The result, however, proved again the truth of the denunciation. The whole of this vast multitude, comprising upwards of two millions of souls, were detained for forty years in a barren wilderness, where not a single caravan of travellers could subsist by their own resources: and this fact, moreover, establishes the truth of another miraculous interposition, (which no human imagination could have invented,) viz. their continued support by manna from heaven, during the whole of that period of forty years', "until all the generation of the men of war were wasted from among the host, as the Lord sware unto them." (Deut. ii. 14.) Then, and not till then, they were permitted to invade the country, and settle therein.

The very fact of the existence of the Jewish nation, for such a period, and under such circumstances, cannot be accounted for, without admitting and recognizing the divine interposition. Indeed, their whole history is utterly inexplicable, and incredible, on any other supposition, than that of Jehovah miraculously sustaining and governing His chosen people; and by consequence establishing the divine original of the Mosaic Law.

1 Their detention after the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea was only thirty-eight years; the forty years are computed from their departure out of Egypt; and manna began to be given in the second month after that.

CHAPTER VI.

"The genuineness of the Pentateuch being admitted, the Miracles recorded in the four last Books of it are unquestionably true, and clearly supernatural; evidenced by the application of Leslie's four marks of certainty."

AT a solemn congregation of the whole people of Israel, we find Moses, in the course of his public address, uttering to them the following injunction :"When thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, 'What mean the Testimonies and the Statutes, and the Judgments which the Lord our God hath commanded you ?' Then shalt thou say unto thy son, 'We were Pharaoh's bondsmen in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; and the Lord showed signs and wonders great and sore upon

Egypt, and upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes;"-" and the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes."" (Deut. vi. 20-24.)

This public appeal of the Jewish Legislator to his nation, as being themselves eye-witnesses of the miracles he had wrought, is conclusive that the supernatural facts he alludes to did certainly take place; inasmuch as the Law he established is founded on those facts, and proves their reality.

The celebrated tests of truth, laid down by Dr. Leslie, are these four: which, whenever they can be truly applied to any events, exclude every reasonable doubt of their reality.

1st, That the facts be of such a nature, that men's senses can clearly and fully judge of them.

2ndly, That they be publicly performed.

3rdly, That not only public monuments be kept up, but that some outward actions be constantly performed in memory of those facts.

4thly, That these monuments, and these actions and observances, be instituted at the very time when the events took place; and be continued without interruption afterwards.

The two first render an imposition of pretended facts impossible, at the time, because, men's senses would detect the imposture; whilst the two last render the belief of such pretended facts, in after ages,

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impossible; for the absence of alleged monuments in testimony thereof, would equally expose the fallacy.

The last test, viz. that the Books containing the Mosaic miracles, and institutions, were written at the time, and by eye-witnesses, having been in the preceding chapters sufficiently established, it is next to be shown how far these tests are applicable to the miracles themselves.

Varying (for convenience) the order of the two first, it cannot be doubted, First, that the miracles were publicly performed. The plagues of Egypt were felt by all the Egyptians, and witnessed by the whole nation of the Jews. And the manna, by which the latter were supported for forty years;-the water from the flinty rock;-the cloud and pillar of fire guiding them in all their march;-the awful events at Sinai; -the dividing of the waters of Jordan, and of those of the Red Sea, previously; all these were facts, witnessed (and some of them repeatedly) by the whole of that vast multitude collectively.

II. They were also of such a nature, as that men's senses could clearly judge and perceive them to be supernatural.

The great bulk of the alleged miracles are such, as to place them above all suspicion of deception, or delusion. In the plagues of Egypt, indeed, visible agents produced only effects corresponding to their

natural powers; but then the mode of their introduction, their degree,—and their specific time of departure, constitute their miraculous character; inasmuch as they were all plainly subservient to Moses. When he denounces that hail, or flies, or locusts, should waste the land, he also fixes the precise time thereof; “Tomorrow shall this sign be in the land." The same, when they were to cease; "The swarms of flies shall depart to-morrow;"-again, "As soon as I am gone out of the city, the thunder and hail shall cease." Moreover they were unprecedented in their degree; "The fire mingled with hail was very grievous, such as there was none like it, in all the land of Egypt, since it became a nation." It "smote (to death) all that was in the field, both man and beast." The locusts "covered the whole face of the earth, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt; before them there were none such locusts as they." Similar accounts are stated of the plagues of the flies, and the frogs.

A still more decisive miraculous character is given to the awful facts, from the consideration that they were not permitted to affect God's chosen people. In the plagues of flies, of hail, and of murrain, He severed between the land of Goshen and the rest of Egypt, so that the Israelites felt them not. During the thick darkness for three days, darkness that might be felt, through all the land of Egypt, the Israelites had light