as well as Priests, and the Oracle at Delphi was always delivered by a woman. In this respect a very striking difference exists between the heathen and the Hebrew worship.

13. Where, in all the world, could Moses have obtained the idea of his Annual Fast, for the purpose of a general confession of sin? Where could he find any thing like the striking lesson exhibited on that occasion, first of the dreadful wages of sin, and secondly of the removal of it, by the fine emblems of a goat sacrificed, as suffering the penalty, and another goat dismissed, over the head of which the confession had been made? Many rites of the heathen were celebrated with the appearance of grief and deep affliction, but for no such moral purpose; on the contrary, the worshippers soon passed to every species of licentiousness. Such were the festivals of Adonis in the East and in Greece, but it was only a commemoration of his death in the first instance, and of his re-animation in the second.

14. A weekly Sabbath, continually reminding the Hebrews of the Creation of the world in six days, as opposed to the general opinion of the Heathen, that the world had existed from eternity, without any intelligent author :-a Sabbatical Year, reminding them, that the country they occupied was not their own but God's, who only gave them the use of it under such terms as he thought proper :—and a Jubilee, (to be mentioned hereafter,) were institutions peculiar to the Hebrews, and what Moses could not have borrowed from any other nation.

15. Had Moses borrowed any thing from the heathen, he could not have overlooked their various modes of Divination, Sorcery, and Witchcraft; their omens, their distinctions of days into lucky and unlucky, &c. But so far are we from finding any thing of this kind in the writings of Moses, that they are spoken of with the greatest abhorrence, and they who learn of the heathen, are ordered to be put to death.

In fact, the truth of the Mosaic revelation appears, in few points more strongly and forcibly than in this; for the edicts which were repeatedly enacted against every species of it, the peremptory statutes which interdicted wizards, soothsayers, and those pretending to familiar spirits, and forbad, as unworthy of the veracity of the God of Israel, every artifice by which the public mind had been led astray, are no unimportant vouchers of that inspiration which Moses claimed, being corroborative in every point of the legal mode of ascertaining the Divine will, by Urim and Thummim, which he records. The belief, indeed, of fatidical responses, appears to have been so deeply rooted, and to have acquired such strength from the long adoption of divination and oracles, that possibly the Israelites would have attached no credit to a system in which every mode of obtaining divine responses had been wanting; but miracles, and visible proofs of the attending Deity, had so completely authenticated the disclosure of their law, that they were supplied with superabundant evidences, that the answers returned to the High Priest, within the precincts of the sanctuary proceeded, indubitably, from God. Hence, instead of wearing amulets, talismans, and other fancied repellents of evil, like their former oppressors, they were taught to seek protection in obedience to the divine commandments, and desired to bind the law of God as a sign on the hand, and as frontlets between the eyes, and to write it on their houses and gates.

16. The general system of Civil Government laid down in the institutions of Moses, is essentially different from any thing that he could have seen, or heard of, in his time, and infinitely more favourable to personal liberty, and consequently to justice, truth, and happiness.

In the time of Moses, all the neighbouring countries, of any note, were governed by kings, whose will, as far as appears, was the only law. But the government instituted

by Moses, was a government of fixed laws, and those laws reduced to writing, so that they could not but have been universally known; and nothing was left to the arbitrary will of any man, whatever office he might hold in the state. In all this, a noble example was set to the world; and we find, in fact, that civil and personal liberty have been regarded in every nation in proportion as the Scripture has been regarded. The government of the Hindoos is the very reverse of that of Moses, being evidently calculated, as Sir William Jones has justly observed, to throw all power into the hands of the despot and the priests, while the rest of the nation were kept in ignorance and slavery.

The Hebrew government was a Theocracy: God was their King, not only as creatures, but as a nation. As, however, a deviation, through the unfaithfulness of the people, from this divine constitution, was foreseen, provision was made for it; and, among other guards against the abuses of power, the King was requested to write, with his own hand, a copy of the laws by which he and the rest of the nation were to be governed. Their kings were thus the lieutenants of Jehovah, nor did any king of Judah, even the most addicted to idolatry, make any alteration in the laws of the kingdom. The priests received no power by the civil governors; God determined by Moses the duties and the privileges of each; and no classes of men were ever more different from each other, than the Brahmins among the Hindoos, and the order of priests among the Israelites; this all unprejudiced persons, who are in the smallest degree attentive to the subject, must acknowledge.

17. If Moses had borrowed his religious institutions from Egypt, or any other nation, he would probably have adopted some of their Civil Laws, as those relating to persons, property, &c. But we find no such resemblance in those of any nation, ancient or modern. The privileges

of the Sabbatical year, and of the Jubilee, are wholly of a civil nature, and they must have been an admirable security for personal liberty, and the property of families. No Hebrew could bind himself in a servile state for more than seven years, nor could he alienate his landed property for more than fifty. In consequence of this, though a family might suffer by the imprudence or extravagance of the head of it, the evil had a limit, for all estates at the Jubilee reverted to their original proprietors.

The laws relating to theft, robbery, and personal injuries, are by no means the same with those of other nations, and they are all admirable for their equity. The abominable vices of sodomy and bestiality, are punishable with death by the law of Moses, but not by those of any ancient legislator; and they are eminently calculated to preserve the real dignity, and prevent the degradation of mankind.

18. In all ancient nations there were trials by various Ordeals, in which the accused person was supposed to be guilty, unless fire or water did not injure him. This is the case among the Hindoos, who hold this mode of evidence in the highest veneration. In the institutions of Moses we find one trial by ordeal, but it is so essentially different from any that was in use in other countries, that it could never have been borrowed from them. This was

in the case of a wife suspected of adultery. To satisfy the husband in this case, the wife was made to drink a quantity of water, in which was put some dust from the ground, and the scrapings of a writing, containing a denunciation of divine judgments to be instantly inflicted in case they were guilty. But besides that recourse was had to this mode of trial only in defect of proper evidence, all that can be objected to, even by those who do not believe in any divine interposition, is, that the guilty person might remain unhurt: a striking contrast this to the cruel and unjust ordeals of the heathen.

From this general view of the subject, and the compa

rison might have been extended to many more particulars, it is manifest, that the laws of Moses are truly original; and that their superiority to those of other nations, even the most famed for wisdom, especially if we consider the high and certain antiquity of these laws, is an evidence of their divine origin; and that Moses truly was, according to his own declarations, only the instrument of Jehovah. His appeal to the people, thus taught of God, has all the boldness of truth, and need never fear detection or contradiction. "Behold! I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep, therefore, and do them, for this is your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?" Deut. iv. 5-8.*

For the observations in this Dissertation, I am indebted principally to a valuable pamphlet, On the Originality of the Mosaic Institutions, printed in Northumberland, America, 1803, [8vo. and Dr. Wait's Course of Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge. Lond. 1826.

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