dibility, apart from the authority of Christ and the Apostles, still that authority would have been perfectly sufficient to establish those points. It is more, then, as a matter of curiosity than as one of importance to the argument, that we here take it up.

1. In the first place, we note the remarkable fact that the Old Testament is in the hands of both Jews and Christians. Christians (forgetting the spirit of the religion they profess) have in former times often cruelly persecuted the Jews; and the Jews have fully repaid all the scorn and bitterness of the Christians. Neither class would have accepted any thing from the other. Yet we find both of them receiving and venerating the same volume. There is no difference between the Old Testament of the Jews and the Old Testament of the Christians.This fact proves that the Old Testament is at least as ancient as the origin of Christianity, and that it has remained uncor rupted since that date.

2. We have a series of Jewish writings which testify to the antiquity of the Old Testament.

a. There are several versions of and commentaries on the Old Testament, in the Chaldee language, which are more ancient than the origin of Christianity.

b. There are several books written by Jews in the Greek language which testify to the same fact. For example, the book of Ecclesiasticus, which was written about the year 232 before Christ, distinctly specifies the chief books of the Old Testament.

C.

There is a celebrated translation of the Old Testament into Greek, composed in Egypt about the year 280 before Christ, and very extensively circulated. It is generally called the Septuagint version. It is a venerable and important work, and forms one most powerful evidence in favour of the antiquity and genuineness of the Old Testament. It brings us very near indeed to the date of the latest books of the Old Testament; for neither Jews nor Christians assign a higher antiquity to these than about the year 420 before Christ.

3. The newest parts, then, of the Old Testament were undeniably written four centuries before Christ. But the very style proves that some parts are very much older than these. The style of the Vedas scarcely differs more from that of the

Puránas, or the style of Chaucer from that of Milton, than the style of the Pentateuch differs from that of the later books.

4. Let us attend particularly to the Pentateuch; for on the determination of its age that of the other books greatly depends. We know that in Palestine there existed two great contemporaneous kingdoms, Judah and Israel. These were generally at enmity with each other. The kings of Israel were very desirous of rendering the religion of their people as distinct as possible from that of Judah. Yet both of these kingdoms acknowledged the same Pentateuch.* Therefore the Pentateuch must be more ancient than the separation of these kingdoms, which took place in the 11th century before Christ.

There is a people known by the name of Samaritans, still existing in the vicinity of Samaria. They are quite distinct from the Jews; and from the first "the Jews have had no dealings with the Samaritans." They acknowledge only the Pentateuch as inspired. Their reception of the Pentateuch and rejection of the later books of the Old Testament proves that either their Pentateuch is a transcript of the Pentateuch which was acknowledged by the Israelites when they separated from Judah -a transcript which has all along been kept independent of the Jewish Pentateuch, -or else that at least it must have been taken from the Jewish not later than the establishment of the Samaritans in Israel (in the 7th century before Christ) and taken from it because the former inhabitants of Israel had acknowledged it. In either case, we are brought to the conclusion that the Pentateuch was acknowledged at the date of the separation of Judah and Israel about 975 years before Christ. This brings us to within 500 years of the date of Moses the author of the Pentateuch. The fact that the Pentateuch was fully acknowledged by the whole nation consisting of Jews and Israelites, and that a most costly and magnificent temple had recent-ly been built by Solomon, the services of which were in all points exactly modelled after the ritual prescribed in the Pentateuch, proves that the Pentateuch must have been considerably more ancient than the time of Solomon.

5. The history of the period that elapsed between Moses

* See a demonstration by Hengstenberg in his work on the Pentateuch, of the fact that the Pentateuch was well known in the kingdom of Israel.

and Solomon is distinctly recorded in the Old Testament, and bears manifold internal marks of probability. So that it is altogether vexatious and unreasonable to dispute the correctness of the age assigned to the Pentateuch.

6. With respect to the credibility of the Old Testament. The history recorded in it is closely connected with that of some of the greatest nations of the Earth, such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Syrians, &c. Thus we can test the Bible history by general history. When we do so, we find no contradictions, but innumerable corroborations, of the former supplied by the annals of the nations with which the Jews came in contact. The man who believes the Bible can sincerely rejoice in all the discoveries that are being made in the decypherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Persian and Assyrian Cuneiform inscriptions;-he can sincerely rejoice in the excavation of ancient tombs and cities, and fearlessly confront their evidence with the Bible. All that has yet been discovered only demonstrates, more clearly than before, the firmness of the foundation on which our belief in the Bible history is built. By all means let our Champollions, Rawlinsons, and Layards go on and resuscitate the buried past; the Bible courts full investigation, and calmly waits for the confirming voice of antiquity to be uttered in its support,

B.

Doctrine of the Resurrection.

It is asserted in page 137 that the important doctrine of the Resurrection of the body is confined to the Christian Revelation. By the Christian Revelation is here meant the religion contained in the Old and New Testaments. In both of these books the doctrine of the Resurrection is distinctly stated; but to them, and the systems which have been, in whole or in part, drawn from them, the doctrine is confined.

The ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome almost universally held that matter was essentially corruptible and subject to decay, and that no power, not even that of the Deity, could change its fundamental qualities. To be released from

its chains was, therefore, an unspeakable blessing. All schools of philosophers were thus agreed in denying the resurrection of the body.* Only a very few passages can be found in which some philosophers state its restoration as not an absolute impossibility.

The system of the ancient Egyptians has sometimes been thought to have contained a doctrine somewhat resembling that of the Resurrection. But their belief, as stated by Herodotus, was that of transmigration. So long as the body existed, they conceived that the soul continued in some connection with it; but that, when the body perished, the transmigration into the bodies of brutes, birds, &c., commenced. Hence arose the practice of embalming.†

The only religion that can for a moment be supposed to contain the doctrine of the Resurrection, without having derived it from the Bible, is Pársíism. But the exception is merely in appearance. The 10th volume of the Paris Journal Asiatique‡ contains an elaborate inquiry by M. Burnouf on a phrase in the Zendavesta which had been supposed to assert the doctrine in question. He comes to the conclusion that the phrase contains no reference to the Resurrection. Dr. Spiegel remarks: "M. Burnouf has shown that the older writings of the Zendavesta did not acknowledge the doctrine of the Resurrec tion. He has stated that the words yavaecha yavatataecha do not signify till the resurrection, as Anquetil translates them."§

The Pársí doctrine of the Resurrection comes first prominently forward in the Bundeshne, which is at least as modern as the 7th century after Christ, and which, according to a careful and correct observer-Mr. W. Erskine,-contains "much that is evidently Chaldean and later than the Musulmans.”

It would be an interesting, but a difficult, question to determine when the Pársís first received this important doctrine. On the whole they would seem to have borrowed it from the * Tertullian. See Pearson on the Creed, Art. xi.

+ Hengstenberg on the Pentateuch. Vol. ii. p. 464. (Clark's Edit.,) Journal Asiatique, iii Serie, Tome x. 1840. p. 7 &c. 320.

§ Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, Bandi Heft iii. p. 260.-See some farther remarks on this subject in the Journal of the Bombay B. R. Asiatic Soc., for July 1852, p. 230.

Jews. Its fuffler development was probably drawn partly from the Christians and partly from the Muhammadans.

C.

Character of Jesus Christ.

The following is a remarkable passage, occurring in one of the works of the well-known J. J. Rousseau, which deserves to be quoted for its intrinsic truth and beauty, and also because it is found in the writings of an enemy.

"I confess that the majesty of the Scriptures astonishes me -that the holiness of the Gospel speaks to my heart. Observe the books of the philosophers with all their pomp;-how petty they are beside it! Is it possible that a book at once so sublime and so simple is the work of men? Is it possible that he whose history it contains, is himself no more than man? Is this the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in his morals! what a touching grace in his instructions! what elevation in his maxims! what profound wisdom in his discourses! what presence of mind, what delicacy and justness in his replies! what command over his passions! Where is the man, where is the sage, who can act, suffer, and die, without weakness and without ostentation? When Plato paints his imaginary just man, covered with the opprobrium of crime, though worthy of all the rewards of virtue, he paints Jesus Christ in every feature. The resemblance is so striking that all the fathers perceived it, and it is not possible to mistake it. What prejudice, what blindness must it be to compare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of Mary! What a distance between them! Socrates, dying without pain and without ignominy, easily maintained his dignity to the last; and if that easy death had not honoured his life, we might have doubted whether Socrates, with all his gifts, was any thing more than a sophist. He invented morality, they say. Others before him had practised it; he only said what they had done; he only expressed their example in words. Leonidas had died for his country, before Socrates had made patriotism a duty. Sparta was sober before Socrates had praised so