tion called or denominated the Holy Scriptures, and first begun by Moses, to have come from God, because they do most plainly declare all that nature inactive or active could declare at any point of time from now to the creation; and thus if there could be no more evidences of the Scriptures having come from God, the undeniable union of the evidences, in the use or good of nature and those of the holy Scriptures, prove that the same Scriptures did either directly or indirectly come from God, he therefore is still the origin of the said revelation to mankind. I need not bring quotations from the Scriptures to prove their testimonies of the same kind with those of nature, as aforesaid, since the reading of them in almost any place will evince this. However, in the course of my defence of them, from many allegations which have been placed against them, I shall in so doing prove all the affirmations I have made to be sound and true of them, as a code of divine laws, or a revelation of his will to mankind, from their first to last sayings.

By so defending them as the word of the Lord to all his creatures, they will be freed from every obscurity cast upon them by such as would rather explode than believe and obey them, but who thereby will have no cause to glory against them, by their being proved to be the revelation he has given to our senses and minds, by means of our forefathers, who had them by words immediately from himself, his angels, and by the holy spirit, for their foundation or rule of life and salvation, by obedience as they teach; or for their condemnation and ruin upon a neglect of them; and which are as much a present foundation and rule for us in those respects as they were for them.

In order to further prove the Scriptures to be the true revelation from God to mankind, the deliverance of them from obscurity is absolutely requisite In doing the same I shall notice as follows:

First, That they. who wrote or promoted the Scriptures were truly men of God, and therefore would deliver the truth as from him,

Secondly, Prove that there is not one real falsification of them, as a body of inspirations and teachings from God to the writers, and from them to us; and that, by answering the whole of the apparent difficulties by apparent contradictions which appear in them.

Thirdly, I shall show the positive preservation of them from age to age, until the present time, by various nations, into whose languages they have been translated; and thus the whole will prove them to be the present and future proper guide of life and salvation, as well as they were so to all our predecessors or forefathers.

Fourthly, that their whole contents relative to mankind are such, that positively declare them soundly good or righteous, and that they therefore must have had a good source, who alone is the one God, and through which they are truly an effect of him, and which therefore are his words to us.

First, They who wrote and promoted them were men of God; the first of whom was Moses. This man, it appears, was as opposite to any stratagem or deceit as man could be; his remarkable preferment and appointment is a proof of this. He, after being signally preserved from death commanded by Pharoh, Gen. ii. 1 to 10, was providentially led to Midian to one Jethro, whose daughter Zipporah

he married, and from where he had his call and command to go to deliver the Israelites from the bondage of their oppressor in Egypt, and that inder every difficulty: there was the rage of wicked Pharoh--his own risk of saving his life from the hands of Pharoh the many dangers of the escape-the gloomy appearance of the journey, and its end from Egypt into Canaan; thus so far there appears every reason to declare that Moses was without any stratagem or deceit, by not one sinister cause of the like. His couduct together with Aaron's and others during their travel into Canaan bears the same evidence; for although their oppression was so vile in Egypt, yet they deemed their situation in the wilderness much worse; hence they tormented Moses and the others with all the torments they could, Exo. xiv. 10 to 13; xv, 24; xvi. 2, 3; xvii. 1 to 4. Hence appears all that could be repugnant to stratagem; for every act of that kind has always been in its very nature for some sinister gain, but that being positively the reverse in reference to them, such end of their conduct could not be in view; and their bearing with the affronting conduct of the people so recently delivered from the Egyptians, was a decisive omen of pure motives for, and attachment to God, otherwise they would not have borne with misery of that kind, since they could plainly avoid it at the time.

Moses had also another kind of test of his attachment; for even Aaron, his companion in their deliverauce from Egypt, fell with the ungrateful people into the worship of a golden calf, made when Moses was engaged with the Almighty, Exo. xxxii. 1 to 6. What but a most sincere union to God could save Moses from such a most powerful sin, by it being so general

and so alluring thereby? Nothing, I again say, but his attachment to God could save him!

The honour Moses had after many miracles, (and that he might have had, had he given way to their conduct,) is one more proof of his freedom from carnal schemes, and his attachment to God: honour of all things is the most enticing at any time. He having that in part as a person of miracles and successful renown, had that temptation with the aforesaid discouragements, to neglect his work and forsake the Lord; but he escaped, and refused the honour of the people, as he had refused the honour of being called the son of Pharoh's daughter; and those miracles were certainly of such a nature, and at such times of need, that they were sufficient to honour him with all honour, yea that of a God, see the records of the miracles of Moses in various readings in the Book of Exodus, from chap. iii to xiv. and the particular instances of the same, in the same Book, xiv. 21 to 29; xv. 23, 24, 25; xvi. 12 to 18; xvii. 5, 6. Thus, as is very clear, Moses was miraculously preserved from death, absolutely chosen and appointed of God to his work; which, as stated, Moses corroborated by his freedom from carnal schemehis firm attachment to God amid every danger and discouragement from the people his rejection of the greatest honour a man could have for his miracles and success in their deliverance.

In addition to this, his pious or righteous institutions for their own good as individuals, families, and a nation, with the obedience of God and his glory, were and are as signal demonstrations as possible of his divine authority in his conduct and institutions; begin at Exod. xx. and read thence to the end of Deuteronomy; and through the whole there will appear all

that could be good for the preservation of all worldly peace and safety; the moral performances of life; the religious duties to God; and what could be to the honour and glory of the one eternal Jehovah. Now I ask who but a man of God could have braved the dangers and troubles Moses did? Reason and conscience will say that there was all needful displayed by him to prove him no impostor, no schemer, but soundly a man of God!

Further, It is no invalidation of the statement of him, by being wrote by or at his command, in his books; for they are of such a nature, as being diametrically opposite to any possible carnality or sin, and therefore so opposite to the most darling state of human dispositions that (though his writings) they indicate all that a good man could produce, and in no way what a wicked impostor would produce: so that had thousands been the penuen of his conduct for God, they could have borne no greater evidence than the writings have borne themselves, I repeat it, since none but a good man could have. produced such evidences, through all being opposite to the knowledge of the bad or wicked; then he who produced such was truly a good man, by the evidence of the conduct and works themselves; otherwise it would have been a bad man doing and teaching a good which was not in him, by his being bad, and which therefore would have been a good effect without a cause, which is at one view nonsense: then Moses is upon fair evidence of his works, a man of God.

Again, none could have been more revered as a sound man and messenger of the Lord than Moses; nor be more carefully preserved in record as a pattern and teacher of the things of God. The Jews or Israelites, who have been