patible with righteousness and law to make such a promise in God's name to a sinner? This question, momentous to us all-for having unquestionably broken the law, we are under its sentence of condemnation -could be answered only by a direct revelation of God's will. But it has been answered: mystically in the Old Testament, manifestly in the New. There we find that the Gospel message of salvation to sinners, so far from being incompatible with righteousness and law, so far from being an abrogation or even an evasion of their claims, is the brightest and most glorious exhibition of them that ever has been made. For because, as a righteous governor, God could not and would not. set aside this essential attribute of His character, or waive the obligations of His law, He sent His only Son to be a Mediator and Redeemer; in order that He, fulfilling the law by a perfect obedience, and suffering its penalty against human transgression by a vicarious death, might manifest God's character to be unchanged while forgiving the guilty. St. Paul, therefore, glories in the accomplished work of Christ on man's behalf, as the very highest display of justice, and calls it emphatically "the righteousness of God;" because therein He exacted and accepted a sacrifice which vindicated His character and honoured His law. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past; to declare, I say, His righteousness, that He might be just, and the Justifier of him who believeth in Jesus." (Rom. iii. 25.) Here indeed is "an everlasting righteousness." And where is the law? It is a new law indeed, but not one that sets aside the obligation of the moral law either as it regards sinners or saints, but rather gives them power to obey it. And here it is. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. . . . Be ye reconciled unto God; for He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. v. 19-21.) Again; Again; "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved." "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (Acts ii. 38.) Thus the Gospel of the grace of God is a safe and blessed refuge for the guilty conscious of his sin, being built upon the sure foundation of righteousness and law. G. P. THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. As we are told by a bishop of the Christian Church in this present age, that" whatever real foundation the Pentateuch may have had in the ancient history of the people, it is mixed up with so great an amount of contradictory matter, that it cannot be regarded as historically true;" and that so far from Moses having been its author, of which there is no proof whatever, it was in all probability composed several centuries later by Samuel" for the instruction and improvement of his pupils ;"*-it may be well to place before our readers, as briefly as the nature of the subject will allow, the evidence which has, satisfied the great body of Jews and Christians alike, for more than 3000 years, that the history of the children of Israel during their sojourn in Egypt, and the manner of their deliverance therefrom, as we now read it in our English Bible, is the same as that which was originally delivered by Moses previous to their entrance into the promised land. The historical evidence on this point may be stated as follows:-The Pentateuch has been transmitted to us from four different and independent sources. 1st. The original Hebrew, which has ever been considered by the Jews to have been written by the hand of Moses. 2nd. The Samaritan version, supposed to belong to the sixth century B.C. 3rd. The Septuagint version-a translation of the third century B.C., and the one in general use when our Lord was on earth, and when the Gospel was first preached to men. 4th. The Peshito, or Syriac version, a translation probably of the first century B.C. Our Authorized Version was translated from the Hebrew by the ripest biblical scholars which England possessed at the commencement of the seventeenth century. This translation might rather be termed a revision of the Great English, or, as more commonly called, "the Bishop's Bible," which was published A.D. 1568, and which carries us nearly back to the commencement of the great Reformation.† The first edition of the entire Hebrew Bible ever printedviz., that of Soncino in Italy, and edited by Abraham Ben Chayim-bears date A.D. 1488. A century earlier, Levi Ben *Critical Examination of the Pentateuch. By the Bishop of Natal. (pp. 141, 375.) + The dates of the different translations of the English Bible are as follows:-Wickliffe's, circa A.D. 1360; Tindal's, 1526; Coverdale's, or Mathew's, as it was generally termed from the dedication, 1537; Cranmer's, 1540; the Geneva, 1560; the Autho rized Version now in use, 1613. Gershom, a Spanish Jew, wrote his commentary on the Pentateuch; as another Jew of the same country had previously done, the celebrated David Kimchi, who flourished in the thirteenth century. In the twelfth century, Maimonides drew up a confession of faith for the Jews, which is acknowledged by them to this day. In consists of thirteen articles, of which two affirm respectively the genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch in these words:"The doctrine and prophecy of Moses is true;" and again, "The law that we have was given by Moses." The commentaries of Aben Ezra and of Solomon Jarchi were productions of the next two centuries; and in A.D. 930, Rabbi Saadias Gaou translated the whole of the Old Testament from the Hebrew into Arabic. The Pentateuch portion of this ancient translation was printed by Erpenius at Lyons in 1622. The Masorets, the most minute body of commentators which the world has ever seen, carry us back to B.C. 450, when that school is supposed to have been originally formed, and to have lasted as late as A D. 1030. The Babylonian Talmud, and its namesake of Jerusalem, both of which are comments on the Mishnah, may be thus dated the former circa A.D. 500, and the latter two centuries earlier. It is well known that the Mishnah, or oral law of the Jews, is a pretended comment on the Pentateuch, compiled by Rabbi Judah Hakkadosh about the middle of the second century. Josephus, who bears the most ample testimony to the authenticity of the Pentateuch, flourished a century earlier; by which means, together with the testimony of Philo, who was born about 80 years before Josephus, we are brought down to the commencement of the Christian era. Seventeen years after the publication of the authorized English Bible, translated from the Hebrew A.D. 1613, a copy of the Greek version, commonly known as the Codex Alexandrinus, was sent by the Patriarch of Constantinople to King Charles I., with a statement* that, according to tradition, it had been written by Thecla, a noble Egyptian lady, about 1300 years previous. The internal evidence, according to Grabe and Woide, confirms this tradition, which places this interesting holograph as early as the fourth century of the Christian era. The statement of Cyril, the donor, who had been Patriarch of Alexandria previous to his translation to Constantinople, may be rendered from the Latin as follows:-"This book of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, as we have it by tradition, was written by the hand of Thecla, a noble Egyptian lady, about 1300 years since, a little after the Council of Nice. The name of Thecla was formerly writ ten at the end of the book; but the Christian religion being by the Mahometans suppressed in Egypt, the books of Christians were reduced to the like condition; and therefore the name of Thecla is extinguished and torn out of the book; but memory and tradition affirm that it was the work of her hands." (Cyril, Patriarch of Constan. tinople.) According to St. Chrysostom,* who flourished at that same period, and Tertullian,† who lived two centuries earlier, the original copy of the Septuagint was laid up in the library at Alexandria, entitled the Serapeum, which survived the burning of that in Bruchium, when Julius Cæsar waged war with the Alexandrians, B.C. 47, until the time of the more memorable conflagration by the Saracens, A.D. 642. Assuming that the story of Aristæus, respecting the way in which the Septuagint version was translated, is altogether fabulous, there can be no doubt that the Pentateuch, the most accurate portion of the whole, was translated from the Hebrew into Greek during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, circa B.C. 280, the original copy being probably in existence when the Codex Alexandrinus was transcribed, and which was doubtless copied from it. It is universally admitted that this version of the LXX. was the authorized copy of the Old Testament in use amongst the Jews at the commencement of the Christian era, which must therefore have been the Scriptures used by our Lord Himself and His Apostles. The New Testament contains upwards of 227 allusions to matters mentioned in the Pentateuch, of which no less than 106 are direct quotations from it; and the number of times to which Christ makes distinct reference to Moses as the author of the Pentateuch, may be estimated from the efforts which are being now made to lessen the value of that testimony by those who would fain consider it as that of an imperfectly informed person like ourselves. Ascending upwards in point of time, we have the Targum of Onkelos, a disciple of Rabbi Hillel, who flourished in the 1st century B.C., which bears testimony to the Pentateuch having been a verbal translation of the Hebrew text into pure Chaldee. In the 2nd century B.C., we have the historical testimony of *Contr. Judæos, lib. i. + Tertull. Apol. § 18. The words, which our Lord addressed to the unbelieving Jews before the resurrection,-"If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead,"-are equally applicable to unbelieving Christians since the resurrection. It is, however, a matter for deep humiliation, to find a professed minister of the Gospel declaring that the "author of the Pentateuch never professed to be recording historical truth," (Critical Exam. p. 375,) -and that Christ knew no more about "the age and authorship of the Pentateuch," than any other contemporary Jew, (Preface to Pt. ii. p. xvii.); while he seems to scorn the notion that the fetters, which he accepted voluntarily, and still continues to wear, ought in any way to restrain him. His ideas on this subject, coupled with the fact of his still retaining the Episcopal office, may be estimated from his own words, and affords a mournful sign of the infidelity of the age:- "At the time we were admitted into the ministry of the national Church, we heartily believed what we then professed to believe, and we gave our assent and consent to every part of her Liturgy. But we did not bind ourselves to believe thus always to the end of our lives." (Pt. ii. p. xxiii.) the two books of Maccabees, to "the law" and "the glory of the Lord," (2 Mac. ii. 2-8) as having been revealed unto "Moses;" as well as special mention of " Abraham's faith"Joseph being made Lord over Egypt"-" Phinehas' priesthood"-"Joshua ruling in Israel"" Caleb's heritage of the land," &c. (1 Mac. ii. 52-56),-events which are recorded in the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. In this same century, Aristobulus, a Jew of Alexandria, and a Peripatetic philosopher, who is mentioned in the 2nd book of Maccabees, is said to have written a commentary on the Pentateuch, and to have dedicated it to Ptolemy Philopater, to whom he had been precentor.* In the In the first half of the 3rd century B.C., we find, in the short prologue to the Apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus, "the law" of Moses alluded to no less than three times; the work itself having been composed by Jesus the father of Sirach, as the prologue was by his grandson of the same name. latter half of the same century, the whole of the Septuagint version, or certainly that portion of it embracing the Pentateuch, as I have already noticed, was made in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Kennicott observes that "the learned Dr. Hody has proved that the Hebrew Bible was not translated into Greek at once; but that different parts were translated at different times, and that the Pentateuch was translated first about 285 B.C. by the Jews living at Alexandria.”† This brings us to within a century of the close of the Canon of the Old Testament, when Malachi, the last of the Prophets, flourished. In order that it may be seen at a glance, how often the Pentateuch is mentioned and referred to in the several Books of the Old Testament between the times of Moses and Malachi, it will be well to insert the several references, with their respective dates. I. Places where the Pentateuch is mentioned under different terms: - 1. Malachi iv. 4,-"The law of Moses;" 397 B.C., temp. Artaxerxes II. 2. Nehemiah viii. 1,-"The book of the law of Moses; 454 B.C., temp. Artaxerxes I. 3. Nehemiah viii. 5, Artaxerxes I. "The Book;" 454 B.C., temp. 4. Nehemiah viii. 8,-"The book of the law of God; 454 B.C., temp. Artaxerxes I. 5. Nehemiah viii. 14,-"The law by the hand of Moses; " 454 B.C., temp. Artaxerxes I. * Clemens Alex. Strom. i. § 5, and Euseb. Præp. Evan. xiii. § 12. + Kennicott's "Dissertations," vol. ii. p. 320. |