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326 Essay on tie Evidences of ike Jewuk ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Essay On The Evidences Of The Jewish Hev...
by the Israelites in their bouses and synagogues , and considered as the foundation of their religious belief , conduct and expectations . Nay , the mutual animosities of the Jews and Christians have con
tributed to preserve the general purity of ihe writings , of the former covenant . The quotations , again , which we meet with , from these writings ^ in the discourses of Jesus Christ and in the sermons
and epistles of his apostles , the solemn appeals of our Lord to their authority and truth , to their precepts and predictions , Leave it beyond controversy that the
Jewish scriptures were then what they are at this day . Then and previously , the rivalry between the Samaritans and the Jews guarded the Old Testament from material
corruption . And if we go further back , to the era of their restoration from the captivity in Babylon , subsequently to which many of
the Jewish historians and prophets flourished , it will be easy to see that they cherished a sacred re . apect for the Mosaic law as divine . Evident traces of this reverence
for it occur in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah : and we find that no sooner did the people return to Palestine from their exile than they subjnitfced to restraints and
arrangements in which they could never have acquiesced bad th-eir national institutions been now proposed to them for the first time . It is therefore in the highest de *
gre £ improbable , or rather it is impossible , that this should have been thje date oif the books we ascribe to 1 Moses . Equally ' clear is
it & ftt they could not have been coil posed in the land of the captivity * ' io this supposition , the style ana tenor of them furnish a strong
Essay On The Evidences Of The Jewish Hev...
and even unanswerable objection * There are no better reasons for conceiving that they were written at any given time between Samuel an , d the residence of the people ia
Babylon . All the most memorable events in the Jewish history , —the departure of the Israelites from Egypt , the plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians , the . de & txuc * tion of Pharaoh and his army iu
the Arabian Gulpb , the passage of the people , under the direction of Moses , through the des & rt , their adventures there , their CQnquest of Canaan and their settle - ment in it—are frequently related or referred to in ibe Psalms ot
David , and of tho-se Jewish t poets who lived in the same or a following age : so that the records
of them must have already existed ; and they are spoken of indeed 3 s facts which had been long . and universally acknowledged . Arid since the law of Moses is
manifestly unfavourable to . the introd uction of regal government among the Jews , and represents such a state of things as what may barely be permitted without being sip . proved , it cannot , on the prindU pies of human nature , be imagined that the law would be framed
under that government or afterwards . Hence its origin must have been earlier : nor Cjan we fitly date it at any other season than that to which it is usually assigned ;
especially as we peiceive Jo $ hua , the successor of Moses , solemnly recognizing this code and repeating it to the nation . ic But is not the frequent deviation of the Israelites from the
worship of the true God to idolatry , a presumption that , occasionally at least , their reverence for the books of Mos ^ s was lpst i 1
326 Essay On Tie Evidences Of Ike Jewuk ...
326 Essay on tie Evidences of ike Jewuk Revelation .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1814, page 326, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02061814/page/6/
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