to have upon her conduct is not even hinted at in the
remotest degree in the narrative ; but they supply us, how-
ever, incidentally with the hnk that couples Michal in her
first character, with Michal in her second and later charac-
ter ; for the difference between them is marked, though it
might escape us on a superficial glance ; and if our atten-
tion did not happen to be arrested by the events of the in-
terval, it would almost infallibly escape us. The last act
then, in which we left Michal engaged, was one of loyal
attachment to David — saving his life, probably at great
risk of her own ; for Saul had actually attempted to put
Jonathan his son to death for David's sake, and why
should he spare Michal his daughter P Her subsequent
marriage with Phaltiel was Saul's business ; it might, or
might not, be with her consent: an act of conjugal devo-
tion to David was the last scene in which she was, to
our knowledge, a voluntary actor. Now let us mark the
next, — not the next event recorded in order, for we lose
sight of Michal for a season, — but the next in which she
is a party concerned ; at the same time remembering that
the Books of Samuel do not offer the slightest explanation
of the contrast which her former and latter self present, or
the least allusion to the change. David brings the Ark

» 2 Sam. iii. 12—16. a 1 Sam. ix. 33.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 133

from Kirjath-jearim, where it had been abiding since it was
recovered from the Philistines, to his own city. He dances
before it, girded with the priestly or prophetical vest, the
linen ephod, and probably chanting his own noble hynm,
" Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! and be ye Uft up, ye
everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in !"i
Michal, in that hour, no doubt, felt and reflected the joy of
her husband ! She had shared with him the day of ad-
versity — she was now called to be partaker of his triumph !
How read we 1 The reverse of all this. " Then did Mi-
chal, Saul's daughter, look through a window, and saw
king David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she
despised him in her heart.''''^ Nor did she confine her-
self to contemptuous silence : for when he had now set up
the Ark in the midst of the tabernacle, and had blessed
the people, he came unto his own household prepared, in
the joy and devotion of the moment, to bless that also.
How then is he received by the wife whom he had twice
won at the hazard of his own life, and who had in return
shown herself heretofore ready to sacrifice her own safety
for his preservation ? Thus it was. " Michal came out to
meet him, and said. How glorious was the king of Israel
to-day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants ! — as
one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself."
Here was a burst of ill temper, which rather made an oc-
casion for showing itself, than sought one. Accordingly,
David replies with spirit, and with a righteous zeal for the
honor of God, — not without an allusion (as I think) to the
secret, but true cause of this splenetic attack, — " It was be-
fore the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and be-
fore all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of
the Lord, over Israel : therefore will I play before the Lord.

I Psalm xxiv. 7. * 2 Sam. vi. 16.

134

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

And I will yet be more vile than this, and will be base in
mine own sight ; and of the Tnaid-servants ivhich thou
hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in hono7\''^ In
these handmaids or maid-servants, which are so promi-
nently set forth, I recognize, if I mistake not, Abigail and
Ahinoam, the rivals of Michal ; and the very pointed re-
buke which the insinuation provokes from David, appears
to me to indicate, that (whatever she might affect) he felt
that the gravamen of her pretended concern for his debase-
ment did, in truth, rest here. And may I not add, that the
winding up of this singular incident, " Therefore Michal,
the daughter of Saul, had no child unto the day of her
death," well accords with my suspicions ; and that whether
it be hereby meant that God judged her, or that David di-
vorced her, there is still something in the nature of her
punishment appi^opriate to the nature of her transgres-
sion ?

On the whole, Michal is now no longer what Michal
was — but she is precisely what, from the new position in
which she stands, we might expect her to be. Yet it is by
the merest glimpses of the history of David and her own,
that we are enabled to account for the change. The
fact is not formally explained ; it is not even formally as-
serted. All that appears, is a marked inconsistency in the
conduct of Michal, at two different points of time ; and
when we look about for an explanation, we perceive in the
corresponding fortunes of David, as compared with her
own during the interval, a very natural, though after all
only a conjectural, explanation.

Herein, I again repeat, are the characters of truth, —
incidents dropping into their places without care or contri-
vance, — the fragments of an imperfect figure recovered out

> 2 Sam. vi. 21, 22.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 135

of a mass of material, and found to be still its component
parts, however they might not seem such when individu-
ally examined.

And here let me remark, (for I have been unwilling to
interrupt my argument for the purpose of collateral expla-
nation, and yet without it I may be thought to have pur-
chased the evidence at some expense of the moral,) that
the practice of polygamy, which was not from the begin-
ning, but which Lamech fir?t adopted, probably in the
hope of multiplying his issue, and so possessing himself
of that " seed," which was now the ^'■desire of the nations,'"
— a desire which serves as a key (the only satisfactory
one, I think) to much of the conduct of the Patriarchs, —
the practice of polygamy, I say, thus introduced, continued,
in David's time, not positively condemned ; Moses having
been only commissioned to regulate some of the abuses to
which it led ; and though his writing of divorcement
must be considered as making allowance for the hardness
of heart of those for whom he was legislating, (our Lord
himself so considers it,) — a hardness of heart confirmed by
a long and slavish residence in a most polluted land ; still
that writing, lax as it might be, was no doubt, in itself a
restrictive law, as matters then stood. The provisions of
the Levitical code in general, and the extremely gross
state of society they argue, prove that it must have been a
restrictive law, an improvonent upon past practices at
least. And when the times of the Gospel approached, and
a better dispensation began to dawn, the Almighty pre-
pared the world, by the mouth of a Prophet, to expect
those restrictions to be drawn closer, — Malachi being com-
manded to proclaim what had not been proclaimed before,
that God " hated putting away."^ And when at length

1 Matt. xix. 8. On this subject, see Origen, Ep. ad African. ^ 8. .<tg

2 Mai. ii. 16.

136

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

mankind were ripe for a more wholei-ome decree. Ciirist
himself pronounced it, and thenceforward, '' A man was
to cleave unto his wife," and " they twain were to be one
flesh," and by none were they " to be put asunder, God
having joined them together." ' A j^rogressivp scheme this
— agreeable to that general plan by which the Almighty
seems to be almost always guided in his government —
the development of that same principle by which the law
against murder was passed for an age that was full of vio-
lence ; and was afterwards sublimed into a law against
malice : by which the law against adultery was provided
for a carnal and grovelling generation ; and was after-
wards refined into a law against concupiscence : by which
the law of strict retaliation, and no more, eye for eye, and
tooth for tooth — a law, low and ungenerous as it may
now be thought, nevertheless in advance of the people for
whom it was enacted, and better than the law of the
strongest — afterwards gave place to that other and nobler
law, " resist not evil." And it may be observed, that the
very case of divorce, (and polygamy is closely connected
with it,) is actually in the contemplation of our Lord, when
he is thus exhibiting to the Jews the more elevated stand-
ard of Christian morals, and is ever contrasting, as he pro-
ceeds, — '' It was said by them of old time," with his own
more excellent way, "but I say unto you ;" as if in times
past, according to the words of the Apostle, " God suffered
nations to walk in their own ways,"* for some wise pur-
pose, and for a while "winked at that ignorance."^

2 Mark x. 7; 2 Cor. xi. 2. 2 Acts xiv. 16. Ibid. xvii. 30.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 137

VIII.

But there is another circumstance connected with this
removal of the Ark of God to Jerusalem, which bespeaks,
like the last, the fidelity with which the tale is told. It
was the intention of David to have conveyed this emblem
of God's presence with his people from Kirjath-jearim
(from Ephratah, where they found it in the wood)^ at once
to his own city. An incident, however, of which I shall
presently speak, occurred to shake his purpose and change
his plan. " So David," we read upon this, " would not re-
move the Ark of the Lord unto him into the city of David ;
but David carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom,
the Gittite.^^^ Now what regulated David in choosing
the house of Obed-Edom as a resting-place for the Ark ?
Was it an affair of mere chance ? It might be so ; no
motive whatever, for the selection of his house above that
of another man, is assigned — but this we are taught, that
" when the cart which bare the Ark came to Nachor's
threshing-floor, Uzzah put forth his hand and took hold
of it, for the oxen shook it; — and the anger of the
Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him
there for his error, and he died by the Ark of God."^ It
had been commanded, as we find in the seventh chapter
of the Book of Numbers, (v. 9,) that the Ark should be
borne on the shoulders of the Levites — David, however,
had placed it in a cart after the fashion of the Philistines'
idols, and had neglected the Levitical precept. The sud-
den death of Uzzah, and the nature of his offence, alarms
him, sets him to think, reminds him of his neglect, and he

1 Ps. cxxxii. 6.' 2 3 Sam. vi. 10. 3 Ibid. vi. 6.

12*

138 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

turns to the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite. The epi-
thet here so incidentally annnexed to the name of Obed-
Edom, enables us to answer the question, wherefore David
chose the house of this man, with some probability of be-
ing right in our conjecture. For we learn from the Book
of Joshua, that Gath (distinguished from other towns of
the same name, by the addition of Rimraon)' was one of
the cities of the Levites ; nor of the Levites only, but of
the Kohathites, (v. 20,) the very family specially set apart
from the Levites, that " they should bear the Ark upon
their shoulders."^ If, therefore, Obed-Edom was called
the Gittite, from this Gath, as he doubtless was so called
from some Gath or other, then must he have been a Le-
vite ; and more than this actually a Kohathite ; so that he
would be strictly in his office when keeping the Ark ; and
because he was so, he was selected ; David causing the
Ark to be " carried aside," or out of the direct road, (for
that is the force of the expression, )2 precisely for the pur-
pose of depositing it with a man of an order, and of a pe-
culiar division of that order, which God had chosen for
his Ark-bearers. Accordingly, we read in the fifteenth
chapter of the first book of Chronicles, where a fuller ac-
count, in some particulars, is given, than in the parallel
passage of Samuel, of the final removal of the Ark, from
under the roof of Obed-Edom to Jerusalem, that the pro-
fane cart was no longer employed on this occasion, but
the more reverential mode of conveyance, and that which
the law enjoined, was now strictly adopted in its stead ;
(v. 15 ;) and moreover that Obed-Edom was appointed to
take an active part in the ceremonial, (v. 18. 24.)

This I look upon as a coincidence of some value — (sup-

I Joshua xxi. 24. 2 Numb. vii. 9.

3 See Numb. xx. 17. where the same Hebrew worctis used, and xxii. 'J3.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 139

posing it, of course, to be fairly made out) — of some value,
I mean, even independently of its general bearing upon
the credibility of Scripture ; for it is a touch of truth in
the circumstantial details of an event which is in its nature
miraculous. This it establishes as a fact, that, for some
reason or other, David went out of his way to deposit the
Ark with an individual of a family whose particular pro-
vince it was to serve and bear the Ark. This, I say, is
established by the coincidence as a fact — and here, taking
my stand with substantial ground under my feet, I can
with safety, and without violence, gradually feel my way
along through the inconvenience which prompted this de-
viation from the direct path ; this change in the mode of
conveyance ; this sudden reverence for the laws of the
Ark ; even up to the disaster which befell tlie rash and un-
consecrated Uzzah, and the caution and alarm it inspired,
as being a manifest interposition of God for the vindica
tion of his honor; and when I. find the apparently trivial
appellation of the Gittite, thus pleading for the reality of
a marvellous act of the Almighty, I am reminded how
carefully we should gather up every word of Scripture that
nothing be lost ; and I am led to contemplate the precau-

, lions, the superstitious precautions of the Rabbins, if you
will, that one jot or one tittle may not be suffered to pass
from the text of the law, not without respect, as if its every

t letter might contain some hidden treasure, some unsus-

', pected fount, from which virtue miglit happily go out for

■ evidence, for doctrine, or for duty.

IX

We are now arrived at another incident in the history
of David — for I must still call your attention to the me-

140 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

moirs of that extraordinary person, as exhibiting- marks of
truth and reality, numerous perhaps beyond those which
any other character of the same antiquity presents — an in-
cident which has been accounted, and most justly, ac-
counted, the reproach of his hfe. The province which I
have marked out for myself in this work, is the evidence
for the veracity of the sacred historians, and not the inter-
pretation of the moral difficulties which the history itself
may sometimes involve. In the present instance, however,
the very coincidence which establishes the trustworthiness
of the history, may serve also to remove some stumbling-
blocks out of the sceptic's path, and vindicate the ways of
God to man.

That the man after God's own heart should have so
fallen from his high estate, as to become the adulterer and
the assassin, has been ever urged with great effect by un-
believers ; and this very consequence of David's sin was
foreseen and foretold by Nathan the prophet, when he ap-
proached the king, bearing with him the rebuke of God on
his tongue, and saying, " By this deed thou hast given
great occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme."
Such has indeed been its effect from the day when it was
first done unto this day, and such probably will its effect
continue to be unto the end of time. David's transgres-
sion, committed almost three thousand years ago, sheds,
in some sort, an evil influence on the cause of David's
God even now. So wide-wasting is the mischief which
flows from the lapse of a righteous man ; so great the dark-
ness becomes, when the light that is amongst us is dark-
ness ! But was David the man after God's own heart
here? It were blasphemy to suppose it. That the sin
of David was fulfilling some righteous judgment of God
against Uriah and his house, I doubt not — for God often
makes his enemies his instruments, and without sanctify-

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 141

ing the means, strikes out of them good. Still a sin it was,
great and grievous, offensive to that God to whom the
blood of Uriah cried from the ground. And this the Al-
mighty proclaimed even more loudly perhaps by suffering
David to live, than if, in the sudden burst of his instant
displeasure, he had slain him. For, at the period when
the king of Israel fell under this sad temptation, he was at
the very height of his glory and his strength. The king-
dom of Israel had never so flourished before ; it was the
first of the nations. He had thoroughly subdued the Phil-
istines, that mighty people, who in his youth had com-
pelled all the Israelites to come down to their quarters,
even to sharpen their mattocks, so rigid was the exercise
of their rule. He had smitten the Moabites, on the other
side Jordan, once themselves the oppressors of Israel, mak-
ing them tributaries. He had subdued the Edomites, a
race that dehghted in war ; and had stationed his troops
throughout all their territories. He had possessed himself
of the independent kingdom of the Syrians, and garrisoned
Damascus, their capital. He had extended his frontier
eastward to the Euphrates,' though never perhaps beyond
it ]'^ and he was on the point of reducing the Aimiionites,
whose city, Rabbah, his generals were besiegi^ig ; and thus,
the whole of the promised land, with the exception of the
small state of Tyre, which the Israelites never appear to
have conquered, was now his own. Prosperity, perhaps,
had blinded his eyes, and hardened his heart. The treas-
ures which he had amassed, and the ease which he had
fought for and won, had made him luxurious ; for now it
was, that the once innocent son of Jesse the Bethlehemite,
— he who had been taken from the sheep-folds because an
excellent spirit was in him, and who had hitherto pros-

1 2 Sam. viii. 'i See Ezra iv. 20.

142 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

pered in all that he had set his hand unto, — it was now that,
this man was tempted and fell. And now mark the re-
mainder of his days — God 'eventually forgave him, for he
repented him (as his penitential psalms still most affect-
ingly attest), in the bitterness and anguish of his soul ;
but God dried up all the sources of his earthly blessings
thenceforward forever. With this sin the sorrow of his
life began, and the curse which the prophet denounced
against him, sat heavy on his spirit to the last ; a curse —
and I beg attention to this — which has a peculiar reference
to the nature of his crime ; as though upon this offence
all his future miseries and misfortunes were to turn ; as
though he was only spared from the avenger's violent hand
to be made a spectacle of righteous suffering to the world.
He had committed murder by the edge of the sword, and
therefore the sword was never to depart from his house.
He had despised the commandment of the Lord (so Nathan
expressly says), and taken the wife of another to be his
wife ; therefore were his own wives to be taken from him,
and given to his neighbor in turn. The complexion,
therefore, of his remaining years, was set by this one fatal
deed of darkness, (let none think or say that it was lightly
regarded by the Almighty,) and having become the man
of blood, of blood he was to drink deep ; and having be-
come the man of lust, by that same baneful passion in
others was he himself to be scourged forever. Now the
manner in which these tremendous threats are fulfilled is
very remarkable ; for it is done by way of natural conse-
quence of the sin itself ; a dispensation which I have not
seen developed as it deserves to be. though the facts of the
history furnish very striking materials for the purpose.
And herein lies the coincidence, to which the remarks I
have hitherto been making are a needful prologue.

By the rebellion of Absalom it was that these menaces

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 143

of the Almighty Judge of all the earth were accomplished
with a fearful fidelity.

Absalom was able to draw after him the hearts of all the
people as one man. And what was it that armed him
with this moral strength ? What was it that gave him
the means of unseating his father in the affections of a
loyal people ? — The king whom they had so greatly loved
— who had raised the name of Israel to a pitch of glory
never attained unto before — whose praises had been sung
by the mothers and maidens of Israel, as the champion to
whom none other was like ? How could he steal away
the hearts of the people from such a man, with so little
effort, and apparently with so little reason ? I believe that
this very sin of David was made the engine by which his
throne was shaken ; for I observe that the chief instrument
in the conspiracy was Ahithophel. No sooner was Absa-
lom determined upon his daring deed, than he looks to
Ahithophel for help. He appears, for some reason or other
not mentioned, to have quite reckoned upon him as well-
affected to his cause, as ready to join him in it heart and
hand ; and he did not find himself mistaken. " Ab.-alom,"
I read,^ " sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's coun-
sellor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered sac-
rifices — and the conspiracy," (it is forthwith added, as
though Ahithophel was a host in himself, ) " was strong ;
for the people increased continually with Absalom." David,
upon this, takes alarm, and makes it the subject of his
earnest prayer to God, that " he would turn the counsel of
Ahithophel into foolishness." Nor is this to be wondered
at, when we are told in another place that " the counsel
of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as
if a man had inquired at the oracle of God : so was all

» 2 Sam, XV. 12.

144 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IT.

the counsel of Ahithophel, both with David and with Ab-
salom.'" He therefore was the sinews of AlDsalom's cause.
Of his character, and the influence which he possessed
over the people, Absalom availed himself, both to sink the
spirits of David's party, and to inspire his own with confi-
dence, for all men counted Ahithophel to be as a prophet.
But independently of the weight of his public reputation,
it is probable that certain private wrongs of his own, (of
which I have now to speak.) at once prepared him for ac-
cepting Absalom's rebellious overtures with alacrity, and
caused him to find still greater favor in the eyes of the
people, as being an injured man, whom it was fit that they
should avenge of his adversary. For in the twenty-third
chapter of the second Book of Samuel, I find in the cata-
logue of David's guardsmen, thirty-seven in number, the
name of "Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Giloniter (v.
34.) The epithet of Gilonite sufficiently identifies this
Ahithophel with the conspirator of the same name. One.
therefore, of the thirty-seven officers about David's person,
was a son of the future conspirator against his throne.
But, in this same catalogue, I also meet with the name of
Uriah the Hittite (v. 39). Eham. therefore, and Uriah
must have been thrown much together, being both of the
same rank, and being each one of the thirty-seven officers
of the king's guard. Now, from the eleventh chapter of
the second Book of Samuel, I learn that Uriah the Hittite
had for his wife Bath-sheba, the daughter of one Eliam
(v. 3). I look upon it, therefore, to be so probable, as al-
most to amount to certaintj'^, that this was the same Eliam
ae before, and that Uriah (as was very natural, considering
the necessary intercourse of the parties) had married the
daughter of his l)rother officer, and accordingly, the grand-

i 3 Sam. xvi. 23.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 145

daughter of Ahithophel. I feel that I now have the key
to the conduct of this leading conspirator ; the sage and
prudent friend of David converted, by some means or
other, into his deadly foe — for I now perceive, that when
David murdered Uriah, he murdered Ahithophel's grand-
son by marriage, and when he corrupted Bath-sheba, he
corrupted his graHdmdtjher by blood. Well then, after /""it'.'. ' 'Xixl
this disaster and dishonor of his house, might revenge '"'
rankle in the heart of Ahithophel ! Well might Absalom
know that nothing but a fit opportunity was wanted by
him, that he might give it vent, and spend his treasured
wrath upon the head of David his wrong-doer ! Well
might he approach him with confidence, and impart to him
his treason, as a man who would welcome the news, and
be his present and powerful fellow-worker! Well might
the people who, upon an appeal like this, seldom fail to
follow the dictates of their better feelings, and to stand
manfully by the injured, find their allegiance to a throne
defiled with adultery and blood, relaxed, and their loyalty
transferred to the rebel's side ! And the terms in which
Shimei reproaches the king, when he follows after him to
Bahurim, casting stones at him, not improbably as expres-
sive of the legal punishment of the adulterer. "Come out,
come out, thou bloody man, thou man of Belial ;'" and
the meekness moreover with which David bows to the re-
proach, accepting it as a merited chastisement from God.
"So let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him.
Curse David," (v. 20 ;) are minute incidents which testify
to the same fact — to the popular voice now lifted up against
David, and to the merited cause thereof Well might
he find his heart sink within him, when he heard that his
ancient counsellor had joined the ranks of his enemies,

' 2 Sam. xvi. 7.

13

146 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

and when he knew but too well what reason he had given
him for turning his arms against himself in that unmiti-
gated and inextinguishable thirst for vengeance which is
sweet, however utterly unjustifiable, to all men so deeply
injured, and sweetest of all to the children of the East !
And in the very first word of exhortation which Ahithophel
suggests to Absalom, I detect, or think I detect, the wound-
ed spirit of the man seizing the earliest moment for inflict-
ing a punishment upon his enemy, of a kind that should
not only be bitter, but appropriate.— the eye for the eye ;
and when Absalom said, " Give counsel among you what
we shall do,'' and Ahithophel answered, " Go in unto thy
father's concubines which he hath left to keep the house,'"
he was not only moved by the desire that the rebellious
son should stand fairly committed to his rebellion by an
unpardonable outrage against the majesty of an eastern
monarch, but by the desire also to make David taste the
bitterness of that cup which he had caused others to drink,
and to receive the very measure which he had himself
meted withal. And so it came to pass, that Absalom fol-
lowed his counsel, and they spread for him the incestuous
tent, we read, on the top of the house, in the sight of all
Israel,^ on that very roof, it should seem, on which David
at even-tide had walked, when he conceived this his great
sin, upon which his life was to turn as upon a hinge ;^ and
so again it came to pass, and under circumstances of local
identity and exposure which wear the aspect of strictly
judicial reprisals, that that which he had done secretly
(his abduction of another man's wife) God did for him, and
more also, as he said he would, before all Israel, and before
the sun.*

Thus, having once discovered by the apposition of many

1 2 Sam. xvi. 21. « lb. xvi. 22. 3 ib. li. 2. * lb. xii. 12.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 147

passages, that a relation subsisted between Ahithophel
and Uriah, a fact which the sacred historian is so far from
dweUing upon that he barely supplies us with the means
to establish it at all, we see in the circumstances of the
conspiracy, the natural recoil of David's sin ; and in his
punishment, retributive as it is, so strictly retributive, that
it must have stricken his conscience as a judgment, even
had there been no warning voice concerning it, the accom-
plishment by means the most easy and unconstrained, of
all that Nathan had uttered, to the syllable.

X.

There is another incident connected with this part of
the history of David, which I have pondered, alternately
accepting and rejecting it, as still further corroborating
the opinion I have expressed, that the fortunes of David
turned upon this one sin — that having mounted to their
high mark, they henceforward began, and continued to
ebb away — this one sin which, according to Scripture,
itself eclipsed every other. For though it would not be
difficult to name sundry instances of ignorance, of negli-
gence, of inconsideration, of infirmity in the life of David
besides this, it is nevertheless said, that "he did that
which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not
aside in anything that he commanded him all the days of
his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the HittiteP^
1 propose, however, this coincidence for the reason I have
said, not without some hesitation ; though at the same
time, quite without concern for the safety of my cause, it
being, as I observed in the beginning of this work, a very

• 1 Kings XV. 5. See Sanderson, Serm. iv. ad Aulam, p. 79, fol.

148 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

valuable property of the argument by which I am endeav-
oring to establish the credibiUty of Scripture, that any
member of it, if unsound or unsatisfactory, may be de-
tached without further injury to the whole, than the mere
loss of that member entails.

This, therefore, I perceive, or think I perceive, that
David became througlily encumbered by his connection
with Joab, the captain of his armies ; that he was too
suspicious to trust him, and too weak to dismiss him ; that
this officer, by some chance or other, had established a
despotic control over the king ; and that it is not unrea-
sonable to believe (and here lies the coincidence), that
when David made him the partner and secret agent of
his guilty jrurpose touching Uriah, he sold himself into
his hands ; that in that fatal letter he sealed away his
liberty, and surrendered it up to this his unscrupulous
accompUce. Certain it is, that during all the latter years
of his reign, David was little more than a nominal king.

Joabj no doubt, was by nature a man that could do and
dare — a bold captain in bad times. The faction of Saul
was so strong, that David could at first scarcely call the
throne his own, or choose his servants according to his
pleasure ; and Joab, an able warrior, though sometimes
avenging his own private quarrels at the expense of his
sovereign's honor, and thereby vexing him at the heart,
was not to be displaced ; he was then too hard for David,
as the king himself complains.^ But as yet, David was
not tongue-tied at least. He openly, and without reserve,
reprobated the conduct of Joab in slaying Abner, though
he had the excuse, such as it was, of taking awa}^ the life
of the man by whose hand his brother Asahel had fallen.
Moreover, he so far asserted his own authority, as to make

1 2 Sam. iii, 39.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. liO*

him rend his clothes, and gird him with sackcloth, and
mourn before this very Abner, whom he had thus vindic-
tively laid low ; doubtless a bitter and mortifying penance
to a man of the stout heart of Joab, and such as argued
David, who insisted upon it, to be as yet in his own do-
minions supreme. Circumstances might constrain him
still to employ this famous captain, but he had not at least
(young as his authority then was) yielded himself up to
his imperious subject. On the contrary, waxing stronger
as he did, every day, and the remnant of Saul's party dis-
persed, he became the king of Israel in fact, as well as in
name ; his throne established not only upon law, but upon
public opinion too, so that " whatever the king did," we
are told, " pleased all the people."^ He was now in a con-
dition to rule for himself, and for himself he did rule
(whatever had become of Joab in the mean season) ; for
we presently find him appointing that officer to the com-
mand of his army by his own act and deed, simply be-
cause he happened to be the man to win that rank
when it was proposed by David as the prize of battle
to any individual of his whole host, who should first
get up the gutter and smite the Jebusites at the storm-
ing of Zion.*^ And whoever will peruse the eighth and
tenth chapters of the second Book of Samuel, in which
are recorded the noble achievements of David at this
bright period of his life, his power abroad and his policy
at home, the energy which he threw into the national
character, and the respect which he commanded for it
throughout all the East, will perceive that he reigned
without a re=!traint and without a rival. Now comes the
guilty act ; the fatal stumbling-block against which he
dashed his foot, and fell so pernicious a height. And

' 2 Sam. iii. 36. 2 lb. v. 8 ; 1 Chron. xi. 6.

150 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

henceforwards I see, or imagine I see, Joab usurping bj'
degress an authority which he had not before ; taking
upon himself too much ; executing or disregarding David's
orders, as it suited his own convenience ; and finally con-
spiring against his throne and the rightful succession of
his line. Again ; I perceive, if I mistake not, the hands
of David tied ; his efforts to disembarrass liimself of his
oppressor, feeble and ineffectual: his resentment set at
nought ; his punishments, though just, resisted by his
own subject, and successfully resisted. For I find Joab
suggesting to David the recall of Absalom after his ban-
ishment, through the widow of Tekoah, in a manner to
excite the suspicion of the king.- " Is not the hand of
Joab with thee in all this ?" were words in which probably
more was meant than met the ear. It is not unlikely
(though the passage is altogether mysterious and obscure)
that there was then some secret luiderstanding between
the soldier and the future rebel, which was only inter-
rupted by the impetuosity of Absalom, who resented Joab's
delay, and set fire to his barley f an injury which he
must have had some reason to feel Joab durst not resent,
and which, in fact, even in spite of the fury of his natural
character, he did not resent. Howbeit, he remembered it
in the rebellion which now broke out, and took his per-
sonal revenge whilst he was professedly fighting the battle
of David, to whom his interest or his passion decided him
for this time to be true. " Deal gently for my sake with the
young man, even with Absalom," was the parting charge
which the king gave to this dangerous champion as he
went forth with the host ; in the hearing of all the people
he gave it, and to all the captains who were with him. It
was the thing nearest his heart. For here it may be ob-

1 2 Sam. liv. 19. 2 lb. xiv. 30.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 151

served; that David's strong 'parental feelings^ of which we
have many occasional gUmpses, give an identity to his
character, which, in itself, marks it to be a real one. The
fear of the servants to tell him that his infant was dead ; '
the advice of Jonadab, " a subtle man," who had read Da-
vid's disposition right, to Amnon, to feign himself sick,
that " when his father came to see him" he might prefer
to him his request j*^ his " weeping so sore" for the death
of this son, and then again, his anguish subsided, '-his
soul longing to go forth" to the other son who had slain
him f the little trait which escapes in the history of Adon-
ijah's rebellion, another of his children, that " his father
had not displeased him at any time, in saying, Why hast
thou done so ?"^ are all evidently features of one and the
same individual. So these last instructions to his officers
touching the safety of Absalom, even when he was in arms
against him, are still uttered in the same spirit ; a spirit
which seems, even at this moment, far more engrossed witii
the care of his child than with the event of his battle. " Deal
gently for my sake with Absalom." Joab heard, indeed,
but heeded not ; he had lost all reverence for the king's
commands ; nothing could be more deliberate than his in-
fraction of this one, probably the most imperative whick
had ever been laid upon him : it was not in the fury of
the fight that he forgot the commission of mercy, and cut
down the young man with whom he was importuned to
deal tenderly ; but as he was hanging in a tree, helpless
and hopeless ; himself directed to the spot by the steps of
another ; in cold blood ; but remembering perhaps his
barley, and more of which we know not, and caring npth-
ing for a king whose guilty secret he had shared, he
thrust him through the heart with his three darts, and

1 3 Sam. xii. 18. 2 lb. xiii. 5. 3 lb. xiii. 36. ^ i Kings i. 6.

152 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

then made his way, with countenance unabashed, into the
chamber of his royal master, where he was weeping and
mourning for Absalom.

The bitterness of death must have been nothing to Da-
vid, compared with the feehngs of that hour when his con-
science suiote him, (as it doubtless did) with the comphcated
trouble and humiliation into which his deed of lust and
blood had thus sunk him down. The rebellion itself, the
fruit of it, (as I hold ;) the audacious disobedience of Joab
to the moving entreaties of the parent, that his favorite
son's life might be spared, rebel as he was. felt to be the
fruit of that sin too ; for by that sin it was that he had de-
livered himself and his character bound hand and foot, to
the tender mercies of Joab, who had no touch of pity in
him. The sequel is of a piece with the opening ; Joab
imperious, and David, the once high-minded David, abject
in spirit and tame to the lash. " Thou hast shamed this
day the face of all thy servants. Arise, go forth, and speak
comfortably to thy servants; for I swear by the Lord, if
thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this
night: and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil
that befell thee from thy youth up until now."^ The pas-
sive king yields to the menace, for what can he do? and
with a cheerful countenance and a broken heart obeys the
commands of his subject, and sits in the gate. But this is
not all. David now sends a message to Amasa, a kinsman
whom Absalom had set over his rebel army ; it is a propo-
sal, perhaps a secret proposal, to make him captain over his
host in the room of Joab. The measure might be dictated
at once by policy, Amasa being now the leader of a pow-
erful party whom David had to win, and by disgust at the
recent perfidy of Joab, and a determination to break away

' 2 Sam. xix. 7.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 153

from him at whatever cost. Amasa accepts the offer ; but
in the very first miUtary enterprise on \\'hich he is dis-
patched, Joab accosts him with the friendly salutation of
the East, and availing himself of the unguarded moment,
draws a sword from under his garment, smites him under
the fifth rib, and leaves him a bloody corpse in the high-
way. Then lie calmly takes upon himself to execute the
commission with which Amasa had been charged ; and
this done, " he returns to Jerusalem," we read, " unto the
king," and once more he is " over all the host of Israel."

It is needless to point out how extreme a helplessness on
the part of David this whole transaction indicates. Here
is the general of his own choice assassinated in an act of
duty by his own subject, his commission usurped by the
murderer, and David, once the most popular and powerful of
sovereigns, saying not word. The dishonor, indeed, he felt
keenly ; felt it to his dying day, and in his very latest
breath gave utterance to it ;' but Joab has him in the toils,
and extricate himself he cannot. The want of cordiality
between them was now manifest enough, however the
original cause might be conjectured, rather than known ;
and when Adonijah prepares his revolt, — for another en-
emy now sprang up in David's own house, — to Joab he
makes his overtures,*^ having observed hin), no doubt to be
a thorn in the king's side ; nor are the overtures rejected ;
and amongst other facts developed in this second conspi-
racy, it incidentally appears, that the ordinary dwelling-
place of Joab was "in the wilderness f^ as if, suspicious
and suspected, a house within the walls of Jerusalem was
not the one in which he would venture to lay his head.
It is remarkable that this formidable traitor, from whose
thraldom David in the flower of his age, and the splendor

< 1 Kings ii. 5. 2 1 Kings i. 7. 3 lb. ii. 34.

154 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

of his military renown, could never, we have seen, disen-
gage himself, fell at once, and whilst whatever popularity
he might have with the army must have been fresh as
ever, before the arm of Solomon, a stripling, if not a beard-
less boy ; who, taking advantage of a fresh instance of
treachery in this hardened adventurer, fearlessly gave com-
mand to "fall upon him and bury him, that he might thus
take away," as he said, " the innocent blood which Joab
shed, from him, and from the house of his father ; when
he fell upon two men more righteous and better than him-
self, and slew them with the sword, his father David not
knowing thereof; to wit, Abner, the son of Ner, captain of
the host of Israel, and Amasa, the son of Jether, captain of
the host of Judah.i But Solomon had as yet a clear con-
science, which David had forfeited with respect to Joab :
this it was that armed the youth with a moral courage
which his father had once known what it Avas to have,
when he went forth as a shepherd-boy against Goliath,
and which he afterwards knew what it was to want, when
he crouched before Joab, as a king. So true it is, the
" wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous is
bold as a lion."

And now can any say that God winked at this wicked-
ness of his servant ? That the man after his own heart,
for such in tlie main he was, frail as he proved himself,
sinned grievously, and sinned with impunity! On the
contrary, this deed was the pivot uj)on which David's for-
tunes turned; that done, and he was undone ; then did
God raise up enemies against him for it out of his own
house, for " the thing," as we are expressly told, " displeased
the Lord f^ thenceforward the days of his years became
full of evil, and if he hved, (for the Lord caused death to

» 1 Kings, ii. 32. 2 2 Sam. ii. 27; xu. 11.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 155

2}ass from himself to the child, by a vicarious dispensation,')
it was to be a king, with more than kingly sorrows, but
with little of kingly power ; to be banished by his son ;
bearded by his servant ; betrayed by his friends ; deserted
by his people ; bereaved of his children ; and to feel all, all
these bitter griefs, bound, as it were, by a chain of compli-
cated cause and effect, to this one great original transgres-
sion. This was surely no escape from the penalty of his
crime, though it was still granted him to live and breathe
— God would not slay even Cain, nor suffer others to slay
him, whose punishment, nevertheless, was greater than he
could bear — but rather it was a lesson to him and to us,
how dreadful a thing it is to tempt the Almighty to let
loose his plagues upon us, and how true is he to his word,
" Vengeance is mine, 1 will repay," saith the Lord.

Meanwhile, by means of the fall of David, however it
may have caused some to blaspheme, God may have also
provided in his mercy, that many since David should stand
upright ; the frailty of one may have prevented the mis-
carriage of thousands ; saints, with his example before their
eyes, may have learned to walk humbly, and so to walk
surely, when they might otherwise have presumed and per-
ished ; and sinners, even the men of the darkest and most
deadly sins, may have been saved from utter desperation
and self-abandonment, by remembering David and all his
trouble ; and that, deep as he was in guilt, he was not so
deep but that his bitter cries for mercy, under the remorse
and anguish of his spirit, could even yet pierce the ear of
an offended God, and move him to put away his shi.

' 2 Sam. xii. 13. TiaJJn,

^^^^mii

156 THE VERACITY OP THE PARi" II.

XI

My subject has compelled me to anticipate some of the
events of David's history according to the order of time.
I must now, therefore, revert to certain incidents in it,
which it would before have interrupted my argument to
notice, but which are too important as evidences of ils cred-
ibility, to be altogether overlooked.

The conspiracy of Absalom being now organized, it only
remained to try the issue by force of arms ; and here an-
other coincidence presents itself.

In the seventeenth chapter of the second Book of Sam-
uel, we read that " David arose, and all the people that
were with him, and they passed over Jordan" (v. 22 ;) and
in the same chapter, that " Absalom passed over Jordan, he
and all the men of Israel with him" (v. 24 ;) and that
" they pitched in the land of Gilead" (v. 26). Now in the
next chapter, where an account is given of a review of
David's troops, and of their going forth to the fight, it is
said, " So the people went out into the field against Israel,
and the battle was in the icood of Ephraim.^^^ But is
not the sacred historian, in this instance, off his guard, and
having already placed his combatants on one side of the
river, does he not now place his combat on the other ? Is
he not mistaken in his geography, and does he not hereby
betray himself and the credit of his narrative ? Certain
it is, that Absalom had passed over Jordan eastward, and
so had David, with their respective followers, pitching in
Gilead ; and no less certain it is, that the tribe of Ephraim
lay altogether west of Jordan, and had not a foot of ground
beyond it : how then was the battle in the wood of Eph-

• 2 Sam. xviii. 6.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. WT

raim ? By any fabulous writer tiiis seeming difficulty
would have been avoided, or care would have been taken
that, at least, it should be explained. But the Book of
Samuel, written by one familiar with the events lie de-
scribes, and with the scenes in which they occurred ; writ-
ten, moreover, in the simplicity of his heart, probably with-
out ^any notion that his veracity could be called in ques-
tion, or that he should ever be the subject of suspicious
scrutiny, contents itself with stating the naked facts, and
then leaves it to the critics to reconcile them as they can.
Turn we then to the twelfth chapter of the Book of Judges,
There we are told of an attack made by the Ephraimites
upon Jephthah, in the land of Gilead, on pretence of a
wrong done them when they were not invited by the latter
to take part in his successful invasion of Annnon. It was
a memorable struggle. Jephthah, indeed, endeavored to
soothe the angry assailants by words of peace, but when
he spake of peace, they only made themselves ready for
battle. Accordingly, " he gathered together all the men
of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim.'' Ephraim was dis-
comfited with signal slaughter ; those who fell in the ac-
tion, and those who were afterwards put to death upon
the test of the word Shibboleth, amounting to forty-two
thousand men ; almost an extinction of all the fighting
men of Ephraim. Now an event so singular, and so san-
guinary, was not likely to pass away without a memorial ;
and what memorial so natural for the grave of a tribe, as
its own name forever assigned to the spot where it fell,
the Acaldema of their race ?

Thus, then, may we account most naturally for a " wood
of Ephraim'''' in the land of Gilead : a point which would
have perplexed us not a little, had the Book of Judges
never come down to us, or, coming down to us. had no
mention been made in it of Jephthah's victory ; and though

U

J58 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

we certainly cannot jn-ove that the battle of David and
Absalom was fought on precisely the same field as this of
Jephthah and the Ephraimites some hundred and twenty
years before, yet it is highly probable that this was the
case, for both the battles were assuredly in Gilead, and
both apparently in that part of Gilead which bordered upon
one of the fords of Joi'dan.

Thus does a seeming error turn out, on examination, to
be an actual pledge of the good faith of the historian ; and
the unconcern with which he tells his own tale, in his own
way, never pausing to correct, to balance, or adjust, to sup-
ply a defect, or to meet an objection, is the conduct of a
witness to whom it never occurred that he had anything
to conceal, or anything to fear ; or, if it did occur, to whom
it was well known that truth is mighty and will prevail.

XII.

David having won the battle, and recovered his throne,
prepares to repass the Jordan, and return once more to his
capital. His friends again congregate around him, for the
prosperous have many friends. Amongst them, however,
were some who had been true to him in the day of his
adversity ; and the aged Barzillai, a Gileadite, who had
provided the king with sustenance whilst he lay at Maha-
naim, and when his affairs were critical, presents himself
before him. He had won David's heart. The king now
entreats him to accompany him to his court, " Come thou
over with me, and I will feed thee with me in Jerusalem."
But the unambitious Barzillai pleads fourscore years as a
bar against beginning the life of a courtier, and chooses
rather to die in his own city, and be buried by the grave
of his father and of his mother. His son, however, had

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 159

life before him: "Behold thy servant Chimham, let hira
go over with my lord the king : and do to him what shall
seem good unto thee." And the king answered, Chimham
shall go over with me, and I will do to him that which
shall seem good unto thee."' So he went with the king.
Thus begins, and thus ends the history of Chiraliam ; he
passes away from the scene, and what David did for him,
or whether he did anything for him, beyond providing him
a place at his table, and recommending him, in common
with many others, to Solomon before he died, does not
appear. Singular, however, it is, and if ever there was a
coincidence which carried with it the stamp of truth, it is
this, that in the forty-first chapter of Jeremiah, an histori-
cal chapter, in which an account is given of the murder
of Gedaliah, the officer whom Nebuchadnezzar had left in
charge of Judea, as its governor, when he carried away
the more wealthy of its inhabitants captive to Babylon, we
read that the Jews, fearing for the consequences of this
bloody act. and apprehending the vengeance of the Chal-
deans, prepared for a flight into Egypt, so " they departed,"
the narrative continues, " and dwelt in the habitation of
Chimham, which is by Bethlehem^ to go to enter into
Egypt" (v. 17). It is impossible to imagine anything more
incidental than the mention of this estate near Bethlehem,
which was the habitation of Chimham — yet how well does
it tally with the spirit of David's speech to Barzillai, some
four hundred yeai's before ! for what can be more probable
than that David, whose birth-place was this very Beth-
lehetJi, and whose patrimony in consequence lay there,
having undertaken to provide for Chimham, should have
bestowed it in whole, or in part, as the most flattering re-
ward he could confer, a personal, as well as a royal, mark

1 2 Sam. xix. 37.

160 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

of favor, on the son of the man wijo had saved his Hfe, and
the Hves of his followers in ihc hour of their distress; and
that, to that very da)', when Jeremiah wrote, it should have
remained in the possession of the family of Chimhara, and
have been a land called after his own name ?

XIII.

1 PROCEED with the history of David, in which we can
scarcel)^ advance a step without having our attention
drawn to some new, though perhaps subtle, incident, which
marks at once the reahty of the facts, and the fidelity of
the record. No doubt the surface of the narrative is per-
fectly satisfactory : but beneath the surface, there is a cer-
tain substratum now appearing, and presently losing itself
again, which is I he proper field of my inquiry. Here I find
the true material of which I am in search ; coincidences
shy and unobtrusive, not courting notice — as far from it as
possible — but having chanced to attract it, sustaining not
only notice, but scrutiny ; such matters as might be over-
looked on a cursory perusal of the text a hundred times,
and which indeed would stand very little chance of any
other fate than neglect, unless the mind of the reader had
been previously put upon challenging them as they pass.
Therefore it is that I feel often incapable of doing justice to
my subject with my readers, however familiar they may
be with Holy Writ. The full force of the argument can
only be felt by him who pursues it for himself, when he is
in his chamber and is still ; his assent taken captive before
he is aware of it ; his doubts, if any he had, melting away
under the contbnial dropping of minute particles of evi-
dence upon his mind, as it proceeds in its investigation. It
is difficult, it is scarcely possible, to impart this sympathy

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 161

to the reader. And even when I can grasp an incident
sufficiently substantial to detach and present to his consid-
eration, I still am conscious that it is not launched to ad-
vantage ; that a thousand little preparations are lacking in
order that it may leave the slips (if I may venture upon the
expression) vi^ith a motion that shall make it win its way ;
that the plunge with which I am compelled to let it fall,
provokes a resistance to which it does not deserve to be ex-
posed. I proceed, however, with the history of David, and
to a passage in it which has partly suggested these remarks.
When Saul in his fury had slain, by the hand of Doeg.
Ahimelech the high-priest, and all the priests of the Lord,
" one of the sons of Ahimelech," we read, " named Abiathar,
escaped and fled after David.'" David received him kindly,
saying unto him, " Abide thou with me, fear not ; for he
that seeketh my hfe, seeketh thy life ; but with me thou
shalt be in safeguard." Abiathar had^brought with him
the ephod, the high-priest's mysterious scarf; and his fa-
ther being dead, he appears to have been made high-priest
in his stead, so far as David had it then in his power to
give him that office, and to have attended upon him and
his followers.2 These particulars we gather from several
passages of the first Book of Samuel.

We hear now nothing more of Abiathar (except that he
was confirmed in his office, together with a colleague, when
David was established in his kingdom) for nearly thirty
years. Then he re-appears, having to play not an incon-
spicuous part in David's councils, on occasion of the re-
bellion of Absalom. Now here we find, that though he is
still in his office of priest, Zadok (the colleague to whom I
alluded) appears to have obtained the first place in the
confidence and consideration of David. When David sends

» 1 Sam. ixii. 20. 2 1 Sam. xxx. 7.

14*

162 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

the Ark back, which he probably thought it irreverent to
make the partner of his fliglit, and deUvers his commands
to this effect, it may be remarked that he does not address
himself to Abiathar, though Abiathar was there, but to
Zadok — Zadok takes the lead in everything. The king
says to Zadok^ "Carry back the Ark of God into the
city :"' — and again, " The king said unto Zadok the priest,
Art not thou a seer ? return into the city in peace ;" and
when Zadok and Abiathar are mentioned together at this
period, Zadok is placed foremost. No doubt Abiathar
was honored by David ; there is evidence enough of this
(v. 35 ;) but many trifles lead us to conclude that herein he
attained not unto his companion.

Now, unquestionably, it cannot be asserted with confi-
dence, where there is no positive document to substantiate
the assertion, that Abiathar felt his associate in the priest-
hood to be his rival in the state, his more than successful
rival ; yet that such a feeling should find a place in the
breast of Abiathar seems most natural, seems almost inev-
itable, when we take into account that these two priests
were the representatives of two rival houses, over one of
which, a prophecy affecting its honor, and well nigh its ex-
istence, was hanging unfulfilled. For Zadoc, be it ob-
served, was descended from Eleazar, the eldest of the sons
of Aaron ; Abiathar from Ithamar, the youngest, and so
from the family of Eli, a family of which it had been fore-
told, some hundred and fifty years before, that the priest-
hood should pass from it. Could Abiathar read the signs
of his time without alarm? or fail to suspect (what did
prove the fact) that the curse which had tarried so long,
was now again in motion, and that the ancient office of his
Mhers was in jeopardy ; a curse, too, comprising circum-

> 2 Sam. zv. 25.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 163

Stances of signal humiliation, calculated beyond measure to
exasperate the sufferer : even that the house of Eli, which
God had once said should walk before him forever, should
be far from him ; even that he would raise up (that is from
another house) a faithful priest that should do according to
that which was in his heart and his mind ; and that the
house of that man should be sure built ; and that they of
the house of Eli which were left, " should come and crouch
to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and say,
Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priest's offices, that I
may eat a piece of bread?'" Abiathar must have had a
tamer spirit than he gave subsequent proof of, if he could
have witnessed the elevation of one in whom this bitter ^#'

threat seemed advancing to its accomplishment, and in
whom it was in fact accomplished, with complacency ; if
he could see him seated by his side in the dignity of the
high-priesthood, and favored at his expense by the more
frequent smiles of his sovereign, without a wounded spirit.
Now having possessed ourselves of this secret key,
namely, jealousy of his rival, a key not delivered into
our hands directly by the historian, but accidentally found
by ourselves, (and here is its value,) let us apply it to the
incidents of Abiathar's subsequent conduct, and observe
whether they will not answer to it. We have seen Abia-
thar flying from the vengeance of Saul to David ; pro-
tected by David in the wilderness : made by David his
priest, virtually before Saul's death,^ and formally when
he succeeded to Saul's throne. ^ We have seen, too, Za-
dok united with him in his office, and David giving signs
of preferring Zadok before him ; a preference the more
marked, and the more galling, because Abiathar was un-

1 1 Sam. ii. 36. « I Sam. ixiii. 2—6. 3 2 Sam. viii. 17.

164 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

doubtedly the high-priest (as the sequel will prove) and
Zadok his vicar only, or sagan.'

This being the stale of things, let us now observe the
issue. When David was forced to withdraw for a season
from Jerusalem, by the conspiracy of Absalom, Zadok
and Abiathar were left behind in the capital, charged
with the office of forwarding to the king any intelligence
which his friends within the walls might communicate to
them, that it was for his advantage to know. Ahimaaz,
the son of Zadok, and Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, (the
sons are named after the same order as their fathers,) are
the secret messengers by whom it is to be conveyed ; and
4Ad^ on one occasion, the only one in which their services are

recorded, we find them acting together.^ But I observe
that after the battle in which Absalom was slain, a battle
which seems to have served as a test of the real loyalty of
many of David's nominal friends, Ahimaaz, the son of
Zadok, and not Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, is at hand
to carry the tidings of the victory to David, who had tar-
ried behind at Mahanaim ; and this office he solicits from
Joab, who had intended it for another, with the utmost
importunity, and the most lively zeal for the king's cause. ^
This, it will be said, proves but little ; more especially as
there is reason to believe that David was, at least, upon
terms with Abiathar at a later period than this.* Still
there may be thought something suspicious in the absence
of the one messenger, at a moment so critical, as compared
with the alacrity of the other ; their office having been
hitherto a joint one ; it is not enough to -prove that the
loyalty of Abiathar and his house was waxing cool,
though it accords with such a supposition. Let us, how-
ever, proceed. Within a few years of this time, probably

» See Lightfoot's Works, Vol. i. 911, 912, fol. « 2 Sam. xviiL 21.

3 lb. iviii. 19—22. < lb. xix. 11.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 165

about eight, another rebellion against David is set oh foot
by another of his sons. Adonijah is now the offender. He,
too, prepares him chariots and horsemen, after the exam-
ple of his brother. Moreover, he feels his way before he
openly appears in arms. And to whom does he make his
first overtures? " H6 confers," we read, " with Ahiathar
the priest,'" having good reason, no doubt, for knowing
that such an application might be made in that quarter
with safety, if not with success. The event proved that
he had not mistaken his man. " Abiathar," we learn,
'■^following Adonijah, helped him ;" not so Zadok ; he,
we are told, " was not with Adonijah ;" on the contrary,
he was one of the first persons for whom David sent, that
he might communicate with him in this emergency ; his
stanch and steadfast friend ; and him he commissioned,
together with Nathan the prophet, to set the crown upon
the head of Solomon, and thereby to confound the coun-
cils of the rebels.^ Nor should we leave unnoticed, for
they are facts which coincide with the view I have taken
of Abiathar's loyalty, and the cause of it, that one of the
first acts of Solomon's reign was to banish the traitor " to
his own fields," and to thrust him out of the priesthood,
" that he might fulfil" (so it is expressly said in the twenty-
seventh verse of the second chapter of the first Book of
Kings) " the word of the Lord, which he spake concerning
the house of Eli in Shiloh," — fulfil it, not by that act only,
but by the other also, which followed and crowned the
prophecy; for " Zadok the priest," it is added, "did Sol-
omon put in the room of Ahiathar ;"^ or, as the Septua
gint translates it still more to our purpose, Zadok the priest
did the king make first priest {els Jf?«'« TtQOjTo>)in the room
of Abiathar ; so that Abiathar, as T said, had been hith-

i I Kings 1. 7. 2 lb. i. 33, 34. ^ ib. ii. 35.

166 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

erto Zadok's superior ; his superior in office, and his infe-
rior in honor ; a position of all others calculated to excite
in him the heart-burnings we have discovered, long smoth-
ered, but at last bursting forth — beginning in lukew^arm-
ness, and ending in rebellion.

This is all extremely natural ; nothing can drop into its
place better than the several parts of this history ; not at
all a prominent history, but rather a subordinate one. Yet
manifest as the relation which they bear to one another is,
when they are once brought together, they are themselves
dispersed through the Books of Samuel, of Kings, and of
Chronicles, without the smallest arrangement or reference
one to another ; their succession not continuous ; suspend-
ed by many and long intervals ; intervals occupied by
matters altogether foreign from this subject ; and after all,
the integral portions of the narrative themselves defective :
there are gaps even here, which I think, indeed, may be
filled up, as I have shown, with very little chance of error ;
but still, that there should be any necessity even for this,
argues the absence of all design, collusion, and contrivance
in the historians.

XIV.

We have now followed David through the events of his
checkered life ; it remains to contemplate him yet once
more upon his death-bed, giving in charge the execution
of his last wishes to Solomon his son. Probably in con-
sideration of his youth, his inexperience, and the difficul-
ties of his position, David t4iought it well to put him in
possession of the characters of some of those with whom
he would have to deal ; of those whom he had found faith-'
ful or faithless to himself; that, on the one hand, his own

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 167

promises of favor might not be forfeited, nor, on the other,
the confidence of the young monarch be misplaced. Now
it is remarkable, that in this review of his friends and foes,
David altogether overlooks Mephibosheth, the son of Jona-
than. Joab he remembers, and all that he had done ;
Shimei he speaks of at some length, and puts Solomon
upon his guard against him. The sons of Barzillai, and
the service they had rendered him in the day of his ad-
versity, are all recommended to his friendly consideration ;
but of Mephibosheth, who had played a part, such as it
was, in the scenes of those eventful times, which had
called forth, for good or evil, a Chimham, a Barzillai, a
Shimei, and a Joab, he does not say a syllable. Yet he
was under peculiar obligations to him. He had loved his
father Jonathan. He had promised to show kindnes to his
house forever. He had confirmed his promise by an oath.
That oath he had repeated. ^ On his accession to the
throne he had evinced no disposition to shrink from it ; on
the contrary, he had studiously inquired after the family
of Jonathan, and having found Mephibosheth, he gave
him a place at his own table continually, for his father's
sake, and secured to him all the lands of Saul."^

Let us, however, carefully examine the details of the
history, and I think we shall be able to account satisfac-
torily enough for David's apparent neglect of the son of
his friend ; for I think we shall find violent cause to sus-
pect that Mephibosheth had forfeited all claims to his
kindness.

When David was driven from Jerusalem by the rebellion
of Absalom, no Mephibosheth appeared to share with him
his misfortunes, or to support him by his name, a name at
that moment of pecuhar value to David, for Mephibosheth

1 1 Sam. XX. 17. 2 3 Sam. x. 6. 7.

168 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

was the representative of the house of Saul. David nat-
urally intimates some surprise at his absence ; and when
his servant Ziba appears, bringing with him a small pres-
ent of bread and fruits, (the line of the king's flight having
apparently carried him near the lands of Mephibosheth,) a
present, however, offered on his own part, and not on the
part of his master, David puts to him several questions,
expressive of his suspicions of Mephibosheth's loyalty :
" What meanest thou by these ? Where is thy master's
son?'" Ziba repUes in substance, than he had tarried at
Jerusalem, waiting the event of the rebellion, and hoping
that it might lead to the re-establishment of Saul's family
on the throne. This might be true, or it might be false.
The commentators appear to take for granted that it was
a mere slander of Ziba, invented for the purpose of sup-
planting Mephibosheth in his possessions. I do not think
this so certain. Ziba, I suspect, had some reason in what
he said, though probably the coloring of the picture was
his own. Certain it is, or all but certain, that the tribe of
Benjamin, which was the tribe of Mephibosheth. did, in
general, take part with the rebels. When David returned
victorious, and Shimei hastened to make his peace with
him, a thousand men of Benjamin accompanied him ; and
it was his boast that he came the first of " all the house
of Joseph" to meet the king,'^ as though others of bis tribe
(for they of Benjamin were reckoned of the house of
Joseph, the same mother having given birth to both) were
yet behind. Went not then the heart of Mephibosheth in
the day of battle with his brethren, rather than with his
benefactor? David himself evidently believed the report
of Ziba. and forthwith gave him his master's inheritance.'
The battle is now fought, on which the fate of the throne

1 2 Sam. ivi. 2, 3. 2 lb. xix. 17—20. 3 lb. xvi. 4.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 169

hung in suspense, and David is the conqueror. And now,
many who had forsaken, or insulted him in his distress,
hasten to congratulate him on his triumph, and to profess
their joy at his return ; Mephibosheth amongst the rest.
There is something touching in David's first greeting of
liim ; " Wherefore wentest thou not with me, Mephibo-
sheth?" A question not of curiosity, but of reproach.
His ass was saddled, forsooth, that he might go, but Ziba,
it seems, had taken it for himself, and gone unto the king,
and slandered him unto the king ; and meanw^hile, " thy
servant was lame." The tale appears to be as lame as
the tale-bearer. I think it clear that Mephibosheth did
not succeed in removing the suspicion of his disloyalty
from David's mind, notwithstanding the ostentatious dis-
play of his clothes unwashed and beard untrimmed ;
weeds which the loss of his estate might very well have
tauglit him to put on : for otherwise, would not David, in
common justice both to Mephibosheth and to Ziba, have
punished the treachery of the latter — the lie by which he
had imposed upon the king to his own profit, and to his
master's infinite dishonor and damage, by revoking alto-
gether the grant of the lands which he had made him,
under an impression which proved to be a mistake, and
restoring them to their rightful owner, who had been in-
juriously supposed to have forfeited them by treason to the
crown ? He does, however, no such thing. To Mephibo-
sheth, indeed, he gives back half, but that is all ; and he
leaves the other half still in the possession of Ziba ; doing
even thus much, in all probability, not as an act of justice,
but out of tenderness to a son, even an unworthy son of
Jonathan, whom he had loved as his own soul. And
then, as if impatient of the wearisome exculpations of an
ungrateful man, whose excuses were his accusations, he
abruptly puts an end to the parley, (the conversation hav-

15

170 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

ing been apparently much longer than is recorded,) with a
" Whi/ speakest thou any more of thy matters 1 I have
said, Thou and Ziba divide the land.'"

Henceforward, whatever act of grace he received at
David's hands, was purely gratuitous. His unfaithfulness
had released the king from his bond ; and that he lived,
was perhaps rather of sufferance, than of right ; a consid-
eration which serves to explain David's conduct towards
him, as it is reported on an occasion subsequent to the re-
bellion. For when propitiation was to be made by seven
of Saul's sons, for the sin of Saul in the slaughter of the
Gibeonites. " the king," we read, " spared Mephibosheth,
the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's
oath that was between them, between David, and Jona-
than the son of Saul;"^ as though he owed it to the oath
only, and to the memory of his father's virtues, that he
was not selected by David as one of the victims of that
bloody sacrifice.

Now, under these circumstances, is it a subject for sur-
prise, is it not rather a most natural and veracious coinci-
dence, that David, in commending on his death-bed some
of his stanch and trustworthy friends to Solomon his son,
should have omitted all mention of Mephibosheth, dissatis-
fied as he was, and ever had been, with his explanations
of very suspicious conduct, at a very critical hour ? con-
sidering him, with every appearance of reason, a waiter
upon Providence, as such persons have been since called —
a prudent man, who would see which way the battle went,
before he made up his mind to which side he belonged?
This coincidence is important, not merely as carrying with
it evidence of a true story in all its details, which is my
business with it ; but also as disembarrassing the incident

1 2 Sam. xix. 39. « lb. xxi. 7.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 171

itself of several serious difficulties which present themselves,
on the ordinary supposition of Ziba's treachery, and Me-
phibosheth's truth ; difficulties which I cannot better ex-
plain, than by referring my hearers to the beautiful " Con-
templations" of Bishop Hall, whose view of these two char
acters is the common one, and Avho consequently finds him-
self, in this instance, (it will be perceived,) encumbered
with his subject, and driven to the necessity of impugning
the justice of David. It is further valuable, as exonerating
the king of two other charges which have been brought
against him, yet more serious than the last, even of indiffer-
ence to the memory of his dearest friend, and disregard to
the obligations of his solemn oath. But these are not the
only instances in which the character of David, and indeed
of the history itself, which treats of him, has suffered from
a neglect to make allowance for omissions in a very brief
and desultory memoir, or from a want of more exact at-
tention to the under-current of the narrative, which would,
in itself, very often supply those omissions.

XV.

The history of the people of God has thus far been
brought down to the reign of Solomon, and its general
truth and accuracy (I think I may say) established by the
application of a test which could scarcely fail us. The
great schism of the tribes is now about to divide our atten-
tion between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah ; but be-
fore I proceed to offer some observations upon the effects of
it, both religious and political, on either kingdom, observa-
tions which will involve many more of those undesigned
coincidences which are the subject of these pages, I must
say a word upon the progress of events towards the schism

172 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

itself; for herein I discover combinations, of a kind which
no ingenuity could possibly counterfeit, and to an extent
which verifies a large portion of the Jewish annals. " By
faith, Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed his children."
On that occasion, Judah and Ephraim were made to stand
conspicuous amongst the future founders of the Israelitish
nation. "Judah," says the prophetic old man, "thou art
he whom thy brethren shall praise ; thy hand shall be on
the neck of thine enemies : thy father's children shall bow
down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp : from the prey,
my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down, he crouched
as a lion, and as an old lion : who shall rouse him up ?
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver
from between his feet, till Shiloh come ; and unto him shall
the gathering of the people be."^ All this, and more, did
Jacob foretell of this mighty tribe. Again, crossing his
hands, and studiously laying the right upon the head of
Ephraim, the younger of Joseph's children, " Manasseh
also shall be a people," he exclaimed, " and he also shall
be great ; but truly his younger brother shall be greater
than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.
And so he blessed thein that day, saying, In thee shall
Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and Ma-
nasseh."2 Thus did these two tribes, Judah and Ephraim,
enter the land of promise some two hundred and forty
years afterwards, with the Patriarch's blessing on their
heads : God having conveyed it to them by his mouth, and
being now about to work it out by the quiet operations of
his hands. As yet, neither of them was much more pow-
erful than ills brethren, the latter less so ; Judah not ex-
ceeding one other of the tribes, at least, by more than
twelve thousand men, and Ephraim actually the smallest

1 Gen. xlix. 8. 2 lb. xUx. 20.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 173

of them all, with the single exception of Simeon.' The
lot of Ephraim, however, fell upon a fair ground, and upon
this lot, the disposing of which was of the Lord, turned
very materially the fortunes of Ephraim ; it fell nearly in
the midst of the tribes ; and accordingly, the invasion and
occupation of Canaan being effected, at t^liiloh in Ephraim,
the Tabernacle was set up. there to abide three hundred
years and upwards, during all the time of the Judges.'^
Hither, we read, Elkanah repaired year by year for wor-
ship and sacrifice ; here the lamp of God was never suffered
to go out "in the Temple of the Lord," (the expression is
remarkable,) "■ where the Ark of God was ;''^ here Samuel
ministered as a child, all Israel, from Dan even to Beer-
sheba, speedily perceiving that he was established to be a
prophet, because all Israel was accustomed to resort annually
to Shiloh, at the feasts.^ iShiloh, therefore, in Ephraim,
was the great religious capital, as it were, from the time
of Joshua to Saul, the spot more especially consecrated to
the honor of God, the resting place of his tabernacle, of his
prophets, and of his priests f whilst at no great distance
from it appears to have stood Shechem,^ once the political
capital of Ephraim, till civil war left it for a season in
ruins, but which, even then, continued to be the gathering
point of the tribes ;'' Shechem, where was Jacob's well,^ and
where, accordingly, both literally and figuratively, was the
prophecy of that patriarch fulfilled, " Joseph is a fruitful
bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches
run over the wall."^
Thus was this district in Ephraim, comprising Shiloh

» Numb. xxvi. 2 Judges xxi. 19. 3 i Sam. iii. 3.

* lb. iii. 20, 21. s Psalm cxxxii. 6; Ixxviii. 67. I Sam. ii. 14.

6 Judges xxi. 19. Josh. xxiv. 25, 26.

T Josh. xxiv. 1. Judges ix. 2. 1 Kings xii. 1. ^ John iv. 6.
s See Lightfoot, Vol. i. 49, fol.

15*

174 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

and Shechem, probably the most populous, certainly the
most important, of any in all the Holy Land during the
government of the Judges ; and, constantly recruited by
the confluence of strangers. Ephraim seems to have be-
come (as Jerusalem became afterwards) what Jacob again
foretold, a " multitude of nations."

There are other and more minute incidents left upon
record, all tending to establish the same fact. For F
observe, that amongst the Judges, many, whether them-
selves of Ephraim or not, do appear to have repaired
thither as to the proper seat of government. I find that
Deborah " dwelt under the palm tree, between Ramah
and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim,^^ and that there the
children of Israel went up to her for judgment.^ I find
that Gideon, who was of Ophrah in Manasseh, where he
appears in general to have lived, and where he was at last
buried, had, nevertheless, a family at Shechem, it being
incidentally said, that the mother of his son Abimelech
resided there, and that there Abimelech himself was born :-
a trifle in itself, yet enough, I think, to suggest, that at
Shechem in Ephraim, Gideon did occasionally dwell ; the
discharge of his judicial functions, like those of Pilate at
Jerusalem, probably constraining him to a residence which
he might not otherwise have chosen. I find this same
Shechem the head-quarters of this same Abimelech, and
the support of his cause when he usurped the government
of Israel.3 And I subsequently find Tola, though a man
of Issachar, dwelling in Shamir, in Mount Ephraim,
(Shechem having been recently laid waste,) and judging
Israel twenty and three years.*

Nor is this all. The comparative importance of Eph-
raim amongst the tribes during the time of the Judges, is

« Judges, iv. 5. 2 lb. viii. 27—32; ix. 1. 3 lb. ix. 22. i lb. x. 1.

PART 11. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 175

further detected in the tone of authority, not to say me-
nace, which it occasionally assumes towards its weaker
brethren. Gideon leads several of the tribes against the
Midianites, but Ephraim had not been consulted. " Why
hast thou served us thus," is the angry remonstrance of the
Ephraimites, " that thou calledst us not when thou wentest
to fight with the Midianites ? And they did chide with
him harshly.'" Gideon stoops before the storm ; he dis-
putes not the vast superiority of Ephraim, his gleaning
being more than another's grapes. Jephthah, in later times,
ventures upon a similar invasion of the children of Am-
mon, and discomfits them with great slaughter, but he,
too, without Ephraim's help or cognizance : again the
pride of this powerful tribe is wounded, and " they gather
themselves together, and go northward, and say unto
Jephthah, Wherefore passedest thou over to fight against
the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with
thee ? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire."^ —
All this, the unreasonable conduct of a party conscious that
it has the law of the strongest on its side, and, by virtue
of that law claiming to itself the office of dictator amongst
the neighboring tribes. Well then might David express
himself with regard to the support he expected from this
tribe, in terms of more than common emphasis, when at
last seated on the throne, his title acknowledged through-
out Israel, he reviews the resources of his consolidated
empiie, and exclaims, " Ephraim is the strength of my
head.^'^ Accordingly, all the ten tribes are sometimes ex-
pressed under the comprehensive name of Ephraim^ — and
the gate of Jerusalem which looked towards Israel appears
to have been called, emphatically, the gate of Ephraim^—

' Judges viii. 1. 2 lb. xii. 1. ^ Ps. Ix. 7.

* 2 Chron. xxv. 6 and 7. '2 Kings liv. 13.

17G THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

and Ephraini aiul Judali together represent the^'hole of
the people of Israel, from Dan to Beer-sheba.'

In tracing the seeds of the future dissolution of the ten
from the two tribes, I further remark, that whilst Samuel
himself remains at Ramah, a border town of Benjamin and
Ephraim, (for Shiloh and Shechem were probably now in
possession of the Philistines,) there to sit in judgment on
such causes as Ephfel^Ti and the northern states should
bring before him. he sends his sons to be judges in Beer-
«heba,2 a southern town belonging to Judah,^ as though
there was already some reluctance between these rival
tribes to resort to the same tribunal : and the fierce words
that passed between the men of Israel and the men of Jiir
dah, on the subject of the restoration of David to the throne,
the former claiming ten parts in him, the latter nearness of
kin,^ still indicate that the breach was gradually widening,
and that however sudden was the final disruption of the
bond of union, events had weakened it long before. Indeed,
humanly speaking, nothing could in ail probability have
preserved it, but a continuance of the government of judges,
under God ; who, taken from various tribes, and according
to no established order, might have secured the common-
wealth from that jealousy which an hereditary possession
of power by any one tribe was sure to create, and did cre-
ate ; and which burst out in that bitter cry of Israel, at the
critical moment of the separation, " What portion have we
in David 7 neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse
— to your tents, O Israel : now see to thine own house, Da-
vid."s And so, by the natural motions of the human heart,
did God take vengeance of the people whom he had chosen,

' Isai. vii. 9—17, et alibi ; Ezek. xxxvii. 19. 2 1 Sam. viii. 2.

3 Josh. XV. 28. ♦ 3 Sam. xix. 43. « 1 Kings lii. 16.

PART IT. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 177

for rejecting him for their sovereign, and a king, indeed, he
gave them, as they desired, but he gave him in liis wrath.
'p— Thus have we detected, by the apposition of many dis-
tinct particulars, a gradual tendency of the Ten Tribes
to become confederate under Ephraim : an event, to which
the local position, numerical superiority, and the seat of
national worship, long fixed within the borders of Ephraim,
together conspired.

But meanwhile, it maybe discovered in Hke manner, that
Judah and Benjamin were also, on their part, knitting
themselves in close alliance ; a union promoted by conti-
guity ; by the sympathy of being the only two royal tribes ;
by the connection of the house of David with the house of
Saul, (the political importance of which David appears to
have considered, when he made it a preliminary of his
league with Abner, that Michal should be restored, whose
heart he had nevertheless lost ;') and finally, and perhaps
above all, by the peculiar position selected by the Almighty,-
for the great national temple which was soon to rob Eph-
raim of his ancient honors ;^ for it was not to be planted in
Judah only, or in Benjamin only, but on the confines of
both ; so that whilst the altars, and the holy place, were to
stand within the borders of the one tribe, the courts of the
temple were to extend into the borders of the other tribe,^
and thus, the two were to be riveted together, as it were,
by a cramp, bound by a sacred and everlasting bond, being
in a condition to exclaim, in a sense peculiarly their own.
" The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Ijord are
we."

We have thus traced, by means of the hints with which
Scripture supplies us, (for little more than hints have we

1 2 Sam. iii. 13. 2 i Chron. xviii. 11. 3 Ps. Ixxviii. 67.

< Comp. Josh. XV. 63, and xviii. 28 ; and see Lightfoot, Vol. i. p. 1050 fol.

178 THE VERACITY OF TME PART If.

had,) the two great confederacies into which the tribes
were gradually, perhaps unwittingly, subsiding ; as well ag
some of the circumstances by which eitlier confederacy was
cemented. Let us pursue the subject, but still by means
of the under-current of the history only, towards the schism.
And now Ephraim was called upon to witness prepara-
tions for the transfer of the seat of national worship from
himself to his great rival, with something, we may believe,
of the anguish of Phinehas' wife, when she heard that the
Ark of God was taken, and Shiloh to be no longer its
resting-place ; and I-chabod might be the name for the
mothers of Ephraim at that hour to give to their offspring,
seeing that the glory was departing from among thera.'
For what desolation and disgrace were felt to accompany
this loss, may be gathered from more passages than one in
Jeremiah, where he threatens Jerusalem with a like visita-
tion. " I will do unto this house," (saith the Lord, by the
mouth of the prophet,) " which is called by my name,
wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you,
and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will
cast you ought of my sight, as I have cast out all your
brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim^ And again
— "I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this
city a curse to all the nations of the earth."'- With a
heavy heart, then, nmst this high-spirited and ambitious
tribe have found that " the place which God had chosen
to set his name there," (so often spoken of by Moses, and
the choice suspended so long.) was at length determined,
and determined against him ; that his expectation (for such
would probably be indulged) that God would finally fix his
seat where he had so long fixed his Tabernacle, was over-
thrown ; that the Messiah, whom some sanguine inter-

1 1 Sam. iv. 21. » Jer. vii. 14. 15; xxvi. 6

PART 11. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 179

preters of the prophets amongst his sons had declared
should come from between his feet, was not to be of him;'
but that " refusing the tabernacle of Joseph, and not
choosing any longer the tribe of Ephraiin, (mark the pa-
triotic exultation with which the Psalmist proclaims this,)
God chose the Tribe of Judah and Mount Zion, which he
loved."2

Such was the posture of the nation of Israel, such the
temper of the times, " a branch," as it were, " ready to fall,
swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh sud-
denly at r ii instant," when Solomon began to collect work-
men, and to levy taxes throughout all Israel, for those vast
and costly structures which he reared, even " the house of
the Lord and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of
Jerusalem,"^ besides many more ; in some of them, indeed,
showing himself the pious founder, or the patriot prince ;
but in some, the luxurious sensualist ; and in some, again,
the dissolute patron of idolatry.^ On, however, he went ;
and as if in small things as well as great, this growing
division amongst the tribes (fatal as it was in many re-
spects to prove) was ever to be fostered ; as if the coming
event was on every occasion to be casting its shadow be-
fore, a separate ruler, we read, " was placed over all the
charge of the hmise of Joseph -"' that is, one individual
was made overseer over the work, or the tribute, or both,
of the ten tribes ; for so I understand the phrase, agree-
ably to its meaning in other passages of Scripture.* And

' See on this subject, Allix, Reflections upon the Four last Books of Mo-
ses, p. 180.

2 Ps. Ixxviii. 67. 3 i Kings ix. 15. ^ lb. xi. 7. = lb. xi. 28.

s See 2 Sam. xix. 20, and Pole in loc. rp''r€a:g -rivrdi ^laoanX vn; oi^i-
'luia'itp. Sept. The rights of primogeniture, which Reuben had forfeited,
appear to have been divided between Judah and Joseph : to Judah, the
headship ; to Joseph, the double portion of the eldest son, and whatever else
belonged to the " birthright." See 1 Chron. v. 2. Thus, the people of

180 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

who was he ? — a young man, an industrious man, a mighty
man of valor, (for these quahties Solomon made choice of
him,) and above all, a man of Ephraim ;' Jeroboam it
was.

It is impossible to imagine events working more steadily
towards a given point, than here. The knot had already
shown itself far from indissoluble, and now. time, oppor-
tunity, and a skilful hand, combine to loose it. Here we
have a great body of artificers, almost an army of them-
t^elves, kept together some twenty years — Ephraimiles and
their colleagues engaged in works consecrated to the glory
and aggrandizement of Judah and Benjamin, rather than
to their own — Ephraimites contributing to the removal of
the seat of government from Ephraim to Judah — Eph-
raimites paying taxes great and grievous, not merely to the
erection of a national place of worship, (for to this they
might have given consent, the command being of God,)
but to the construction of palaces for princes, never again
to be of their own hne ; and temples for the idols of those
princes, living and dead, which were expressly contrary to
the command of God — And lastly, we have an Ephraim-
ite, even Jeroboam, with every talent for mischief, endowed
with every opportunity for exercising it ; put into an office
which at once invested him with authority, and secured
him from suspicion, so that his future crown was but the

Israel became biceps, and were comprised under the names of the two heads.
See Judges x. 9, where the house of Ephraim is synonymous with the house
of Joseph.

Lightfoot considers Joseph to have been the principal family while the
Ark was at Shiloh, and all Israel to have been named after it, as in Ps.
Ixxx. 1, but that when God refused Joseph, and chose Judah for the chief,
Ps. Ixxviii. 68, 69, then there began, and continued, a difference and dis-
tinction betwixt Israel and Judah, Joseph and Judah, Ephraim and Judah,
the rest of the tribes being called by all these names, in opposition to Judah.
—Lightfoot, I. 66, fol. i 1 Kings xi. 26.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 181

consummation of his present intrigues ; the issue of his
own subtilty, and the people's discontent. Nor is this
matter of conjecture. Is it not written in the Boole of
Kings, (most casually, however,) that the people of Israel
— 1 speak of Israel as distinguished from Judah and Ben-
jamin — in the first moment of madness, on the accession
of Rehoboam, wreaked their vengeance — upon whom, of
all men? — upon Adoniram, the very man whom Solomon
his father had appointed to levy men and means through-
out Israel, the tax-gatherer for the erection of these stupen-
dous works ! and him, the victim of popular indignation,
did all Israel stone with stones till he died.' The wisdom
and policy of Solomon, indeed, in spite of his faults and
follies, upheld his empire till the last, and saved it from
falling in pieces before the time ; but how completely the
fulness of that time was come, is clear, when no sooner
was he dead, than his son, and rightful successor, found it
expedient to hasten to iShechem, there to meet all Israel,
conscious as he was, that however his title was admitted
by Judah, it was quite another thing whether Ephraim
would give in his allegiance too ; and, as the event proved,
his apprehensions were not without a cause. ^

And now Jeroboam, a man to seize upon any seeming
advantages which his situation aflforded him, at once en-
listed the ancient sympathies of the people, by forthwith
rebuilding Shechem, which had been burned by Abim-
elech,^ and making it his residence, though he had all the
northern tribes among whom to choose ; and with similar
policy, he proceeded to provide for them a worship of their
own, nor would allow that " in Jerusalem alone was the
place where men ought to worship'' — a worship, rather, I
think, a gross corruption, than an utter abandonment of

> 1 Kings V. 14; xii. 18. 2 lb. xii. 1. ^ lb. xii. 25.

16

182 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

the true, the idolatry of the second, more than of the first
commandment, though the two offences are very closely
connected, and almost of necessity run into one another
For I observe, throughout the whole history of the kings
of Israel, a distinction made between the sin of Jeroboam
and the worship of Baal, somewhat in favor of the former ;
and that, offensive as they both were to the one Eternal
and Invisible God, Baal-worship was the greater abomina-
tion. Perhaps, too, it may be added, that this distinction
is recognized by the apostle, whose words are, that " the
glory of the incorruptible God was," — not altogether ab-
jured — but " changed into an image made like four-footed
beasts.'" But, however this may be, a worship of their
own, independent of the temple, and of the regular priest-
hood, Jeroboam established, still building upon the rites of
old time, and accommodating the calendar of feasts in some
measure to that which had existed before ;2 and whatever
might be his reason for selecting Bethel for one of his
calves, whether the holy character of the place itself, or
its vicinity to the still holier Shiloh,^ whither the people had
habitally resorted, I discover a very sufficient reason for
his choice of Dan for the other, exclusive of all considera-
tion of local convenience, the curious circumstance, that in
this town there had already prevailed for ages a form of
worship, or of idolatry (I should rather say), very closely
resembling that which he now proposed to set up through-
out Israel, and furnishing him, if not with a strict pre-
cedent, at least with a most suitable foundation on which
to work. For in this town stood the teraphim, or images
of Micah, whatever might be their shape, which the
original founders of Dan had taken with them, and planted
there ; and a priesthood there was to minister to these

1 Rom. i. 23. 2 1 Kings xii. 32; Hosea ii. II ; ix. 5.

3 Judges xxi. 19.

PRAT II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 183

images, precisely like that of Jeroboam, not of the sacer-
dotal order, for they were sons of Manassah ; and thus
was there an organized system of dissent from the national
church, existing in the town of Dan, " all the time that
the House of God was in Shiloh ;"' and thus was accom-
plished, I suspect, that mysterious prediction of Jacob,
" Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path,
that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall back-
ward."2

On the present occasion, those, undesigned coincidences,
which are the staple of my argument, have not been pre-
sented in so perspicuous a manner as they might have
been sometimes ; for the attention has, in this instance,
been directed not to one point, singled out of several, but to
the details of a continuous history. This I could not avoid.
At the same time, these details, on a review of them, will
be found to involve many minute coincidences, and those
just such as constitute the difference between the best-im-
agined story in the world and a narrative of actual facts.
For let this be borne in mind, that the sketch which I have
offered of the gradual development of the schism between
Israel and Judah, is by no means an abridgment of the ob-
vious Scripture account of it — very far from it. — Looking to
that part of Scripture which directly relates to this schism,
and confining ourselves to that, we might be led to think
the rent of the kingdom as sudden and unshaped an event,
as the rending of the prophet's mantle, which was its type :
for here, as elsewhere, the history is rapid and abrupt.
What I have offered is, strictly speaking, a theory ; a the-
ory by which a great many loose and scattered data, such
as Scripture affords to a diligent inquirer, and to no other,
are, with much seeming consistency, combined into a

1 Judges xviii. 31. 2 Gen. xlix. 17.

184

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

whole; it is the pattern which graduall}^ comes out, when
the many-colored threads, gleaned up as we have gone
along, are worked into a web,

1. For instance — lean conceive it very possible, without
claiming to myself any pecuhar sagacity, for a man to read,
and not inattentively either, the sacred books from Joshua
to Chronicles, and yet never happen to be struck with the
fact that Ephraim was a leading tribe ; that it was the
head, allowed or understood, of an easy confederacy ; the
thing is scarcely to be discovered but by the apposition of
many passages, dispersed through these books, bearing,
perhaps, little or no relation to one another, except that of
having a common bias towards this one point. The same
may be said of the main cause of this comparative superi-
ority of Ephraim, the accidental, as some would call it,—
as we will call it, the providential, estabHshment of the
Tabernacle within its borders. The circumstance of Shiloh
being the place whither all Israel went up to worship for
three centuries or more, all important as it was to the tribe
whom it concerned, is noip7(t forward either as account-
ing for the prosperity of Ephraim above its fellows, whilst
in Ephraim the Ark stood ; or for the jealousy which it
discovered towards Judah, when to Judah the Ark had
been transferred ; nor yet as being the natural means by
which the remarkable words of Jacob were brought to pass,
touching the future pre-eminence of Ephraim and Judah,
howbeit, as tribes, they were then but in the loins of their
fathers. So far from this, when in the Book of Joshua we
are told that the Tabernacle was set up in Shiloh, not a
syllable is added by which we can guess where Shiloh
was, whether in Ephraim or elsewhere ;' and it is only af-
ter some investigation, and by inference at last, that in
Ephraim we can fix it.

' Josh, xviii. 1.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 185

2. The same is true of the league between Benjamin
and Judah. What were the sympathies beyond mere
proximity, Avhich cemented them so firmly, is altogether a
matter for ourselves to unravel, if unravel it we can. We
isee them, indeed, acting in concert, as we see also the other
tribes acting, but the books of Scripture enter into no ex-
planations in either case. Nevertheless, I find in one
place, that Saul, the first king, was of Benjamin, and in
another, that David, the second king, was of Judah, with
a prospect of a continuance of the succession in that line ;
and here I perceive a mutual sympathy likely to spring
out of the exclusive honors of the two royal tribes. Else-
where, I find that the two royal houses of Saul and David
were imited by marriage, and here I detect a further ap-
proximation. I look again, and learn that a temple was
built for national worship in a city, which one text places
in Judah, and a parallel text in Benjamin, leaving me to
infer (as was the fact) that the city was on the confines
of both, and that upon the confines of both (as was also
the fact) the foundations of the temple were laid. Jn
these, and perhaps in other similar matters, which might
be enumerated, I certainly do discover elements of union,
however the writers, who record them, may never speak
of them as such.

3. Again ; the motives which operated with Jeroboam
in the selection of Shechem for his residence, or of Dan
for his idolatry, are not even glanced at, though, in either
instance, reasons there were, we have seen, to make the
choice judicious. And whilst we are told that he fled from
Solomon, when the conspirator was detected in him, or
when Ahijah's prophecy awakened the monarch's fears,
and went into Egypt, and that from Egypt, at the death
of Solomon, he hasted back to take his part in those stir-
ring times, no hint, the most remote, is thrown out, that

16*

186 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

his sojourn in that idolatrous land, and the peculiar nature
of its idolatry, influenced him in the choice of a calf for
the representation of his own God, though the one fact
does very curiously corroborate the other, and still adds
credibility to the whole history.

In all this I discover much of coincidence, nothing of de-
sign. I see an extraordinary revolution asserted, and then
my eyes being opened, I perceive that the seeds of it, not
however described as such, and often so small as to be
easily overlooked, had been cast upon the waters genera-
tions before. I see coalitions and convulsions in the body
politic of Israel, and I find, not without some pains-taking,
and after all but in part, attractive or repulsive principles
at work in that body, which, without being named as
causes, do account for such effects. 1 see both in persons
and places, so soon as I become intimately acquainted with
their several bearings, something appropriate to the events
with which they are connected, though I see nothing of
the kind at first, because no such propriety appears upon
the surface. These I hold to be the characters of truth,
and the history upon which they are stamped I ac-
cordingly receive, nothing doubting — meanwhile, not fail-
ing to remark, and to admire, the silent transition of events
into those very channels which Jacob in spirit had de-
clared ages before ; and to acknowledge, without attempt-
ing fully to understand, the mysterious workings of that
Controlling Power, which can make men its instruments
without making them its tools ; at once compeUing them
to do His will, and permitting them to do their own :
proving himself faithful, and leaving them free.

(i)tX- k>^\%\y\^

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 187

XVI.

The next coincidences I have to offer will turn on the
condition of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, whether
political or religious, as it was affected by their separation ;
and will supply evidence to the truth of the history.

" And Baasha, King of Israel," we read, " went up
against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer
any to go out or come in to Asa King of Judah.'

Ramah seems to have been a border town, between the
kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and to have stood in such
a position as to be the key to either. The King of Israel,
however, was the party anxious to fortify it, not the King
of Judah ; indeed, the latter, as we learn from the Chron-
icles,"^ did his best to frustrate the efforts of Baasha, and
succeeded, apparently not desirous of having Ramah con-
verted into a place of strength, though it should be in his
own keeping ; for Asa having contrived to draw Baasha
away from this work, does not seize upon it and complete
it for himself, but contents himself with carrying off the
stones and the timber, and using them elsewhere. It is
evident, therefore, that it was an object with the kings of
Israel, that this strong frontier-post should be established,
— with the kings of Judah, that it should be removed.
Now this is singular, when we remember, that after the
i:;cliisni the numerical strength lay vastly on the side of
Israel, one hundred and eighty thousand men being all
that Judah could then count in his ranks,^ whereas eight
hundred thousand were actually produced a few years
ufterwards by Jeroboam, and even then he was not what
he had been.^ It was to be expected, therefore, that the

1 1 Kings. XV. 17. 2 2 Chron. xvi. 6.

3 1 Kings xii. 31. * 2 Chron. xiii. 3.

188

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

fear of invasion would have been upon Judah alone, the
weaker state, and that, accordingly, Judah would have
gladly taken, and kept possession of a fortress which was
the bridle of the kingdom on that side, and have made it
strong for himself Yet, as we have seen, the fact was
quite the other way. How is this to be explained ? By a
single circumstance, which accounts for a great deal be-
sides this ; though the explanation presents itself in the
most incidental manner imaginable, and without the
smallest reference to the particular case of Ramah.

In the twelfth chapter of the first Book of Kings, I read
(v. 20), that '-Jeroboam said in his heart. Now shall the
kingdom return to the house of David, if this people go up
to sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem ;" and
that accordingly he set up a worship of his own in Bethel
and Dan.

In the eleventh chapter of the second Book of Chron-
icles; I read (v. 14) that " he cast off the Levites" (as in-
deed it was most natural that he should) " from executing
the priest's office," and ordained him priests after his own
pleasure. I read further, that in consequence of this sub-
version of the Church of God, " the priests and the Levites
that were in all Israel resorted unto Judah out of all their
coasts ;" nor they only, the ministers of God, who might
well migrate, but that '• after them out of all the tribes of
Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of
their fathers ; so they strengthened" (it is added) " the
kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam, the son of Solo-
mon strong," (v. 16, 17.) The son of Nebat was a great
politician in his own w^ay, but he had yet to learn, that by
righteousness is a nation really exalted, and that its right-
eous citizens are those by whom the throne is in truth up-
held. These he was condemned to lose ; these he and his^
ungodly successors were to see gradually waste away

■^

PART U. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 189

before their eyes ; depart from a kingdom founded in in-
iquity ; and transfer their allegiance to another and a
better soil. Hence the natural solicitude of Israel to put
a stop to the alarming drainage of all that was virtuous
out of their borders, and the clumsy contrivance of a forti-
fication at Ramah for the purpose ; as though a spirit of
uncompromising devotion to God. happily the most uncon-
querable of things, was to be coerced by a barrier of bricks.
Hence, too, the no less natural solicitude of Judah to re-
move this fortification, Judah being desirous that no ob-
stacle, however small, should be opposed to the influx of
those virtuous Israelites, who would be the strength of any
nation wherein they settled. Here I find a coincidence of
the most satisfactory kind, between the building of Ramah
hy Israel, the overthroio of it by Judah, and the tide of
emigration which was setting in from Israel towards
Judah, by reason of Jeroboam's idolatry. Yet the relation
of these events to one another is not expressed in the his-
tory, nor are the events named under the same head, or in
the same chapter.

XVII.

Nor is this all. Still keeping in mind this single con-
sideration, that the more godly of the people of the ten
tribes were disgusted at the calves, and retired, we may at
once account for the progressive augmentation of the
armies of Judah, and the corresponding decrease of the
armies of Israel, which the subsequent history of the two
kingdoms casually, and at intervals displays.

Immediately after the separation, Rehoboam assembled
the forces of his two tribes, and found them, as I have
said, one hundred and eighty thousand men. Some eigh-

190 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II,

leen years afterwards, Ahijah, his son, was able to raise
against Jeroboam (who still, however, was vastly stronger)
four hundred thousand.* This is a considerable step.
Some six or seven years later, Asa, the son of Ahijah, is
invaded by a countless host of Ethiopians. On this occa-
sion, notwithstanding the numbers which must have fallen
already in the battle with Jeroboam, he brings into the
field five hundred and eighty thousand : so rapidly were
the resources of Judah on the advance. About two and
thirty years later still, the army of Jehoshaphat, the son of
Asa, consists of one miUion one hundred and sixty thou-
sand men f a prodigious increase in the population of the
kingdom of Judah,

On the other hand, we may trace (the act, it must be
observed, is altogether our own, no such comparison being
instituted in the history) the gradual decay and depopula-
tion of the kingdom of Israel. Jeroboam himself, we have
found, was eight hundred thousand strong. The contin-
ual diminution of this national army, we cannot in the
present instance, always trace from actual numbers, as we
did in the former ; but, from circumstances which transpire
in the history, we can trace it by inference. Thus, Ahab,
one of the successors of Jeroboam, and contemporary with
Jehoshaphat, whose immense armaments we have seen, is
threatened by Benhadad and the Syrians, Benhadad
will send men to take out of his house, and out of the
houses of his servants, whatever is pleasant in their eyes.^
It is the insolent message of one who felt Israel to be weak,
and being xyeak, to invite aggression. Favored by a panic,
Ahab triumphs for the once ; but at the return of the
year Benhadad returns. Ahab is warned of this long
before. " Go strengthen thyself," is the friendly exhorta-

» 2 Chron. xiii, 3. « lb. xvii. 14—18. 3 i Kings xx. 6.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 191

tion of the prophet (v. 22.) — no doubt he did so, to the
best of his means, but after all, " when the children of
Israel were numbered, and were all present, and went
against them, the children of Israel pitched before the
Syrians hke tico little flocks of kids, but the Syrians filled
the country" (v. 27). And in Joram's days, the son and
successor of Ahab, such was the boldness of Syria, and
the weakness of Israel, that the former was constantly
sending marauding parties, ''companies," as they are
called, or " bands,"' into Israel's quarters, sometimes
taking the inhabitants captive, and sometimes even lay-
ing siege to considerable towns.^ And in the reign of
Jehu, the next king, Syria, with Hazael at its head, crip-
pled Israel still more terribly, actually seizing upon all the
land of Jordan eastward, Gilead, the Gadites, the Reuben-
ites, and the Manassites, from Aroer to Bashan.' And to
complete the picture, the whole army of Jehoahaz, the
next in the royal succession of Israel, consisted of fifty
horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot, Syria hav-
ing exterminated the rest ;* so gradually was Israel upon
the decline.

Now it must be remembered, in order that the force of
the argument may be felt, that no parallel of the kind we
have been drawing is found in the history itself; no invi-
tation to others to draw one : the materials for doing so it
does indeed furnish, dispersed, however, over a wide field,
and less definite than might be wished, were our object to
ascertain the relative strength of the two kingdoms with
exactness ; that, however, it is not ; and the very circum-
stance, that the gradual growth of Judah, and declension
of Israel, are sometimes to be gathered from other facts
than positive numerical evidence, is enough in itself to show

1 2 Kings V. 2; vi. 2, 3; xiii. 21. 2 lb. vi 14. 23.

3 lb. X. 33. 4 lb. xiii. 7.

192' THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

that the historian could have no (/e^/o-^ studiously to point
out the coincidence of facts with his casual assertion, that
the Levites had been supplanted by the priests of the calves,
and that multitudes had quitted the country with them, in
just indignation.

XVIII.

There is still another coincidence which falls under the
same head.

In the fifteenth chapter of the first Book of Kings (v. 28)
I read that " Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of
Issaciiar, conspired against him (i. e. Nadab the son of Je-
roboam) at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines ;
for Nadab and all Israel laid siege to Gibbethon."

It appears then that Gibbethon, situated in the tribe of
Dan, had by some means or other fallen into the hands of
the Philistines, and that the forces of Israel were now en-
gaged in recovering possession of it. It may seem a very
hopeless undertaking, at this time of day, to ascertain the
circumstances of which an enertiy availed himself, in order
to gain possession of a particular town in Canaan, near
three thousand years ago. Yet, perliaps, the investigation,
distant as it is, is not desperate — for in the twenty-first
chapter of Joshua (v. 23) I find Gibbethon and her suburbs
mentioned as a city of the Levites. Now Jeroboam, we
have heard, drove all the Levites out of Israel ; what then
can be more probable, than that Gibbethon, being thus sud-
denly evacuated, the Philistines, a remnant of the old en-
emy, still lurking in the country, and ever ready to rush in
wherever there was a breach, should have spied an oppor-
tunity in the defenceless state of Gibbethon, and claimed

'J^j

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 193

it as their own ?• It is indeed far from improbable that this
story of Gibbethon is that of many other Levitical cities
throughout Israel ; that this is but a ghmpse of much sim-
ilar confusion, misery, and intestine tumult, by which that
kingdom was now convulsed ; and though a solitary fact
in itself, a type of many more ; — and thus, in another way,
did the profane act of Jeroboam operate to the downfall of
his kingdom, and fatally eat into its strength.

Whether I am right in this conjecture, it is impossible
to tell ; the case does not admit of positive decision either
way ; but, certainly, the grounds upon which it rests are,
to say the least, very suspicious ; and if they are sound, as
I think they are, I cannot imagine a point of harmony
more complete, or more undesigned, than that which we
have found between these half dozen words touching Gib-
bethon, a Levitical city, lapsing into the hands of the Phi-
hstines, and the expulsion of the Levites out of Israel by
the sin of Jeroboam.

XIX.

Nor is this all. There is another and a still more val-
uable coincidence yet, connected with this part of my sub-

1 That the Philistines were thus dispersed over the land may be gathered
from many Iiints in Scripture ; even in the kingdom of Judah they were to
be found, much more in Israel. " Some of the Philistines brought Jehosha-
phat presents and tribute silver," S Ohron. xvii. 11. Probably the mis-
creants mentioned I Kings -rv. l2, whom Asa expelled, and those mentioned
xxii. 46, whom Jehoshaphat liis son drove out, and those again mentioned
2 Kings xxiii. 7, who were established even at Jerusalem, whom Josiah cast
out, were all of this nation. And there still were Hittites somewhere at
hand, who had even kings of their own, 1 Kings x. 29; 2 Kings vii. 6;
and we read of a land of the Philistines, where the Shunamitess sojourned
during the famine, 2 Kings viii. 2 — all evident tokens, that a considerable
body of the primitive inhabitants of Palestine still dwelt in it.

17

194 THE VERACITY OF THE PART [I.

ject ; more valuable, because involving in itself a greater
number of particulars, and, therefore, more liable to a flaw,
if the combination was artificial. When Elijah has worked
his great miracle on the top of Carmel, and kindled the
sacrifice by fire from heaven, he has to fly from Jezebel for
his life, who swears that, by the morrow, she will deal with
him as he had dealt with the prophets of Baal her god. and
slay him.i Now when it was so common a practice, as we
have seen, for the godly amongst the people of Israel to
betake themselves to Judah in their distress, there to wor-
ship the God of their Fathers without scandal and without
persecution, it seems obvious that this was the place for
Elijah to repair unto ; — ^themost appropriate, for it was be-
cause he had been very jealous for the Lord that he was
banished — the most convenient, for no other was so near ;
he had but to cross the borders, one would think, and he
was safe. Yet neither on this occasion, nor yet during the
three preceding years of drought, when Ahab sought to lay
hands upon him, did Elijah seek sanctuary in Judah.
First he hides himself by the brook Cherith, which is be-
fore Jordan ]^ then at " Zarephath which belongs to Zidon ;"
and though he does at last, when his case seems desperate,
and his hours are numbered by Jezebel's sentence "come
in haste to Beer-sheba, which belongeth to Judah,''''^ still it
is after a manner which bespeaks his reluctance to set foot
within that territory, p.ven more than if he had evaded it
altogether. Tarry he will not ; he separates from his ser-
vant, probably for the greater secavity of both : ffoes a day's

1 1 Kings xviii. 40; xix. 2.

2 It ie true that there is a great difference of opinion as to the situation of
this broolc Cherith; but from the direction given to Elijah being to turn
Eastioard, when he was to go there, he being at the time in Samaria, it is
clear that it could not be in .Tudah. — Consult Lightfoot, Vol. ii. 3l8, fol. .

3 1 Kings xix. 3.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 195

journey into the wilderness, and forlorn, and spirit-broken
and alone, begs that he may die ; then he wanders away.
being so taught of God, forty days and forty nights, till he
comes to Horeb, the Mount of God, and there conceals him-
self in a cave. Now all this is at first sight very strange
and unaccountable ; strange and unaccountable, that the
Prophet of God should so studiously avoid Judah, the peo-
ple of God, governed as it then was by Jehoshaphat, a
prince who walked with God,' — Judah being of all others
a shelter the nearest and most convenient. How is it to
be explained ?

I doubt not by this fact; that Jehoshaphat king of
Judah had already married, or was then upon the point of
marrying, his son Jehoram to Athaliah, the daughter of
this very Ahab, and this very Jezebel, who were seeking
Elijah's hfe j*^ his, therefore, was not now the kingdom in
which Elijah could feel that a residence was safe ; for by
this ill-omened match (such it proved) the? houses of Je-
hoshophat and Ahab were so strictly kfentified, that we
find the former, when solicited by Ah^O to join him in an
expedition against Ramoth-gilead. expressing himself in
such terms as these : " I am as thou art, my people as thy
people, my horses as thy horses ;'" and in allusion, as it
should seem, to this fraternity ot the two kings, Jehosha-
phat is in one place actually called " King of Israel."*

It may be demonstrated that this fatal marriage (for
such it was in its consequences) was, at any rate, con-
tracted not later than the tenth or eleventh of Ahab's
reign, and it might have been much earlier ; whilst these
scenes in the life of Elijah could not have occurred within
the first few years of that reign, seeing that Ahab had to

I 2 Kings xxii. 43. 2 lb. viii. 18 ; 2 Chron. xviii. 1.

3 1 Kings xxii. 4. ♦ 2 Chron. xxi. 2.

196 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

fill up the measnre of his wickedness after he came to the
throne, before the Prophet was commissioned to take up
his parable against him. I mention these two facts, as
tending to prove that the exile of Elijah could not have
fallen out long, if at all, before the marriage ; and there-
fore that the latter event, whether past or in prospect,
might well bear upon it. I say that it may be proved that
this marriage was not later tlian the tenth or eleventh of
Ahab — for

1. Ahaziah, the fruit of the marriage, the son of Jehoram
and Athaliah, began to reign in the twelfth year of Joram.
son of Ahab, king of Israel.'

2. But Joram began to reign in the eighteenth year of
Jehoshaphat king of Judah.'^

3. Therefore, the twelfth of Joram would answer to the
thirtieth of Jehoshaphat, (had the latter reigned so long ;
it did, in fact, answer to the seventh of Jehoram, the son
of Jehoshapha-t \^ but there is no need to perplex the com-
putation by any reference to this reign ;) and accordingly
Ahaziah must ha\« begun his reign in what would corres-
pond to the thirtieth of Jehoshaphat.

4. But he was tweniy-two when he began it. There-
fore he must have been boTu about the eighth year of Je-
hoshaphat; and consequently the marriage of Jehoram
and Athaliah, which gave birth to him, must have been
contracted at least as early as the sixth or seventh of Je-
hoshaphat,

5. Now Jehoshaphat began to reign in the fourth of
Ahab, king of Israel ; therefore the marriage must have
been solemnized as early as the tenth or eleventh of Ahab
— how much earlier it was solemnized, in fact, we cannot
tell ; but the result is extremely curious ; and without the

I 2 Kings viii. 25, 26. "- lb. iii. 1 . "

3 Comp. 2 Kings iii. I ; viii. 18. 1 Kings xxii. 42.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 197

most remote allusion to it on the part of the sacred histo-
rian, as being an incident in any way governing the move-
ments of Elijah, it does furnish, when we are once in pos-
session of it. a most satisfactory explanation of the shyness
of Elijah to look for a refuge in a country where, almost
under any other circumstances, it was the most natural he
should have sought one ; and, where, at any other time,
since the division of the kingdoms, he certainly would have
found not only a refuge, but a welcome.

XX.

I HAVE already advanced several arguments for the
truth of that remarkable portion of Scripture which tells
the history of the great prophet Elijah, and showed, that,
on comparing some of the reputed events of his life with
the political and domestic state of his country at the time,
the reality of those events was estabhshed beyond all rea-
sonable doubt. But I have not yet done with this part of
my subject ; and I press on the notice of my readers once
again, as I have repeatedly pressed it before, the considera-
tion that these casual indications of truth, found in the
very midst of miracles the most striking, give great support
to the credibility of those miracles ; that the portions of
the history on which these seals of truth are set, combine
with the other and more extraordinary portions so inti-
mately, that if the former are to be received, the latter can-
not be rejected without extreme violence, and laceration
of the whole : that standing or falling, they must stand or
fall together.

I spoke before of the flight of Elijah, and gave my rea-
sons for beheving it. I speak now of a trifling incident in
that magnificent scene which is said to have been the pro-

17*

19S

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

logue to his flight. This it is. Twelve barrels of water,
at the command of the prophet, are poured upon the sacri-
fice, and fill the trench. But is it not a strange thing, that
at a moment of drought so intense, when the king himself
and the governor of his house, trusting the business to no
inferior agent, actually undertook to examine with their
own eyes the watering-places throughout all the land, di-
viding it between them, to see if they could save the re-
mainder of the cattle ahve ;' when the prophet had been
long before compelled to leave Cherith, because the brook
was dried up, and for no reason else, and to crave at the
hands of the widow-woman of Zarephath, whither he had
removed, though a land of danger to him, a little Avater in
a vessel that he might drink ; is it not, I say, a gross oversight
in the sacred writer, to make Elijah, at such a time, give or-
der for this wanton waste of water above all things, whereof
scarcely a drop was to be found to cool the tongue ; and
not only so, but to describe it as forthcoming at once, ap-
parently without any search made, an ample an^ abundant
reservoir P How can these things be ? Let us but remem-
ber the local position of Carmel, that it stood upon the coast,
as an incidental remark in the course of the narrative tes-
tifies ; that the water was therefore probably sea-water;
and all the difficulty disappears. But the historian does
not trouble himself to satisfy our surprise, being altogether
unconscious that he has given any cause for it ; he, honest
man as he w^as, tells his tale, a faithful one as he feels,
and the objection which we have alleged, and which a
single word would have extinguished, he leaves to shock
us as it may, nothing heeding.

But would not an impostor have preserved the keeping

1 1 Kings, xviii. 5.

2 Bishop Hall in his Contemplations shows himself aware of the diffi-
culty in this passage; but not of its probable solution. B. xviii. Comtempl. 7,

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 199

of his picture better, and been careful not to violate seem-
ing probabilities by this prodigal profusion of water, whilst
his action was laid in a miraculous drought, for the re-
moval of which, indeed, this very sacrifice was offered —
or, if of these twelve barrels he must needs speak, by way
of silencing all insinuation, that the whole was a scene
got up, and that fire was secreted, would he not have
studiously told us, at least, that the water was from the
sea which lay at the foot of Carmel, and thus have guarded
himself against sceptical remarks ? Now when I see this
momentous period of Elijah's ministry compassed in on
every side with tokens of truth so satisfactory ; when I
see so much in his history established as matter of fact,
am I to consider all that is not so established, merely be-
cause materials are wanting for the purpose, as matters of
fiction only ? Or, taking my stand upon the good faith
with which his flight, at least, is recorded, an event which,
in itself, I look upon as proved beyond all reasonable doubt
by a former coincidence ; or upon the good faith with
which his challenge at Carmel is recorded, an event not
unsatisfactorily confirmed by this coincidence ; or rather
upon the veracity of both facts, shall I not feel my way
along from the prophet's recoil on setting foot in Judah, to
the anger of Jezebel, with whom Judah was then in close
alliance ; from this anger of hers, to the cause assigned
for it in the slaughter of her priests ; from the slaughter
of her priests, to the authority by which he did the deed,
himself a defenceless individual, in a country full of the
inveterate worshippers of the god of those priests ; and
thus, finally, shall I not ascend to the mighty miracle by
which that authority was conveyed to him, God in pledge
thereof touching the mountain that it smoked ?

200 THE VERACITY OP THE PART II.

XXI

Towards the end of the famine caused by this drought
Elijah is commanded by God to "get him to Zerephath,
which helongeth to Zidoii, and dwell there ; where a
widow-woman was to sustain him.'" He goes ; finds the
woman gathering sticks near the gates of the city ; and
asks her to fetch him a little water and a morsel of bread.
She replies, " As the Lord thy God hveth, I have not a
cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in
a cruse : and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I
may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may
eat it, and die."^

This widow-woman then dwelt at Zarepkath, or Sa-
repta, it seems, which belongeth to Zidoji. Now from a
passage in the book of Joshua^ we learn that the district
of Zidon, in the division of the land of Canaan, fell to the
lot of Asher. Let us then turn to the thirty-third chapter
of Deuteronomy, where Moses blesses the Tribes, and see
the character he gives of this part of the country : " of
Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children ; let him
be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip Ids foot in
oil ;"^ indicating the future fertility of that region, and the
nature of its principal crop. It is likely, therefore, that at
the end of a dearth, of three years and a half, oil should
be found there, if anywhere. Yet this symptom of truth
occurs once more as an ingredient in a miraculous history
— for the oil was made not to fail till the rain came. The
incident itself is a very minute one ; and minute as it is,
only discovered to be a coincidence by the juxtaposition of
several texts from several books of Scripture. It would

1 1 Kings xvii. 9. 2 lb. xvii. 12.

3 Josh. xix. 28. 4 Deut. xxxiii. 24.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 201

require a very circumspect forger of the story to introduce
the mention of the oil ; and when he had introduced it,
not to be tempted to betray himself by throwing out some
slight hint why he had done so.

XXII.

Not long after this period, the history of Elisha fur-
nishes us with a coincidence characteristic, I think, of
truth. It appears that " a great w^oman " of Shechem
had befriended the prophet, finding him and his servant,
from time to time, as they passed by that place, food and
lodging. In return for this he sends her a message, "Be-
hold thou hast been careful for us with all this care ;
what is to be done for thee ? loouldest thou he sj)okenfor
to the king, or to the captain of the host ?"' Now we
should have gathered from previous passages in Elisha's
history, that Jehoram, who was then king of Israel, was
not one with whom he was upon such terms as this pro-
position to the Shunammite implies. Jehoram was the
son of Ahab, his old master Elijah's enemy, and appar-
ently no friend of his own ; for when the three kings, the
king of Israel, the king of Judah, and the king of Edom,
in their distress for water, in their expedition against
Moab, wished to inquire of the Lord through Elisha, his
answer to the king of Israel was, " As the Lord of hosts
liveth, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I re-
gard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, /
loould not look toward thee, nor see theeP^ What then
had occurred in the interval betwixt this avowal, and his
proposal to the Shunammite to use his influence in her

1 2 Kings iv. 13. 2 lb. iii. 14.

202 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

favor at court, which had changed his position with re-
spect to the king of Israel ? It may be supposed that it
was the sudden supply of water, which he had furnished
these kings with, by God's permission, thus saving the ex-
pedition ; and the defeat of the enemy, to which it had
been instrumental.' This would naturally make Elisha
feel that the king of Israel was under obligations to him.
and that he could ask a sUght favor of him without seem-
ing to sanction the character of the man by doing so.
And this solution of the case appears to be the more prob-
able, from EUsha couphng the '• captain of the host" with
the king ; as though his interest was equally good with
him too, which he might reasonably consider it to be,
when he had done the army such signal service.

C

XXIII.

A WORD upon the marriage of which 1 spoke in a
former paragraph. Evil was the day for Judah when the
son of Jehoshaphat took for a wife the daughter of Ahab,
and of Jezebel, ten times the daughter. Singular, indeed,
is the hideous resemblance of Athaliali to her mother,
though our attention is not at all directed to the likeness ;
and were the fidelity of the history staked upon the few
incidents in it which relate to tliis female fiend, it would
be safe — so characteristic are they of the child of Jezebel
— the same thirst for blood ; the same lust of dominion,
whether in the state or the household ; the same unfem-
inine influence over the kings their husbands; Jezebel,
the setter-up of Baal in Israel ; Athaliah in Judah — those
bitter fountains, from which disasters innumerable flowed

» 2 Kings iii. 16, 17.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 203

to either kingdom/ preparing the one for a Shahiianezer,
the other for a Nebuchadnezzar. But this by the way.
Whatever might be the motive which induced so good a
prince as Jehoshaphat to sanction this alliance ; whether,
indeed, it was of choice, and in the hope of re-uniting the
two kingdoms, which is probable ; or whether it was of
compulsion, the act of an impetuous son, and not his own
— for the subsequent history of Jehoram shows how little
he was disposed to yield to his father's will, when his own
was thwarted by it^ — certain it is that it proved a sad
epoch in the fate and fortunes of Judah ; a calamity al-
most as withering in its effects upon that kingdom, as the
sin of Jeroboam had been upon his own. Up to the time
of Jehoshaphat, Judah had prospered exceedingly ; hence-
forward there is a taint of Baal introduced ipto the blood
royal, and a curse for a long time, though not without
intermissions, seems to rest upon the land. The even
march with which the two kingdoms now advance hand
in hand is early seen ; they were now bent upon grinding
at the same mill ; and a remarkable instance of coinci-
dence without design here presents itself, which the gen-
eral observations I have been making may serve to intro-
duce.

1. Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, I read,^ began to reign
over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehosha-
phat king of Judah.

2. But Jehoram, the son of Ahab, began to reign over
Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat
king of Judah, his brother Ahaziah being dead.^

3. Elsewhere, however, it is said that this Jehoram, the
son of Ahab, began to reign in the second year of Jehoram
son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah.'

1 See Hosea xiii. 1. 2 2 Chron. xxi. 3, 4. ^ I Kings xxii. 51.
4 2 Kings iii. 1. s lb. i. 17.

204 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

4. Therefore, the second year of Jehorain son of Je-
hoshaphat must have corresponded with the eighteenth of
Jehoshaphat ; or, in other words, Jehoram must have begun
to reign in the seventeenth of Jehoshaphat.

It is obvious that the maze of dates and names thus
brought together from various places in Scripture, through
which the argument is to be pursued, renders all con-
trivance, collusion, or packing of facts, for the purpose of
supporting a conclusion, utterly impossible. Now the re-
sult of the whole is this, that AJiaziah, the son* of Ahab
king of Israel, and Jehorain, the son of Jehoshaphat king
of Judah, both began to reign in the satne year^ in the
respective kingdoms of their fathers, their fathers being
nevertheless themselves alive, and active sovereigtis at
the time. Is* there anything by which this simultaneous
adoption of these young men to be their fathers' colleagues
can be accounted for ? An identity so remarkable in the
proceedings of the confederate kingdoms, can scarcely be
accidental. Let us then endeavor to ascertain what event
was in progress in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat.^
the year in which the two appointments were made.

Now Jehoshaphat began to reign in the fourth of Ahab.^
But Ahab died in the great battle against' Ramoth-gilead,
having reigned twenty-two years ]^ he died therefore in
the eighteenth of Jehoshaphat.

Accordingly, in the seventeenth of that monarch, the
year in which we are concerned, the two kings were pre-
paring to go up against Ramoth, — a measure upon which
they did not venture without long and grave deliberation,
concentration of forces, application to prophets touching
their prospects of success.^

But when they approached this hazardous enterprise in

» 1 Kings xxii. 41. 2 ib, xvi. 29. 3 ib. xxii.

P^^RT II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 205

a spirit so cautious, can anything be more probable, than
that each monarch should then have made his son a part-
ner of his throne, in order that, during his own absence
with the army, there might be one left behind to rule at
home, and in case of the father's death in battle, (Ahab
did actually fall,) to reign in his stead ? There can be
little or no doubt that this is the true solution of the case,
though the text itself of the narrative does not contain
the slightest intimation that it is so.

XXIV.

Such arrangements, indeed, were not unusual in those
days and in those countries. Here is a further proof of it,
and at the same time a coincidence which is a companion
to the last.

1. "In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah
began Jehoash. the son of Jehoahaz, to reign over Israel
in Samaria." So we are told in one passage.' But, in
another,^ that, " In the second year of Joash (Jehoash),
the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, reigned Amaziah, the
son of Joash, king of Judah."

2. Therefore, Amaziah, king of Judah, reigned in the
thirty-ninth of Joash, king of Judah.

3. Novv' we learn from a passage in the second Book of
Chronicles,^ that " Joash reigned forty years in Jerusalem."

4. Therefore Amaziah must have begun to reign one
year at least before the death of his father Joash.

Can we discover any reason for this ? The clue will be
found in a parenthesis of half a line, which the following
paragraph, in the Chronicles presents : " And it came to

I 2 Kings xiii. 10. 2 lb. xiv. I. 3 2 Chron. xxiv. 1.

18

206 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

pass at the end of the year, that the host of Syria came
up against him (Joash) ; and they came to Jerusalem, and
destroyed all the princes of the people. . . . And when they
were departed from him {for they left him in great dis-
eases) his own servants conspired against him, for the
blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and slew him on
his bed, and he died,"'

The great diseases therefore under which, it seems,
Josah was laboring at the moment of the Syrian invasion,
presents itself as the probable cause why Amaziah his son,
then in the flower of his age, was admitted to a share in
the government a little before his time. Yet how circuit-
ously do we arrive at this conclusion ! The Book of Kings
alone would not establish it ; the Book of Chronicles alone
would not establish it. From the former, we might learn
when Amaziah began to reign ; from the latter, when
Joash, the father of Amaziah, died ; and accordingly, a
comparison of the two dates would enable us to determine
that the reign of Amaziah began before that of Joash
ended ; but neither document asserts the fact that the son
did reign conjointly with the father. We infer it, that is
all. Neither does the Book of Kings make the least al-
lusion to any accident whatever which rendered this co-
partnership necessary ; nor yet the Book of Chronicles di-
rectly, only an incidental parenthesis, a word or two in
length, intimates that at the time of the Syrian invasion
Joash was sick.

I have adduced this coincidence, strong in itself, chiefly
in illustration and confirmation of the principles upon which
the last proceeded ; the simultaneous and premature as-
sumption of the sceptre by the sons of Jehoshaphat and
Ahab, as compared with the date of the combined expedi-

1 2 Chron. xxiv. 23 25.

PRAT II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 207

tion of those two kings against Raraoth-gilead. But I
must not dismiss the subject altogether without caUing
your attention to the luidesignedness manifested in either
case. Nothing can be more latent than the congruity, such
as it is, which is here found ; either history might be read
a thousand times without a suspicion that any such con-
gruity was there ; investigation is absolutely necessary for
this discovery of it ; patient disembroilment of a labyrinth
of names, many being identical, where the parties are not
the same ; scrutiny and comparison of dates, seldom so
given as to expedite the labors of the inquirer. All this
must be done, or these singular tokens of truth escape us,
and many, I doubt not, do escape us, after all. What im-
posture can be here? What contrivers could be prepared
for such a sifting of their plausible disclosures ? What
pretenders could be provided with such vouchers ; or hav-
ing provided them, would bury them so deep as that they
should run the risk of never being brought to light at all,
and thus frustrate their own end in the fabrication ?

Once more I commit to my readers facts which speak, I
think, to the truth of Scripture, as things having authority;
facts, which afford proof infallible that there is a mine of
evidence, ' deep things of God,' in this sense, in the sacred
writings, which they who look upon them with a hasty
and impatient glance — and such very generally is the
manner of sceptics, and almost always the manner of youth-
ful sceptics,— leave under their feet unworked ; a treasure
hid in a field which they only who will be at the pains to
dig for it will find.

But if an investigation, such as this that we are conduct-
ing, leads to such a conclusion — to a conclusion, I mean,
that there is a substratum of truth running through the
Bible, which none can discover but he who will patiently
and perseveringly sink the well at the bottom of which it

208 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

lies — and such is the conclusion at which we must arrive
— is it not a lamentable thing to hear, as we are sometimes
condemned to hear it, the superficial objection, or supercil-
ious scoff, proceeding from the mouth of one whose very
speech bewrays that he has walked over the surface of his
subject merely, if even that, and who nevertheless pretends
and proclaims that truth he finds not ?

XXV.

In considering the political and religious condition of the
two kingdoms after the division, I have looked at the es-
tablishment of the calves at Bethel and Dan by Jeroboam
as a great national epoch ; as a measure pregnant with
consequences far more numerous and more important, fetch-
ing a much larger compass, and affecting many more inter-
ests, than its author probably contemplated. I have n^w
to fix upon another event, the wide wasting effects of which
I have already hinted as another national crisis, one which,
in the end, most materially influenced the fortunes both oi
Israel and Judah ; the thing in itself apparently a trifle ;
" but God," says Bishop Hall, " lays small accidents as
foundations for greater designs ;" I speak of the marriage
hetiueen Ahah and Jezebel. — It is thus announced — " And
it came to pass, as if it had been a hght thing for him to
walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took
to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zido-
nians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.
And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal,
which he had built in Samaria, And Ahab made a grove
— and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to
anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.'"

1 1 Kings xvi 31.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 209

Here we have the beginning of a new and more pestilent
idolatry in Israel. The Zidonian queen corrupts the coun-
try to which she is unhappily translated, with her own
rooted heathenish abominations, and priests of Baal, and
prophets of Baal, being under her own special protection
and encouragement, multiply exceedingly ; and so seduc-
tive did the voluptuous worship prove, that, with the ex-
ception of seven thousand persons, all Israel had, more or
less, partaken in her sin. Jeroboam's calf had been a base
and sordid representative of God, but a representative still ;
Jezebel's Baal was an audacious rival. Nevertheless, Is-
rael could not find in their hearts to put away the God of
their fathers altogether ; and accordingly we hear Elijah
exclaim, " How long halt ye between two opinions ? if the
Lord be God, follow him, and if Baal, then follow him."'

I do not think sufficient notice has been taken of the
curious manner in which this sudden ejaculation of the
prophet corresponds with a number of unconnected inci-
dents, characteristic of the times, which lie scattered over
the Books of Kings and Chronicles. I shall collect a few
of them, that it may be seen how well their confronted
testimony agrees together, and how strictly, but undesign-
edly, they all coincide with that state of pubUc opinion
upon religious matters which the words of Elijah express,
a halting opinion.

Thus, in the scene on Mount Carmel, we find, that after
the priests of Baal had in vain besought their god to give
proof of himself, and it now became Elijah's turn to act ^
"He repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken
down,"^ as though here, on the top of Carmel, were the
remains of an altar to the true God, (one of those high
places tolerated, however questionably, by some even of

1 1 Kings xviii. 21. 2 lb. xviii. 30.

18*

210 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

the most religious kings,) which had been superseded by
an altar to Baal since Ahab's reign had begun ; the prophet
not having to build, it seems, but only to renew. And
agreeably to this, we have Obadiah, the governor of Ahab's
own house, represented as a man '• who feared the Lord
greatly, and saved the prophets of the Lord ;" he, therefore,
no apostate, but Ahab, in consideration of his fidelity,
winking at his faith ; perhaps, indeed, himself not so much
sold to Baal-worship, as sold into the hands of an imperious
woman, who would hear of no other. And so "Ahab
served Baal a little,^^ said Jehu, his successoiy another of
the equivocal tokens of the times ; whilst the command of
this same Jehu, that the temple of Baal should be searched
before the slaughter of the idolaters began, lest there should
be there any of the loorshippers of the Lord, instead of
the ivorshippers of Baal only, still argues the prevalence
of the same half measure of faith. Moreover, the charac-
ter of the four hundred prophets of Ahab, which, by its
contradictions, has so much perplexed the commentators ;
their number corresponding with that of those who ate at
Jezebel's table; their parable, nevertheless, taken up in the
Lord's name ; still their veracity suspected by Jehoshaphat,
who asks if " there be no prophet of the Lord besides ;"
and the mutual ill-will which manifests itself between
them and Micaiah ; are all very expressive features of the
same doubtful mind.^ Then the pretence by which Ahab,
through Jezebel, takes away the life of Naboth, is " hlas-
phetny against God and the king," against the true God,
no doubt, the tyrant availing herself of a clause in the
Levitical law ]^ a law which was still, therefore, as it should
seem, the law of the land, even in the kingdom of Israel,

1 2 Kings. X. 18.

2 1 Kings xviii. 19 ; xxii. 6—24 ; 2 Chron. xviii, 10—23.

3 Levit. xxiv. 16.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 211

howbeit standing in tlie anomalous position of deriving its
authority from an acknowledgment of Jehovah alone, and
yet left to struggle against the established worship of Baal,
too ; enough in itself to confound the people, to compromise
all religious distinctions, and to insure a halting creed in
whatever nation it obtained. Thus, whilst I see the prophets
of the Lord cut off under the warrant of Jezebel, and the
government of the Lord virtually renounced ; at another
time I see, as I have said, a man condemned to death for
blasphemy against the Lord, under the warrant of Leviti-
cus ; and the two sons of an Israelitish woman sold to her
creditor for bondsmen, under the same law ;' and the lepers
shut out at the gate of Samaria, still under the same,'^ and
contrary, as it should appear, to the Syrian practice ; for
Naaman, though a leper, does not seem to have been an
outcast, but to have had servants about him, and to have
efxecuted the king's commands, and even to have expected
Elisha to come out to him, and put his hand upon the
place. What can argue the embarrassment under which
Israel was laboring in its religious relations more clearly
than all this ? — the law of Moses acknowledged to be valid,
and its provisions enforced, though its claim to the obe-
dience of the people only rested upon having God for its
author ; that God whom Baal was supplanting. Here, I
think, is truth ; it would have been little to the purpose to
produce flagrant proofs that the worship of God and the
worship of Baal prevailed together in Israel ; those might
have been the result of contrivance ; but it is coincidence,
and undesigned coincidence, to find a prophet exclaiming,
in a moment of zeal, " How long halt ye," and then to
find indications, some of them grounded upon the merest
trifles of domestic life, that the people did halt.

1 2 Kings iv. 1 ; Levit. xxv. 39.

2 lb. vii. 3 ; Levit. xiii. 46 ; xiv 3 ; Numb. v. 23.

212 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

XXVI

But this marriage of Ahab and Jezebel, so ruinous to
Israel, was scarcely less so to Judab ; for in Judah the
same miserable alliance was to be acted over again in the
next generation, and with the very same consequences.

Ahab, king of Israel, had taken to himself Jezebel, a
heathen, for his wife, and Israel, through her, became a
half-heathen nation. Jehoram, king of Judah, had taken
to himself Athahah, the daughter of Jezebel, worthy in all
respects of the mother who bore her, to be his wife; and
now Judah, in like manner, and for the hke cause, fell
away. Of Ahab, it is said, " But there was none like unto
Ahab, who did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight
of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred upy^ Such
were the bitter fruits of his marriage. Of Jehoram, it is
said, " And he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel,
as did the house of Ahab, for the daughter of Ahab luas
his wife, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord."^ Such
in turn was this ill-omened union to him and his. Either
of these women, therefore, was the curse of the kingdom
over which her husband ruled ; and as we have already
seen some of the mischief brought into Israel (faulty enough
before) by Jezebel, so shall we now see still more brought
into Judah (hitherto a righteous and prosperous people) by
Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel. I, however, shall not
enter into the subject further than to draw from it what I
can of evidence.

And here, before I proceed further, let me notice a cir-
cumstance, trivial in itself, which tends, however, to estab-
Ush this reputed alliance of the houses of Jehoshaphat and

' 1 Kings xxi. 25. 2 2 Kings viii. 18.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 213

Ahab, as a matter of fact. There is no more cause, in-
deed, for calling this in question, than any other historical
incident of an indifferent nature ; but still, I am unwilling
to let any opportunity pass of drawing out these tokens of
truth, whether significant or not ; be the gifts great or
small, which are cast into the treasury of evidence, they
contribute to swell the amount ; they contribute to justify
the general conclusion, that truth is still the pervading princi-
ple of the sacred writings, in minute as well as in momen-
tous matters, in things which are, or which are not, of a
kind to provoke investigation.

I am told then, that a son of the King of Judah marries
a daughter of the King of Israel. — Now agreeably to this,
for some time afterwards, I discover a marked identity of
names in the two families, so much so, as to render, while
it lasts, the contemporary history of the two kingdoms ex-
tremely compHcated and embarrassing. Thus, Ahab is
succeeded by a son Ahaziah^ on the throne of Israel ; and
Jehoram is also succeeded by a son Ahaziah, (the nephew
of the other,) on the throne of Judah.^ Again, Ahaziah,
King of Israel, dies, and he is succeeded by a Jehoravn ;^
but a Jehoram, the brother-in-law of the former, is at the
same moment on the throne of Judah, as his father's col-
league." How much longer this mutual interchange of
family names might have continued, it is impossible to tell,
for Ahab's house was cut off" in the next generation by
Jehu, and a new dynasty was set up ; but the thing itself
is curious ; and however our patience may be put to the
proof, in disengaging the thread of Israel and Judah at this
point of their annals, we have the satisfaction of feeling
that the intricacy of the history at such a moment is a very
strong argument of the truth of the history. For, although

1 1 Kings xxii. 49. 2 2 Chron. xxii. 1.

3 2 Kings i. 17; iii. 1. ♦ lb. i. 17.

214 THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

no remark is made upon this identity of names, nor the
least hint given as to the cause of it, we at once perceive
that it may very naturally be referred to the union which
is said to have taken place between the houses, and which
many circumstances tend to show, however extraordinary
it may seem, was a cordial union.

XXVIl.

I NOW proceed to consider some of the public conse-
quences of this marriage to Judah.

In the eighteenth verse of the eighth chapter of the second
Book of Kings, we are informed of Jehoram's wickedness,
and at whose instigation it was wrought. — In the twenty-
second verse, we find it said, (after some account of a rebel-
lion of the Edomites) " then Libnah revolted at the same
time." — No cause is assigned for this revolt of Libnah ; the
few words quoted are incidentally introduced, and the sub-
ject is dismissed. But in the Chronicles' a cause is as-
signed, though still in a manner very brief and inexplicit :
" the same time, also," (so the narrative runs,) " did Libnah
revolt from under his hand ; because he had forsaken the
Lord God of his fathers ;" that is, because, at the per-
suasion of Athaliah — for she, we have found,'^ was his
state-adviser — Jehoram did what Ahab, his father-in-law,
had done at the persuasion of the mother of Athaliah, set
up a strange god in his kingdom, even Baal. Thus, this
supplementary clause, short as it is, may serve, I think, as
a clue to explain the revolt of Libnah. For Libnah, it
appears from a passage in Joshua, was one of the cities of
Judah, given to the priests, the sons of Aaron \^ no won-

1 2 Chron. xxi. 10. 2 2 Kings viii. 18. 3 Josh. xv. 42; xxi. 13.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 215

der, therefore, that the citizens of such a city sliould be
the first to reject with indignation the authority of a mon-
arch, who was even then setting at nought the God whose
servants they especially were, and who was substituting
for him the abomination of the Zidonians. This is the
explanation of the revolt of Libnah. Yet, satisfactory as
it is, when we are once fairly in possession of it, the ex-
planation is anything but obvious. Libnah, it is said, re-
volts, but that revolt is not expressly coupled with the in-
troduction of Baal into the country as a god ; nor is that
pernicious novelty coupled with the marriage of Athaliah ;
nor is any reason alleged why Libtiah should feel pecul-
iarly alive to the ignominy and shame of such an act ;
for where Libnah was, or what it was, or whereof its in-
habitants consisted, are things unknown to the readers of
Kings and Chronicles, and would continue unknown, were
they not to take advantage of a hint or two in the Book
of Joshua.

XXVIII.

I AM confirmed in the supposition that the revolt of
Libnah is correctly ascribed to the indignation of the
Priests at the worship of Baal, by other circumstances in
the history of those times ; for many things conspire to
show, on the one side, the reckless idolatry of the royal
house of Judah, (so true to their God till the blood of the
house of Ahab began to run in their veins,) and, on the
other side, the general disafTection of the ministers of God,
and the desperate condition to which they were reduced.
For when the Temple of Jerusalem was to be repaired,
which was done by Joash, the grandson of Athaliah,* the

1 2 Chron. xxiv. 4.

216

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

effects of her wicked misrule incidentally come out. Not
only had the utensils of the Temple been removed to the
house of Baal, but its very walls had in many places been
broken up, the ample funds put into the hands of the young
king- being principally devoted, not to decorations, but to
the purchase of substantial materials, timber and stones ;
and from a casual expression touching the rites of the
Temple, that " there were offered burnt-offerings in the
House of the Lord contimialli/ all the days of Jehoi-
nda^'^^ it is pretty evident that, whilst Athaliah was in
power, even these had been discontinued ; that even Judah,
the tribe of God's own choice, even Zion, the hill which
he loved, paid him no longer any public testimony of alle-
giance, the faithful city herself become an harlot. So
wanton was the defiance of the most High God, during the
reigns of Jehoram, Ahaziah, and the subsequent usurpa-
tion of AthaUahj when these her husband and her son
were dead.

On the other hand, Joash, the rightful possessor of the
throne of Judah, an infant plucked from among his slaugh-
tered kindred by an aunt, and saved from the murderous
hands of a grandmother, grew up unobserved — where, of
all places ? — in the Lord's House, contiguous as it was to
the palace of Athaliah, who httle dreamed that she had
such an enemy in such a quarter ; the High Priest his
protector ; the Priests and Levites his future partisans ; so
that when events were ripe for the overthrow of Athaliah,
the child was set up as the champion of the Church of
God, so long prostrate before Baal, but still not spirit-broken
— cast down, but not destroyed ; and by that Church, and
no party else, was he established ; and the unnatural
usurper was hurled from her polluted throne, with the

1 2 Chron. xxiv. 14.

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 217

shriek of treason upon her lips ; and having lived Uke her
mother, like her mother she died, killed under her own
walls, and among the hoofs of the horses.' This, I say, is
a very consistent consummation of a resistance, of which
the revolt of Libnah, some fourteen years Hefore, was the
earnest : in the revolt of Libnah, a city of the Priests, the
disaffection of the Priests prematurely breaks out ; in the
dethronement of Atbaliah, achieved by the Priests, that
same disaffection finds its final issue ; the interval between
the two events having sufficed to fill up the iniquity of
Baal's worshippers, and to organize a revolt upon a greater
scale than that of Libnah, which restored its dues to the
Church, and to God his servants, his offerings, and his
house.

But will any man say that the sacred historian so
ordered his materials, that such incidents as these which I
have named should successfully turn up — that he guarded
his hands in all this wittingly—that he let fall, with con-
summate artifice, first a brief and incidental notice (a mere
parenthesis) of the revolt of a single town, suppressing
meanwhile all mention of its pecuhar constitution and
character, though such as prepared it above otiiers for
revolt — that then, after abandoning not only Libnah, but
the subject of Judali in general, and applying himself to
the affairs of Israel in their turn, he should finally revert
to his former topic, or rather to a kindred one, and lay
before us the history of a general revolt, organized by the
Priests ; and all, in the forlorn hope that the uniform
working of the same principle of disaffection in the same
party, and for the same cause, in two detached instances,
would not pass unobserved ; but that such consistency
would be detected, and put down to the credit of the nar-

» 2 Kings xi. 16.

19

218

THE VERACITY OF THE PART II.

rative at large? This surely is a degree of refinement
much beyond beUef.

Thus having traced this singular people through a long
and most diversified history, we are come to see planted in
both kingdoms of Israel and Judah the idolatrous principle
which was shortly to be the downfall of both. God usu-
ally works out his own ends in the way of natural conse-
quence, even his judgments being in general the ordinary
fruits of the offences which called for them ; and in this
instance the calves of Jeroboam and the groves of Baal
were the sin ; and from the sin were made to flow, as a
matter of course, the disgust of all virtuous Israehtes, and
the intestine divisions resulting from it; the interruption
or suspension of all public worship ; the mischiefs of a per-
petual conflict between a national code of laws still in
force, and national idolatry, no less actually established
than the laws ; the depravity of morals which that idola-
try encouraged, and which served to sap the people's
strength ; all, elements of ruin which only wanted to be
developed in order to be fatal, and which in a very few
generations did their work.

It is curious to observe how the origin, the progress, and
the consummation of the devastating principle, correspond
in the two kingdoms.

Israel is the first to offend, both by the sin of Jeroboam
and the sin of Ahab ; and Israel is the first to have illus-
trious Prophets sent to him to counteract the evil, if it
were possible, — whom, however, he persecutes or slays:
and Israel is the first to be carried into captivity.

Judah. after some years, follows the example of his
rival. Idolatry, even the worst, that of the same Baal, is
brought into Judah. Prophets, many and great, are now
in turn sent to warn him of the evil to come ; but now he
too has declared for the groves; and those Prophets he

PART II. HISTORICAL SCRIPTURES. 219

stones, in one instant even between the porch and the
altar ; and, accordingly, by nearly the same interval as
Judah followed Israel in his idolatries, did he follow him
in his fate, and went after him to sit down and weep by
the waters of Babylon. There is something very coin-
cident in this relative scale of sin and suffering.

It was the office of those prophets of whom I spoke, not
only to foretell things to come, but also to denounce the
sins of the times in which they lived ; they were censors,
as well as seers. Of the earlier race, Ahijah, Elijah,
Elisha, and others, we have no writings at all, otherwise
they would have doubtless offered in their province as
moralists, a mirror of their own age, in their own nation
of Israel. Of the latter race, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and more,
we possess the records, and in those records not unfre-
quently a picture of the condition of either kingdom ; of
Judah more especially. Here, therefore, a new scene
opens before us ; a new, though limited field of argument,
such as I have been exploring, presents itself. It remains
to produce a few such allusions to contemporary transac-
tions, as are blended with the prophecies — to examine
how they tally with facts, as we find them set forth else-
where, by the sacred historians ; and thence to derive
vouchers for the veracious character of the prophets them-
selves, such as may promote a disposition to give them at
least a favorable hearing.

THE VERACITY

OF THE

PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES.

PART III

Thus far I have been applying the test of coincidence
without design to the historical Scriptures, I will now do
the same by some of the prophetical, founding the argu-
ment on a comparison of these latter writings with those
details relating to the period in which the Prophet is said to
have lived, given in the concluding chapters of the books
of Kings and Chronicles. It is possible that these coin-
cidences may be thought proportionally fewer in number
than those which other parts of Scripture have been found
to supply ; but it must be remembered, that the books of
the Prophets are not of any great bulk, and that the chap-
ters in the books of Kings and Chronicles which furnish
materials for checking them, are neither long nor many.
Moreover, which is the chief consideration, that the lan-
guage of Prophecy, as might be expected, is commonly
framed in terms so general, and often so dark and figura-
tive, that it is easy to overlook a latent allusion to an event
of the day which it may really contain, even where some
notice of that event does happen also to be left on record

PART III. THE PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 221

in the contemporary history. With regard to such coin-
cidences as we do find, it may be observed,

1. First, that the argument they furnish has a twofold
vahie ; since it not only demonstrates the Historian and
the Prophet to be veracious, the one, in the nanativ^e of
facts, the other, in such allusions to them as blend with
passages more strictly prophetical ; but that it also serves
to determine the date of the Prophet himself; a date,
which when once obtained, fixes many other events of
which he clearly seems to tell, far in futurity with respect
to him, and so ministers to our conviction that it could not
be of human knowledge that he spoke. We indeed, on
whom the ends of the world are come, may be supposed to
stand less in need of such a confirmation of our faith in
the Prophets ; for since the objects of their prophecy are
two ; the more immediate events which were coming upon
several kingdoms of the world, and especially those of
Israel and Judah ; and the more distant Advent of the
Messiah ; the evidence for the genuineness of their claim
to the prophetical character arising out of this latter pro-
vince, where they appear as heralds of the Gospel, is strong
to us, because we do see the actual circumstances of Jesus
Christ and his coming, correspond in so express a manner
with the sketch made of them, by Isaiah, for example, (as
nobody in this instance can dispute,) so many hundred
years before. But their contemporaries, or the generations
who lived next to them (and these were the persons who
admitted their writings into the prophetical canon,) were
cut oflf from this ground of confidence in their message ;
they must have rested their belief in them upon the ac-
complishment of their political prophecies alone, such
being the only ones of which they lived to see the com-
pletion. Although therefore the mere fact of the Jews
having of old agreed to acknowledge them as Prophets, is

19*

222

THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

enough to show that such evidence alone sufficed for them,
they being the best judges of what was sufficient ; still if
we have the means of convincing ourselves that these re-
markably exact prophecies, (claiming at least so to be,)
which related to the Assyrian invasions, the captivity, and
the like, were certainly delivered long before the events
arose, we shall have a further reason, over and above an
experience of the fulfilment of those concerning the Mes-
siah, for putting our trust in them, and considering them
Prophets indeed.

2. Nor is this all. For Secondly, it may be observed,
that the effect of this evidence from coincidence without
design is to show, that the prophet sometimes occupied a
considerable range of years in the delivering of his predic-
tions — thus, that the whole Book of Isaiah, was not struck
off at a heat, was no extempore effusion, but a collection
of many distinct predictions (claiming to be such) uttered
from time to time, as events, or the heart, hot within the
prophet, prompted them ; that it was in truth, as the title
describes it, " the vision which he saw concerning Judah
and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz
and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." Now this is an impor-
tant consideration, because it argues that the prophet did
not deliver himself of some happy oracle for the once, and
earn the reputation of a seer by an accident, but maintain-
ed that character through a life — a circumstance which
goes very far in itself to exclude the possibility of impos-
ture, nothing being so fatal to fraud of this kind as time.

Having made these preliminary remarks, I shall now
address myself to the argument itself.

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 223

I

In the seventh chapter of Isaiah we read that Ahaz king
of Judah was threatened with invasion by the confederate
armies of Syria and Israel : and that Isaiah the prophet
was commissioned by God to foretell to Ahaz the result of
this invasion ; and not only so, but the disastrous end of
one of those kingdoms, if not both of them, after a period
of threescore and five years. And the charge is thus given
to Isaiah : " Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shear-
jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the tipper
pool, in the highway of the fuller's field," (v. 3). Here
was to -be the scene of the prophecy ; and, accordingly,
here it professes to have been actually spoken. To this
point I would draw the attention of my readers because
the incidental mention of the place where it was to be de-
livered, furnishes us with the means of showing with great
probability that a prophecy it was. For, why at the etid
of the cotiduit of the upper pool ? No reason whatever is
assigned, or even hinted for the choice of this particular
spot, rather than the palace of Ahaz, or the city-gate.
But on turning to the thirty-second chapter of the second
Book of Chronicles, in which are described the preparations
made by king Hezekiah some thirty years afterwards,
against a similar invasion of Jerusalem by Sennacherib
and the Assyrians, I find this to be amongst the number,
that '' he took counsel with his princes and his mighty
men to stop the waters of the fountains which were with-
out the city ; and they did help him. So there was gath-
ered much people who stopped all the fountains, and the
brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying,
Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much
water ?'"

1 2 Chron. xxxii. 3—5.

224 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

Here then in this passage of Hezekiah's history, have we
the key to the passage in the iiistory of Ahaz, wliich is
now engaging our inquiry, and in which the prophecy of
Isaiah is involved. " Isaiah was to go forth to meet Ahaz.
at the end of the conduit of the upper pool f to go forth —
the conduit of the upper pool, therefore, was without the
walls, open to the use of the enemy. Ahaz, therefore, we
may conjecture, was employed, as we know, though not
from Isaiah, Hezekiah under similar circumstances after-
wards was employed, with a number of his people in pro-
viding a defence for the city by stopping the fountains, of
which the enemy might get possession. The place, there-
fore, was appropriate to the subject of the message with
which Isaiah was charged, namely, that their labors were
needless, for that God would take care of their city ; and it
was convenient for the publication of it, because the work
interested and occupied both the sovereign and the people,
and consequently a multitude were there gathered together,
ready to hear it. Now it appears to me, that this casual
mention of Ahaz, being for some reason or other to be found
by the prophet at the conduit of the upper pool, to which
he was to go forth, without one word of note or explana-
tion why l>e should be found there, or what was its exact
site, or why it should be a fit place for delivering the mes-
sage, coupled with the satisfactory cause for his being there,
which by the merest chance we are enabled of ourselves to
supply from another quarter, does establish it as a fact, that
Ahaz was occupied with concerting measures of defence
for the city when Isaiah hailed him. But if so, Isaiah's
message must have necessarily been delivered when the
invasion was only threatened, when there was yet time for
making provision to meet it, and when the result of it, of
which he speaks, must have been as yet in futurity ; whilst
events still beyond it, to which his w^ords extend to, must

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 235

have been in a futurity yet more distant ; i. e. Isaiah must
have been a projj/iet. Certainly it is a small matter of
fact which lays the foundation for a great conclusion : but
its seeming insignificance is just that which gives it extra-
ordinary value for the purpose for which I use it ; since it
is impossible to believe that a forger of pretended prophe-
cies, written after the event, would have hit upon such an
expedient for stamping his imposture with a mark of truth,
as to make the scene of this prediction a conduit outside the
walls, without adding the most remote hint about the in-
ference he meant to be drawn from it. j,

II.

There is another coincidence, or at least a probable
coincidence, between a passage in Isaiah (viii. 2), and
other passages in the Books of Kings, (2 Kings xvi. 10,
xviii. 2,) and Chronicles, (2 Chron. xxix. 1,) which goes to
determine that the prophet was contemporary with Ahaz ;
thus identifying the age of Isaiah and the date of his pro-
phesying, with a period a hundred and forty years before
the Babylonish captivity, of which event nevertheless he is
full to overflowini:. The following is the coincidence I
suppose.

It appears to have been an object with this prophet, to
warn Judah from depending upon Assyria for help against
Syria and Israel — He saw by the spirit more to apprehend
in the ally than in the adversary ; (opposed as this opinion
was to the judgment of a generation who did not allow for
the ambition of Assyria, and especially of Assyria when
absorbed in the Babylonish empire," in its present profes-

> See Lightfoot, Vol. i. p. 114, fol.

226 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

sion of amity ; nor the approaching downfall of Syria and
Israel, in their actual strength.) However, to impress this,
his prophetical view of things upon Ahaz the more effect-
ually, (the policy of that monarch having been to court
Assyria,') he takes his pen, and writes in a great roll, again
and again, after the manner of his age and nation, when
symbolical teaching prevailed, one word of woe, Maher-
shalal-hash-baz — " hasting to the spoil he hasteth to the
prey" — which, being interpreted, spake of Assyria, that so it
should come to pass touching the havoc about to be wrought
by Assyria; first, on the kingdoms of Syria and Israel;
and eventually, when merged in the Chaldean kingdom, on
Judah itself And to render this act more emphatic, or to
impress it the more memorably on the king, he calls in two
witnesses, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeb-
erechiah, (Isai. viii. 2.^)

Now who are they ? Names, it may be said, of unknowii
individuals perhaps ; nay possibly mere names ; the whole
being a figure, and not a fact. Yet I discern, on turning
to the sixteenth chapter of the second Book of Kings, that
one Uriah, he also a priest, was a person with whom king
Ahaz was in close communication, using him as a tool for
his own unlawful innovations in the worship of his coun-
try ; " when he introduced into the Temple the fashion of
the altar which he had seen at Damascus ;" in all which,
we are told, " Uriah the priest did according to all that
king Ahaz commanded," (v. 16.) If therefore this was the
same Uriah (for the coincidence turns on that) we have one
witness taken from the confidential servants of the king.
And with respect to Zechariah, the other witness, I learn
from the eighteenth chapter of the same Book of Kings,
that twenty and five years old was Hezekiah when he be-

1 2 Chron. xxviii. 16. a Lightfoot, Vol. i. p. 101.

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCHIPTlKf.S. 227

gan to reign, and that " he reigned twenty and nine years
in Jerusalem," and that " his mother's name was Abi,"
the daughter of Zechariah, (ver. 2.) It should seem there-
fore that Ahaz, who was father of Hezekiah, was son-in-
law of one Zechariah ; if therefore this was the same Zech-
ariah — for the coincidence again turns on that — we have a
second witness taken from amongst the immediate con-
nections of the king ; and it may be added, that the prob-
ability of these parties mentioned in Isaiah being the same
as those of the same names mentioned in the Book of
Kings, is increased by their being two in number : had
Uriah alone been spoken of in Isaiah, or Zechariah alone,
and a single person of the same name been met with in
the Book of Kings, as about the person of Ahaz, the iden-
tity of the two might have admitted of more dispute than
when Uriah and Zechariah are both produced by the pro-
phet, and are both found in the history. If the names had
been twenty instead of two, and all had been found to
agree, no doubt whatever of the identity could have been
entertained.

Here, then, we can account for the choice of Isaiah, who
wished the transaction in which he was engaged to be en-
forced upon the attention of Ahaz with all the advantages
he could command, and so selected two of the king's bo-
som friends to testify concerning it.

This, I say, induces the belief that the prophet really
was contemporary with Ahaz ; for how can we suppose,
that if his pretended prophecy had been a forgery of after
times, so happy, because so trivial an evidence of its genu-
ineness, should have been introduced, and the names of his
witnesses have been selected, according so singularly with
those of two men certainly about the person of Ahaz whilst
he lived ? And how difficult it is to imagine that a forger,
even admitting that he adopted those names by a fortu-

228 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

nate or astute device, should have stopped where he did,
and not have taken care to make it clear that by them he
meant the Uriah who was the priest of Ahaz, and the
Zechariah who was his relation, instead of leaving the
matter (as it is left) open to dispute.'

III.

The next coincidence which I shall lay before you is
one which tends to establish two facts of the utmost im-
portance ; the one, that the Assyrian army under Sen-
nacherib perished in some remarkable manner ; the other,
that the Babylonish Captivity was distinctly foretold, when
Babylon was as yet no object of fear to Jerusalem.

Willi respect to the first, indeed, the sudden destruction
of the Assyrian host, it was to be expected that if such a
catastrophe did occur, it would be an epoch in the times ;
an event that would fill the whole East with its strange-
ness : and accordingly, the allusions to it, direct and in-
direct, which are to be met with in the writings of Isaiah,
are very man)'. His mind seems much possessed by it ;
and this is indeed an argument for the truth of the fact,
not feeble in itself — but the one I have to propose to you
is more definite and precise.

In the thirty-ninth chapter of Isaiah I read as follows :
" At that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan,
king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah ;
for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered.
And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the

I It is scarcely necessary to remark that Uriah (Isaiah viii. 2) and Uri-
jah (2 Kings xvi. 16) are the same word in the Hebrew. — Dr. Lightfoot
takes for granted that the parties named in Isaiah and in Kings are the
same. Vol. i. p. lOl, fol.

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES.

229

house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and
the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of
his armor, and all that was found in his treasures ; there
was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that
Hezekiah showed them not. Then came Isaiah the
prophet to king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said
these men ? and from whence came they unto thee ? And
Hezekiah said. They arc come from a/ar country unto
me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What have they
seen in thy house ? And Hezekiah answered. All that is
in mine house have they seen ; there is nothing among
my treasures that I have not showed them.. Then said
Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord of hosts :
Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and
that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day,
shall be carried to Babylon : nothing shall be left, saith
the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee,
which thou Shalt beget, shall they take away ; and they
shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."

1. Now the first thing I would observe is this— that the
embassy from the king of Babylon to Hezekiah was to
congratulate him on his recovery from his sickness ; which
sickness must have befallen him in the year of Sennach-
erib's invasion, and immediately previous to it — m that
year, because he is said to have reigned twenty and nine
years ;' and the invasion of Judah is said^ to have occurred
in the fourteenth year of his reign ; leaving him still fifteen
years to reign, which was precisely the period by which
his life was prolonged beyond his sickness '^—immediately
-previous to that invasion, because the prophet, in the
same breath that he assures him from God of his recovery,
assures him also that God would deliver the city out of the

1 2 Kings xviii. 2. =^ lb. xviii. 13.

20

230

THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

hand of the king of Assyria^ and would defend the city
(Is. xxxviii. 6,) as though the danger was imminent.'
The recovery therefore of Hezekiah, and the destruction
of the Assyrians, were events close upon one another in
point of time. And after a short interval, allowing for the
news of Hezekiah's recovery to reach Babylon, and an
embassy to be prepared, that embassy of congratulation
w^as dispatched : or in other words, the embassy from
Babylon must have been close upon the destruction of the
Assyrian army.

Now we are told, that upon the eve of the invasion of
Jerusalem itself, and whilst Sennacherib was already in
the country taking the fenced cities of Judah before him,^
Hezekiah in his alarm endeavored to buy off the king of
Assyria : " That which thou puttest on me," said he,
" wdll I bear" — " And the king of Assyria appointed unto
Hezekiah three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents
of gold,"-— a sum which completely exhausted the means
of Hezekiah ; insomuch that after he had given him all
the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in
the treasures of the king's house, he was reduced to the
necessity of actually cutting off the gold from the doors of
the temple, and from the pillars which he had overlaid, to
give to the king of Assyria. Nothing therefore could be
more complete than the exhaustion of his resources,
whether those of the palace or of the temple, immediately
before the advance of Sennacherib's army on the capital —
for in spite of this cowardly sacrifice on the part of the
Jews, the Assyrians broke faith with them, and marched
on Jerusalem.

But from the passage in Isaiah, (ch. xxxix.,) which I

1 This clearly fixes the order of the two events ; and shows that in 2
Chron. xxxii. 21 — 24, the order is not observed..

2 2 Kings xviii, 13, 14.

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 231

have extracted, where the embassy from Babylon is men-
tioned, and the date of which has been aheady fixed, (to
the utmost probability at least,) we gather that Hezekiah
was then in possession of a treasury singularly affluent ;
so much so indeed as to lead him to make a vainglorious
display of his vast magazines to these strangers — " he was
glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious
things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the
precious ointments, and all the house of his armor, and all
that was found in his treasures : there was nothing in his
house, nor in all his dominion, that he showed them not."^
Here there seems a strange and anaccountable contra-
diction to the penury he had exhibited so shortly before.
A very brief interval had elapsed (as we have proved)
since he had scraped the gilding from the very doors and
pillars to make up a sum to purchase the forbearance of
the enemy ; and now his store is become so ample as to
betray him into the vanity of exposing it before the eyes
of these suspicious strangers. There is no attempt made
to account for the discrepancy. A passage, however, of a
very few lines, and very incindentally dropping out in
the thirty-second chapter of the second Book of Chron-
icles, (v. 23, 24,) and nowhere else, supplies the explanation
of this extraordinary and sudden mutation. There, after
a short account of the discomfiture of the Assyrians by the
angel, it is added, " Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and
the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennach-
erib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all other,
and guided them on every side. And many brought gifts
unto the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah
king of Judah ; so that he was magnified in the sight
of all nations from thenceforth.^^

1 Isaiah xxxix. 2.

232 THE VERACITY OP THE PART III.

This fact clears up at once the apparent contradiction,
though certainly introduced for no such purpose ; no man
can imagine it ; indeed, the order of these several events is
confounded in this chapter of Chronicles, and their mutual
dependence (on which my argument rests) deranged ; so
free from all suspicion of contrivance is this combination
of incidents in the narrative.

For only let us recapitulate the several particulars of the
argument. From a passage in the second Book of Kings,
(xviii, 13, 14,) I learn that Hezekiah spent his resources to
the very last to bribe the Assyrian to forbearance ; but, as
it proved, in vain.

By a comparison of a passage in 2 Kings (xviii. 13, 14)
with another in Isaiah (zxxviii. 1 — 6), I learn that the sick-
ness of Hezekiah was immediately before the invasion of
Jerusalem by the Assyrians.

By another passage in Isaiah, (xxxix. 1,) I learn that an
embassage of congratulation was sent to Hezekiah from
Babylon, on his recovery from his sickness. By the same,
that these ambassadors found him then in possession of a
treasury full to overflowing.

I am at a loss to account for this, nor does the Scripture
take any pains to do it for me ; but I find, incidentally, a
passage in the second Book of Chronicles, which says
(xxxii. 24, 24) that many had brought gifts to the Lord
at Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah ; so that he was
thenceforth magnified in the sight of all nations.

This explains the change of circumstances I had ob-
served for myself. The several particulars, therefore, of
the history, gleaned from this quarter and that, perfectly
cohere ; are evidently component parts of one trustworthy
narrative ; and no reasonable doubt will remain upon our
minds, that Hezekiah was greatly straitened before the in-

PART III. PROPHETIC SCRIPTURES. 233

vasion, and was suddenly replenished after it ; but then
the truth of these facts bears upon the truth of the won-
derful event which is said to have accompanied and ter-
minated that invasion ; not indeed proving the truth of it,
but very remarkably agreeing with the supposition of its
truth. For certainly this extraordinary and voluntary in-
flux of gifts to Jerusalem from the nations round about,
sinking as Judah had long been in its position amongst
those nations, indicates some strong re-action or other in
its favor at that time ; as indeed does this embassage from
afar country, (such is the description of it,) a country then
comparatively but little known. The dignity of Israel
seems to have once more asserted itself; and though it is
not to be affirmed as a positive fact, (at least on the author-
ity of the Book of Kings or of Isaiah, though the Book of
Chronicles, howbeit, in other parts of this transaction so
defective, does seem to imply it), that the mirac^dous de-
struction of the Assyrian army was the event which had
caused this strong sensation in the countries round about ;
yet such an event, to say the least, is very consistent with
it ; and accordingly, the passage of Chronicles to which I
refer, (xxxii. 23,) tells us, that '' many brought gifts to the
Loi'd at Jerusalem," as w^ell as " presents to Hezekiah," in
testimony, it may be presumed, of the work being the Lord's
doing, and not the act of man ; i. e. that the Assyrian host
fell by an infliction from heaven, and not by any ordinary
defeat ; and if it should suggest itself, that a part of these
treasures might have been derived from the spoils of the
Assyrian host, and that the amount of gifts from the sur-
rounding nations might have been augmented by the sack-
ing of the tents of the enemy ; even as " all the way was
full of garments and vessels" (we are told on another oc-
casion of the sudden overthrow of an army of a different

20*

234

THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

nation), " which the Syrians had cast away in their haste ;"'
the argument remains still the same.

2. Neither is this all. Hitherto, we have merely de-
rived from the coincidence an argument for the truth of the
miracle.

But it also confirms the propliecy touching the captivity
to Babylon ; and shows the words to have been spoken
very long before the event.

For the aptness with which the several independent
particulars we have collected fit into one another, when
brought into juxtaposition, without being packed for the
purpose ; viz., the threat of the Assyrian invasion ; the
impoverishment of the exchequer of Hezekiah to avert it ;
the overthrow of the Assyrian host ; the influx of treasure
to Jerusalem from foreign nations, or from the enemy's
camp ; the recovery of Hezekiah ; the arrival of the em-
bassage of congratulation from Babylon; the wealth he
now exhibits to that embassage, even to ostentation ; — the
fcarmony, I say, with which these several incidents concur,
both in details and dates, is such as could only result from
the truth of the whole and of its parts. If we take, there-
-fore, this fact as a basis, as a fact established, for so I re-
gard itj that at that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Ba-
ladan, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah ; for he had
heard that he had been sick and was recovered ; and that
Hezekiah showed the messengers all that was found in his
treasures, (fee, the warning of Isaiah, to which Hezekiah's
vanity gives occasion, rises so naturally out of the premises.
is so entirely founded upon them, and so intimately com-
bmed with them, that it is next to impossible not to accept
it as a fact too. The folly of the king, and the reproof of
the prophet, must stand or fall together : the one prompts

» 2 Kings vii, 16.

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 235

the other ; the truth of the one sustains the truth of tlie
other ; the date of the one fixes the date of the other. But
this warning, this reproof of Isaiah, and this confession of
the king, runs thus: — "What said these men? and from
whence came they unto (hee?" To which Hezekiah
made answer, " They are come from a far country unto
me. even from Babylon." Then said Isaiah, "What have
they seen in thine house?" And Hezekiah answered,
" All that is in mine house have they seen ; there is noth-
ing among my treasures that I have not showed them."
Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, " Hear the word of the Lord
of hosts : Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine
house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store
until this day, shall be carried to Babylon, and nothing
shall be left, saith the Lord."'

Thus the period of Hezekiah's display of his finances
being determined to a period soon after the downfall of the
Assyrians, this rebuke of the prophet which springs out of
it is determined to the same. Then the rebuke was a
prophecy ; for as yet it remained for Esar-haddon, the son
of Sennacherib, to annex Babylon to Assyria by conquest
— it remained for the two kingdoms to continue united for
two generations more — it remained for Nabopolassar, the
satrap of Babylon, to revolt from Assyria, and set up that
kingdom for itself — and it remained for Nebuchadnezzar
his son to succeed him. and by carrying away the Jews to
Babylon, accomplish the words of Isaiah. But this inter-
val occupied a hundred years and upwards ; and so far,
therefore, must the spirit of prophecy have carried him for-
ward into futurity ; and thaj, too, contrary to all present
appearances ; for Babylon was as yet but a name to the
people of Jerusalem — it was a far country, and was to be

1 Isaiah, xzzix.

236 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III,

swallowed up in the great Assyrian empire, and recover
its independence once more, before it could be brought to
act against Judah.

The only objection to this argument which I can im-
agine is, that the prophetical part of the passage might
have been grafted upon the historical part by a later hand ;
but the seaming, I think, must in that case have appeared.
Whereas the prophecy is in the form of a rebuke ; the re-
buke inseparably connected with Hezekiah's vainglorious
display of his treasures — his possession of those treasures
to display, at the pecuhar crisis when the embassy arrived,
though shortly before his poverty was excessive, confirmed
as a matter of fact beyond all reasonable doubt, by an un-
designed coincidence. The premises then being thus es-
tablished in truth, and the consequences flowing from them
being so close and so natural, it is less easy to suppose them
fictitious than prophetical.

IV

There is another ingredient in the details of this in-
vasion of Sennacherib which when compared with a pas-
sage in Isaiah, furnishes, I think, a probable coincidence ;
and tends to hem round the wonderful event which is said
to have attended that invasion, with still more evidence of
truth.

When the king of Assyria sent his host against Jeru-
salem on this occasion, the persons deputed by Hezekiah
to confer with his captains, were, we read, " Eliakim the
S071 of Hilkiah, which was over his household, and Shebna
the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder."*

1 2 Kings xviii. 18.

FART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 237

Their names occur more than once/ and still with this
distinction, namely, that the parentage of Eliakim and of
Joah is given, but not that of Shebna : of the two former it
is told whose sons they were, as well as what offices they
held ; whilst Shebna is designated by his office only.

Now is there a reason for this, or is it merely the effect
of accident ? The omission certainly may be accidental,
but I will suggest a ground for thinking it not so. and will
leave my readers to be the judges of the matter.

In the twenty-second chapter of Isaiah (v. 15 et seq.)
we find the prophet delivering a message of wrath against
one Shebna, in the following terms : " Thus saith the Lord
God of hosts, Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto
Shebna, which is over the house, and say, What hast
thoii here 7 and whom hast thou here, that thou hast
hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him
out a sepulchre on high, and that graveth an habitation
for himself in a rock ? Behold, the Lord will carry thee
away with a mighty captivity, and will surely cover thee.
He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a ball into
a large country : there shalt thou die, and there the chari-
ots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy Lord's house.
And I will drive thee from thy station, and from thy state
shall he pull thee down." The purport of which rebuke
is, that whereas Shebna was busily engaged in construct-
ing for himself a sumptuous sepulchre at Jerusalem, as
though he and his posterity were to have that for their
burial-place forever, he might spare himself the pains, for
that God, for some transgression of his which is not men-
tioned, was about to depose him from the post of honor
which he held, and banish him from his city, and leave
him to die in a strange land.

1 I Kings xix. 2; Isaiah xxivi. 3.

238 THE VERACITY OF THE PART. III.

It is true that Shebna is liere called the " treasurer,"
whereas the Shebna mentioned in the book of Kings, with
whom the coincidence requires that he should be identified,
is called " the scribe," but the two periods are not neces-
sarily the same, and he inight have been " the treasurer,"
at the one, and " the scribe," at the other ; for that he is
the same man I can have no doubt, not merely from Shebna
in either case belonging clearly to the king's court, which
greatly hmits the conditions ; but from EUakim the son of
Hilkiah being again spoken of immediately in connection
with him in the passage of Isaiah (ver. 20), as he had been
in the passage of the Book of Kings. It being presumed,
then, that the Shebna of Isaiah and the Shebna of the
Book of Kings is the same person, I account for the omis-
sion of his parentage in the history from the circumstance
of his being a foreigner at Jerusalem, whilst Eliakim and
Joah were native Jews whose genealogy was known ; and
this fact I conclude from the expression in Isaiah which I
have printed in Itahcs, " What hast thou here^ and whom
hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre
here ?" Jerusalem not having been the burial-place of his
family, because he did not belong to Jerusalem.

V.

In the sixty-second chapter of this same prophet Isaiah,
reference is made to the future restoration of the Jewish
Church ; in the first sense, perhaps, and as a frame-work
of more, its restoration from Babylon ; in a second, its
eventual restoration to Christ, and the coming in of the
Jew and Gentile together. " And thou shalt no more be
termed Forsaketi,'^ — so Isaiah here expresses himself con-
cerning Jerusalem, — " neither shall thy land any more be

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 239

termed Desolate ; but thou shall be called Hephzi-bah,
and thy land Beulah : for the Lord delighteth in thee ;
and thy land shall be married." (ver. 4.)

The figure here employed is that of a marriage ; there
is to be a marriage between God and his Church : that di-
vorce from God, which the sins of Jerusalem had effected,
was to be done away, and the nuptial bond be renewed.
Jerusalem was to be no longer as a widow, Forsakeri and
Desolate^ but to be as a bride, and to be called Heph-
zi-bah, i. e. " in her is my delight," and " Beulah.^^ i. e.
married. The verse immediately following the one I have
produced, still continues the same figure : " For as a young
man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry (or again
live with) thee ; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over his
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee" (ver. 5). Now
it is impossible to read the prophets with the least atten-
tion, and not discover that the incidents upon which they
raise their oracular superstructure are in general real mat-
ters of fact which have fallen in their way. When they
soar even into their sublimest flights, they often take their
spring from some solid and substantial footing. Our Lord
was acting quite in the spirit of the older prophets when
he advanced from his observations on the temple before
him, and the desolation it was soon to suffer, to the final
consummation of all things, and the breaking up of the
universal visible world ; and the commentary of those who
would endeavor to construe the whole by a reference to the
destruction of Jerusalem only, is not imbued with the
spirit of the prophets of ancient times.

From the passage before us, then, it should seem that
some nuptial ceremony was the accident of the day which
gave the prophet an opportunity of uttering his parable
concerning the future fortune of Jerusalem. Can we trace
any such event in the history of those days likely from its

240 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

importance to arrest public attention, and thus to furnish
Isaiah with this figure ? I do not say positively that we
can — nevertheless the name of Hephzi-bah, which he
assigns to this his new Jerusalem, may throw some light
upon our inquiry ; for in the twenty-first chapter of the
second Book of Kings 1 read that " Manasseh " (the son
of Hezekiah) " was twelve years old when he began to
reign, and that he reigned fifty and five years in Jeru-
ealem, and that his mother's name was Hephzi-bah."^
It is not improbable, therefore, that the royal nuptials of
Hezekiah occurred about the time of this prophecy ; and
that Isaiah, after the manner of the prophets in general,
availed himself of the passing event, and of the name of
the bride, as a vehicle for the tidings which he had to
communicate. This too may seem the more likely, be-
cause this prophecy of Isaiah does not appear to have been
spoken at an early period of his mission, but subsequently
to the sickness and recovery of Hezekiah, (if the prophecies
at least are arranged at all in the order in which they
were delivered ;) neither is it probable that the marriage of
Hezekiah was contracted till after that same sickness and
recovery, seeing that his son and successor was but twelve
years old at his father's death, which happened, we know,
fifteen years after his illness.

VI.

But it is not by single and separate coincidences only
that the authority of these prophecies is upheld : there are
some coincidences of a more comprehensive and general
jkind that argue the same truth. Thus, the scenes amongst

' 3 Kings xxi. 1.

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 241

which Isaiah seems to write, indicate the commonwealth
of Israel to be yet standing'. He remonstrates, in the
name of God, with the people for a hypocritical obser-
vance of the Fast-days (ch. Iviii. 3) ; for exacting usurious
profits nevertheless ; for prolonging unlawfully the years
of bondage (v. 6) ; for profaning the Sabbaths (v. 13) ;
for confounding all distinction between clean and unclean
meats (ch. Ixv. 4 ; Ixvi. 17.) He makes perpetual allu-
sions, too, to the existence of false prophets in Jerusalem,
as though this class of persons was very common whilst
Isaiah was writing ; the most likely persons in the world
to be engendered by troubled times. And above all, he
reviles the people for their gross and universal idolatry ; a
sin, which in all its aspects, is pursued from the fortieth
chapter to the last with a ceaseless, inextinguishable, un-
mitigated storm of mockery, contempt and scorn. With
what position of the prophet can these, and many similar
allusions, be reconciled, but with that of a man dwelling
in Judea before the captivity, during a period, which, as
historically described in the latter chapters of the Books of
Kings and Chronicles, presents the express counterpart of
those references in the prophet ? Hezekiah and Josiah,
the two redeeming princes of that time, serving, as break-
ers, to make manifest the fury with which the tide of
abominations of 6very kind was running. I say, to what
other period, and to what other position of the writer, does
the internal evidence of Isaiah point? indirectly indeed,
but not on that account, in a manner the less conclusive.
Had he taken up his parable during the Babylonish bon-
dage, would there not have been frequent and inadvertent
allusions to the circumstances of Babylon ? Could his
style have escaped the contagious influence of the scenes
around him? even as the case actually is with Daniel,
whose dwelling was at Babylon. Yet in Isaiah there are

21

242 THE VERACITY OP THE PART III.

no allusions of this nature. It is of Jerusalem, and not of
Babylon, that his roll savors throughout ; of the land of
Israel, and not of Chaldea. Moreover, it is of Jerusalem
before the captivity ; for after that trying furnace through
which the Jewish nation was condemned to pass, it was
disinfected of idolatry. Nay, a horror of idolatry suc-
ceeded, great as had been the propensity to it aforetime ;
the whole nation baring their necks to the sword, rather
than admit wnthin their walls even a Roman Eagle :
whilst the ritual observances of the law, so far from falling
into desuetude and contempt, were now kept with even a
superstitious scrupulosity.

I think then that the several undesigned coincidences
between passages in Isaiah, and others in the Books of
Kings and Chronicles, which have been now adduced,
enough to prove that the prophet was contemporary with
Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, and saw his vision
in their days, even as its title declares. The mere intro-
duction of the names of these princes into the pages of
Isaiah, is not the argument on which I rely. It might be
said, however improbably, that an author of a date much
lower, might have admitted these names, and fragments
of history connected with them, into his rhapsody, in order
to give it a coloring of fact — but it is the indirect coin-
cidences between the prophet and the history, which veri-
fies the date of the former — allusions, mere allusions, to
obscure servants of these sovereigns (known to be such) ;
to a marriage of the day ; to the slopping of a well ; to
the foolish exhibition of a treasure — allusions, indeed, in
some cases so indistinct, that the full drift of the prophet
would have escaped us, but for the historian. Such an ar-
gument ought to satisfy us that Isaiah was as surely
alive, and dead, long before the Babylonish captivity, which
he so accurately foretold, even to the deliverance from it —

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 243

a still further reach into futurity — as that Ahaz and Heze-
kiah lived and died long before it ; an argument therefore,
which justifies the Jews in their enrolment of his name
amongst the most distinguished of their prophets, though
they had no other ground for so doing than their knowl-
edge of his exact prediction of the events of those days ;
and which must leave us without excuse in our incredulity,
born as we are after the advent of the Messiah, which
forms so principal a subject of Isaiah's writings besides ;
and whose character and Gospel we have found to corres-
pond in so remarkable a manner to the description of both
which they contain. For it is not the least singular, or
the least satisfactory feature in the writings of Isaiah, that
they should thus relate to two distinct periods, separated
by a wide interval of time, and be found to be so exact in
both ; that they should have first taken for their field the
events preceding and accompanying the captivity, foretell-
ing them so faithfully as to convince the Jew that he was
one of the greatest of his prophets : that some hundreds
of years should then be allowed to elapse, of which they
are silent ; and that then they should break out again on
the subject of a second and altogether diflTerent series of in-
cidents, so deeply interesting to the Christian, and be found
by him, in his turn, to be so wonderfully true to them — so
wonderfully true to them, that he cannot but be surprised
that the Jew whose acceptance of the prophet was even
already secured by the previous stage of his prophecy, of
which we have been now examining the evidence, should
still be unable to see in him the prophet of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth too.

244 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

VII

We next come to the writings of Jeremiah, which do
not however supply many arguments of the kind I am
collecting, nor perhaps any so persuasive in their character
as some which I have produced from Isaiah. Still there
are several which at least deserve to be brought before
you.

In the midst of a denunciation of evils to come upon
Jerusalem for her wickedness, which we find in the thir-
teenth chapter of Jeremiah ; a denunciation for the most
part expressed in general terms, and in a manner not con-
veying any very exact allusions, we read at the eighteenth
verse, " Say unto the King and to the Queen, Humble
yourselves : sit down, for your principalities shall come
down, even the crown of your glory." Jeremiah does not
here tell us the name either of the king or the queen re-
ferred to — but as the queens of Israel do not figure prom-
inently in the history of that nation, except where there is
something peculiar in their characters or condition to bring
them out, it may be thought there was something of the
kind in this instance : and accordingly we have mention
made in the twenty-fourth chapter of the second Book of
Kings of an invasion of the Chaldeans, attended by cir-
cumstances corresponding to what we might expect from
this exclamation of Jeremiah. It was the second of the
three invasions which occurred at that time within a few
years of one another, to which I allude ;• an invasion made
by the servants of Nebuchadnezzar, followed by Nebuch-
adnezzar himself in person. On this occasion it is said,
that " Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king

' 2 Kings xxiv. 1, 10; xxv. I.

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 245

of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his
princes, and his officers : and the king of Babylon took
him in the eighth year of his reign," (ver. 12 :) and again,
" and he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the
king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and
the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from
Jerusalem to Babylon." (ver. 15.)

As Jehoiachin was at that time only eighteen years old,
and had reigned no more than three months, (ver. 8,) the
queen dowager was no doubt still a person of consequence,
possibly his adviser, at any rate an influential person as
yet, so short a period having elapsed since the death of
her husband the last king : and thus an object of pity to
the prophet, and one that called for express notice and
remark.

VIII.

Jeremiah xxii. 10 — 12, furnishes us with another in-
stance of coincidence without design, calculated to establish
our belief in that prophet. We there read, " Weep not for
the dead, neither bemoan him : but weep for him that
goeth away ; for he shall return no more, nor see his
native country. For thus saith the Lord touching Shallurn
the son of Josiah, king of Judah, Avhich reigned instead
of Josiah his father, which went forth out of this place ;
He shall not return thither any more : but he shall die in
the place whither they have led him captive, and shall see
this land no more."

Now this passage evidently relates to several events
familiar to the minds of those whom the prophet was ad-
dressing. It is a series of allusions to circumstances known
to them, but by no means sufficiently developed to put us

246 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

in possession of the tale without some further key. It
should appear that there liad been a great pubHc mourn-
ing in Jerusalem : but it is not distinctly said for whom ;
it might be supposed for Josiah, whose name occurs in
the paragraph ; — that another calamity had come upon
its heels very shortly afterwards, calling, as the prophet
thought, for expressions of national sorrow which might
even supersede the other ; a prince, the son of Josiah, led
away captive into a foreign land ; but whither he was thus
led, or by whom, is not declared. The whole evidently
the discourse of a man living amongst the scenes he touches
upon, and conscious that he has no need to do more than
touch upon them to make himself understood by his
hearers.

Now let us turn to the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth chap-
ters of the second Book of Chronicles, where certain histor-
ical details of the events of those times are preserved, and
the key will be supplied. In the former chapter I find that
the death of Josiah, a king who had been a blessing to his
kingdom, and who was slain by an arrow, as he fought
against the Egyptians, was in fact an event that filled all
Jerusalem with consternation and grief: " he died, and was
buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Ju-
dah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah la-
mented for Josiah : and all the singing men and the sing-
ing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations unto this
day, and made them an ordinance in Israel : and, behold,
they are written in the Lamentations.'" Here we have the
first feature in Jeremiah's very transient sketch completed.

I look at the continuation of the history in the next
chapter, and I there find that the son of Josiah, Jehoahaz
by name, (and not called Shallum in the Chronicles,) " be-

1 2 Chron. xxv. 24, 25.

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 247

gan to reign, and that he reigned three mouths in Jerusa-
lem; and the king of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem,
and condemned the land in a hundred talents of silver and
a talent of gold. And the king of Egypt made Eliakim
his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and turned his
name to Jehoiakim. And Necho took Jehoahaz his brother,
and carried him to Egypt J' Here we have the other out-
lines of Jeremiah's picture filled up. The second calamity
did come, it appears, on the heels of the first, for it was only
after an interval of three months. The king of Egypt, we
now find, was the conqueror who carried the prince away,
and Egypt was the country to which he was conducted.
And though the victim is called Jehoahaz in the history,
and Shallum in the prophet, the facts concerning him tally
so exactly, that there can be no doubt of the identity of
the man ; whilst the absence of all attempt on either side
to explain or reconcile this difficulty about the name, is a
clear proof that neither passage was written in reference to
the other : though it may be conjectured, that as Necho
gave a new name toEhakim.' the one brother, so he might
have done the hke by the other, and called him Shallum
instead of Jehoahaz.

But there is a further hint. " Weep not," says Jere-
miah, " for the dead ; but weep for him that goeth away,
for he shall return no more." This should imply that the
prince of whom Jerusalem was thus bereft, was acceptable
to his people ; more acceptable than he who was to supply
his place. The thing to be lamented was that he would
return no more. It is true that for the little time Jehoahaz
reigned, he did evil in the sight of the Lord f but so did
Jehoiakim; 3 so that in this respect there was nothing to
choose ; and in the condition of the Jews at that time, an

1 2 Kings xxiii. 34. 2 lb. xxiii. 32. 3 2 Chron. xxxvi. 5.

21*

248 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

irreligious prince (for that would be the nieaning of the
term) would not necessarily be an unpopular one. I repeat,
therefore, that the words of Jeremiah seem to indicate that
the prince who had been carried away was more accepta-
l)le than the one who was left in his stead. I now turn,
once again, to the thirty-sixth chapter of the second Book
of Chronicles, (v. 1,) or to the twenty-third chapter of the
second Book of Kings, (v. 30,) and I there discover (for the
incident is not obvious) a particular with regard to this prince
who was carried away captive by Necho, and to his brother
who was appointed to reign in his stead, very remarka-
bly coinciding with these innuendoes of Jeremiah. For
in the former reference it is said, that on the death of Jo-
siah, " the people of the land took Jehoahaz,'^ (the Shallum
of the prophet) " the son of Josiah, and made him king in
his father's stead at Jerusalem : and Jehoahaz," it contin-
ues, " was twenty and three years old when he began to
reign." Then comes the history of his deposal, abduction,
and of the substitution of his brother Eliakim to reign in
Jerusalem in his place, under the name of Jehoiakim : " and
Jehoiakim," it is added, " was twenty and five years old
when he began to reign." Now inasmuch as Jehoahaz
had reigned only three months, Jehoahaz must have been
younger than Jehoiakim by nearly two years : how then
came the younger son to succeed his father on the throne
in the first instance ? " The people of the land took hitn,^^
we have read ; i. e. he was the more popular character, and
therefore they set him on the throne in spite of the supe-
rior claims of the first-born. And a phrase which occurs in
the latter of the two references confirms this view ; for the
people are there said not only to have taken him, but to
have '■ anointed hini'^ — a ceremonial, which, whether inva-
riably observed or not in cases of ordinary descent of the

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 249

crown, never seems to have been omitted in cases of doubt-
ful succession.'

This history, it will be seen, supplies with great success
the particulars which are incidentally omitted in the pro-
phecy, though clearly constructed with no such intention ;
and fixes the date of Jeremiah to a period long before sev-
eral of the events which he foretells.

IX

Of Hosea, we read that he prophesied " in the days
of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Ju-
dah." (i. 1.)

In tlie course of this prophecy we find frequent inciden-
tal allusions to a scarcity of food in the land of Israel.

'' Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the
time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof," (ii. 9.) "I
will destroy her vines and her fig-trees," (11.) " Therefore
shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein
shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the
fowls of heaven ; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be
taken away," (iv. 3.) " They have not cried unto me with
their heart, when they howled upon their beds : they as-
sembled themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel
against me," (vii. 14.) " They have sown the wind, and
they shall reap the whirlwind : it hath no stalk : the bud
shall yield no meal," (viii. 7.) "The floor and the wine-
press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail
them." (ix. 2.)

Again, Amos is said to have prophesied concerning Israel
" in the days of Uzziah^ king of Judah, and in the days
of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel," (i. 1.)

1 See 2 Kings ix. 3, and Patrick in loc. and also on 2 Kings xxiii. 30.

250 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

In this prophet also, in Uke manner, as in the former,
we find incidental aUusions to dearth in the land. " The
habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of
Carmel shall wither," (i. 2.) " I also have given you clean-
ness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all
your places, yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the
Lord. And also I have withholden the rain from you,
when there were yet three months to the harvest ... So
two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water ;
but they were not satisfied ... I have smitten you with
blasting and mildew : when your gardens, and your vine-
yards, and your fig-trees, and your olive-trees increased, the
palmervvorm devoured them . . . they shall call the husband-
man to the mourning . . . And in all vineyards shall be wail-
ing." (iv. 6, 7, 8, 9 ; v. 16, 17.)— With more to the same
effect in both these prophets.

Now, if we turn to 2 Chron. xxvi. 10, where we have a
brief history of the reign of this same king Uzziah^ under
whom we have seen they lived, we shall find a feature of
it recorded, which seems to tally extremely well with this
representation of the condition of Israel. For it is there
told of him, amongst other things, that " he built towers in
the desert, and digged many wells : for he had much cat-
tle, both in the low country and in the plains : husband-
men also, and vine-dressers in the mountains, and in Car-
mel : for he loved husbandry.''^ As though the precarious
state of the supply of food in the country had turned the
king's attention in a particular manner to the improvement
of its agriculture.

X.

The following is an example of a case where the hints
which transpire in the prophet agree very well with par-

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES. 251

ticulars recorded in the history ; but perhaps that is aU that
can be said of it with safety: the language of the prophet
not being sufficiently specific to fix the coincidence to a
certainty. The reader must judge for himself of the value
of the argument in this particular instance.

We read in Amos (vii. 10, 11) as follows : " Then Ama-
ziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel,
saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of
the house of Israel : the land is not able to hear all his
words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the
sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of
their own land."

We have here a priest of Beth-el, i. e. of the calves, de-
nouncing to the king of Israel the prophet Amos, as one
who was unsettling the minds of the people by his prophe-
cies—prophecies which " the land was not able to bear.''
It would seem then from this phrase that the state was in
a critical condition ; such a condition as gave double force
to a prediction which went to deprive it of its king, and to
consign its children to bondage. It was ill able to spare
Jeroboam, or bear up against evil forebodings. This we
gather from the passage of Amos.

Let us now turn to the fourteenth chapter of the second
Book of Kings. There we read, first of all, of Jeroboam,
that " he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the
son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin," (ver. 23)— i. e. that
he strenuously supported the worship of the calves. This
fact then makes it highly probable that Amaziah, a priest
of Beth-el, would find in Jeroboam a ready Hstener to any
sinister construction he might put upon the words of a
prophet of the Lord, like Amos.

We further learn, that this same Jeroboam was one of
the most successful princes that had sat upon the throne
of Israel ; restoring her coasts, and recovering her posses-

252 THE VERACITY OF THE PART III.

sions by force of arms (ver. 25, 28) : a sovereign, therefore,
to be missed by the nation he ruled, whenever he should
be removed ; and especially if there was nobody forthcom-
ing calculated to replace him. Let us see how this was.
Jeroboam reigned forty-one years, (2 Kings xiv. 23,) but
in the twenty-seventh of Jeroboam, Azariah (or Uzziah as
he is called in the Chronicles. (2 Chron. xxvi. 1), began to
reign in Judah (2 Kings xv. 1) ; i. e. Jeroboam's reign ex-
pired in the fifteenth of Azariah. But his son and succes-
sor Zachariah, for some reason or other, and owing to some
impediment which does not transpire, did not begin his
reign over Samaria till the thirty-eighth of Azariah (ib. 8).
Therefore the throne of Samaria must have been in some
sort vacant twenty-three years : nor did the anarchy cease
even then, for Zachariah having at length ascended the
throne, after a reign of six months, was murdered publicly
"before the people;" and Shallum, the usui-per who suc-
ceeded him, shared the same fate after a reign of a single
month (ib. 13); and Menahem, the successor of Shallum,
was reduced to the necessity of buying off an invasion of
the Assyrians (the first incursion of that people) under Pul
(ib. 19) ; Assyria having in the meanwhile grown great,
and now taking advantage of the ruinous condition of
Israel, consequent on the death of Jeroboam, to come
against her.'

Amaziah, therefore, might well declare that the land
was not able to hear the words of Amos, for in all proba-
bility he could foresee, from the actual circumstances of the
country, the troubles that were likely to ensue whenever
Jeroboam's reign should be brought to an end.

I This is the first mention of the kingdom of Assyria since the days of
Nimrod (Gen. x. 11). It seems to have been inconsiderable when the
eighty-third Psalm was penned, in which Assur is represented as helping
the children of Lot. (v. 8.)

PART III. PROPHETICAL SCRIPTURES.

253

Here then, I say, the language of the prophet is at least
very consistent with the crisis of which he speaks, as rep-
resented in the Book of Kings.

I could add several other examples of this class, i. e.
where allusions in the prophets are very sufficiently re-
sponded to by events recorded in the historical Books of
Scripture, but still the want of precision in the terms makes
it difficult to affirm the coincidence between the two docu-
ments with confidence ; and therefore I have thought it
better to suppress such instances, as not possessing that
force of evidence which entitles them to a place in these
pages ; as for the same reason I drew no contingent to my
argument from a comparison between the Psalms and the
Books of Samuel ; for though many of the Psalms concur
very well with the circumstances in which David is repre-
sented to have been actually placed from time to time, in
the Books of Samuel : and though the Psalms are often
headed with a notice that this was written when he was
flying before Saul, and that when he was reproached by
Nathan : yet the internal testimony is not so strong as to
carry conviction along with it, of such being really the case ;
and this failing, it is folly to weaken a sound argument by
a fanciful extension of it.

THE VERACITY

OF THE

&OSPELS AND ACTS

PART IV.

I NOW proceed to apply the same test of truth, the test
of coincidence without design, which the Scriptures of the
Old Testament have sustained so satisfactorily, to the
Gospels and Acts of the Apostles ; and I am pleased that
my first coincidence in order happens to be one of the
class where a miracle is involved in the coincidence.

In the fourth chapter of St. Matthew we read thus : —
" And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two
brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother,
casting a net into the sea ; for they were fishers. And
he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you
fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets,
and followed him. And going on from thence, he
saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee,
and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their

PART IV. THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 255

father, mending their nets ; and he called thena.

And they immediately left the ship and their father,

and followed him."
Now let us compare this with the fifth chapter of St. Luke.
"And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him
to hear the Word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennes-
aret, and saw two ships standing by the lake, but the
fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their
nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was
Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little
from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people
out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said
unto Simon, launch out into the deep, and let down your
nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto hira,
Master, we have toiled all the night, and taken nothing ;
nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And
when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude
of fishes, and their ?iet brake ; and they beckoned to their
partners which were in the other ship, that they should
come and help them ; and they came, and filled both the
ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter
saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying. Depart from
me, for I am a sinful man, Lord. For he was aston-
ished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the
fishes which they had taken ; and so was also James, and
John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with
Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not ; from
henceforth thou shall catch men. And when they had
l)rought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed
him."

The narrative of St. Luke may be reckoned the supple-
inent to that of St. Matthew ; for that both relate to the
same event I think indisputable. In both we are told of
the circumstances under which Andrew, Peter, James, and

256

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

John, became the decided followers of Christ ; in both
they are called to attend him in the same terms, and those
remarkable and technical terms ; in both the scene is the
same, the grouping of the parties the same, and the obedi-
ence to the summons the same. By comparing the two
Evangelists, the history may be thus completed : — Jesus
teaches the people out of Peter's boat, to avoid the press ;
the boat of Zebedee and his sons, meanwhile, standing by
the lake a little further on. The sermon ended, Jesus
orders Peter to thrust out, and the miraculous draught of
fishes ensues. Peter's boat not sufficing for the fish, he
beckons to his partners, Zebedee and his companions, who
were in the other ship. The vessels are both filled and
pulled to the shore ; and now Jesus, having convinced
Peter and Andrew by his preaching and the miracle which
he had wrought, gives them the call. He then goes on to
Zebedee and his sons, who having brought their boat to
land were mending their nets, and calls them. Such is
the whole transaction, not to be gathered from one, but
from both the Evangelists. The circumstance to be re-
marked, therefore, is this : that of the miracle, St. Matthew
says not a single word ; nevertheless, he tells us. that
Zebedee and his sons were found by our Lord, when he
gave them the call, " mending their nets." How it hap-
pened that the nets wanted mending he does not think it
needful to state, nor should we have thought it needful to
inquire, but it is impossible not to observe, that it perfectly
harmonizes with the incident mentioned by St. Luke, that
in the miraculous draught of fishes the nets brake. This
coincidence, slight as it is, seems to me to bear upon the
truth of the miracle itself. For the " mending of the nets,"
asserted by one Evangelist, gives probability to the '' break-
ing of the nets," mentioned by the other — the breaking of
the nets gives probability to the large draught of fishes —

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 257

the large draught of fishes gives probabiUty to the miracle.
I do not mean that the coincidence proves the miracle, but
that it marks an attention to truth in the Evangelists ; for
it surely would be an extravagant refinement to suppose,
that St. Matthew designedly lets fall the fact of tiie mend-
ing of the nets, whilst he suppresses the miracle, in order
to confirm the credit of St. Luke, who, in relating the
miracle, says, .that through it the nets brake.'

I The indentity of the event here recorded by St. Matthew and St. Luke
is questioned, and upon the following grounds.

1. In St. Matthew, " Jesus walks by the sea of Galilee." In St. Luke,
"the people press upon him to hear the word as he stood by the lake."
The quiet walk has nothing in common with the press of the multitude.
But how do we know that the walk was a quiet one ■? It is not, indeed,
asserted that It was otherwise, but the omission of a fact is not the negation
of it. Nobody would suppose, from St. John's account of the crucifixion,
that nature was otherwise than perfectly still ; yet there was an earthquake,
and rending of rocks, and darkness over all the land.

2. In St. Matthew, " Jesus saw two brethren, Simon and Andrew," and
addressed them both, " Follow me." In St. Mark, (i. 17, who certainly
describes the same incident as St. Matthew,) he says, " Come ye." In St.
Luke, Simon only is named; and " Launch out," (cTmi/uyayt) is in the sin-
gular. But though Simon alone is named, it is evident that there was some
other person with him in the boat ; for no sooner is it needful to let down
the nets (an operation which probably required more than one pair of
hands) than the number becomes plural (YaX(ia''ir£). Who the coadjutor
was, is not hinted at ; but it strikes me that there is a coincidence, and not
an idle one, between the intimation of St. Luke, that though Simon only is
named, he was nevertheless not alone in the boat, and the direct assertion
of St. Matthew and St. Mark, that Andrew was with him; indeed the
plural is used in all the remainder of St. Luke's narrative — " they inclosed"
— "they beckoned" — not meaning Jesus and Simon, but Simon and some
one with him, as is manifest from Jesus himself saying, " Let ye down the
nets," for so the translation ought to have run. And though it is true that
in St. Luke the call is expressly directed to Simon alone, " thou shalt catch
men," it was evidently considered to apply to others ; for " they forsook all
and followed him;" amongst whom Andrew might well be included.

3. In St. Matthew, Simon and Andrew receive one call, James and John
another. In St. Luke one call serves for all. But where the two calls
were to the same effect, and so nearly at the same time, I do not think it in-

258 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

Besides, though St. Matthew does not record the mirac-
ulous draught, yet the readiness of the several disciples

consistent with the nature of the rapid memoranda of an Evangelist to com-
bine them into one, any more than that the cure of the two blind men near
Jericho of St. Matthew, should be comprised in the cure of one by St. Mark ;
for the identity of these miracles, in spite of some trifling differences, I can-
not doubt.

4. In St. Matthew, James and John are leisurely mending their nets. In
St. Luke, they are busily engaged in helping Simon. But to draw a con-
tradiction from this, it is necessary to show first of all, that St. Matthew and
St. Luke both speak to, the same instant of time. The mending of the nets
does not imply that they had not been helping Simon, nor does the helping
Simon imply that they would not presently mend their nets.

5. It is further objected that, if the mending of the nets of St. Matthew
was subsequent to the breaking of the nets of St. Luke, or the miraculous
draught, Simon and Andrew casting their nets into the sea was also subse-
quent to it, for that v. 18 and v. 21 (Matt, iv.) relate to events all but simul-
taneous. It may be so, for my impression is, that when Simon and Andrew
cast their net into the sea, it was for the purpose oiicasking the net after the
fishing was over, and not of fishing r fiaWovrai dn<pili\f]arpov is the expres-
sion, and perhaps plimging the net would be the better translation ; and I
feel confirmed in this by the fact that, whatever the operation was, it was
done close to shore, if not on the shore, whilst Jesus was talking to them on
the land. Whereas, for fishing, it was necessary to move out to sea:
" Launch out into the deep" says our Lord, when he wants them to let
down their nets for a draught.

6. It is said, that according to St. Luke, Simon's net brake, and that,
therefore, Simon and his companion were the persons to mend it ; whereas,
according to St. Matthew, Zebedee and his sons were the parties employed.
But they were all partners, and therefore the property was, probably, com-
mon property; and that as the "hired servants" were with Zebedee and
his sons, it is not unlikely, but the contrary, that the labor of mending the
nets would devolve upon them, (Mark i. 20).

7. The last objection which remains is, that a comparison of St. Mark. i.
23 — 39, with St. Luke iv. 31—44, shows the call in St. Mark (which is cer-
tainly that of St. Matthew) to have been pior to the call in St. Luke. So
it does, if St. Luke observes strictly the order of events in his narrative ; but
I see no sufficient reason for beheving that what is related in ch. iv. 31 — 44,
happened before what is related in ch. v. 1 — 11. In the former passage St.
Luke tells us that " Jesus came down to Capernaum, and taught them on
the Sabbath-days," and he then goes on to mention some Sabbath-day oc-

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 259

on this occasion to follow Jesus, (a thing which he does
record,) agrees, no less than the mending of the nets, with
that extraordinary event; for what more natural than that
men should leave all for a master whose powers were so
commanding ? %\ I % 5 f)

II.

Matth. iv. 21. — " And going on from thence, he saw other
two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his
brother, in a ship with Zebedee their Father"

Ch. viii. 21. — "And another of his disciples said unto him.
Lord, suffer me first to go and buri/ mi/ father."

Ch. XX. 20. — " Then came to hira the mother of Zebedee's
children, with her sons, worshipping him, and desir-
ing a certain thing of him."

Ch. xxvii. 55, 56. — " And many women were there, behold-
ing afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, min-
istering unto him. Among which was Mary Magda-
lene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and
the mother of Zebedee^s children.
When the coincidence which I shall found upon these

currences, concluding the whole " and he preached in the synagogues of
Galilee." This had carried him too much in mediae res, and therefore in
ch. V. he brings up some of the work-day events, which a wish to pursue
his former subject without interruption had led him to withhold for awhile,
though of prior date. And only let us observe how clumsily the narrative
would proceed upon any other supposition — Jesus calls Andrew and Peter,
.Tames and John, as he was walking by the sea-side — then he goes to Caper-
naum — heals Peter's wife's mother, performs other cures, and retires to a
solitary place (Mark i. 16 — 36). Then, supposing St. Luke here to take
up the parable, (ch. iv. 42,) he goes again to the sea-side, and again calls
Peter, James, and John ; which would surely be one call too much.
I doubt not, therefore, the identity of the events described .

260

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV

passages first occurred to me, I felt some doubt whether,
by producing it, I might not subject myself to a charge of
over-refinement. On further consideration, however, I am
satisfied that the conjecture I hazard (for it is nothing more)
is far from improbable ; and I am the less disposed to with-
hold it from having observed, when I have chanced to dis-
cuss any of these paragraphs with my friends, how differ-
ently the importance of an argument is estimated by differ-
ent minds ; a point of evidence often inducing conviction
in one, which another would find almost nugatory.

Whoever reads the four verses which 1 have given at
the head of this number in juxtaposition, will probably an-
ticipate what I have to say. The coincidence here is not
between several writers, but between several detached pas-
sages of the same writer. From the first of these verses it
appears that, at the period when James and John received
the call to follow Christ, Zebedee their father was alive.
They obeyed the call, and left him. From the last two
verses it appears, in my opinion, that, at a subsequent pe-
riod of which they treat, Zebedee ivas dead. Zebedee
does not make the application to Christ on behalf of his
sons, but the mother of Zebedee's children makes it.
Zebedee is not at the crucifixion, but the mother of Zebe-
dee^s children. It is not from his absence on these occa-
sions that I so much infer his death, as from the expression
applied to Salome ; she is not called the wife of Zebedee,
she is not called the mother of James and John, but the
mother of Zebedee' s children. The term, I think, implies
that she was a widow.

Now from the second verse, which relates to a period
between these tivo, we learn that one of Jesus' disciples
asked him permission "ifo go and burp his father." The
interval was a short one ; the number of persons to whom
the name of disciple was given, was very small (see Matt.

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 261

ix. 37) ; a single boat seems to have contained them all
(viii. 23). In that number we know that the sons of Zeb-
edee were included. My inference, therefore, is, that the
death of Zehedee is here alluded to, and that St. Matthew,
without a wish, perhaps, or thought, either to conceal or
express the individual, (for there seems no assignable mo-
^.tive for his studying to do either,) betrays an event familiar
to his own mind, in that inadvertent and unobtrusive man-
ner in which the truth po often comes out.

The data, it must be confessed, are not enough to deter-
mine the matter with certainty either way ; it is a conjec-
tural coincidence. They who are not satisfied with it may
pass it over : I am persuaded, however, that nothing is
wanted but the discovery of a fifth or sixth Gospel to mul-
tiply such proofs of veracity as these I am collecting to a
great extent. It is impossible to examine the historical
parts of the New Testament in detail, without suspicions
constantly arising of facts, which, nevertheless, cannot be
substantiated for want of documents. We have very often
a glimpse, and no more. A hint is dropped relating to
something well known at the time, and which is not with-
out its value even now in evidence, by giving us to under-
stand that it is a fragment of some real story, of which we
are not in full possession. Of this nature is the circum-
stance recorded by St. Mark, (xiv. 51,) that when the dis-
ciples forsook Jesus, " there followed him a certain young
man, having a hnen cloth cast about his naked body, and
the young men laid hold of him ; and he left the linen
cloth, and fled from them naked." This is evidently an
imperfect history. It is an incident altogether detached,
and alone : another Gospel might give us the supplement.
and together with that supplement indications of its truth.
As another example of the same kind, may be mentioned
an expression in the beginning of the second chapter of

262 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

the Gospel of St. John, " and the third day there was a
marriage in Can a of Gahlee" (ver. i.) ; the Apostle clearly
having some other event in his mind which does not tran-
spire, from which this third day dates. Meanwhile let us
but apply ourselves diligently to comparing together the
four witnesses which we have, instead of indulging a fruit-
less desire for more, and if consistency without design be a
proof that they are " true men," I cannot but consider that
it is abundantly supplied.

Ill

Matth. viii. 14 — " And when Jesus was come into Peter's
house, he saw his wife!s mother laid, and sick of a
fever."

The coincidence which I have here to mention does
not strictly fall within my plan, for it results from a com-
parison of St. Matthew witli St. Paul ; if, however, it be
thought of any value, the irregularity of its introduction
will be easily overlooked.

In this passage of the Evangehst, then, by the merest
accident in the world, we discover that Peter was a mar-
ried man. It is a circumstance that has nothing what-
ever to do with the narrative, but is a gratuitous piece of
information, conveyed incidentally in the designation of
an individual who was the subject of a miracle.

But that Peter actually was a married man, we learn
from the independent testimony of St. Paul : " Have we
not power," says he, " to lead about a sister, a wife^ as well
as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord and
Cephas ?" 1 Cor. ix. 5. Where it may be remarked that
the difference in name, Cephas in the one passage, Peter
in the other, is in itself an argument that the one passage

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 263

was written without any reference to the other — that the
coincidence was without design. Here again, be it ob-
served, as in the former instance, the indication of veracity
in the Apostle's narrative, is found where the subject of
the narrative is a miracle ; for Christ having " touched her
hand, the fever left her, and she arose and ministered unto
them," (ver. 15.)

I cannot but think that any candid sceptic would con-
sider this coincidence to be at least decisive of the actual
existence of such a woman as Peter's wife's mother ; of
its being no imaginary character, no mere person of straw,
introduced with an air of precision, under the view of giving
a color of truth to the miracle. Yet, unless the Evan-
geHst had felt quite sure of his ground, quite sure, I mean,
that this remarkable cure would bear examination, it is
scarcely to be believed that he would have fixed it upon
an individual who certainly did live, or had lived, and who
therefore might herself, or her friends might for her, con-
tradict the alleged fact, if it never liad occurred. fP\ „ a, i^ | ^■

IV

Matt. viii. 16. — " When the even ivas come, they brought
unto him many that were possessed with devils ; and
he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all
that were sick."
The undesignedness of many passages in the Gospels
is overlooked in our familiar acquaintance with them.
They have been so long the subject of our reading and of
our reflection, that the evidence they furnish of their own
veracity does not always present itself to us with that fresh-
ness which is necessary to give it its due effect. We often,
no doubt, fill up an eUipsis and complete a meaning almost

264

THE VERACITY OP THE PART IV.

instinctively, without being aware how strongly the neces-
sity for doing this, marks the absence of all caution, con-
trivance, and circumspection in the writers. For instance,
why did they bring the sick and possessed to Jesus when
the even was come 7 I turn to the parallel passages of St.
Mark (i. 24) and St. Luke (iv. 31), and find that the trans-
action in question took place on the Sahhath-day . I turn
to another passage in St. Matthew, (xii. 10,) wholly inde-
pendent, however, of the former, and find that there was
a superstition amongst the Jews that it " was not lawful to
heal on the Sabbath-day." I put these together, and at
once see the reason why no application for a cure was
made to Jesus till the Sabbath was past, or in other words,
till the even was come. But St. Matthew, meanwhile,
does not offer one syllable in explanation. He states the
naked fact — that when the even was come people were
brought to be healed ; and, for aught that appears to the
contrary, it might have been any other day of the week.
Suppose it had happened that St. Matthew's Gospel had
been the only one which had descended to us, the value
of these few words, " iDhe7i the even ivas come^'' would
have been quite lost as an argument for the veracity of his
story ; for how could it have been conjectured that the
thought which was influencing St. Matthew's mind at the
moment when they escaped him, was this, that these things
were done on the evening of a Sahhath-day 7 There is
no one circumstance in the previous narrative of the events
of that day as given by this Evangelist, to point to such a
conclusion. Jesus had entered into Capernaum — he had
healed the centurion's servant — he had healed Peter's
wife's mother of a fever — how could it be known from any
•of these acts that the day was the Sabbath 7 Or suppose
we had been in possession of the other three Evangelists,
but that the Gospel of St. Matthew had just been dis-

wr

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 265

covered among the manuscripts of Milan, I ask whether
such an argument as this would not have had much weight
in establishing its authority ?

I am not concerned about the perfect intelligibility of
this passage in St. Matthew. Its meaning is obvious, and
it would be a waste of words to offer what I have done, as
commentary — all that I am anxious to do, is to point out
the undesignedness apparent in it, which is such, I think,
as a writer of an imaginary narrative could not possibly
have displayed. : ^.^ , •

V.

Matth. ix. 9, 10. — " And as Jesus passed forth from thence,
he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt
of custom ; and he saith unto him. Follow me ; and
he arose and followed him. And it came to pass, as
Jesus sat at meat in the house,^ behold, many publi-
V cans and sinners came and sat down with him."

How natural for a man, speaking of a transaction which
concerned himself, to forget for a moment the character of
the historian, and to talk of Jesus sitting down in the house,
without telling his readers whose house it was ! How nat-
ural for him not to perceive that there was vagueness and
obscurity in a term, which to himself was definite and
plain ! Accordingly we find St. Mark and St. Luke, who
deal with the same incident as historians, not as principals,
using a different form of expression. " And as they passed
by," says St. Mark, " he saw Levi the son of Alpheus sit-
ting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him. Follow

I £v rfj oiKia. I do not observe that Bishop Middleton notices this instance
of the definite use of the Article.

23

266

THE VERACITY OF THE PART. IV.

me : and he arose and followed him. And it came to pass^
that as Jesus sat at meat in his house." (ii. 15.)

" And Levi," says St. Luke, " made him a great feast in
his own house." (v. 29.)

It may be further remarked, that a number of j)uhli-

cans sat down with Jesus and his disciples upon this oc-

j casion ; a fact for which no reason is assigned, but for

which we discover a very good reason in the occupation

which St. Matthew had followed.

I think the odds are very great against the probability
of a writer preserving consistency in trifles like these, were
\\^ owhj devising a story. I can scarcely imagine that
such a person would hit upon the phrase "in the house,"
as an artful way of suggesting that the house was in fact
his own, and himself an eye-witness of the scene lie de-
scribed ; still less, that he would refine yet further, and
make the company assembled there to consist of publicans,
in order that the whole picture might be complete and har-
monious. It may be added, that Capernaum, which was
the scene of St. Matthew's call, was precisely the place
where we might expect to meet with a man of his voca-
tion — it being a station where such merchandise as was to
be conveyed by water-carriage, along the Jordan south-
wards, might be very conveniently shipped, and where a
custom-house would consequently be established. There
is a similar propriety in the habitat of Zaccheus (Luke xix.
2); he was a "chief among the publicans," and Jesus is
said to have fallen in with him near Jericho, Now Jericho
was the centre of the growth, preparation, and export, of
balsam, a very considerable branch of trade in Judea ; and
therefore a town which invited the presence of the tax-
gatherers. These are small matters, but such as bespeak
truth in those who detail them. (^-\ *.- <r, « r *«* -<

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 267

VI

Akin to this is my next instance' of consistency without
design.

Matth. X. 2. — " Now the names of the twelve Apostles are
these : the first, Simon, who is called Peter, and An-
drew his brother ; James, the son of Zebedee, and
John his brother ; Philip, and Bartholomew ; Thomas,
and Matthew the publican ; James, the son of Al-
pheus, and Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus ;
Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also
betrayed him."
This order, as far as regards Thomas and Matthew, is
inverted in St. Mark and St. Luke. " Philip and Barthol-
omew, and Matthew and Thomas^'' is the succession of
the names in those two Evangelists, (Mark iii. 18 ; Luke
vi. 15 ;) and by neither of them is the odious, but distinc-
tive, appellation of " the publican" added. This difference,
however, in St. Matthew's catalogue, from that given by
St. Mark and St. Luke, is precisely such as might be ex-
pected from a modest man when telling his own tale : he
places his own name after that of a colleague who had no
claims to precedence, but rather the contrary, and, fearful
that its obscurity might render it insufficient merely to an-
nounce it, and, at the same time, perhaps, not unwilling to
inflict upon himself an act of self-humiliation, he annexes
to it his former calling, which was notorious at least, how-
ever it might be unpopular. I should not be disposed to
lay great stress upon this example of undesigned consist-
ency were it a solitary instance, but when taken in con-

1 In this argument I am indebted to Nelson, (Festivals and Fasts, p. 229,)
who advances it, however, for a different end, to prove the ku-mility, not the
veracity, of St. Matthew.

'%

268

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

junction with so many others, it may be allowed a place ;
for though the order of names and the annexed epithet
might be accidental, yet it must be admitted that they
would be accounted for at least as well by the veracity of
the narrative. ^, ,• a

VII.

Matth. xii. 46.—" While he yet talked, behold, his mother
and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak
ivith him."
What his mother's communication might be the Evan-
gehst does not record. It seems to have been made pri-
vately and apart, and was probably not overheard by any
of his followers. But, in the next chapter, St. Matthew
very undesignedly mentions, that "when he was come into
his own country, he taught them in the synagogue,"
(xiii. 54). Hence then we see, that the interview with his
mother and brethren was shortly succeeded by a visit to
their town. The visit might, indeed, have nothing to do
with the interview, nor does St. Matthew hint that it had
anything whatever to do with it, (for then no argument of
veracity, founded upon the utidesigned coincidence of the
two facts, could have been here advanced,) but still there
is a fair presumption that the visit was in obedience to his
mother's wish, more especially as the disposition of the in-
habitants of Nazareth, which must have been known to
Christ, was unfit for his doing there any mighty works.

VIII

The death of Joseph is nowhere either mentioned, or
alluded to, by the Evangelists ; yet, from all four of them

PART IV> GOSPELS AND ACTS. 269

it may be indirectly inferred to have happened whilst
Christ loas yet alive ; a circumstance in which, had they
been imposing a story upon us, they would scarcely have
concurred, when the concurrence is manifestly not the
effect of scheme or contrivance. Thus in the passage from
St. Matthew, quoted in the last paragraph, we find his
mother and brethren seeking Jesus, but not his reputed
father. In St. Mark we have the whole family enumerated,
but no mention made of Joseph. " Is not this the carpenter,
the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of
Juda, and Simon ? and are not his sisters here with us ?"
(vi. 3.)

" Then came to him," says St. Luke, " his mother and
his brethren, and could not come at him for the press,"
(viii. 19.) " After this," says St. John, " he went down to
Capernaum ; he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his
disciples." (ii. 12.)

Neither do we meet with any notice of Joseph's attend-
ance at the feast of Cana, or at the Crucifixion ; indeed, in
his last moments Jesus commends his mother to the care
of the disciple whom he loved, and that " disciple took her
to his own home."

Such a harmony as this cannot have been the effect of
concert. It is not a direct, or even an incidental agree-
ment in a positive fact, for nothing is asserted ; but yet,
from the absence of assertion, a presumption of such fact
is conveyed to us by the separate narrative of each of the
EvangeUsts.

23*

270

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

IX

Matth. xiii. 2. — "And great multitudes were gathered to-
gether unto him, so that he went into a ship^ {slg to
nXoiov^j, and sat."

* In this, and in some other places of the Evangelists,'
says Bishop Middleton, ' we have nkoiov with the article
{the ship, not a ship) ; the force of which, however, is not
immediately obvious. In the present instance the English
version, Newcome, and Campbell, understand to ttAoio*' in-
definitely ; but that anp ship, without reference, can be
meant by this phrase, is grammatically impossible. Many
philologists, indeed, have adduced this passage amongst
others, to show that this article is sometimes without mean-
ing ; but this proves only that its meaning was sometimes
unknown to them.

' Mr. Wakefield observes, in his New Testament, " a par-
ticular vessel is uniformly specified. It seems to have been
kept on the lake for the use of Jesus and his apostles. It
probably belonged to some of the fishermen (Luke iv. 22)
who, I should think, occasionally at least, continued to fol-
low their former occupation. See John xxi. 3." Thus far
Mr. Wakefield, whose solution carried with it an air of
strong probability : and when we look at Mark iii. 9, which
appears to have escaped him, this conjecture becomes ab-
solute certainty. "And he spake to his disciples that a
small vessel should loait on him" (constantly be wait-
ing on him, nQoaxagrfgrj aiiio) becausc of the multitude, lest
they should throng him. Moreover, I think we may dis-
cover to whom the vessel belonged. In one Evangelist,
(Luke V. 3,) we find a ship used by our Saviour for the
very purpose here mentioned, declared expressly to be
Simon's ; and afterwards, in the same Evangelist, (viii. 22,)

PART IV.

GOSPELS AND ACTS.

271

we have the ship, to nloiov^ definitely, as if it were intended
that the reader should understand it of the ship aheady
spoken of. It is therefore not improbable that in the other
Evangelists also, the vessel so frequently used by our Sav-
iour was that belonging to Peter and Andrew.'' Where
Bishop Middleton finds a philological solution, I find an
undesigned coincidence. St. Matthew speaks of " the ship"
[lb nXoiov) into which Jesus went, as though referring to a
well-known vessel. St. Mark tells us that he had " a small
vessel to wait on him."

X

Matth. xiv. 1. — " At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard

of the fame of Jesus, and said iinto his servants, {toig

naiaiv aixov,) This is John the Baptist, who has risen

from the dead."

St. Matthew here declares that Herod delivered his

opinion of Christ to his servants. There must have been

some particular reason, one would imagine, to induce him

to make such a communication to them above all other

people. What could it have been? St. Mark does not

help us to solve the question, for he contents himself with

recording what Herod said. Neither does St, Luke, in the

parallel passage, tell us to whom he addressed himself —

"he was desirous of seeing him, because he had heard

many things of him,.'''' By referring, however, to the

eighth chapter of this last Evangelist, the cause why Herod

had heard so much about Christ, and why he talked to

his servants about him, is suflficiently explained, but it is

by the merest accident. We are there informed, "that

Jesus went throughout every city and village, preaching

(1 Bishop Middleton on the Greek Article, p. 158.)

'%*IA

272 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God ; and
the twelve w^ere with him, and certain women who had
been healed of evil spirits and infirmities : Mary, called
Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils ; and Joanna
the wife of Chuza, Herod^s steioard, and Susanna, and
many others, which ministered unto him of their sub-
stance."

And again, in chap. xiii. ver. 1, of the Acts of the Apos-
tles, we read, amongst other distinguished converts, of
" Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the
Tetrarch,^^ or, in other words, who was his foster-brother.
We see, therefore, that Christ had followers from amongst
the household of this very prince, and, accordingly, that
Herod was very likely to discourse with his servants on a
subject in which they were better informed than himself.

XI

Matth. xiv. 20. — In the miracle of feeding the five
thousand with five loaves and two fishes, recorded by all
four Evangelists, the disciples, we are told, took up dchdexa
xoq>ivovg nlr^qeig (Matth. xiv. 20 ; Mark vi. 43 ; Luke ix.
17 ; John vi. 13 ;) in all these cases our translation ren-
ders the passage " twelve baskets^

In the miracle of feeding the four thousand with seven
loaves and a few small fishes, recorded by two of the Evan-
gelists, the disciples took up hnza anvpSag (Matth. xv. 37 ;
Mark viii. 8 ;) in both these cases our translation renders
the passages " seve)i baskets ;" the term xdcptpog, and anvQlg
being expressed both alike by " basket.''''

Yet there was, no doubt, a marked difference between
these two vessels, whatever that difTerence might be, for
K6(pivog is invariably used when the miracle of the five

^4^

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 273

thousand is spoken of; and anvQig is invariably used when
the miracle of the four thousand is spoken of. Moreover
such distinction is clearly suggested to us in Matth. xvi. 9,
lOj where our Saviour cautiohs his disciples against the
" leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees ;" and in so doing,
alludes to each of these miracles thus : " Do ye not yet un-
derstand, neither remember the five loaves of the Jive thou-
sand, and how many baskets [icoqiivovg) ye took up'.^ nei-
ther the seven loaves of ihe four thousand, and how many
baskets [anvQiSag) ye took up?" though here again the
distinction is entirely lost in our translation, both j^oqwVou?
and anvQidag being still rendered " baskets," alike.

The precise nature of the difference of these two kinds
of baskets it may be difficult to determine ; and the lexicog-
raphers and commentators do not enable us to do it with
accuracy ; though from the word anvqlg being used (Acts
ix. 25) for the basket in which St. Paul was let down over
the wall, we may suppose that it was capacious ; whereas
from the xocfivoi^ in this instance, being twelve in number,
we may in like manner suppose that they were the provis-
ion-baskets carried by the twelve disciples, and were, con-
sequently, smaller. But the point of the coincidence is
independent of the precise difference of the vessels, and
consists in the uniform application of the term xommg to
the basket of the one miracle (wheresoever and by whom-
soever told ;) and as the uniform application of the term
o^v^ig^ to the basket of the other miracle ; such uniform-
ity marking very clearly the two miracles to be distinctly
impressed on the minds of the Evangelists, as real events ;
the circumstantial peculiarities of each present to them, as
though they were themselves actual eye-witnesses : or at
least had received their report from those who were so.

It is next to impossible that such coincidences in both
cases, between the fragments and the receptacles, respec-

2T4 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

lively, should have been preserved by chance ; or by a
teller of a tale at third or fourth hand ; and accordingly
we see that the coincidence^ is in fact entirely lost by our
translators, who were not vvatnesses of the miracles ; and
whose attention did not happen to be drawn to the point.

» XII.

We do not read a great deal respecting Herod the Te-
trarch in the Evangelists ; but all that is said of him will
be perceived, on examination, (for it may not strike us at
first sight,) to be perfectly harmonious.

When the disciples had forgotten to take bread with
them in the boat, our Lord warns them to " take heed and
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven
of Herody So says St. Mark, (viii, 15). The charge
which Jesus gives them on this occasion is thus worded
by St. Matthew, " Take heed and beware of the leaven of
the Pharisees and of the tSadduceesj" (xvi. 6). The obvious
interference to be drawn from the two passages is, that
Herod himself was a Sadducee. Let us turn to St. ijuke,
and though still we find no assertion to this effect, he
would clearly lead us to the same conclusion. Chap. ix.
7, " Now Herod the Tetrarch heard of all that was done
by him ; and he was perplexed, because that it was said of
some, that John was risen from the dead ; and of some,
that Ehas had appeared ; and of some, that one of the old
prophets was risen again. And Herod said, Jolm have
I beheaded, but who is this of whom I hear such things ?
and he desired to see him."

The transmigration of the souls of good men was a pop-
ular belief at that time amongst the Pharisees ; (see Jose-
phus, B. J. ii. 83, 14) ; a Pharisee, therefore, would have

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 275

found little difficulty in this resurrection of John, or of an
old prophet ; in fact, it was the Pharisees, no doubt, who
started the idea : not so Herod ; he was perplexed about
it ; he had " beheaded John," which was in his creed the
termination of his existence ; well then might he ask, " who
is this of whom I hear such things ?" Neither do I discover
any objection in the parallel passage of St. Matthew, xiv.
1 : "At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard of the fame
of Jesus, and said unto his servants. This is John the Bap-
tist ; he is risen from the dead ; and therefore mighty works
do show forth themselves in him." It is the language of a
man, (especially when taken in connection with St. Luke,)
who began to doubt whether he was right in his Sadducean
notions ; a guilty conscience awaking in him some appre-
hension that he whom he had murdered might be alive
again — that there might, after all, be a "resurrection,
an angel, and spirit."

XIII.

Matth. xvii. 19. — " Then came the disciples to Jesus apart,
and said, Why could not we cast him out? And
Jesus said unto them. Because of your unbelief , . .
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and
fasting.^^
Here, therefore, the words of Jesus imply that the dis-
ciples did not fast. Yet the observation is made in that
incidental manner in which a fact familiar to the mind of
the speaker so often comes out. It has not the smallest
appearance of being introduced for the purpose of confirm-
ing any previous assertion to the same effect. Yet in
Chapter ix. ver. 14, we had been told that the disciples of
John came to Jesus, saying, " Why do we and the Phari-

276 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

sees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not ?" It may be re-
marked, too, that the former passage not only implies that
the disciples of Jesus did not fast, but that Jesus himself
did, and that the latter passage singularly enough implies
the very same thing ; for it does not run, why do we and
the Pharisees fast oft, but thou and thy disciples fast not?
(which would be the strict antithesis), but only, why do
thy disciples fast not ?

XIV.

Matth. xxvi. 67. — "Then did they spit in his face, and
buffeted him ; and others smote him with the palms
of their hands, saying. Prophesy unto ns, thou Christ,
who is he that smote thee ?"
I THINK undesignedness may be traced in this passage,
both in what is expressed and what is omitted. It is usual
for one who invents a story which he wishes should be be-
lieved, to be careful that its several parts hang well together
— to make its conclusions follow from its premises — and to
show how they follow. He naturally considers that he
shall be suspected unless his account is probable and con-
sistent and he labors to provide against that suspicion. On
the other hand, he who is telling the truth, is apt to state
his facts and leave them to their fate ; he speaks as one
having authority, and cares not about the why or the
wherefore, because it never occurs to him that such par-
ticulars are wanted to make his statement credible, and ac-
cordingly, if such particulars are discoverable at all, it is
most commonly by inference, and incidentally.

Now in the verse of St. Matthew, placed at the head of
this paragraph, it is written that " they smote him with the
palms of their hands, saying. Prophesy unto us, thou Christ,

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 277

who is he that smote thee ?" Had it happened that the
records of the other Evangehsts had been lost, no critical
acuteness could have possibly supplied by conjecture the
omission which occurs in this passage, and yet, without that
omission being supplied, the true meaning of the passage
must forever have lain hid ; for where is the propriety of
asking Christ to prophesy who smote him, when he had
the offender before his eyes ? But when we learn from St.
Luke (xii. 64) that " the men that held Jesus blindfolded
him" before they asked him to prophesy who it was that
smote him, we discover what St, Matthew intended to com-
municate, namely, that they proposed this test of his divine
mission, whether, without the use of sight, he could tell
who it was that struck him. Such an oversight as this in
St. Matthew it is difficult to account for on any other sup-
position than the truth of the history itself, which set its
author above all solicitude about securing the reception of
his conclusions by a cautious display of the grounds whereon
they were built.

XV.

What was the charge on which the Jews condemned
Christ to death?!

Familiar as this question may at first seem, the answer
is not so obvious as might be supposed. By a careful pe-
rusal of the trial of our Lord, as described by the several
Evangelists, it will be found that the charges were two, of
a nature jquite distinct, and preferred icith a most appro-

1 The following argument was suggested to me by reading Wilson's
" Illustrations of the Method of Explaining the New Testament by the
Early opinions of Jews and Christians concerning Christ."

24

278 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

priate reference to the tribunals before which they were
made.

Thus the first heanng was before " the Chief Priests
and all the Council,'^ a Jewish and ecclesiastical court ;
accordingly, Christ was then accused of blasphemy. " I
adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether
thou be the Son of God/^ said Caiaphas to him, in the hope
of convicting him out of his own mouth. Wlien Jesus in
his reply answered that he was, " then the high-priest rent
his clothes, saying. He hath spoken blasphemy ; what fur-
ther need have we of witnesses ? behold, noio ye have
heard his blasphemy. ^^ (Matt. xxvi. 65.)

Shortly after, he is taken before Pilate, the Roman gov-
ernor, and here the charge of blasphemy is altogether sup-
pressed, and that of sedition substituted. " And the whole
nmltitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate : and
they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow
perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to
Ccesar, saying, that he himself is Christ, a ki7ig." (Luke
xxiii. 2.) And on this plea it is that they press his convic-
tion, reminding Pilate, that if he let him go he was not
Caesar's friend.

This difference in the nature of the accusation, accord-
ing to the quality and characters of the judges, is not forced
upon our notice by the Evangelists, as though they were
anxious to give an air of probability to their narrative by
such circumspection and attention to propriety ; on the
contrary, it is touched upon in so cursory and unemphatic
a manner, as to be easily overlooked ; and I venture to say,
that it is actually overlooked by most readers of the Gos-
pels. Indeed, how perfectly agreeable to the temper of the
times, and of the parties concerned, such a proceeding was,
can scarcely be perceived at first sight. The coincidence,
therefore, will appear more striking if we examine it some-

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 279

what more closely. A charge of hlasphe7ny was, of all
others, th^best fitted to detach the multitude from the
cause of Christ ; and it is only by a proper regard to this
circumstance, that we can obtain the true key to the con-
flicting sentiments of the 'people towards him ; one while
hailing him, as they do, with rapture, and then again
striving to put him to death.

Thus when Jesus walked in Solomon's Porch, the Jews
came round about him and said unto him, " If thou be the
Christ tell us plainly? — Jesus answered them, I told you,
and ye believed not." He then goes on to speak of the
works which testified of him, and adds, in conclusion, " I
and my Father are one." The effect of which words was
instantly this, that the Jews (i.e. the people) took up stones
to stone him, " for blasphemy, and because being a man,
ke made himself God." (John x. 33.) Again in the sixth
chapter of St. John, we read of five thousand men, who,
having witnessed his miracles, actually acknowledged him
as " that prophet that should come into the world," nay,
even wished to take him by force and make him a king :
yet the very next day, when Christ said to these same
people, "This is that bread which came down from heav-
en," they murmured at him, doubtless considering him to
lay claim to divinity ; for he replies, " Doth this offend
you ? what and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up
where he vms before ?" expressions, at which such serious
offence was taken, that "from that time many of his dis-
ciples went back, and walked with him no more" So
that it is not in these days only that men forsake Christ
from a reluctance to acknowledge (as he demands of then^)
his Godhead. And again, when Jesus cured the impoteiit
man on the Sabbath-day, and in defending himself for
having so done, said, "my Father worketh hitherto, and I
work," we are told, "therefore the Jews sought the more

280 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath,
but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal
with God." (John v. 18.) So, on another occasion, when
Jesus had been speaking with much severity in the temple,
we find him unmolested, till he adds, " Verily, verily, I say
unto you. Before Abraham was, / am,'- (John viii. 58 ;)
but no sooner had he so said, than "they took up stones to
cast at him." In like maimer, (to come to the last scene
of his mortal life,) when he entered Jerusalem he had the
people in his favor, for the chief priests and scribes " feared
them ;" yet, very shortly after, the tide was so turned
against him, that the same people asked Barabbas rather
than Jesus. And why ? As Messiah they were anxious
to receive him, which was the character in which he had
entered Jerusalem — but they rejected him as the " Son of
God,^^ which was the character in which he stood before
them at his trial : facts which, taken in a doctrinal view,
are of no small value, proving, as they do, that the Jews
believed Christ to lay claim to divinity, however they
might dispute or deny the right. It is consistent, there-
fore, with the whole tenor of the Gospel history, that the
enemies of Christ, to gain their end with the Jews, should
have actually accused him of blasphemy^ as they are rep-
resented to have done, and should have succeeded. Nor
is it less consistent with that history, that they should
have actually waived the charge of blasphemy, when they
brought him before a Roman magistrate, and substituted
that of sedition in its stead ; for the Roman governors, it
is well known, were very indillerent about religious dis-
putes — they had tlie toleration of men who had no creed
of their own. Gallio, we hear in aftertimes, '• cared for
none of these things ;" and, in the same spirit, Lysias
writes to Felix about Paul, that " he perceived him to be
accused of questions concerjiing the law. but to have

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 281

nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds?^
(Acts xxiii. 29.)

Indeed, this case of Paul serves in a very remarkable
manner to illustrate that of our Lord ; and at the same
time in itself furnishes a second coincidence, founded upon
exactly the same facts. For the accusation brought against
Paul by his enemies, when they had Jews to deal with,
and, no doubt, that which was brought against him in the
Jewish court, was blasphemy : " Men of Israel, this is
the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the
people, and the law, and this place.'" But when this
same Paul, on the same occasion, was brought before
Felix, the Roman governor, the charge became sedition,
•' We have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover
of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world."-

It may be remarked, that this is not so much a casual
coincidence between parallel passages of several Evan-
gelists, as an instance of singular, but undesigned har-
mony, amongst the various component parts of one piece
of history, which they all record ; the proceedings before
two very different tribunals being represented in a manner
the most agreeable to the known prejudices of all the par-
ties concerned.

XVI.

Matth. xxvi. 71. — " And when he was gone out into the
Porch (tov nvXava), another maid saw him, and said
unto them. This man was also with Jesus of Naza-
reth."
How came it to pass that Peter, a stranger, who had en-
tered the house in the night, and under circumstances of

, I Acts xxi. 28. 2 lb. xiiv. 5. (See Biscoe on the Acts, p. 245.)

24*

292

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

some tumult and disorder, was thus singled out by the
maid in the Porch 7

Let us turn to St. John, (ch. xviii. ver. 16,) and we shall
find, that, after Jesus had entered, " Peter stood at the door
without, till that other disciple went out which was known
unto the high-priest, and sjiake unto her that kejH the
door, and brought in Peter." Thus was the attention of
that girl directed to Peter, (a fact of which St. Matthew
gives no hint whatever,) and thus we see how it happened
that he was recognized in the Porch. Here is a minute
indication of veracity in St. Matthew, which would have
been lost upon us had not the Gospel of St. John come
down to our times ;— and how many similar indications
may be hid, from a want of other contemporary histories
with which to make a comparison, it is impossible to con-
jecture.

XVII.

My next instance of coincidence without design is taken
from the account of certain circumstances attending the
feeding of the five thousand. And here again, be it re-
marked, an indication of veracity is found, as formerly,
where the subject of the narrative is a miracle.

In the sixth chapter of St. Mark we are told, that Jesus
said to his disciples, "come ye yourselves apart into a
desert place," (it was there where tlie miracle was wrought.)
"and rest a while; for there were many," adds the
Evangelist, by way of accounting for his temporary seclu-
sion, " coming and going, and they had no leisure so
much as to eat." How it happened that so many were
coming and going through Capernaum at that time, above
all others, this Evangelist does not give us the shghteat

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 283

hint ; neither how it came to pass, that, by retiring for a
while, Jesus and his disciples would escape tiie inconve-
nience. Turn we then to the parallel passage in St. John,
and there we shall find the matter explained at once,
though certainly this explanation could never have been
given with a reference to the very casual expression of St.
Mark. In St. John we do not meet with one word about
Jesus retiring for a while into the desert, for the purpose
of being apart, or that he would have been put to any in-
convenience by staying at Capernaum, but we are told,
(what perfectly agrees with these two circumstances,) " that
the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh,'' (vi. 4.)
Hence, then, the " coming and going" through Capernaum
was so unusually great, and hence, if Jesus and his dis-
ciples rested in the desert " a while," the crowd, which
was pressing towards Jerusalem from every part of the
country, would have subsided, and drawn off to the capi-
tal. For it may be observed that the desert place being at
some distance from Capernaum, through which city the
great road lay from the north to Jerusalem, the multitude
could not follow Jesus there without some inconvenience
and delay.

The confusion wfiich prevailed throughout the Holy
Land at this great festival we may easily imagine, when
we read in Josephus, ' that, for the satisfaction of Nero, his
officer, Cestius, on one occasion, endeavored to reckon up
the number of those who shared in the national rite at
Jerusalem. By counting the victims sacrificed, and allow-
ing a company of ten to each victim, he found that nearly
two millions six hundred thousand souls were present ;
and it may be observed, that this method of calculation
would not include the many persons who must have been

I Bel. Jud. vi. 9. § 3.

284 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

disqualified from actually partaking of the sacrifice, by the
places of their birth and the various causes of uncleanness.
I cannot forbear remarking another incident in the trans-
action we are now considering, in itself a trifle, but not,
perhaps, on that account, less fit for corroborating the his-
tory. We read in St. John, that when Jesus had reached
this desert place, he " lifted up his eyes and saw a great
multitude come unto him, and he said unto Philip,
Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat T (vi. 5.)
Why should this question have been directed to Philip in
particular ? If we had the Gospel of St. John and not
the other Gospels, we should see no peculiar propriety in
this choice, and should probably assign it to accident. If
we had the other Gospels, and not that of St. John, we
should not be put upon the inquiry, for they make no men-
tion of the question having been addressed expressly to
Philip. But, by comparing St. Luke with St. John, we
discover the reason at once. By St. Luke, and by him
alone, we are informed, that the desert place where the
miracle was wrought " loas belofiging to Bethsaida.'''' (ix.
10.) By St. John we are informed, (although not in the
passage where he relates the miracle, which is worthy of
remark, but in another chapter altogether independent of
it, ch.i. 44,) that " Philip was of Bethsaida.'''' To whom
then, could the question have been directed so properly as
to him. who, being of the immediate neighborhood, was
the most Ukely to know where bread was to be bought 1
Here again, then, I maintain, we have strong indications of
veracity in the case of a miracle itself; and I leave it to
others, who may have ingenuity and inclination for the task,
to weed out the falsehood of the miracle from the manifest
reality of the circumstances which attend it, and to sepa-
rate fiction from fact, which is in the very closest combina-
tion with it.

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 285

XVIII.

Mark xv. 21. — " And they compel one Simon, a Cyrenian,
who passed by, coming out of the country, the father
of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross."

Clement of Alexandria, who lived about the end of
the second century, declares, that Mark wrote this Gospel
on St. Peter's authority at Rome. Jerome, who lived in
the fourth century, says, that Mark, the disciple and inter-
preter of St. Peter, being requested by his brethren at
Rome, wrote a short Gospel.

Now this circumstance may account for his designating
Simon as the father of Rufus at least ; for we find that a
disciple of that name, and of considerable note, was resi-
dent at Rome, when St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the
Romans. " Salute Rufus,''^ says he, " chose?i in the
Lord" (xvi. 13.) Thus, by mentioning a man living upon
the spot where he was writing, and amongst the people
whom he addressed, Mark was giving a reference for the
truth of his narrative, which must have been accessible
and satisfactory to all ; since Rufus could not have failed
knowing the particulars of the crucifixion, (the great event
to which the Christians looked,) when his father had been
so intimately concerned in it as to have been the reluctant
bearer of the cross.

Of course, the force of this argument depends on the
identity of the Rufus of St. Mark and the Rufus of St.
Paul, which I have no means of proving :' but admitting
it to be probable that they were the same persons, (which,
I think, may be admitted, for St. Paul, we see, expressly
speaks of a distinguished disciple of the name of Rufus at
Rome, and St. Mark, writing for the Romans, mentions

' See MichaeUs, Vol. iii. p. 213.

286 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

Rufus, the son of Simon, as well known to them,)— admit-
ting this, the coincidence is striking, and serves to account
for what otherwise seems a piece of purely gratuitous and
needless information offered by St. Mark to his readers,
namely, that Simon was the father of Alexander and
Rufus ; a fact omitted by the other Evangelists, and appa-
rently turned to no advantage by himself.

XIX.

Mark xv. 25. — " And it was the third hour, and they cru-
cified him."
33. — "And when the sixth hour was come, there was
darkness over the whole land until the 7iinth hour."
It has been observed to me by an intelligent friend, who
has turned his attention to the internal evidence of the
Gospels, that it will be found, on examination, that the
scoffs and insults which were levelled at our Saviour on the
cross, icere all during the early part of the cntcijixion,
and that a manifest change of feeling towards him, arising,
as it should seem, from a certain misgiving as to his char-
acter, is discoverable in the bystanders as the scene drew
nearer to its close : I think the remark just and valuable.
It is at the first that we read of those " who passed by
raihng on him, and wagging their heads," (Mark xv. 29 ;)
of "the chief priests and scribes mocking him," 31 ; of
" those that were crucified with him reviling him," 32 ; of
the " soldiers mocking him and offering him vinegar,"
(Luke xxiii. 36,) pointing out to him most likely, the " ves-
sel of vinegar which was set," or holding a portion of it
beyond his reach, by way of aggravating the pains of in-
tense thirst, which must have attended this lingering mode
of death : — that all this occurred at the besrinninsr of the

PART IV. THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 287

Passion is the natural conclusion to be drawn from the
narratives of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke.

But, during the latter part of it. we hear nothing of this
kind ; on the contrary, when Jesus cried, " I thirst," there
was no mockery offered, but a sponge was filled with vin-
egar, and put on a reed and applied to his lips, with re-
markable alacrity; "o?«e rail''' and did it, (Mark xv. 31 :)
and, from the misunderstanding of the words " EH, EH,"
it is clear that the spectators had some suspicion that Elias
might come to take him down. Do not, then, these cir-
cumstances accord remarkably well with the alleged fact,
that " there loas darkness over all the land from the sixth
to the ninth hour 7^^ (Matth. xxvii. 45 ;) Mark xv. 33. Is
not this change of conduct in the merciless crew that sur-
rounded the cross very naturally explained, by the awe
with which they contemplated the gloom as it took effect ?
and does it not strongly, though undesignedly, confirm the
Biisertion, that such a fearful darkness there actually was ?

XX.

Mark xv. 43. — " And Joseph of Arimatha?a, an honorable

counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God,

came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the

body of Jesus."

It is evident that the courage of Joseph on this occasion

had impressed the mind of the EvangeUst — he " went in

boldly^'' Tolfiriauq elariWs — he had the boldness to go in —

he ventured to go in.

Now by comparing the parallel passage in St. John, we
very distinctly trace the train of thought which was work-
ing in St. Mark's mind when he used this expression, but
which would have entirely escaped us, together with the

288

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

evidence it furnishes for the truth of the narrative, had not
the Gospel of St. John come down to us. For there we
read (xix. 38), " And after this Joseph of Arimathsea, being
a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jeios, be-
sought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus."

It appears, therefore, that Joseph was known to be a
timid disciple ; which made his conduct on the present
occasion seem to St. Mark remarkable, and at variance
with his ordinary character ; for there might be supposed
some risk in manifesting an interest in the corpse of Jesus,
whom the Jews had just persecuted to the death.

Moreover, it may be observed that St. John, in the pas-
sage before us, continues, " And there came also Nicodemus,
which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a
mixture of myrrh and aloes" — as though the timid char-
acter of Joseph was uppermost in his thoughts too, (though
he says nothing of his going in boldly,) and suggested to
him Nicodemus, and what he did ; another disciple of the
same class as Joseph ; and whose constitutional failing he
does intimate, occurred to him at the moment, by the no-
tice that it was the same who had come lo Jesus by night.

I will add, that both these cases of Joseph and Nicode-
mus bear upon the coincidence in the last Number ; for
whence did these fearful men derive their courage on this
occasion, but from having witnessed the circumstances
which attended the crucifixion ?

XXI.

Luke vi. 1, 2. — " And it came to pass on the second Sab-
bath after the first, {h au^^dia dsvxFQonQaia^) that he
went through the corn-fields ; and his disciples plucked

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 289

the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their
hands. And certain of the Pharisees said," &c.

This transaction occurred on the first Sabbath after the
second day of unleavened bread ; on which day the wave
sheaf 10 as offered, as the first fruits of the harvest;' and
from which day the fifty days were reckoned to the Pen-
tecost.

Is it not therefore very natural that this conversation
should have taken place at this time, and that St. Luke
should have especially given the date of the conversation,
as well as the conversation itself?

It being the first Sabbath after the day when the first
fruits of the corn were cut, accords perfectly with the fact
that the disciples should be walking through fields of stand-
ing corn at that season.

The Rite, which had just then been celebrated, an epr Ji
in the church, as well as an epoch in the year, naturally
turned the minds of all the parties here concerned to the
subject oi corn — the Pharisees, to find cause for cavil in it
— Jesus, to find cause for instruction in it — St. Luke to
find cause for especially naming the second iSabbath after
the first, as the period of the incident. And yet, be it oli-
served, no connection is pointed out between the time and
the tiansaction, either in the conversation itself, or in the
Evangelist's history of it. That is, there is coincidence
without design in both.

XXII

Luke ix. 53. — "And they did not receive him, because his
face was as though he loonld go to Jerusalem^
Jesus was then going to the Passover at Jerusalem, and
was therefore plainly acknowledging that men ought to

' Lev. xxiii. 10, 11, 12.

25

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

worship there, contrary to the practice of the Samaritans,
who had set up the Temple at Gerizim, in opposition to
that of the Holy City. That this was the cause of irrita-
tion is implied in the expression, that ihey would not re-
ceive him, ^'■because his face was as though he tvould go
to Jerusalem.^'' Let us observe, then, how perfectly this
account harmonizes with that which St. John gives of Je-
sus' interview with the woman of Samaria at the well.
Then Jesus was coming from Judaea, and at a season of
the year when no suspicion could attach to him of having
been at Jerusalem for devotional purposes, for it wanted
" four months before the harvest should come," and with it
the Passover. Accordingly, on this occasion, Jesus and his
disciples were treated with civility and hospitality by the
Samaritans. They purchased bread in the town without
being exposed to any insults, and they were even requested
to tarry with them.

I cannot but think that the stamp of truth is very visible
in all this. It was natural, that at certain seasons of the
year (at the great feasts) this jealous spirit should be ex-
cited, which at others might be dormant; and though it is
not expressly stated by the one Evangelist, that the insult
of the villagers was at a season when it might be expected,
yet from a casual expression, (ver. 51,) such may be in-
ferred to have been the case. And though it is not ex-
pressly stated by the other Evangelist, that the hospitality
of the Samaritans was exercised at a more propitious sea-
son of the year, yet by an equally casual expression in the
course of the chapter, (ver. 35,) that, too, is ascertained to
have been the fact. Surely, it is beyond the reach of the
most artful imposture to observe so strict a propriety even
in the subordinate parts of the scheme, especially where less
distinctness of detail would scarcely have excited suspicion ;
and surely it is a circumstance most satisfactory to every

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 291

reasonable mind to discover, that the evidence of the truth
of that Gospel (on which our hopes are anchored) is, not
only the more conspicuous the more minutely it is exam-
ined, but that, without such examination, full justice can-
not be done to the variety and pregnancy of its proofs.

XXIII.

John ii. 7. — " Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots
with water."
There appears to me to be in this passage an unde-
signed coincidence, very slight and trivial indeed in its
character, but not on that account less valuable as a mark
of truth. These water-pots had to he filled before Jesus
could perform the miracle. It follows, therefore, that they
had been emptied of their contents — the water had been
drawn out of them. But for what purpose was it used,
and why were these vessels here ? It was for purifying.
For " all the Jews," as St. Mark tells us more at large (vii. 3),
" except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the
tradition of the elders." The vessels therefore being now
empty, indicates that the guests had done with them— that
the meal therefore was advanced ; for it was before they
sat down to it that they performed their ablutions — a cir-
cumstance which accords with the moment when our Lord
is represented as doing this miracle ; for the governor of
the feast said to the bridegroom, " Every man at the be-
ginning doth set forth good wine,— but thou hast kept the
good wine until noiD.^' It is satisfactory, that in the record
of a great miracle, like this, the minor circumstances in
connection with it should be in keeping with one another.

292 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

XXIV

John iii. 1. 2. — " There was a man of the Pharisees, named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews : The same came to
Jesus by night, and said imto him, Rabbi," &.c.
It is a remarkable and characteristic feature of the dis-
courses of our Lord, that they are often prompted, or shaped,
or illustrated, by the event of the moment ; by some scene
or incident that presented itself to him at the time he was
speaking. It is scarcely necessary to give examples of a
fact so undisputed. Thus it was the day after the miracle
of the loave.?, and it was to the persons who had witnessed
that miracle, and profited by it. that Jegus said, "I,abor not
for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which en-
dureth unto everlasting life.''^ &.c. And much more to the
same eflect. It was at Jacob's well, and in reply to the
question of the woman, " How is it that thou, being a Jew,
askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria ?"^ that
Jesus spake so much at large of the water whereof " who-
soever drank should never thirst," (fee. It was whilst tar-
rying in this same rural spot, that calling the attention of
his disciples to the scene around them, he said. " Say not
ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest?
behold, I say unto you. Lift up your eyes, and look on
the fields, for they are white already to harvest ;"^ and
he then goes on to remind them of sowing and reaping to
be done in another and higher sense. These are the few
instances out of many which might be produced, where the
incident that gave rise to the remarks is actuall}^ related ;
and by which the habit of our Lord's discourse is proved to
be such as I have described. But in other places, the incident
itself is omitted, and but for some casual expression which

1 John vi. 27. 2 ib. iv. 9. 3 lb. iv. 35.

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 293

is let fall, it would be impossible to connect the discourse
with it ; by means, however, of some such expression, ap-
parently intended to serve no such purpose, we are enabled
to get at the incident, and so discover tlie propriety of the
discourse. In such cases we are furnished once more with
the argument of coincidence without design — as in the fol-
lowing passage : " In the last day. that great day of the
feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let
him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me,
as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water, ^'^ &c. Now but for the expression, •' In the
last day, that great day of the feast," we should have been
at a loss to know the circumstances in which that speech
of our Lord originated. But the day when it was dehvered
being named, we are enabled to gather from other sources,
that on that day, the eighth of the Feast of Tabernacles, it
was a custom to offer to God a pot of water drawn from the
pool of Siloam. Coupling this fact, therefore, with our
Lord's practice, already established by other evidence, of
allowing the spectacle before him to give the turn to his
address, we may conclude that he spake these words whilst
he happened to be observing the ceremony of the water-
pot. And an argument thus arises, that the speech here
leported is genuine, and was really delivered by our Lord.
The passage then in St. John, with which I have head-
ed this paragraph, fm'nishes testimony of the same kind.
It describes Nicodemus as coming to Jesus hy night — fear,
no doubt, prompting him to use this secrecy. Now observe
a good deal of the language wliich Jesus directs to him —
" And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the
world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because
their deeds are evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth
the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
1 John vii. 37, 38.

25*

2M

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

be reproved. But he that doetli truth, cometh to the light,
that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought
in God (vers. 19, 22). When we remember that the in-
terview was a nocturnal one, and that Jesus was accus-
tomed to speak with a reference to the circumstances about
him at the instant, what more natural than the turn of
this discourse ? What more satisfactory evidence could
we have, than this casual evidence, that the visit was paid,
and the speech spoken, as St. John describes? that his
narrative, in short, is true ?'

XXV.

John iv. 5. — " Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which
is called Sychar.'"
Here Jesus converses with the woman at the well.
She perceives that he is a prophet. She suspects that he
may be the Christ. She spreads her report of him through
the city. The inhabitants are awakened to a lively in-
terest about him. Jesus is induced to tarry there two
days ; and it was probably the favorable disposition to-
wards him which he found to prevail there, that drew from
him at that very time the observation to his disciples, " Say
not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh har-
vest ? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look
on the fields ; for they are white already to harvest. And
he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto
Hfe eternal : that both he that sovveth and he that reap-
eth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true,
One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that
whereon ye bestowed no labor : other men labored, and ye
are entered into their labors." It is the favorable state of

• I was put upon this coincidence by a passage which I heard in one' of
Mr. Marsden's Hulsean Lectures.

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 295

Samaria for the reception, of the Gospel, that suggests
these reflections to Jesus, he, no doubt, perceiving that God
had much " people in that city."

Such is the picture of the religious state of Sychar pre-
sented in the narrative of St. John.

Now the author of the Acts of the Apostles confirms
the truth of this statement in a remarkable but most unin-
tentional manner. From him we learn, that at a period
a few years later than this, and after the death of Jesus,
Philip, one of the deacons, " went down to the city of Sa-
maria," (the emphatic expression marks it to have been
Sychar, the capital,) " and preached Christ among them.'"
(Acts viii. 5.) His success was just what might have been
expected from the account we have read in St. John of the
previous state of public opinion at Sychar. " The people
with one accord gave heed to those things which Philip
spake,') (Ver. 6 ;) and " when they believed Philip preach-
ing the things concerning the kingdom of God and the
name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and
women," (ver. 12.) It is evident that these histories are
not got up to corroborate one another. It is not at all an
obvious thought, or one likely to present itself to an im-
postor, that it might be prudent to fix upon Sychar as the
imaginary scene of Philip's successful labors, seeing that
Jesus had been well received there some years before : at
least in such a case some allusion or reference would have
been made to this disposition previously evinced ; it would
not have been left to the reader to discover it or not, as it
might happen, where the chance was so great that it
would be overlooked. Moreover, his recollections of the
passage in St. John would probably have been studiously
arrested by the use of the same word ■' Sychar," rather
than " the city of Samaria," as designating the field of
Philip's labors.

296 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV

XXVI.

John vi. 16. — "And when even was now come, his di&
ciples went down into the sea, and entered into a ship,
and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it
was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them.
And the sea arose by reason of a great loind that
blew. So when they had rowed about five-and-twenty
or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea,
and drawing nigh unto the ship, and they were afraid.
But he saith unto them, It is I ; be not afraid. Then
they willingly received him into the ship, and imme-
diately the ship was at the land whither they went.
The day following^ when the people ivhich stood on
the other side of the sea saw that there urns none
other boat there, save that one whereinto his dis-
ciples were entered, and that Jesus went not ivith his
' disciples into the boat, but that his disciples were gone
auiay alone ; {howbeit there came other boats from
Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat
bread, after that the Loi'd had given thanks :) when
the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there,
neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came
to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. And when they
iiad found him on the other side of the sea, they said
unto him, Rabbi, when earnest thou hither .^"

Matt. xiv. 22. — " And straightway Jesus constrained his
disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto
the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.
And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went
up into a mountain apart to pray : and when the
evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 297

was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with the

waves : for the wind was contrary.''^
It appears from St. John, that the people thought that
Jesus was still on the side of the lake where the mira-
cle had been wrought. And this they inferred because
there was no other boat on the preceding evening, except
that in which the disciples had gone over to Capernaum
on the other side, and they had observed that Jesus went
not with them. It is added, however, that, '•'•there cmne
other boats from Tiberias,^^ (which was on the same side
as Capernaum,) nigh unto the place where the Lord had
given thanks. Now why might they not have supposed
that Jesus had availed himself of one of these return-
boats, and so made his escape in the night? St. John
gives no reason why they did not make this obvious in-
ference. Let us turn to St. Matthew's account of the same
transaction, (which I have placed at the head of this para-
graph,) and we speedily learn why they could not. In
this account we find it recorded, not simply that the dis-
ciples were in distress in consequence of the sea arising
" by reason of a great wind that blew," but it is further
stated, that " the wind was contrary,^'' i. e. the wind was
blowing from Capernaum and Tiberias, and therefore not
only might the ships readily come from Tiberias, (the in-
cident mentioned by St. John,) a course for whicli ihe wind
(though violent) was fair, but the multitude might well
conclude that with such a wind Jesus could not have
used one of those return-boats, and therefore must still be
amongst them.

Indeed, nothing can be more probable than that these
ships from Tiberias were fishing vessels, which, having
been overtaken by the storm, suffered themselves to be
driven before the gale, to the opposite coast, where they
might find shelter for the night; for what could such a

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

number of boats, as sufficed to convey the people across,
(ver. 24,) have been doing at this desert place, neither port,
nor town, nor market? so that here again is another
mstance of undesigned consistency in the narrative ; the
very fact of a number of boats resorting to this " desert
place," at the close of day, strongly indicating (though most
incidentally) that the sea actually was rising, (as St. John
asserts,) " by reason of a great wind that blew."

I further think this to be the correct view of a passage
of some intricacy, from considering, first, the question which
the people put to Jesus on finding him at Capernaum the
next day. Full as they must have been of the miracle
which they had lately witnessed, and anxious to see the rep-
etition of works so wonderful, their first inquiry is, "Rabbi,
when earnest thou hither T surely an inquiry not of mere
form, but manifestly implying, that, under the circum-
stances, it could only have been by some extraordinary
means that he had passed across ; and second, from observ-
ing the satisfactory explanation it affords of the parenthesis
of St. John, " howbeit there came other boats from, Tibe-
rias,' .... which no longer seems a piece of purely gra-
tuitous and irrelevant information, but turns out to be
equivalent with the expression in St. Matthew, that the
" icind tvas contrary /' though the point is not directly
asserted, but only a fact is mentioned from which such an
assertion naturally follows.

It might indeed be said, that the circumstance of the
ships coming from Tiberias was mentioned for the purpose
of explaining how the people could take shipping, (as they
are stated to have done to go to Capernaum,) when it had
been before affirmed that there was no otiier boat there
save that into which the disciples were entered. Such cau-
tion, however, I do not think at all agreeable to the spirit
of the writings of the Evangelists, who are always very

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. • 299

careless about consequences, not troubling themselves to
obviate or explain the difficulties of their narrative. But,
whatever may be judged of this matter, the main argu-
ment remains the same ; and a minute coincidence between
St. John and St. Matthew is made out, of such a nature as
precludes all suspicion of collusion, and shows consistency
in the two histories without the smallest design.

And here again I will repeat the observation, which I
have already had occasion more than once to make — that
the truth of the general narrative in some degree involves
the truth of a tniracle. For if we are satisfied by the un-
designed coincidence, that St. Matthew was certainly speak-
ing truth when he said, the wind was " boisterous," how
shall we presume to assert, that he speaks truth no longer,
when he tells us in the same breath that Jesus " walked on
the sea," in the midst of that very storm, and that when
" he came into the ship the wind ceased ?"

Doubtless, the one fact does not absolutely prove the
others, but in all ordinary cases, where one or two particu-
lars in a body of evidence are so corroborated as to be placed
above suspicion, the rest, though not admitting of the like
corroboration, are nevertheless received without dispute.

XXVII.

The events of the last week of our Saviour's earthly life,
as recorded by the Evangelists, will furnish us with sev-
eral arguments of the kind we are collecting.
1. John xii. 1. — " Then Jesus six days before the Pass-
over came to Bethany, where Lazarus was,"

Bethany was a village at the mount of Olives (Mark
xi. 1), near Jerusalem ; and it was in his approach to that
city, to keep the last Passover and die. that Jesus now

300

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

lodged there for the night, meaning to enter the capital the
next day. (John xii. 12.)

St. John tells us no more of the movements of Jesus on
this occasion with precision ; however, this one date will
suffice to verify his narrative, as well as that of St. Mark.
Turn we then to the latter, who gives us an account of
the proceedings of Jesus immediately before his crucifixion
more in detail ; or rather, enables us to infer for ourselves
what they were, from phrases which escape from him ; and
we shall find that the two narratives are very consistent
with respect to them, though it is very evident that neither
narrative is at all dressed by the other, but that both are so
constructed as to argue independent knowledge of the facts
in the Evangelists themselves.

In Mark xi. 1, we read, " And when they came nigh to
Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany^ at the mount of
Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto
them, Go your way into the village over against you," &c.
The internal evidence of this whole transaction implies,
that the disciples were dispatched on this errand the morn-
ing after they had arrived at Bethany, where Jesus had
lodged for the night, and not the evening before, on the in-
stant of his arrival ; the events of- the day being much too
numerous to be crowded into the latter period of time — the
procuring the ass, the triumphant procession to Jerusalem,
the visit to the temple, all filling up that day ; and its being
expressly said, when all these transactions were concluded,
that "the even-tide was come," (ver. 11) ; and this internal
evidence entirely accords with the direct assertion of St.
John (xii. 12), that it was " the next day." Accordingly,
this day closed with Jesus "looking round about upon all
things," in the Temple (ver. 11), and then " when the even-
tide was come, going out unto Bethany with the twelve."
This then was the second day Jesus lodged at Bethany, as

FART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 301

we gather from St. Mark. " On the morrow, as they were
coming from Bethany J'' Jesus cursed the fig-tree (ver. 13) ;
proceeded to Jerusalem ; spent the day, as before, in Jeru-
salem and the temple, casting out of it the money-chang-
ers ; and again, " when even was come he went out of the
city," (ver. 19,) certainly returning to Bethany ; for though
this is not said, the fact is clear, from the tenor of the next
paragraph. This was the third day Jesus lodged at Beth-
any, according to St. Mark.

" In the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig-
tree dried up from the roots" (ver. 20), i. e. they were pro-
ceeding by the same road as the morning before, and there-
fore from Bethany, again to spend the day at Jerusalem,
and in the temple (ver. 27 ; xii. 41) ; Jesus employing him-
self there in enunciating parables and answering cavils.
After this "he went out of the temple," (xiii. 1,) to return
once more, no doubt, the evening being come, to Bethany ;
for though this again is not asserted, it is clearly to be in-
ferred, which is better, since we immediately afterwards find
Jesus sitting with the disciples, and talking with several of
them privately, "on the mount of Ohves" (ver. 3), which
lay in his road to Bethany. This was the fourth day ac-
cording to St. Mark. St. Mark next says, " After two days
was the feast of the Passover." (xiv. 1.)

This, then, makes up the interval of the six days since
Jesus came to Bethany, according to St. Mark, which tal-
lies exactly with the direct assertion of St. John, that
'• Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany."

But how unconcerted is this agreement between the
Evangelists ! St. John's declaration of the date of the arri-
val of Jesus at Bethany is indeed unambiguous ; but the
corresponding relation of St. Mark, though proved to be in
perfect accordance with St. John, has to be traced with
pains and difficult)'^ ; some of the steps necessary for arriv-

26

302 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

mg at the conclusion altogether inferential. How ex-
tremely improbable is a concurrence of this nature upon
any other supposition than the truth of the incident related,
and the independent knowledge of it of the witnesses : and
how infalUbly would that be the impression it would pro-
duce on the minds of a jury, supposing it to be an ingre-
dient in a case of circumstantial evidence presented to them.

2. A second slight coincidence, which offers itself to our
notice on the events of Bethany, is the following:—

It is in the evejiing that the Evangelists represent Jesus
as returning from the city to Bethany: "And now the
even-tide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the
twelve." (Mark xi. 11.) "And when even was come, he
went out of the city," (ver. 19,) says St. Mark. " And he
left them, and went out of the city unto Bethany, and
lodged there. Now in the morning as he returned," (fee.
(Matth. xxi. 17,) says St. Matthew.

St. John does not speak directly of Jesus going in the
evening to Bethany. But there is an incidental expression
m him which implies that such was his own conviction,
though nothing can be less studied than it is. For he tells
us, that at Bethany, "they made him a supper^' dein.oy,
a term, as now used, indicating an evening meal. Had
St. John happened to employ the same phrase St. Mark
does when relating this same event, (xaiaxeifiipov uirov "as
he sat at meat,") the argument would have been lost ; as
it is, the mention of the meal by St. John, (who takes no
notice of the fact that Jesus lodged at Bethany, though he
spent the day at Jerusalem,) and such meal being an eve-
ning meal, is tantamount to St. Mark's statement, that he
passed his evenings in this village.

3. The same fact coincides with several other particulars,
though our attention is not drawn to them by the Evan-
gelists. It is obvious, from the history, that the danger to

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 303

Jesus did not arise from the multitude, but from the priests.
The multitude were with him, until, as I have said in a
former paragraph, they were persuaded that he assumed
to himself the character of God, and spake blasphemy,
when they turned against him : but till then they were on
his side. Judas " promised and sought opportunity to be-
tray him in the absence of the multitude.'''' (Luke xxii. 6.)
The chief-priests and elders, in consulting on his death,
said, " not on the feast-day, lest there be an upi'oar among
the people.^' (Matth. xxvi. 5.) Jesus therefore felt himself
safe, nay, powerful, so that he could even clear the temple
of its profaners by force, in the day ; but not so in the
night. — In the night, the chief-priests might use stratagem,
as they eventually did ; and the fact appears to be, that the
very first night Jesus did not retire to Bethany, but re-
mained in and about Jerusalem, he was actually betrayed
and seized. There is a consistency, I say, of the most
artless kind in the several parts of this narrative ; a con-
sistency, however, such as we have to detect for ourselves ;
and so latent and unobtrusive, that no forgery could reach it. '

XXVIII.

It appears to me that there is a coincidence in the fol-
lowing particulars, relating to this same locality, not the
less valuable from being in some degree intricate and in-
volved.

1. Luke ix. 51. — "And it came to pass, when the time was

come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set

his face to ffo to Jerusalem.^'

Expressions occur in the remainder of this and in the

following chapter, which show that the mind of St. Luke

' Several of the thoughts in this Number are suggested to me by Mr. A.
Joluison's " Christus Crucifixus."

304" THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV

was contemplating- the events which happened on this jour-
ney, though he does not make it his business to trace it
step by slep: thus (ver. 52), "And they went and entered
into a village of the Samaritans." And again (ver. 57),
'• And it came to pass, that as they went in the way^ a
certain man said unto him," &c. And again (x. 38), " And
It came to pass, as they went, that they entered into a
certain village : and a certain woman, named Martha,
received him into her house. And she had a sister called
Mary." The line of march, therefore, which St, Luke
was pursuing in his own mind in the narrative, was that
which was leading Jesus through Samaria to Jerusalem ;
and in the last of the verses I have quoted, he brings him
to this "certain village,'' which he does not name, but he
tells us it was the abode of Martha and Mary.

Accordingly, on comparing this passage with John (xi. 1),
we are led to the conclusion, that the village was Bethany ;
for it is there said, that Bethany " was the town of Mary
and her sister Martha."

But on looking at St. Mark's account of a similar journey
of Jesus, for probably it was not the same,' we find that the
preceding stage which he made before coming to Bethany
was from Jericho: (Mark x. 46.) "And they came to
Jericho : and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples
and a great number of people," &c. And then it follows
(xi. 1), "And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto
Bethphage and Bethany,^'' &.c. This, therefore, brings us
to the same point as St, Luke. Thus, to recapitulate : we
learn from St, Luke, that Jesus, in a journey from Galilee
to Jerusalem, arrived at the village of Martha and Mary.

We learn from St. John, that this village was Bethany.

And we learn from St. Mark, that the last town Jesus

1 See Luke xiii. 22; xvii. 11 ; xviii. 31; where a subsequent journe3ris
wprhaos snoken of.

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 305

left before he came to Bethany, on a similar journey, if not
the same, was Jericho.

Now let us turn once more to St. Luke, (x. 30,) and we
shall there discover Jesus giving utterance to a parable on
this occasion, which is placed in immediate juxtaposition
with the history of his reaching Bethany, as though it had
been spoken just before. For, as soon as it is ended, the
narrative proceeds, " Now it came to pass, as they went,
that he entered into a ce/^am village: and a certain
woman named Martha received him into her house," (x.
38.) And what was this parable 1 That of " a certain
man who went do«n from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell
among thieves," *fcc. It seems, then, highly probable, that
Jesus was actually travelling from Jericho to Jerasale7n
(Bethany being just short of Jerusalem), when he deUvered
it. W-'iat can be more like reality than this ? Yet how
circi.'i'tously do we get at our conclusion !

2. Nor is even this all. The parable represents a priest
and Levite as on the road. This again is entirely in keep-
ing with the scene : for whether it was that the school of
the prophets established from old at Jericho' had given a
sacerdotal character to the town ; or whether it was its
comparative proximity to Jerusalem, that had invited the
priests and Levites to settle there ; certain it is that a very
large portion of the courses that waited at the temple re-
sided at Jericho, ready to take their turn at Jerusalem
when duty called them \^ so that it was more than prob-
able that Jesus, on coming from Jericho to Jerusalem, on
this occasion, with his disciples, would meet many of this
order. How vivid a coloring of truth does all this give to
the fact of the parable having been spoken as St. Luke
says!

3. Nay more still — I can beheve that there may be dis-

1 2 Kings ii. 5. '^ See Lightfoot, Vol. n. p. 45, fol.

26*

306

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

covered a reason coincident with the circumstances of the
time, in Jesus choosing to imagine a Samaritan for the
benefactor at this particular moment — for it had only been
shortly before, at least it was upon this same journey, that
James and John had proposed, when the Samaritans
would not receive him, to call down fire from heaven and
consume them, (Luke ix. 54.) Could the spirit they were
of^ be more gracefully rebuked than thus ? Again, how
real is all this !

XXIX.

John xviii. 10. — " Then Simon Peter having a sword drew
it, and smote the high-priest's servant, and cut off his
right ear. The servant's name was Malchns."
15. — " And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did ariother
disciple : that disciple was known unto the high
priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the
high-priest."
16. — " But Peter stood at the door without. Then went
out that other disciple, which was known unto the
high-priest, and spake unto her that kept the door,
and brought in Peter.''^
In my present argument, it will be needful to show, in
the first instance, that " the disciple who was known unto
the high-priest," mentioned in ver. 15, was probably the
Evangelist himself This I conclude from three considera-
tions : —

1. From the testimony of the fathers, Chrysostom,
Theophylact, and Jerom.'

2. From the circumstance that St. John often unques-
tionably speaks of himself in the third person in a similar

1 See Lardner's History of the Apostles and Evangelists, ch. ix.

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS 307

manner. Thus, chap. xx. 2, "Then she runneth and
Cometh to the disciple whom Jesus loved ; and ver. 3,
" Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple.''^
The like phrase is repeated several times in the same
chapter and elsewhere.

3. Moreover, it may be thought, as Bishop Middleton
has argued, that St. John has a distinctive claim to the
title of " the other disciple," (6 alio? ^aOi^x-qg, not " another,"
as our version has it,) where St. Peter is the colleague : for
that a closer relation subsisted between Peter and John
than between any other of the disciples. They constantly
act together. Peter and John are sent to prepare the last
Passover (Luke xxii. 8). Peter and John run together to
the sepulchre. John apprizes Peter that the stranger at
the sea of Tiberias is Jesus (John xxi. 7). Peter is anx-
ious to learn of Jesus what is to become of John (ver. 21).
After the ascension they are associated together in all the
early history of the Acts of the Apostles.

4. The narrative of the motions of " that disciple who
was known unto the high-priest," his coming out and
going in, is so express and circumstantial, that it bears
every appearance of having been written by the party
himself. Nor in fact do any other of the Evangehsts men-
tion a syllable about " that other disciple ;" they tell us,
indeed, that Peter did enter the high-priest's house, but
they take no notice of the particulars of his admission, nor
how it was effected, nor of any obstacles thrown in the
way.

For these reasons, I understand the disciple known unto
the high-priest to have been St. John. My argument now
stands thus. The assault committed by Peter is mentioned
by all the Evangelists, but the nam,e of the servant is given
by St. John only. How does this happen ? Most natu-
rally ; for it seems by some chance or other St. John was

3D® THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

known not only unto the high-priest, but also to his house-
hold — that the servants were acquainted with him, and he
with them, since he was permitted to enter into the high-
priest's house, whilst Peter was shut out, and no sooner
did he " speak unto her that kept the door," than Peter
was admitted. So again, in further proof of the same
thing, when another of the servants charges Peter with
being one of Christ's disciples, St. John adds a circum-
stance peculiar to himself, and marking his knowledge of
the family, that " it was his kinsman whose ear Peter
cut of:'

These facts, I conceive, show that St. John (on the sup-
position that St. John and " the other disciple" are one
and the same) was personally acquainted with the servants
of the high-priest. How natural, therefore, was it, that
in mentioning such an incident as Peter's attack upon one
of those servants, he should mention the man by name,
and the " servanfs name was Malchus ;" whilst the
other Evangelists, to whom the sufferer was an individual
in whom they took no extraordinary interest, were satisfied
with a general designation of him, as " one of the servants ^
of the high-priest."

This incident also, in some degree, though not in the
same degree perhaps as certain others which have been
mentioned, supports the miracle which ensues. For if the
argument shows that the Evangelists are uttering the
truth when they say that such an event occurred as the
blow with the sword — if it shows that there actually was
such a blow struck— then is there not additional ground
for believing that they continue to tell the truth, when
they say in the same passage that the effects of the blow
were miraculously removed, and that the ear was healed ?

I am aware that there are those who argue for the su-
perior rank and station of St. John, from his being known

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 309

unto the high-priest ; and who may, therefore, think him
degraded by this impUed famiharity with his servants.
Suffice it however to say, — that, as on the one hand, to be
known to the high-priest does not determine that he was
his equal, so, on the other, to be known to his servants
does not determine that he was not their superior ; further-
more, that the relation in which servants stood towards
their betters was, in ancient times, one of much less dis-
tance than at present ; and, lastly, that the Scriptures
themselves lay no claim to dignity of birth for this Apostle,
when they represent of him and of St. Peter, (Acts iv. 13,)
that Annas, arid the elders, after hearing their defence,
" perceived them to be unlearned and ignorant men."

XXX.

John xviii. 36. — " Jesus answered. My kingdom is not of
this world : if my kingdom were of this world, then
would my ser-vants fight, that I should not be de-
livered to the Jews."
Nothing could have been more natural than for his
enemies to have reminded our Lord, that in one instance
at least, and that too of very recent occurrence, his ser-
vants did fight. Indeed, Jesus himself might here be
almost thought to challenge inquiry into the assault Peter
had so lately committed upon the servant of the high-
priest. Assuredly there was no disposition on the part of
his accusers to spare him. The council sought for witness
against Jesus, and where could it be found more readily
than in the high-priest's own house ? Frivolous and un-
founded calumnies of all sorts were brought forward, which
agreed not together ; but this act of violence, indisputably
committed by one of his companions in his Master's cause,

310 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

and, as they would not have scrupled to assert, under his
Master's eye, is altogether and intentionally, as it should
seem, kept out of sight.

The suppression of the charge is the more remarkable,
from the fact, that a relation of Malchus was actually
present at the time, and evidently aware of the violence
which had been done his kinsman, though not quite able
to identify the offender. " One of the servants of the high-
priest, being his kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, said, Did
I not see thee in the garden with him ?" (ver. 26.) Surely
nothing could have been more natural than for this man
to be clamorous for redress.

Had the Gospel of St. Luke never come down to us, it
\vould have remained a difficulty, (one of the many diffi-
culties of Scripture arising from the conciseness and de-
sultory nature of the narrative,) to have accounted for the
suppression of a charge against Jesus, which of all others
would have been the most likely to suggest itself to his
persecutors, from the offence having been just committed,
and from the sufferer being one of the high-priest's own
family ; a charge moreover which would have had the ad-
vantage of being founded in truth, and would therefore
have been far more effective than accusations which could
not be sustained. Let us hear, however, St. Luke. He
tells us, and he only, that when the blow had been struck,
Jesus said, " Suffer ye thus far : and he touched his ear
and healed him." — (xxii. 51.)

The miracle satisfactorily explains the suppression of
the charge — to have advanced it would naturally have led
to an investigation that would have more than frustrated
the malicious purpose it was meant to serve. It would
have proved too much. It might have furnished indeed
an argument against the peaceable professions of Jesus's
party, but, at the same time, it would have made manifest

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 311

his own compassionate nature, submission to the laws,
and extraordinary powers. Pilate, who sought occasion to
release him, might have readily found in it a circumstance
so well calculated to convince him of the innocence of the
prisoner, and of his being (what he evidently suspected and
feared) something more than human.

XXXI

John XX. 4. — " So they ran both together : and the other
disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sep-
ulchre.
5. — " And he stooping down, and looking in. saw the linen

clothes lying ; yet w€7it he not in.
6. — " Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went

into the sepidchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie.
7. — " And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying
with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place
by itself.
8. — " Then went in also that other disciple, which came
first to the sepulchre."
How express and circumstantial is this narrative ! How
difficult it is to read it and doubt for a moment of its per-
fect truth ! My more immediate concern however with the
passage is this, that it affords two coincidences, certainly
very trifling in themselves, but still signs of veracity : —
1. ^S"^. John outran St. Peter. It is universally agreed
by ecclesiastical writers of antiquity, that John was the
youngest of all the Apostles. That Peter was at this time
past the vigor of his age, naay perhaps be inferred from an
expression in the twenty-first chapter of St. John — " Ver-
ily, verily, I say unto thee," says Jesus to Peter, '^when
thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst

^^ THE VERACITY OF THE PART. IV.

whither thou wouldest : but when thou shah be old, thou
shah stretch forth thy hands, and another shah gird thee,
and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." — ver, 18. Or
(what may be more satislactory) there being every reason
to believe that St. John survived St. Peter six or seven and
thirty years, \ it almost necessarily follows that he must
have been much the younger man of the two, since the
term of St. Peter's natural life was probably not very much
forestalled by his martyrdom.^ Accordingly, when they
ran both together to the sepulchre, it was to be expected
that John should outrun his more aged companion, and
come there first.

I do not propose this as a new light, but I am not aware
that it has been brought so prominently forward as it de-
serves. An incident thus trivial and minute disarms sus-
picion. The most sceptical cannot see cunning or con-
trivance in it ; and it is no small point gained over such
persons, to lead them to distrust and re-examine their bold
conclusions. This little fact may be the sharp end of the
wedge that shall by degrees cleave their doubts asunder.
Seeing this, they may by-and-by " see greater things than
these." But this is not all :— for, 2dly, though John came
first to the sepulchre, he did not venture to go in till Peter
set him the example. Peter did not pause "to stoop
down" and " look in," but boldly entered at once— he was
not troubled for fear of seeing a spirit, which was probably
the feehng that withheld St. John from entering, as it vms
the feeling which, on a former occasion, caused the dis-
ciples (Mark xiv. 26) to cry out. Peter was anxiously
impatient to satisfy himself of the truth of the women's
report, and to meet once more his crucified Master : all

' See Lardner's History of the Apostles and Evangelists, eh. ix. sect. 6.
and ch. xviii. sect. 5.
2 Consult 2 Peter i. 14, and John xxi. 18

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 313

Other considerations were with him absorbed in this one.
Now such is precisely the conduct we should have expect-
ed from a man, who seldom or never is offered to our no-
tice in the course of the New Testament, (and it is very
often that our attention is directed to him,) without some
indication being given of liis possessing a fearless, spirited,
and impetuous character. Shght as this trait is, it marks
the same individual who ventured to commit himself to
the deep and " walk upon the water," whilst the other
disciples remained in the boat ; who " drew his sword and
smote the high-priest's servant," whilst they were con-
founded and dismayed ; who " girt his fisher's coat about
him and cast himself into the sea" to greet his Master
when he appeared again, whilst his companions came in a
little ship, dragging the net with fishes ; who was ever
most obnoxious to the civil power, so that when any of the
disciples are cast into prison, there are we sm'e to find St.
Peter. (See Acts v. 18. 29 ; xii. 3 ; xvi. 25.) Again, i
say, I cannot imagine that designing persons, however
wary they might have been, however much upon their
guard, could possibly have given their fictitious narrative
this singular air of truth, by the introduction of circum-
stances so unimportant, yet so consistent and harmonious.

XXXII.

The Gospel of St. John contains no history whatever of
the Ascension of Jesus ; indeed, the narrative terminates
before it comes to that point. Yet there are passages in
it from which we may incidentally gather that the ascen-
sion was considered by him as a notorious fact. Passages
which perfectly coincide with {\w direct description oi ih^aX
event, contained in Art< i. 3 —13.

314

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

Thus, John iii. 13. — " And no man hath ascended up to
heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the
Son of man which is in heaven."
Again, vi. 62.—" What and if ye shall see the Son of man

ascend up where he was before."
Again, xx. 17.—" Jesus saith unto her. Touch me not ; for
I am not yet ascended to my Father : but go to my
brethren, and say unto them, 1 asce?id unto my Fa-
ther, and your Father; and to my God, and your
God."
Had the Gospel of St. John been the only portion of the
New Testament which had descended to our times, and all
record of the ascension had perished, these casual allusions
to it might have been lost upon us ; but when coupled with
such record, a record quite independent of the Gospel of St.
John, they convey to us, far more strongly than any ac-
count he might have given of it in detail could have done,
the testimony of that Apostle to the truth of this last mar-
vellous act of the marvellous life of our blessed Lord ; and
of which he was himself a spectator.

XXXIII.

There is a difference in the quarter from which oppo-
sition to the Gospel of Christ proceeded, as represented in
the Gospels and in the Acts, mo«t characteristic of truth,
though most unobtrusive in itself. Indeed, these two por-
tions of the New Testament might be read many times
over without the feature I allude to happening to present
itself.

Throughout the Gospels, the hostility to the Christian
cause manifested itself almost exclusively from the Phari-
sees. Jesus evidently considers them as a sect systemati-

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 315

cally adverse to il — " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites. Ye are the children of them which killed the

prophets Fill ye up the measure of your fathers."'

And before Jesus came up to the last passover, " the chief
priests and Pharisees,'' we read, "gave commandment,
that, if any man knew where he were, he should show it,
that they might take hini."^ And that when Judas pro-
posed to betray him, " he received a band of men and offi-
cers from the chief priests and Pharisees.''^ On the other
hand, throughout the Ads, the like hostility is discovered
to proceed from the Sadducees. Thus, "And as they"
(Peter and John) "spake unto the people, the priests and
the captain of the Temple and the Sadducees came upon
them."^ And again, on another occasion, '• The high priest
rose up, and all that were with him, which is the sect of the
Sadducees, and were filled with indignation ; and laid
hands on the apostles, and put them in the common pri-
son."5 And again, in a still more remarkable case ; when
Paul was maltreated before Ananias, and there was danger
perhaps to his life, he " perceiving," we read, " that the one
part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, cried out
in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son
of a Pharisee ;"« evidently considering the Pharisees now to
be the friendly faction, and soliciting their support against
the Sadducees, whom he equally regarded as a hostile one ;
nor was he disappointed in his appeal.

Whence then this extraordinary change in the relations
of these parties respectively to the Christians? No doubt,
because the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which
before Christ's own resurrection, i. e. during the period
comprised in the Gospels, had been so far from dispersed by
the disciples, that they scarcely knew what it meant (Mark

» Matth, xxiii. 29, 32. 2 .Tohn xi. 57. ^ Jb. xviii. 3.

* Acts iv. 1. 5 lb. V. 17. 6 lb. xxiii. 6

316 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

ix. 10), had now become a leading doctrine with them ;
as anybody may satisfy themselves was the case by read-
ing the several speeches of St. Peter, which are given in
the early chapters of the Acts ; in each and all of which
the resurrection is a prominent feature — in that which he
delivers, on providing a successor for Judas (Acts i. 22) ; at
the feast of Penticost (ii. 32) : at tlie Beautiful Gate (ill. 12) ;
the next day, before the priests (iv. 10) ; again, before the
council (v. 31) ; once more, on the conversion of Cornelius
(x. 40). The coincidence here lies in the Pharisees and
Sadducees acting on this occasion consistently with their
respective tenets : " For the Sadducees say that there is no
resm'rection, neither angel nor spirit : but the Pharisees
confess both.'" The undesignedness of the coincidence
consists in its being left to the readers of the Gospels and
Acts to discover for themselves that there was this change
of the persecuting sect after the Lord's resurrection, their
attention not drawn to it by any direct notice in the docu-
ments themselves.

XXXIV.

Acts iv. 36. — " And Joses, who by the Apostle was sur-
named Barnabas, a Levite, and of the country of
Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money,
and laid it at the Apostles' feet."
I HAVE often thought that there is a harmony pervading
everything connected with Barnabas, enough in itself to
stamp the Acts of the Apostles as a history of perfect fidel-
ity. In the verse which I have placed at the head of this
paragraph, we see that he was a native of Cyprus ; a cir-

• Acts xxiii. 8.

PART IV. GOSVELS AND ACTS. S17

cumstance upon which a good deal of what I have to say
respecting him will be found to turn.

1. First then, we discover him coming forward in be-
half of Paul, whose conversion was suspected by the disci-
ples at Jerusalem, with the air of a man who could vouch
for his sincerity, by previous personal knowledge of him.
How it was that he was better acquainted with the Apostle
than the rest, the author of the Acts does not inform us.
(.Cyprus, however, the country of Barnabas, was usually
annexed to Cilicia, and formed an integral part of that
province, whereof Tarsus, the country of Paul, was the
chief city.' It may seem fanciful, however, to suppose that
at Tarsus, which was famous for its schools and the facil-
ities it afforded for education,^ the two Christian teachers
might have laid the foundation of their friendship in the
years of their boyhood. Yet I cannot think this improba-
ble. That Paul collected his Greek learning (of which he
had no inconsiderable share) in his native place, before he
was removed to the feet of Gamaliel, is very credible ; nor
less so, that Barnabas should have been sent there from
Cyprus, a distance of seventy miles only, as to the nearest
school of note in those parts. Be that, however, as it may,
what could be more natural than for an intimacy to be
formed between them subsequently in Jerusalem, whither
they had both resorted? They were, as we have seen, all
but compatriots, and, under the circumstances, were likely
to have their common friends. Neither may it be thought
wholly irrelevant to observe, that when it was judged safe
for Paul to return from Tarsus, where he had been living
for a time to avoid the Greeks, Barnabas seized the oppor-
tunity of visiting that town in person, " to seek him," and

' Cicer. Epist. Familiar. Lib. i. ep. vii. See also Maffei Verona lUus-
trata, Vol. i. p. 352.

2 See Wetstein on Acts ix. 11-

27*

318

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

bring him to Antioch. A journey which, as it does not
seem to be necessary, was possibly undertaken by Barna-
bas partly for the purpose of renewing his intercourse with
his early acquaintance.

2. Again, in anotlier place we read, " And some of them
were men of Cyprus and Gyrene, which, when they were
come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the
Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them :
and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.
Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the
church which was at Jerusalem. And they sent forth
Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch.'^'' (Acts,
ix. 20.) Here no reason is assigned why Barnabas should
have been chosen to go to Antioch, and acquaint himself
with the progress these new teachers were making amongst
the Grecians ; but we may observe, that " some of them
were men of Cyprus ;" and having learned elsewhere that
Bai'nahas was of that country also, we at once discover
the propriety of dispatching him, above all others, to con-
fer with them on the part of the church at Jerusalem.

3. Again, when, at a subsequent period, Paul and Bar-
nabas went forth together to preach unto the Gentiles, we
perceive that " they departed unto Seleucia, and from
thence sailed to Cyprus.''^ (xiii. 4.) And further, in a
second journey, after Paul in some heat had parted com-
pany with them, we read that Barnabas and Mark again
'^sailed unto CyprusP (xv. 32.) This was precisely
what we might expect. Barnabas naturally enough chose
to visit his own land before he turned his steps to strangers.
Yet all this, satisfactory as it is in evidence of the truth of
the history, wx are left by the author of the Acts of the
Apostles to gather for ourselves, by the apposition of sev-
eral perfectly unconnected passages.

4. Nor is this all. " And some days after (so we read,

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 319

ch. XV.) Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and
visit our brethren in every city where we have preached
the word of the Lord, and see how they do. And Barna-
bas determined to take with them John, whose surname
was Mark. But Paul thought not good to take him with
them, who departed from them from Pmnphylia^ and
went not with them to the work. And the contention was
so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one
from another : and so Barnabas took Mark., and sailed
unto CyprusP

A curious chain of consistent narrative may be traced
throughout the whole of this passage. The cause of the
contention between Paul and Barnabas has been already
noticed by Dr. Paley ; I need not therefore do more than
call to my reader's mind (as that excellent advocate of the
truth of Christianity has done) the passage in the Epistle
to the Colossians, iv. 10. where it is casually said, that
" Marcus loas sistefs son to Barnabas'^ — a relationship
most satisfactorily accounting for the otherwise extraordi-
nary pertinacity with which Barnabas takes up Mark's
cause in this dispute with Paul. Though anticipated in
this coincidence, I was unwilling to pass it over in silence,
because it is one of a series which attach to the life of Bar-
nabas, and render it, as a whole, a most consistent and
complete testimony to the veracity of the Acts.

One circumstance more remains still to be noticed. Mark,
it seems, in the former journey, "departed from them from
PamphyUa, and went not with them to the work." How
did this happen ? The explanation, I think, is not difficult.
Paul and Barnabas are appointed to go forth and preach.
Accordingly they hasten to Seleucia, the nearest sea-port
to Antioch, where they were staying, and taking with them
.Tohn or Mark, ^^ sail to Cyprus,^^ (xiii. 4). Since Barna-
bas was a Cypriote, it is probable that his nephew Mark

320

THE VERACITY OF THE PART TV.

was the same, or, at any rate, that he had friends and re-
lations in that island. His mother, it is true, had a house
in Jerusalem, where the disciples met, and where some of
them perhaps lodg:ed (xii. 12); but so had Mnason, who
was nevertheless of Cyprus (xxi. 16). How reasonable
I hen is it to suppose, that in joining- himself to Paul and
Barnabas in the outset of their journey, he was partly in-
iiuenced by a very innocent desire to visit his kindred, his
••onnections, or perhaps his birth-place, and that having
achieved this object, he landed with his two companions in
Pamphylia, and so returned forthwith to Jerusalem. And
this supposition (it may be added) is strengthened by the
expression applied by St. Paul to Mark, " that he went not
with them to the worW'' — as if in the particular case the
voyage to Cyprus did not deserve to be considered even the
beginning of their labors, being more properly a visit of
choice to kinsfolk and acquaintance, or to a place at least
having strong local charms for Mark.

XXXV

Acts vi. 1. I " And in those days, when the number of the
disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of
the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their
widows were neglected in the daily ministration.

2. — " Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples
unto them, and said. It is not reason that we should
leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore,
brethren, look ye out among you seven men, of hon-
est report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom
we may appoint over this business.

5. — "And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and
they chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and of the

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 321

Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor,

and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte

of Antioch."

In this passage, I perceive a remarkable instance of

consistency without design. There is a murmuring of the

Grecians against the Hebrews, on account of what they

considered an unfair distribution of the alms of the church.

Seven men are appointed to redress the grievance. No

mention is made of their country or connections. The

multitude of the disciples is called together, and by them

the choice is made. No other limitation is spoken of in

the commission they had to fulfil, than that the men should

be of honest report; full of the Holy Ghost. Yet it is probable,

(and here lies the coincidence.) that these deacons were all

of the party aggrieved, /or their names are all Grecian.

It is difficult to suppose this accidental. There must
have been Hebrews enough fitted for the office. Yet Gre-
cians alone seem to have been appointed. Why this
should be so, St. Luke does not say, does not even hint.
We gather from him that the Grecians thought themselves
the injured party ; and we then draw our own conclusions,
that the church having a sincere wish to maintain har-
mony, and remove all reasonable ground of complaint,
chose, as advocates for the Greeks, those who would natu-
rally feel for them the greatest interest, and protect their
rights with a zeal that should be above suspicion.

XXXVI

Acts xi. 26. — "And the disciples were called Christian:}
first in Antioch."
The mention of this fact as a remarkable one, and
worthy of being recorded, is natural, and coincides with

322 THE VERACITY OP THE PART IV.

the circumstances of the case a^ gathered from other pas-
sages of the Acts. For it should seem, from the various
phrases and circumlocutions resorted to in that book, by
which to express Christians and Cliristianity, that for a
long time no very distinctive term was applied to either.
We read of " all that believed" (ol maTEiotTsg, ii, 44) ; of
'• the disciples" {oi /xudijTui, vi. 1) ; of " any of this way,"
(ol lijg 65ou, ix. 2) ; and again, of " the way of God" (t^ rod
(■Jaov odds, xviii. 26) ; or simply of " that way" {^ odog^ xix.
9) ; or of " this way" (uii^ -^ 6ddg^ xxii. 4.) Indeed, the
name Christian occurs but in two other places in the New
Testament (Acts xxvi. 28 ; 1 Pet. iv. 16.) A title there-
fore which characterized the new sect succinctly and in a
word, and which saved so much inconvenient and ambigu-
ous periphrases, was memorable ; and even if given in the
first instance as a reproach, was sure to be soon adopted
and rendered familiar. On the supposition that the book
of the Acts of the Apostles was a fiction, is it possible to
imagine, that this unobtrusive evidence of the progress of
a name would have been found in it ?'

XXXVII.

Acts xix. 19. — " Many of them also which used curious
arts brought their books together, and burned them
before all men : and they counted the price of them,
and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver."
It was at Ephesus where the effect of St. Paul's min-
istry was thus powerful — and where, therefore, it seems
that these magical arts very greatly prevailed.

Now it was at Ephesus that Timothy was residing

I My attention was drawn to this coincidence, by a passage in Bishop
Pearson. Minor Theolog. Works, i. p. 367.

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 323

when St. Paul wrote to him, '• But evil men and seducers
(j'orjTsc, conjurers) shall wax worse and worse, deceiving
and being deceived (cheats and cheated) ; but continue
thou in the things which thou hast learned," &.c. (2 Tim.
iii. 13.) These were the men who dealt in curious arts —
the trade of the place in such impostures not having alto-
gether ceased, it should seem, when a bonfire was made
of the books.'

XXXVIII

Acts xxiv. 23. — " And he commanded a centurion to
keep Paul, and to let him have liberty."

Rather " he commanded the centurion," itS exuTovx&qxvi.

It should seem, therefore, that St. Luke had in his mind
some particular centurion. Is there anything in the nar-
rative which would enable us to identify him ?

It will be remembered, that in the preceding chapter
(xxiii. 23,) the chief captain " called unto him two centu-
rions, saying. Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to
Caesarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and spearmen
two hundred, at the third hour of the night ; and provide
them beasts that they may set Paul on, and bring him safe
unto FeUx the governor."

This escort having arrived with their prisoner at Anti-
patris (ver. 32,) divided ; the infantry returning to Jerusa-
lem, and of course the centurion who commanded them :
the horsemen and the other centurion proceeding with
Paul to Cajsarea.

When, therefore, St. Luke tells us that Felix com-
manded the centurion to keep Paul, he no doubt meant

' This coincidence is suggested by Dr. Burton's Bampton Lectures, iv. p. 103.

324 THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

the commander of the horse who had conveyed him to
Caesarea ; whose fidehty having- already experienced, he
consigned to him this further trust.

This is very natural : but the neglect or non-detection
of this touch of truth in our version, shows how delicate a
thing the translation of the Scripture is ; and how favor-
able to the evidence of its veracity is the strict and accu-
rate, nay, even grammatical investigation of it.'

XXXIX.

Acts xxiv. 26.—" He (Felix) hoped also that money should
have been given him of Paul, that he might loose
him : wherefore he sent for him the oftener and com-
muned with him."

It is observed by Lardner,=' that Felix (it might be
thought) could have small hopes of receiving money from
such a prisoner as Paul, had he not recollected his telling
him, on a former interview, that "after many years he
came to bring alms to his nation, and offerings^ — Hence
he probably supposed, that the alms might not yet be all
distributed, or if they were, that a public benefactor would
soon find friends to release him.

The observation is curious, and in confirmation of its
truth, I will add, that the personal appearance of Paul,
when he was brought before FeUx, was certainly not such
as would give the governor reason to believe that he had
wherewithal to purchase his own freedom, but quite the
contrary. For a passage in the Acts. (xxii. 28,) certainly
conveys very satisfactory, though indirect, evidence, that

' Bishop Middleton, on the Greek Article, p. 298, finds a subject for phi-
lology, here -again, where I find one for evidence.
2Vol. I. p. 27. 8vo. edition.

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. . 325

the Apostle wore poverty in his loolcs at the very period in
question. When Lysias, the chief captain at Jerusalem,
had been apprized that he was a Roman, he could scarcely
give credit to the fact ; and, being further assured of it by
Paul himself, he said, " With a great sum obtained I this
freedom," manifestly implying a suspicion of Paul's ve-
racity, whose appearance bespoke no such means of pro-
curing citizenship. The cupidity, therefore, of Felix was
no doubt excited, as lias been said, by recollecting the
errand on which his prisoner had come so lately to .Teru-
salem.

And this, moreover, furnishes the true explanation of
the orders which Felix (very far from a merciful or indul-
gent officer) gave to the keeper of Paul, " to let him have
liberty, and to forbid none of his acquaintance to min-
ister or come unto him ;" a free admission of his friends
being necessary, in order that they might furnish him with
the ransom.

It is true that there is no coincidence here between inde-
pendent writers, but surely every unprejudiced mind must
admit that there is an extremely nice, minute, and unde-
signed harmony between the speech of Paul and the sub-
sequent conduct of FeHx ; though the cause and effect are
so far from being traced by the author of the Acts, that it
may be doubted whether he saw any connection subsist-
ing between them. Surely, I repeat, such a harmony must
convince us that it is no fictitious or forged narrative that
we are reading, but a true and very accurate detail of an
actual occurrence.

XL.

Acts xxvii. 5. — " And when we had sailed over the sea of
Cilicia and Pamohylia, we came to Myra, a city of

28

326

THE VERACITY OF THE PART IV.

Lycia. And there the centurion found a ship of

Alexandria sailing into Italy.''
TO. — "Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt

and much damage, not only of the lading (rod cpd^rov)

and ship, but also of our lives."
38. — " And when they had eaten enough, they lightened

the ship, and cast out the wheat (lot oiror) into the sea.
It has been remarked, I think with justice, that the cir-
cumstantial details contained in this chapter of the ship-
wreck cannot be read without a conviction of their truth,
I have never seen, however, the following coincidence in
some of these particulars taken notice of in the manner it
deserves. In my opinion it is very satisfactory, and when
combined with a paragraph on the same subject, which
will be found in the Appendix, (No. XXIII.) estabhshes
the fact of St. Paul's voyage beyond all reasonable doubt.
The ship into which the centurion removed Paul, and
the other prisoners at Myia, was a ship of Alexandria
that was sailing into Italy. It was evidently a merchant-
vessel, for mention is made of its lading. The nature of
the lading, however, is not directly stated. It was capa-
ble of receiving Juhus and his company, and was bound
right for them. This was enough, and this was all that
St. Luke cares to tell. Yet, in verse 38, we find, by the
merest chance, of what its cargo consisted. The furniture
of the ship, or its "tackling," as it is called, was thrown
overboard in the early part of the storm ; but the freight
was naturally enough kept till it could be kept no longer,
and then we discover, for the first time, that it was wheat
— " the wheat was cast into the sea."

Now it is a notorious fact that Rome was in a great
measure supplied with corn from Alexandria — that in
times of scarcity the vessels coming from that port were
watched with intense anxiety as they approached the

PART IV. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 327

coast of Italy' — that the3Mvere of a size not inferior to our
line of battle ships,- a thing by no means usual in the ves-
sels of that day — and accordingly that such an one might
well accommodate the centurion and his numerous party,
in addition to its own crew and lading.

There is a very singular air of truth in all this. The
several detached verses at the head of this Number tell a
continuous story, but it is not perceived till they are brought
together. The circumstances drop out one by one at in-
tervals in the course of the narrative, unarranged, unpre-
meditated, thoroughly incidental ; so that the chapter
might be read twenty times, and their agreement with
one another and with contemporary history be still over-
looked. I confess, it seems to me the most unlikely thing
in the world, that a mere inventor of St. Paul's voyage
should have been able to arrange it all, try how he would.
It is possible that he might have affected some circum-
stantial detail, and so have made St. Paul and his com-
panions change their ship at Myra ; he might have said
that it was a ship of Alexandria bound for Italy ; but that
he should have ctdded, some thirty verses afterwards, and
then quite incidentally, that its cargo was wheat, a fact so
curiously agreeing with his former assertion that the ves-
sel was Alexandrian and was sailing to Italy, argues a
subtlety of invention quite incredible. But if the account
of the voyage, as far as relates to the change of ship, the
tempest, the disastrous consequences, <fcc. is found, on being
tried by a test which the writer of the Acts could never have
contemplated, to be an unquestionable fact, how can the
rest, which does not admit of the same scrutiny, be set
aside as unworthy of credit ? — for instance, that Paul act-
ually foretold the danger — that again, in the midst of it,

1 See Sueton. Nero. §. 45. 2 See Wetstein, Acts xxvii. 6.

328 THE VERACITY. ETC. PART IV.

he foretold the final escape, and that an angel had declared
to him God's pleasure, that for his sake not a soul should
perish ? I see no alternative but to receive all this, nothing
doubting; unless we consider St. Luke to have mixed up
fact and fiction in a manner the most artful and insidious.
Yet who can read the Acts of the Apostles and come to
such a conclusion ?

AFPEIDIX,

CONTAINING

UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES BETWEEN THE GOS-
PELS AND ACTS, AND JOSEPHUS.

It will not be out of place, if to a work which has had
for its object to establish the veracity of the Scriptures in
general, and in the last Part, that of the Gospels and Acts
in particular, on the evidence of undesigned coincidences
found in them, when compared with themselves or one
another, I subjoin as a cognate argument, some other in-
stances of undesigned coincidence between those latter
writings and Josephiis. The subject has been treated, but
not exhausted, by Lardner and Paley ; the latter of whom
indeed did not profess to do more than epitomize that part
of the '* CredibiUty of the Gospel history" which considers
the works of the Jewish historian. Josephus was born a. d.
37, and therefore must have been long the contemporary
of some of the Apostles. For my purpose it matters little,
or nothing, whether we reckon him a believer in Christi-
anity or not ; whether he had, or had not, seen the records
of the Evangelists ; since the examples of agreement be-
tween him and them, which I shall produce, will be such
as are evidently without contrivance, the result of veracity
in both.

If we allow him to be a Christian, if we even allow him
28*

330

THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

to have seen the writings of the Evangelists, he will never-
theless be an independent witness, as far as he goes, pro-
vided his corroborations of the Gospel be clearly unpremed-
itated and incidental. In short, he will then be received
like St. Mark or St. John, as a partisan indeed ; but yet as
a partisan who, upon cross-examination, confirms both his
own statements and those of his colleagues.

I.

Before I bring forward individual examples of coinci-
dence between Joseph us and the Evangelists, I cannot help
remarking the effect which the writings of the former have,
when taken together and as a whole, in convincing us of
the truth of Gospel history. No man, I think, could rise
from a perusal of the latter books of the Antiquities, and
the account of the Jewish War, without a very strong im-
pression, that the state of Judaea, civil, political and moral,
as far as it can be gathered from the Gospels and Acts of
the Apostles, is portrayed in these latter with the greatest
accuracy, with the strictest attention to all the circum-
stances of the place and the times. It is impossible to in)-
part this conviction to my readers in a paragraph ; the na-
ture of the case does not admit of it ; it is the result of a
thousand httle facts, which it would be difficult to detach
from the general narrative, and whicli considered separately
might seem frivolous and fanciful. We close the pages of
Josephus with the feeling that we have been reading of a
country, which, for many years before its tinal fall, had
been the scene of miserable anarchy and confusion. Eve-
rywhere we meet with open acts of petty violence, or the
secret workings of plots, conspiracies, and frauds ;— the laws
ineffectual, or very partially observed, and very wretchedly

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS.

administered ; — oppression on the part of the rulers ;
amongst the people, faction, discontent, seditions, tumults ;
— robbers infesting the very streets, and most public places
of resort, wandering about in arms, thirsting for blood no
less than spoil, assembling in troops to the dismay of the
more peaceable citizens, and with difficulty put down by
military force ; — society, in fact, altogether out of joint.
Such would be our view of the condition of Judaea, as col-
lected from Josephus.

Now let us turn to the New Testament, which, without
professing to treat about Judaea at all, nevertheless by glimp-
ses, by notices scattered, uncombined, never intended for
such a purpose, actually conveys to us the very counterpart
of the picture in- Josephus. For instance, let us observe the
character of the parables ; stories evidently in many cases,
and probably in most cases, taken from passing events, and
adapted to the occasions on which they were delivered. In
how many may be traced scenes of disorder, of rapine, of
craft, of injustice, as if such scenes were but too familiar to
the experience of those to wliom they were addressed !
We hear of a " man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,
and falling among thieves, which stripped him of his rai-
ment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half
dead." (Luke x. 30.) Of another, who planted a vine-
yard, and sent his servants to receive the fruits : but the
" husbandmen took those servants, and beat one, and killed
another, and stoned another." (Matth. xxi. 35.) Of a
"judge which feared not God nor regarded man," and who
avenged the widow only " lest by her continual coming
she should weary him." (Luke xviii. 2.) Of a steward
" who was accused unto the rich man of having wasted his
goods," and who, by taking further liberties with his mas-
ter's property, secured himself a retreat into the houses of
his lord's debtors, "when he should be put oui of the stew-

332

THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

ardship." (Luke xvi. I.) Of " the coming of the Son of
man, like that of a thief in the night," whose approach was
to be watched, if the master would " not suffer his house to
be broken up." (Matth. xxiv. 43.) Of a " kingdom divided
against itself being brought to desolation." Of a "city or
house divided against itself not being able to stand." (Matth.
xii. 25.) Of the necessity of " binding the strong man" be-
fore "entering into his house and spoiling his goods."
(Matth. xii. 29.) Of the folly of " laying up for ourselves
treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves breakthrough and steal." (Matt. vi. 19.)
Of the enemy who had maliciously sown tares amongst his
neighbor's wheat, "and went his way." (Matth. xiii. 25.)
Of the man who found a treasure in another's field, and
cunningly sold all that he had, and " bought that field."
(xiii. 44 ) These instances may suffice. Neither is it to
the parables only that we must look for our proofs. Many
historical incidents in the Gospels and Acts speak the same
language. Thus when Jesus would "have entered into a
village of the Samaritans," they would not receive him,
upon which his disciples, James and John, who no doubt
partook in the temper of the times, proposed " that fire should
be commanded to come down from heaven and consume
them.'' (Luke ix. 52.) Again, when Jesus had offended
the people of Nazareth by his preaching, they made no
scruple " of rising up and thrusting him out of the city, and
leading him unto the brow of the hill whereon the city was
built, that they might cast him down headlong," (Luke iv.
19) ; and, on another occasion, after he had been speaking
in the temple at Jerusalem, " the Jews took up stones to
stone him," but he " escaped out of their hand." (John x.
31.) Again, we are told of certain " Galilseans whose blood
Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices." (Luke xiii. 1.)
And when our Lord was at last seized, it was " by a great

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 333

multitude with swords and staves," (Matth. xxvi. 47.) as
in a country where nothing but brute force could avail to
carry a warrant into execution. So again, Barabbas, whom
the Jews would have released instead of Jesus, was one
'" who lay bound with them that had made insurrection
with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection."
(Mark xv. 7.) And when he was at length crucified, it
was between two thieves.

Let us trace the times somewhat further, and we shall
discover no amendment, but rather the contrary; as we
learn from Joseplius was the case on the nearer approach
to the breaking out of the war. Thus Stephen is tumultu-
ously stoned to death. (Acts viii. 58.) And "Saul made
havoc of the church, entering into every house, and taking
men and women, committed them to prison." (viii. 3.) But
when Saul's own turn came that he should be persecuted,
what a continued scene of violence and outrage is presented
to us ! Turn we to the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd chapters of
the Acts. It might be Josephus that is speaking in them.
Paul, on his coming to Jerusalem, is obliged to have re-
course to a stratagem to conciliate the people, because " the
multitude would needs come together, for they would hear
that he was come." Still it was in vain. A hue and cry
is raised against him by a few persons who had known him
in Asia, and forthwith " all the city is moved, and the peo-
ple run together and take Paul, and draw him out of the
temple." The Roman garrison gets under arms and hast-
ens to rescue Paul : but still is it needful that " he be borne
of the soldiers, for the violence of the people." He makes
his defence. They, however, " cry out, and cast off their
clothes, and throw dust in the air." He is brought before
the council, and the high-priest commands them that stand
by him to strike him on the mouth." He now, with much
dexterity, divides his enemies, by declaring himself a Phar-

334 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

isee and a believer in the resurrection. This was enough
to set thein again at strife ; for then there arose a dissen-
sion between the Pharisees and Sadducees, — and such was
its fury, that " the captain, fearing Paul should be pulled
in pieces by them, commands his soldiers to go down and
take liiiu by force from among them." No sooner is he
rescued from the multitude, than forty persons and more
" bind themselves by a curse to kill him" when he should
be next brought before the council. Intelligence of this
plot, however, is conveyed to the captain of the guard, who
determines to send him to Caesarea, to Felix the governor.
The escort necessary to attend this single prisoner to his
place of destination is no less than four hundred and sev-
enty men, horse and foot, and, as a further measure of
safety and precaution, they are ordered to set out at the
third hour of the night. All these things, I say, are in
strict agreement with the state of Judsea as it is represented
by Josephus. And it might be added, that independently
of such consideration, an argument for the truth of the
Gospels and Acts results from the harmony upon this point
which prevails throughout them all : a circumstance which
I might have dwelt upon in the former section, but which
it will be enough to have noticed here.

But further, a perusal of the writings of Josephus leaves
another impression upon our minds that there was a very
considerable intercourse hetioeen Judcea and Rome. To
Rome we find causes and litigations very constantly re-
ferred — thither are the Jews perpetually resorting in search
of titles and offices^ — there it is that they make known their
grievances, explain their errors, supplicate pardons, set forth
their claims to favor, and return their thanks. Neither are
there wanting passages in the New Testament which
would lead us to the same conclusion ; rather however
casually, by allusion, by an expression incidentally pre-

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS 335

senting itself, than by any direct communication on the
subject. Hence may we discover, for instance, the pro-
priety of that phrase so often occurring in the parables and
elsewhere, of men going for various purposes " into a far
countri/.'^

Thus we read that " the Son of man is as a man taking
a. far journey, who left his house and gave authority to
his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded
the porter to watch." (Mark xiii. 34.) And again, that a
certain nobleman went into a far coimtry to receive for
himself a kingdom, and to return. (Luke xix. 12.) x\nd
again, that the prodigal son, "gathered all together, and
took his jour ney into a far country, and there wasted his
substance in riotous living." (Luke xv. 13). And again,
that " a certain househulder planted a vineyard, and hedged
it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a
tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far
country.^' (Matth. xxi. 33.) Moreover, it is probable that
this political relationship of Judeea to Rome, the seat of
government, from whence all the honors and gainful posts
were distributed, suggested the use of those metaphors,
which abound in the New Testament, of the " kingdom of
heaven," of "seeking the kingdom of heaven," of "giving
the kingdom of heaven," and the like. All I mean to
affirm is this, that such allusions and such figures of speech
would very naturally present themselves to a Teacher sit-
uated as the Gospel represents Jesus to have been — and
therefore go to prove that such representation is the truth.

II.

Matth. ii. 3. — "When Herod the king had heard these
things, he was troubled, and all .Terusalem with him.

336

THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

And when he had gathered all the chief priests and
scribes of the people together, he demanded of them
where Christ should be born."

Nor was he yet satisfied ; for he " pi'ivilt/ called the
wise men, and inquired of them diligently what time the
star appeared." (ver. 7.) And when they did not return
from Bethlehem, as he expected, he seems to have been
still more apprehensive, " exceeding wroth." (ver. 16.)

Such a transaction as this is perfectly agreeable to the
character of Herod, as we may gather it from Josephus.
He was always in fear for the stability of his throne, and
anxious to pry into futurity that he might discover whether
it was likely to endure.

Thus we read in Josephus of a certain Essene, Manahem
by name, who had foretold, whilst Herod was yet a boy,
that he was destined to be a king. Accordingly, " when
he was actually advanced to that dignity, and in the plen-
itude of his power, he sent for Manahem and inquired of
him hoio long he should reign 7 Manahem did not tell
him the precise period. Whereupon he questioned hira
further, whether he should reign ten years or not ? He re-
plied, Yes, twenty, nay, thirty years ; but he did not as-
sign a hmit to the continuance of his empire. With these
answers Herod was satisfied, and giving Manahem his
hand, dismissed him, and from that time he never ceased
to honor all the Essenes." (Antiq. xv. 20. § 5.)

III.

Matth. ii. 22. — " But when he heard that Archelaus did
reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he
was afraid to go thither."
On the death of Herod, Joseph was commanded to re-

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 337

turn to the land of Israel, and " he arose and took the
young child" and went. However, before he began his
journey, or whilst he was yet in the way, he was told that
Archelaus did reign in Judeea in the room of his father
Herod ; on which he was afraid to go thither. Archelaus,
therefore, must have been notorious for his cruelty (it
should seem) very soon indeed after coining to his throne.
Nothing short of this could account for the sudden resolu-
tion of Joseph to avoid him with so much speed.

Now it is remarkable enough, that at the very first
passover after Herod's death, even before Archelaus had
yet had time to set out for Rome to obtain the ratifica-
tion of his authority from the emperor, he was guilty of an
act of outrage and bloodshed, under circumstances above
all others fitted to make it generally and immediately
known. One of the last deeds of his father, Herod, had
been to put to death Judas and Matthias, two persons who
had instigated some young men to pull down a golden
eagle, which Herod had fixed over the gate of the Temple,
contrary, as they conceived, to the law of Moses. The
hapless fate of these martyrs to the law excited great com-
miseration at the Passover which ensued. The parties,
however, who uttered their lamentations aloud were
silenced by Archelaus, the new king, in the following
manner : —

" He sent out all the troops against them, and ordered
the horsemen to prevent those who had their tents outside
the Temple from rendering assistance to those who were
within it, and to put to death such as might escape from
the foot. The cavalry slew nearly three thousand men,
the rest betook themselves for safety to the neighboring
mountains. Then Archelaus commanded proclamation to
be made, that they should all retire to their own homes.

29

THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

So they went away, and left the festival out of fear lest
somewhat worse should ensue.''' (Antiq. xvii. 9. § 3.)

We must bear in mind, that at the Passover Jews from
all parts of the world were assembled •, so that any event
which occurred at Jerusalem during that great feast would
be speedily reported on their return to the countries where
they dwelt. Such a massacre, therefore, at such a season,
would at once stamp the character of Archelaus. The
fear of him would naturally enough spread itself wherever
a Jew was to be found ; and, in fact, so well remembered
was this first essay at governing the people, that several
years afterwards it was brought against him with great
effect on his appearance before Caesar at Rome.

It is the more probable that this act of cruelty inspired
Joseph with his dread of Archelaus, because that prince
could not have been much known before he came to the
throne, never having had any public employment, or, in-
deed, future destination, like his half-brother, Antipater,
whereby he might have discovered himself to the nation
at large.*

IV

Matth. xvii. 24. — " And when they were come to Caper-
naum, they that received trihute-money came to
Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute ?
He saith, Yes."
The word which is translated t7'ihute-money is in the
original " the didrachtna,^^ of which indeed notice is given
in the margin of our version ; and it is worthy of remark,
that this tax seems not to have been designated by any

I Lardner briefly alludes to this transaction, but has not made the best of
his argument. — Vol. i. p. 14. 8vo. ed.

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 339

general name, such for instance as tribute, custom, (fee,
but actually had the specific appellation of " the didrach-
maP Thus Josephus writes : " Nisibis too is a city sur-
rounded by the same river (the Euphrates) ; wherefore the
Jews, trusting to the nature of its position, deposited there
the didrachma. which it is customary for each individual
to pay to God ; as well as their other offerings." — (Antiq.
xviii. 10. § 1.)

There is something which indicates veracity in the
Evangelist, to be correct in a trifle like this. He makes
no mistake in the sum paid to the Temple, nor does he
express himself by a general term, such as would have
concealed his ignorance, but hits upon the exact payment
that was made, and the name that was given it.

It may be added, that St. Matthew uses the word
didrachma without the smallest explanation, which is not
the case, as we have seen, with Josephus ; yet the argu-
ment of Jesus which follows would be quite unintelligible
to those who did not know for whose service this tribute-
money was paid. It is evident, therefore, that the Evan-
list thought there could be no obscurity in the term ; that
it was much too familiar with his readers to need a com-
ment. Now the use of it probably ceased with the des-
truction of the Temple ; after which but few years would
elapse before some interpretation would be necessary, more
especially as the term itself does not in the least imply the
nature of the tax, but only its individual amount. The
undesigned omission of everything of this kind, on the
part of St. Matthew, pretty clearly proves the Gospel to
have been written before the Temple was destroyed.

340 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

Matth. xxii. 23. — " The same day came to him the Sad-
ducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and
asked him," &c.

It is very unusual to find in St. Matthew a paragraph
hke this, explanatory of Jewish opinions or practices. In
general it is quite characteristic of him, and a circumstance
which distinguishes him from the other Evangelists, that
he presumes upon his readers being perfectly familiar with
Judaea and all that pertains to it. St. Mark, in treating
the same subjects, is generally found to enlarge upon them
much more, as though conscious that he had those to deal
with who were not thoroughly conversant with Jewish
affairs.

Compare the following parallel passages in these two
Evangelists.

Matth. ix. 14. — " Then came to him the disciples of
John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but
thy disciples fast not ?"

Mark ii, 18.—" Arid the disciples of John and of the
Pharisees used to fast : and they come and say unto him,
Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast,
but thj disciples fast not ?"

Matth. XV. 1. — " Then came to Jesus Scribes and Phar-
isees, which were of Jerusalem, saying. Why do thy dis-
ciples transgress the tradition of the Elders ? for they wash
not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered
and said unto them," (fcc.

Mark vii. — " Then came together unto him the Phari-
sees, and certain of the Scribes, which came from Jerusa-
lem. And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread
with defiled, that is to say. with unwasheii hands, they

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 341

found fault. For the Pharisees, and all the Jeios, except
they loash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition
of the Elders. And when they co??ie from the market,
except they wash, they eat not. And tnany other things
there be, which they have received to hold, as the wash-
ing of cups, and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables.
Then the Pharisees and Scribes asked him, Why walk not
thy disciples according to the tradition of the Elders, but
eat bread with unwashen hands?" &c.

Matth. xxvii. 62. — " Now the next day that followed the
day of the Preparation, the Chief Priests and Pharisees
came together,'' <fec.

Mark xv. 42. — " And now when the even was come, be-
cause it was the Preparation, that is, the day before the
tSabbath," &c.

These examples (to which many more might be added)
may suffice to show the manner of St. Matthew as com-
pared with that of another of the EvangeHsts ; that it
dealt little in explanation. How then does it happen that
in the instance before us he deviates from his ordinary, al-
most his uniform, practice ; and whilst writing for Jews,
thinks it necessary to inform them of so notorious a tenet
of the Sadducees (for such we might suppose it) as their
disbelief in a resurrection ? Would not his Jewish readers
have known at once, and on the mere mention of the name
of this sect, that he was speaking of persons who denied
that doctrine ?

Let us turn to Josephus, (Antiq. xviii. 1. § 4,) and we
shall find him throwing some light upon our inquiry.

" The doctrine of the Sadducees is, that the soul and
body perish together. The law is all that they are con-
cerned to observe. They consider it commendable to con-
trovert the opinions of masters even of their own school
of philosophy. This doctrine, however, has not many

29*

m

THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

followers, but those persons of the highest rank — next
to nothing of public business falls into their hands.-'
Thus, we see, it was very possible for the people of Judaea,
though well acquainted with most of the local peculiarities
of their country, to be ignorant, or at least, ill-informed, of
the dogmas of a sect, insignificant in numbers, removed
from them by station, and seldom or never brought into
contact with them by office ; and therefore that St. Matthew
was not wasting words, when he explained in this instance,
though in so many other instances he had withheld ex-
planation.'

VI

Matth. xxvi. 5. — " But they said, Not on the feast day,
lest there be an uproar amo)ig the peopleP

I HAVE already alluded to tlie insubordinate condition
of Judcea in general, about the period of our Lord's min-
istry. We have here an example of the feverish and irri-
table state of the capital itself, in particular, during the
feast of the Passover.

" The feast of the Passover," says Josephus, (who re-
lates an event that happened some few years after Christ's
death,) " being at hand, wherein it is our custom to use
unleavened bread, and a great multitude being drawn to-
gether from all parts to the feast, Cumanus (the governor)
fearing that some disturbance might fall out amongst
them,, comm,ands one cohort of soldiers to arm themselves
and stand in the porticoes of the Temple, to suppress
any riot which might occur ; and this precaution the

1 See Hug's Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. n. p. 7. Transla-
tion by the Rev. D. G. Wait.

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 343

governors of Judcea before him had adopted^ — (Antiq.
XX. 4. h 3.)

In spite, however, of these prudent measures, a tumult
arose on this very occasion, in which, according to Jose-
ph us, twenty thousand Jews perished.

VII

Mark v. 1. — " And they came over unto the other side of

the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes^'' (fcc.
11. — "Now there were nigh unto the mountains many
swine feeding.

Here it might at first seem that St. Mark had been
betrayed into an oversight — for since swine were held in
abhorrence by the Jews as unclean, how (it might be
asked) did it happen that a herd of them were feeding on
the side of the sea of Tiberias %

The objection, however, only serves to prove yet more
the accuracy of the Evangelist, and his intimate knowl-
edge of the local circumstances of Judea ; for on turning
to Josephus, (Antiq. xvii. 13. § 4,) we find that " Turris
Stratonis, and Sebaste, and Joppa, and Jerusalem, were
made subject to Archelaus, but that Gaza, Gadara, and
Hippos, being Grecian cities, were annexed by Csesar to
Syria." This fact, therefore, is enough to account for
swine being found amongst the Gadarenes.

VIII

Mark vi. 21. — "And when a convenient day was come,
that Herod on his birth-day made a supper to his
lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee :

344

THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

and when the daughler of the said Herodias came m,
and danced." &c.
It is curious and wortliy of remark; that a feast, under
exactly similar circumstances, is incidentally described by
Josephus, as made by Herod, the brother of Herodias, and
successor of this prince in his government. '^Having
made a feast on his hirth-day, (writes Josephus,) when
all iinder his command partook of the mirth, he sent
for Silas," (an officer whom he had cast into prison for
taking liberties with him.) and " offered him his freedom
and a seat at the banquet." (Antiq. xix. 7. § 1.) This, I
say, is a coincidence worth notice, because it proves that
these hirth-day feasts were observed in the family of
Herod, and that it was customary to assemble the officers
of government to share in them.

IX.

' Mark xiv. ] 3.—" And he sendeth forth two of his disciples,

and saith unto them. Go ye into the city, and there

shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water :

follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye

to the goodman of the house. The Master saith,

Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the

Passover with my disciples .?"

When Cestius wished to inform Nero of the numbers

which attended the Passover at Jerusalem, he counted the

victims, and allowed ten persons to each head, " because a

company not less than ten belong to every sacrifice, (for it

is not lawful for them to feast singly by themselves,) and

many are twenty in company." — Bell. Jud. c. vi. 9. § 3.

Accordingly, the Gospel narrative is in strict conformity
with this custom. When Christ goes up to Jerusalem to

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 345

attend the Passover for the last time, he is not described
as running the chance of hospitaUty in the houses of any
of his friends, because, on this occasion, the parties would
be made up, and the addition of thirteen guests might be
inconvenient, but he sends forth beforehand, from Bethany,
most probably, two of his disciples to the city, with orders
to engage a room, (a precaution very necessary where so
many companies would be seeking accommodation,) and
there eats the Passover with his followers, a party of thir-
teen, which it appears was about the usual number.'

X.

Luke ii. 42. — " And when he loas twelve years old, they
went up to Jerusalem, after the custom of the feast."

I AM aware that commentators upon this text quote the
Rabbins, to show that children of twelve years old amongst
the Jews were considered to be entering the estate of man-
hood, (see Wetstein.) and that on this account it was that
Jesus was taken at that age to the Passover. Such may
be the true interpretation of the passage. I cannot, how-
ever, forbear offering a conjecture which occurred to me
in reading the history of Archelaus.

The birth of Christ probably preceded the death of Herod
by a year and a half or thereabout. (See Lardner, Vol. i.
p. 352. 8vo. edit.) Archelaus succeeded Herod, and gov-
erned the country, it should seem, about ten years. •• In
the ieiith year of Archelaus' reign the chief governors
among the Jews and Samaritans, unable any longer to en-
dure his cruelty and tyranny, accused him before Ceesar."
Caesar upon this sent for him to Rome, and " as soon as he

1 See Whiston's Note upon Joseph. B. J. vi. 9. 3.

346

THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

came to Rome, when the Emperor had heard his accusers,
and his defence, he banished him to Vienne in France, and
confiscated his goods." — Antiq. xvii, c. 15. The removal,
therefore, of tliis obnoxious governor, appears to have been
effected in our Lord's twelfth year. Might not this circum-
stance account for the parents of the child Jesus venturing
to take him to Jerusalem at the Passover when he was
tivelve years old, and not before? It was only because
"Archelaus reigned in Judeea in the room of his father
Herod," that Joseph was afraid to go thither on his return
from Egypt ; influenced not merely by motives of personal
safety, but by the consideration that the same jealousy
which had urged Herod to take away the young child's
life, might also prevail with his successor ; for we do not
find that any fears about himself or Mary withheld him
from subsequently going to the Passover even during the
reign of Archelaus, since it is recorded that " they went ev-
ery year." I submit it, therefore, to my readers' decision,
whether the same apprehensions for the life of the infant
Jesus, which prevented Joseph from taking him into Judeea,
on hearing that Archelaus was king, did not, very proba-
bly, prevent him from taking him up to Jerusalem till he
heard that Archelaus was deposed ? ■ ^- rv>

&

XI

Luke vi. 13. — " And when it was day, he called unto him
his disciples ; and of them he cho^&twelve, whom also
he named Apostles."

X. 1. — " After these things the Lord appointed other seventy

also, and sent them two and two before his face," &c.

There is something in the selection of these numbers

which indicates veracity in the narrative. They were, on

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 347

several accounts, favorite numbers amongst the Jews ; the
one (to name no other reason) being that of the Tribes, the
other (taken roundly) that of the Elders. Accordingly we
read in Joseph us, that Varus, who held a post in the gov-
ernment under Agrippa, " called to him twelve Jews of
Ctesarea, of the best character, and ordered them to go to
Ecbatana, and bear this message to their countrymen who
dwelt there : ' Varus hath heard that you intend to march
cigainst the king ; but not believing the report he hath sent
us to persuade you to lay down your arms, counting such
compliance to be a sign that he did well not to give credit
to those who so spake concerning you.'" "He also en-
joined those Jews of Ecbatana to send seventy of their /?n7?-
cipal men to make a defence for them touching the accu-
sation laid against them. So when the /weZz?e messengers
came to their countrymen at Ecbatana, and found that
they had no designs of innovation at all, they persuaded
them to send the seventy also. Then went these seventy
down to Ceesarea together with the tivelve ambassadors."
—(Life of Josephus, § 11).

This is a very slight matter to be sure, but it is still
something to find the subordinate parts of a history in
strict keeping with the habits of the people and of the age
to which it professes to belong. The Evangelist might
have fixed upon any other indifferent number for the Apos-
tles and first Disciples of Jesus, without thereby incurring
any impeachment of a want of veracity ; and therefore it
is the more satisfactory to discover marks of truth, where
the absence of such marks would not have occasioned the
least suspicion of falsehood.

348 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

XII.

Luke vii. 1. — "Now when he had ended all these sayings
in the audience of the people, he entered into Caper-
naum."
11. — " And it came to pass the day after, that he went into
a city called Nain ; and many of his disciples went
with him, and much people."

Jesus comes to Capernaum — he goes on to Nain — fame
precedes him as he approaches Judsea — he arrives in the
neighborhood of the Baptist — he travels still further south
to the vicinity of the Holy City, near which the Magdalen
dwelt — St. Luke, therefore, it will be perceived, is here de-
scribing a journey of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem.

Now let us hear Josephus (Antiq. xx. 5. § 1) : - A quar-
rel sprung up between the Samaritans and the Jews, and
this was the cause of it. The Galilaeans, when they re-
sorted to the Holy City at the feasts, had to pass through
the country of the Samaritans. Now it happened that
certain inhabitants of a place on the road, Nam by name,
situated on the borders of Samaria and the Great Plain,
rose upon them and slew many."'

Jesus, therefore, in this his journey southwards, (a jour-
ney, be it observed, which the Evangelist does not formally
lay down, but the general direction of which we gather
from an incident or two occurring in the course of it, and
from the point to which it tended,) Jesus in this his jour-
ney is found to come to a city which, it appears, did actu-
ally lie in the way of those Avho travelled from Galilee to

• Hudson reads kCi^ti^ Vivaiai; \tyojiivTiq, instead of Naif, the common read-
ing ; but see Hug's Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. i. p. 23, (trans-
lation), where the coincidence is suggested, and the reasons given for abid-
ing by the ordinary text.

APPEND.

GOSPELS AND ACTS. 349

Jerusalem. This is as it should be. A part of the story is
certainly matter of fact. There is every reason to believe
the Evangelist when he says that Jesus " went into a city
called Nain." What reason is there to disbelieve him when
he goes on to say, that he met a dead man at the gate;
that he touched the bier ; bade the young man arise ; and
that the dead sat up and spake ?

XIII.

Luke xxiii. 6. — " When Pilate heard of Gahlee, he asked
whether the man were a Galileean. And as soon as
he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction
he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jeru-
salem at that time.^^
The fair inference from this last clause is, that Jerusa-
lem was not the common place of abode either of Herod
or Pilate. Such is certainly the force of the emphatic ex-
pression, " who himself also was at Jerusalem at that
time," appUed, as it is, directly to Herod, but with a refer-
ence to the person of whom mention had been made in
the former part of the sentence. The more circuitous this
insinuation is, the stronger does it make for the argument.
Now that Herod did not reside at Jerusalem, may be in-
ferred from the following passage in Joseph us.

" This king" (says he, meaning the Herod who killed
James, the brother of John, Acts xii.) " was not at all like
that Herod who reigned before him, (meaning the Herod
to vi^hom Christ was sent by Pilate,) for the latter was
stern and severe in his punishments, and had no mercy on
those he hated : confessedly better disposed towards the
Greeks than the Jews : accordingly, of tlie cities of the
strangers, some he beautified at his own expense with

30

350 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

baths and theatres, and others with temples and corridors ;
but upon no Jewish city did he bestow the smallest decora-
tion or the most trifling present. Whereas the latter Herod
(Agrippa) was of a mild and gentle disposition, and good
to all men. To strangers he was beneficent, but yet more
kind to the Jews, his countrymen, with whom he sympa-
thized in all their troubles. He took pleasure therefore in
constantly living at Jerusalem, and strictly observed all
the customs of his nation." — Antiq. xix. 7. § 3. Thus
does it appear from the Jewish historian, that the Herod
of the Acts was a contrast to the Herod in question, inas-
much as he loved the Jews that divelt at Jerusalem. Nor
is St. Luke less accurate in representing Pilate to have
been not resident at Jerusalem. Ceesarea seems to have
been the place of abode of the Roman governors of Judsea
in general. (See Antiq. xviii. 4. § 1. — xx. 4. § 4.) Of
Pilate it certainly was ; for when the Jews had to com-
plain to him of the profanation which had been offered to
their Temple by the introduction of Caesar's image into it,
it was to Ceesarea that they carried their remonstrance.
(Bell. Jud. II. c. 9. § 2.)

It was probably the business of the Passover which
had brought Pilate to Jerusalem for a few days, the pres-
ence of the Governor being never more needful in the
capital than on such an occasion.

XIV.

John iv. 15. — "The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me
this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to
draw."
It seems, therefore, that there was no water in Sychar,

and that the inhabitants had to come to this well to draw.

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 351

Most likely it vvc\s at some little distance froiri the town,
for the woman speaks of the labor of fetching the water
as considerable ; and Jesus stopped short of the town at
the well, because he "was wearied with his journey,"
whilst his disciples went on to buy bread.

Now, on the breaking out of the war with the Romans,
some of the Samaritans assembled on Mount Gerizim,
close to the feet of which (be it observed) loas the city
of Sychar placed.^ Upon this, Vespasian determined to
put some troops in motion against them. '• For although
all Samaria was provided with garrisons, yet did the num-
ber and evil spirit of those who had come together at
Mount Gerizim give ground for apprehension ; therefore
he sent Cerealis, the commander of the fifth Legion, with
six hundred horse, and three thousand foot. Not thinkinsr
it safe, however, to go up the mountain and give them
battle, because many of the enemy were on the higher
ground, he encompassed all the circuit {vmooi^iav) of the
mountain with his army, and watched them all that day.
But it came to pass, that wliilst the Samaritans icere
noiD without water, a terrible heat came on, for it was
summer, and the people were unprovided with necessaries,
so that some of them died of thirst that same day,
and many others, preferring slavery to such a death, fled
to the Romans." — Bell. Jud. in. 7. § 32.

The troops of Cerealis, no doubt, cut them off from the
well of Sychar, which we perceive, from St, John, was the
place to which the neighborhood were compelled to resort.
This is the more likely, inasmuch as the soldiers of the
Roman general do not appear to have suffered from thirst
at all on this occasion.

' SiVj^a KStfiivriv npd; ro) Tapi^eiv Spei. — Joseph. Antiq. II. 8. 6.

352 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

XV

John xix. 13. — " When Pilate therefore heard that saying-,
he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judg-
ment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement^

According to St. John, therefore, (he being the only
one of the Evangelists who mentions this incident,) Pilate
comes out of his own hall to his judgment-seat on the
Pavemetit. The hall and the Pavement then were near
or contiguous.

Now let us turn to Josephus. " The City was strength-
ened by the palace in which he (Herod) dwelt, and the
Temple by the fortifications attached to the bastion called
Antonia." — (Antiq. xv. 8. § 5.) Hence we conclude that
the Temple was near the Castle of Antonia.

" On the western side of the court (of the Temple) were
four gates, one looking to the palace" (Antiq. xv. 11.
§ 5.) Hence Ave conclude that the Temple was near the
palace of Herod. Therefore the palace was near the
Castle of Antonia.

But if Pilate's hall was a part of the palace, as it was,
(that being the residence of the Roman governor when he
was at Jerusalem,) then Pilate's hall was near the Castle
of Antonia.

Here let us pause a moment, and direct our attention to
a passage in the Jewish War, (vi. 1. § 8,) where Josephus
records the prowess of a centurion in the Roman army,
Julianus by name, in an assault upon .Terusalem.

'• This man had posted himself near Titus, at the Caslle
of Antonia, when observing that the Romans were giving
way, and defending themselves but indifferently, he rushed
forward and drove back the victorious Jews to the corner

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 353

of the inner Temple, single-handed, for the whole multi-
tude fled before him, scarcely believing such strength and
spirit to belong to a mere mortal. But he, dashing through
the crowd, smote them on every side, as many as he could
lay hands upon. It was a sight which struck Ceesar with
astonishment, and seemed terrific to all. Nevertheless his
fate overtook him, as how could it be otherwise, unless he
had been more than man ; for having many sharp nails in
his shoes, after the soldier's fashion, he sHpped as he was
running upon the Pavement, (x«Ki AidoarQdixov,) and fell
upon his back. The clatter of his arms caused the fugi-
tives to turn about : and now a cry was set up by the
Romans in the Castle of Antonia, who were in alarm for
the man."

From this passage it appears that a pavement was near
the Castle of Antonia ; but we have already seen that the
Castle of Antonia was near the palace, (or Pilate's hall :)
therefore this pavement was near Pilate's hall. This then
is proved from Josephus, though very circuitously, which
is not the worse, that very near Pilate's residence a pave-
ment [Aidoajqmoc,) there was ; that it gave its name to
that spot is not proved, yet nothing can be more probable
than that it did ; and consequently nothing more probable
than that St. John is speaking with truth and accuracy
when be makes Pilate bring Jesus forth and sit down in
his judgment-seat in a place called the Pavement.^

XVI

John xix. 15. — " The chief priests answered, We have no
king but CcBsarP
Although the Roman emperors never took the title of

1 See Hug's Introd. to the New Testament, Vol. i. p. 18.

30*

354 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

kings/ yet it appears from Josephus tlrat thej' were so
called by the Jews ; and in further accordance with the
writers of the New Testament, that historian commonly
employs the term Cmsar, as sufficient to designate the
reigning prince. Thus, when speaking of Titus, he says,
" many did not so much as know that the king was in
any danger." And again, shortly after, " the enemy in-
deed made a great shout at the boldness of CcBsar^ and
exhorted one another to rush upon him." — (Bell. Jud. v.
2. § 2.)

This is a curious coincidence in popular phraseology,
and such as bespeaks the writers of the New Testament
to have been familiar with the scenes they describe, and
the parties they introduce.

XVII

Acts iii. 1, 2. — " Now Peter and John went up together
into the Temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth
hour. And a certain man lame from his mother's
womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate
of the Temple which is called Beautiful^ to ask alms
of them that entered into the Temple."
Peter recovers the cripple. The fame of his miracu-
lous cure is instantly spread abroad.

" And as the lame man which was healed held Peter
and John, all the people ran together unto them in the
porch that is called /Solomon's, greatly wondering." —
(ver. 11.)

There is a propriety in the localities of this miracle
which is favorable to a belief in its truth.

Josephus speaks of a great outer gate, (that of the

■ For this remark I am indebted to Whiston.

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 355

Porch,) " opening into the Court of the women on the
East, and opposite to the gate of the Temple, in size sur-
passing the others, being fifty cubits high and forty wide;
and more finished in its decorations, by reason of the thick
plates of silver and gold which were upon it." — (Bell. Jud.
V. § 3.)

But in another passage of the same author we read as
follows : — " They persuaded the king (Agrippa) to restore
the Eastern Porch. This was a porch of the outer
Temple, situated upon the edge of a deep abyss, resting
upon a wall four hundred cubits high, constructed of quad-
rangular stones, quite white, each stone twenty cubits by
six, the work of King Solomon, the original builder of the
Temple." (Antiq. xx. 8. § 7.) Thus it appears that a
gate, more highly ornamented than the rest, looked to the
East ; that a porch, of which Solomon was the founder,
looked also to the East ; that both, therefore, were on the
same side of the Temple, and accordingly that it was very
natural for the people, hearing that a cripple who usually
lay at the Beautiful Gate, and who had been cured as he
lay there, it was very natural for them to run to Solomort's
Porch, to satisfy themselves of the truth of the report.'

XVIII.

Acts ix. 36. — " Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple,

named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called

Dorcas."

It may be remarked, that Josephus who (like St. Luke)

wrote in Greek of things which happened in a country

where Syriac was the common language, thinks fit to add

' See Hug, Vol. i. p. 19.

356 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

a similar explanation when he alludes to this same proper
name.

" They sent one John, who was the most bloody-minded
of them all, to do that execution. This man was also
called the son of Dorcas in the langiias^e of our coun-
try.''— {BeU. Jud. iv. 3. § 5.)

XIX.

Acts vi. 1. — " And in those days, when (he number of the

disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring

of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their

widows were neglected in the daily ministration."

In the first section I found an instance of consistency

without design in this passage, on comparing it with the

context ; I now find a second like instance, on comparing

it with Josephus. It seems that when the disciples became

more numerous, a jealousy began to discover itself between

the Grecians and the Hebrews. The circumstance is

casually mentioned by St. Luke, as the accident which

gave occasion to the appointment of deacons ; yet how

strictly characteristic is it of the country and times in

wliich it is said to have happened.

" There was a disturbance at Ceesarea," writes Josephus,
" between the Jews and Syrians respecting the equal en-
joyment of civil rights ; the Jews laying claim to prece-
dence because Herod, who was a Jew, had founded the
city : the Syrians, on the other hand, admitting this, but
maintaining that Ceesarea was originally called the Tower
of Straton, and did not then contain a single Jew." —
(Antiq. xx. 7. § 7.) In the end the two parties broke out
into open war. This was when Felix was governor.
On one occasion, under Florus, we read of 20,000 Jews

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 357

perishing at Caesarea by the hands of the Greek or Syrian
part of the population. — (Bel. Jud. ii. 18. 1.) — x'Vnd again,
we are told that " fearful troubles prevailed throughout all
Syria, each city dividing itself into two armies, and the
safety of the one consisted in forestalling the violence of
the other. Thus the people passed their days in blood and
their nights in terror."— (Bel. Jud. ii. 15. 2.)

It is most improbable that the writer of the Acts, if he
were making up a story, should have bethought himself
of a circumstance at once so unimportant as this murmur-
ing of the Grecians against the Hebrews, and yet so truly
descriptive of the people where his scene was laid? This
little incident (the more trifling the better for our purpose)
carries with it the strongest marks of truth ; and, like the
single watch-word, is a voucher for the general honesty of
the party that utters it. Indeed, the establishment of one
fact may be thought in itself to entail the credibility of
many more. If it be certain that there was a murmuring
of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows
were neglected in the daily ministration, then it is probable
that there was a common fund out of which widows were
maintained ; that many sold their possessions to contribute
to this fund ; that it must have been a strong motive
which could urge to such a disposal of their property : that
no motive could be so likely as their conviction of the truth
of Christianity ; and that such a conviction could spring
out of nothing so surely as the evidence of miracles. I do
not say that all these matters necessarily follow from the
certainty of the first simple fact, but I say that admitting
it, they all follow in a train of very natural consequence.

358 THE VERACITY OF ^HE APPEND.

XX.

Acts XXV. 13. — " And after certain days King Agrippa
and Bernice came unto Ccesarea to salnte Festiis.''

This Agrippa (Agrippa Minor) had succeeded, by per-
mission of Claudius, to the territories of his uncle Herod ;
at least, Trachonitas, Batanaea, and Abilene, were con-
firmed to him. From this passage in the Acts it appears,
as might be expected, that he was anxious to be well with
the Roman Government, and accordingly that he lost no
time in paying his respects to Festus, the new representa-
tive of that Government in Judaea. It is a singular and
minute coincidence well worth our notice, that Josephus
records instances of this same Agrippa's obsequiousness to
Roman authorities, of precisely the same kind. " About
this time," says he, " King Agrippa went to Alexandria,
to salute Alexander, who had been seiit by Nero to gov-
ern Egypt.'''' — (Bel. Jud. ii. 15. § 1.)

And again, (what is yet more to our purpose,) we read,
on another occasion, that Bernice accompanied Agrippa
in one of these visits of ceretnony ; for having appointed
Varus to take care of their kingdom in their absence, " they
went to Berytus with the intention of meeting Gessius
{Florus,) the Roman governor of JudcBa." — (Jos. Life,
§ 11.)

This is a case singularly parallel to that in the Acts :
for Gessius Florus held the very same office, in the same
country, as Felix.

XXIi

Acts XXV. 23. — " And on the morrow, when Agrippa was
come, and Bernice, with great pomp, and was entered

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 359

into the place of hearing, with the chief captains and
principal men of the city, at Festus' commandment
Paul was brought forth."

It might seem extraordinary that Bemice should be
present on such an occasion — that a woman should take
any share in an affair, one would have supposed, foreign
to her, and exclusively belonging to the other sex. But
here again we have another proof of the veracity and ac-
curacy of the sacred writings. For when Agrippa (the
same Agrippa) endeavored to combat the spirit of rebel-
lion which was beginning to show itself amongst the Jews,
and addressed them in that famous speech given in Jose-
phus, which throws so much light on the power and pro-
vincial poUty of the Romans, he first of all "])laced his
sister Bemice (the same Bernice) in a conspicuous situa-
tion, upon the house of the Asamonseans, which was above
the gallery, at the passage to the upper city, where the
bridge joined the Temple to the gallery ;" and then he
spoke to the people. And when his oration was ended, we
read that " both he and his sister shed tears, and so re-
pressed much violence in the multitude."— (Bel. Jud. ii.
16. § 3.)

There is another passage, occurring in the life of Jose-
phus, which is no less valuable ; for it serves to show yet
further the political importance of Bernice, and how much
she was in the habit of acting with Agrippa on all pubhc
occasions. One Philip, who was governor of Gamala and
the country about it, under Agrippa, had occasion to com-
municate with the latter, probably on the subject of his
escape from Jerusalem, where he had been recently in dan-
ger, and of his return to his own station. The transaction
is thus described : —

" He wrote to Agrippa and Bernice, and gave the let-
ters to one of his freedmen to carry to Varus, who at that

360 THE VERACITY OF THE APPEND.

time was procurator of the kingdom, which the sovereigns
(i. e. the king and his sister-wife) had intrusted him withal,
while they were gone to Berytus to meet Gessius. When
Varus had received these letters of Philip, and had learned
that he was in safety, he was very uneasy at it, supposing
that he should appear useless to the sovereigns (Jiaadevaiv)
now Philip was come." (Josephus's Life, § 11.)

XXII.

Acts xxviii. 11, 12, 13. — " And after three months we de-
parted in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered
in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux. And
landing at Syracuse, we tarried there three days.
And from thence we fetched a compass, and came to
Rhegium : and after one day the south wind blew,
and we came the next day to PuteoliP
PuTEOLi then, it should seem, was the destination of
this vessel from Alexandria. Now, we may collect, from
the independent testimony of the Jewish historian, that
this vjas the fort of Italy to ivhich ships from Egypt
and the Levante in those times commonly sailed. Thus
when Herod Agrippa went from Judeea to Rome, for the
purpose of paying his court to Tiberias, and bettering his
fortune, he directed his course first to Alexandria, for the
sake of visiting a friend, and then crossing the Medi-
terranean, he landed at Puteoli. (Antiq. xviii. 7. § 4.)
Again, when Herod the Tetrarch, at the instigation of
Herodias, undertook a voyage to Rome, to solicit from
Caligula a higher title, which might put him upon a level
with his brother-in-law, Herod Agrippa, the latter pursued
him to Italy, and both of them (says Josephus,) landed

APPEND. GOSPELS AND ACTS. 361

at Dichoiar cilia (Puteoli,) and found Caius at Baiaj.
(Antiq. xviii. 8. h 2.)

Take a third instance. Josephus had himself occasion,
when a young man, to go to Rome. On his passage the
vessel in which he sailed foundered, but a ship from Cyrene
picked him up, together with eighty of his companions ;
'and, havinff safely arrived {ssLys he) at DichcBarchia,
which the Italians call Puteoli, I became acquainted with
Aliturus," vkc. (Josephus's Life, § 3.)

In this last passage there is a singular resemblance to
the circumstances of St. Paul's voyage. Josephus, though
not going to Rome as a prisoner who had himself appealed
from Felix to Caesar, was going to Rome on account of two
friends, whom Felix thought proper to send to Cesar's
judgment-seat— he suffered shipwreck— he was forwarded
by another vessel coming from Africa— and finally he
landed at Puteoli.

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SCOTT— THE FORCE OF TRUTH. By the Rev. Thos. Scott.
M CG i LV R AY— PEACE IN BELIEVING. By the Rev. Walter McGilvray, D.D.
TEN N E NT— LIFE OF THE REV. WM. TENNENT, of Freehold, N. J.

MCGAVIN— LOSS OF THE BRIG AUSTRALIA, BY FIRE. ON HER VOYAGE FROM
LEITH TO SYDNEY. Edited by the Rev. Jas. R. McGavin.

THE

This Series of Books is printed on White Paper. Neatly bound in
English cloth. Gilt Backs. 18mo.

DUNCAN —MEMOIR OF MRS. MARY LONDIE DUNCAN. Being Recollections of a Daughter

by her Mother. New ed.

MEMOIR OF GEORGE ARCHIBALD LUNDIE ; or, Missionary Life in Samoa. By Mrs. Duncan.

THE COTTAGE FIRESIDE ; or, the Parish Schoolmaster. By Henry Duncan, D D

TALES OF THE SCOTTISH PEASANTRY. By Dr. Duncan, and others.

OLD HUMPHR EY— PITHY PAPERS ON SINGULAR SUBJECTS.

OWEN GLADDON'S WANDERINGS IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT.

WALKS IN LONDON AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.

THOUGHTS FOR THE THOUGHTFUL.

ADDRESSES.

OBSERVATIONS.

COUNTRY STROLLS.

OLD SEA CAPTAIN.

• GRANDPARENTS.

HOMELY HINTS.

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENC E— By the Author of " Christian Retirement."

V/ I LS O N —LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SCOTTISH LIFE. By Professor Wilson, of Edinburgh.

New ed.

FRY — SABBATH MUSINGS. By Caroline Fry, author of " Christ our Law," "Christ our Example,"

'■ Scripture Reader's Guide," &c. &c.

H E R V EY— MEDITATIONS AND CONTEMPLATIONS. By the Rev. James Kerrey, A.M.

CRAMP— REFORMATION IN EUROPE. The History of the Reformation in Europe. With a
Chronology. By the author of '' The Council of Trent," " Text Book of Popery," &c.

MONO D— LUCILLA ; or, the Reading of the Bible. By Adolphe Monod, D.D. Translated from the
French.

MCCR I E— LECTURES ON THE BOOK OF ESTHER. By the late Thomas McCrie, D.D., author

of " The Life of John Knox," &o.

PATE R SO N— A CONCISE SYSTEM ON THEOLOGY; being the Shorter Catechism of the
Westminster Assembly of Divines, analyzed and explained, by Alexander S. Paterson, A.M.

S E R LE— THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER. By Ambrose Serle, Esq.

OLM STEAD— THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS FOR THE IMPENITENT. By the ReT. J.

M. Olmstead.

R I C H M O N D— THE ANNALS OF THE POOR. Containing " The Dairyman's Daughter," " The
Young Cottager," " The Negro Servant," ifcc. By Legh Richmond.

THE OLD WHITE MEETING-HOUSE ; or, Reminiscences of a Country Congregation

LIFE IN NEW- YORK. By the Author of "The Old White Meetin ■ , ^ise."

ROGER S— JACOB'S WELL. By the Rev. George Albert Rogers, A.M.

VV AT E R B U R Y— THE BOOK FOR THE SABBATH. I. The Origin, Design, and Obligation of
the Sabbath. II. Practical Improvement of the Sabbath. III. Devotional Exercises for the Sabbath.
By the Rev. J. B. Waterbury.

LOCKWOOD— MEMOIR OF JOHN B.LOCKWOOD. By his Father. With a Portrait.

POLLOK TALES OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANTERS. Containing " Helen of the Glen "—

" The Persecuted Family "— '' Ralph Gemmell." By Robert PoUok.

BOGATZKY— A GOLDEN TREASURY FOR THE CHILDREN OF GOD. Consisting of Select
Texts of the Bible, with Practical Ob.servations for every day in the Year. By C. H. V. Bogatzky.

WH ITE— MEDITATIONS AND ADDRESSES ON THE SUBJECT OF PRAYER. By the Re».
Hugh White, A.M., of St. Mary's Parish, DubUn.

THE BELIEVER : a Series of Discourses. By the same author.

PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE SECOND ADVENT. By the same author.

MY SCHOOL-BOY DAYS. A very interesting Juvenile Boot

CARTER'S PUBLICATIONS.

BONN ET — FAMlLy OF BETHANY; or, Merlitations on the Elerentli Chapter of the Gospel »o-
cording to St. John. By L. Bonnet. Translated from the French. With an Introductory Fssay, by
Rev. Hugh White.

MEDITATIOiNS ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. By the Rev. L. Bonnet, author of " The Family at

Bethany "

ALIQU IS — THE RETROSPECT; or. Review of Providential Mercies ; with Anecdotes of varioii,-*
Characters. By Aliqui,^, furinerly a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and now a Minister in the Estab-
lished Church. From the 17th London edition.

KRUMMACHER —THE MARTYR LAMB ; or, Christ the Representative of hi=' People in all
Ages. By F. W. Krummacher, 1).D.

ELIJAH THE TISHBITE. By F. W. Krummacher, D.D., author of " The Martyr Limb."

J AY— THE CHRISTIAN CONTEMPLATED: In a Course of Lectures, delivered iu Argyle Chapel,
Bath. By the Rev. Wm. Jay.

B R O W N L E E— THE CHRISTIAN FATHER AT HOME ; or, A Manual of Parental Instructioi*.
By W. C. Brownlee, D.D.

BURN S— CHRISTIAN FRAGMENTS; or. Remark.? on the Nature, Precepts, and Comforts cf Reli-
gion. By John Burns, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Surgery in the University of Glasgow, &c.

B I CKERSTETH— TREATISE ON PRAYER.

WO ODROOFFE— MICHAEL KEMP, THE HAPPY FARMER'S LAD. A Tale of Rustic
Life, illustrative of the Spiritual Blessings and Temporal Advantage of Early Piety. By Anne Wood-
rouffe.

HEN RY— COMMUNICANT'S COMPANION. By the Rev. Matthew Henry. With an Introduc-
tory Essay, by the Rev. John Brown, Edinburgh.

PI KE— PERSUASIVES TO EARLY PIETY.

DO D D R I DG E— RISE AND PROGRESS OF RELIGION IN THE SOUL.

SCO U G A L— WORKS OF REV. HENRY SCOUGAL; consisting of the Life of God in the Sou!,
Sermons, &c.

BUCHANAN —COMFORT IN AFFLICTION. A Series of Meditations. By the Rev. Jama
Buchanan, D.D.

TA Y LO R— MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JANE TAYLOR. By her Brother, Isaae
Taylor.

CONTRIBUTIONS OF Q. Q. With some Pieces not before published. By Jane Taylor. 2 vols.

_ CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN A MOTHER AND HER DAUGHTER AT SCHOOL. By

Mrs. Taylor and Jane Taylor.

ORIGINAL POEMS FOR INFANT MINDS. By the Taylor Family.

DISPLAY. A Tale. By Jane Taylor.

ESSAYS IN RHYME ON MORALS AND MANNERS, AND POETICAL REMAINS. By

Jane Taylor.

FRY— THE SCRIPTURE READER'S GUIDE. By Caroline Fry. From the London edition.

H A M I LTO N— THANKFULNESS, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By the Rev. James Hamilton,, of
London.

LIFE IN EARNEST. Si.ic Lectures on Christian .Activity and .Ardour. By the Rev. James Ham-
ilton.

THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, AND OTHER LECTURES ON PRAYER. By the Rev. James

Hamilton.

. HARP ON THE WILLOWS— Remembering Zion— Farewell to Egypt— The Church in the House—

The Dew of Hennon— and The Destination of the Jews. By the Rev. James Hamilton, of London.
From the foTtrj-fifth London edition.

BE I TH— SORROWING, YET REJOICING; or. Narrative of Snccessive Bereavements in a
Minister's Family. By the Rev. A. Beith, Stirling, Scotland.

S I N C L A i R— CHARLIE SEYMOUR ; or, the Good Aunt and the Bad Aunt. By Miss Catharine
Sinclair.

PI KE — TRUE HAPPINESS; or, the Excellence and Power of Early Religion. By J. G. Pike, author

of " Persuasives to Early Piety " — " Divine Origin of Christianity," &c.
. RELIGION AND ETERNAL LIFE; or, Irreligion and Perpetual Rnin, the only Alternative for

Mankind. By the same author.
DIVINE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. By the same .author.

BOSTO N— CROOK IN THE LOT. By Thomas Boston.

J ER R A IVl — A TRIBUTE OF PARENTAL AFFECTION TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED
AND ONLY DAUGHTER, HANNAH JERRAM ; with a Short Account of the Last Illness and Death
of her Elder Brother, Charles Stranger Jerram By Charles Jerram, A.M.

CARTER S PUBLICATIONS.

WHITECROS S— ANECDOTES ON THE SHORTER CATECHISM. By John Whitecre*

Teacher, Edinburgh. ^

GRIFFITHS —LIVE WHILE YOU LIVE. By the Rev. Thomas Griffiths, A,1\I., Homerton.

BAXTER— A CALL TO THE UNCONVERTED. Now or Never, and Fifty Reasons. By Richard
Baxter. With an Introduction, by Dr. Chalmers.

JAV — JUBILEE MEMORIAL; beino the Sermons, Meetings, Presentations, and Fnll Account of th«
Jubilee Commemorating th« Kev. Wm. Jay's Fifty Years' Ministry at Argyle Chapel, Bath.

GUMMING S— A MESSAGE FROM GOD TO THINKING MEN. By. Rev. Mr. Cummings.

BU N BURY— GLORY, GLORY, GLORY! AND OTHER NARRATIVES. By Miss Selina

Buuburj.

BON A R— THE NIGHT OF AVEEPING; or. Words for the Suffering Family of God. By the ReT.

Horatio Bonar, Kelso, Scotland.

HAWKER — ZION'S PILGRIM ; or, the Way to the Heavenly Canaan, Familiarly lUnstrated. By

the Rev. Robert Hawker, D.D.
MEMOIR OF SARAH MARTIN.

ALLEI N E— GOSPEL PROMISES; being a Short View of the Great and Precious Promises of tll»

Gospel. By the Rev. Joseph AUeine, author of the " Alarm to the Unconverted," &c.

D O D D R I D G E— THE LIFE OF COL. GARDINER. By Philip Doddridge, D.D

H E N R Y— A METHOD OF PRAYER. By Matthew Henry.

HO\A^ELL— PERFECT PEACE; LETTERS-MEMORIAL OF THE LATE JOHN WARREN
HOWELL, Esq., of Bath. By the Rev. David Pitcairn. With an Introductory, by the Rev. John

Stevenson

BICKERSTETH— A TREATISE ON THE LORD'S SUPPER. By the Rev. Edward Bioker-
Eteth. With an Introduction, Notes, and an Essay, by G. T. Bedell, D.D., late Rector of St. Audrew'ii
Church, Philadelphia.

CAMERON —FARMER'S DAUGHTER. A Tale. By Mrs. Cameron.

COLQUHOU N— THE WORLD'S RELIGION, AS CONTRASTED WITH GENUINE

CHRISTIANITY. By Lady Colquhoun.

CUNNINGHA M— A WORLD WITHOUT SOULS. By J. W. Cunningham, Vicar of Harrow

ADVICE TO A YOUNG CHRISTIAN.

C EC 1 L— LIFE OF REV. JOHN NEWTON. By the Rev. Richard Cecil, A.M.

K E N N E D Y— PROFESSION IS NOT PRINCIPLE ; or, the Name of Christian is not Christianity.
By Grace Kennedy, author of " Hannah Ross," &c.

JESSY ALLAN THE LAME GIRL. By Grace Kennedy.

°0 LLO K— HELEN OF THE GLEN. A Tale of the Scotch Covenanters. By Robert PoIIok, anther

of the " Course of Time," &.c.

PERSECUTED FAMILY. A Narrative of the Sufferings of the Covenanters in the Reign of

Charles II. By Robert Pollok, author of the " Course of Time,'' &c.

RALPH GEMMELL ; or, the Banks of the Irvine. A Tale of the Scottish Covenanters. By Robert

Pollok.

f O R D — DECAPOLIS ; or, the Individual Obligation of Christians to save Souls from Death. By David
E. Ford. Fifth Edition.

THE SINNER'S FRIEND. From the 87th London "Edition, completing upwards of half a million. The

Sinner's Friend is printed in sixteen different languages.

R I C H M O N D— MEMOIR OF HANNAH SINCLAIR. By the Rev. Legh Richmond.

D U N C A N — A GLIMPSE INTO THE WORLD TO COME, IN A WAKING DREAM. By the late
Geo. B. Phillips. With a Memoir by Mrs. Duncan.

N O E L— INFANT PIETY. A Bookfor Little Children. By the Rev. Baptist W. Noel, MA.

H U S S —A MEMOIR OF JOHN HUSS. Translated from the German.

D' A U B I G N E— LUTHER AND CALVIN ; or, the True Spirit of the Reformed Chnrch. By. J.

H. Merle D'Aubigne, author of the " History of the Reformation," &c.

OLD H U M PH R E Y— MY GRANDFATHER GREGORY. By Old Humphrey.

MY GRANDMAMA GILBERT. By Old Humphrey.

BALCH, BEECH ER, AND SMYTH— GOD IN THE STORM A Narrative
by the Rev. L. P. W. Baloh — An Adiress by Dr. Beecher— and Sermon by Rev. Thomas Smyth, D.l)_
delivered on board the Steamer Great Western, after the severe Storm encountered on her Beflwi
Voyige.

DATE DUE

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PRINTCOIN U.S.A.

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