to do with any of mine, that he may be disposed to controvert." That any reasoner could convince him that Moses had borrowed his narrative from Indian sources, he never, for a moment, supposed; and, if a doubt could be entertained on this subject, another passage, in the same dissertation, must at once annihilate it. He had indeed no hesitation to acknowledge his persuasion, that a connexion subsisted between the old idolatrous nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long before they migrated to their several settlements, and, consequently, before the birth of Moses; but he was equally persuaded, that the truth of the proposition could, in no degree, affect the veracity and sanctity of the Mosaic history, which, if any confirmation of it were necessary, it would rather tend to confirm. "The divine legate," says he, "educated by the daughter of a king, and in all respects highly accomplished, could not but know the mythological system of Egypt, but he must have condemned the superstitions of that people, and despised the speculative absurdities of their priests, though some of their traditions, concerning the creation and the flood, were founded on truth. Who was better acquainted with the mythology of Athens than Socrates? Who more accurately versed in the rabbinical doctrines than Paul? Who possessed clearer ideas of all ancient astronomical systems than Newton? or of scholastic metaphysics than Locke? In whom could the Romish church have had a more formidable opponent than in Chillingworth, whose deep knowledge of its tenets rendered VOL. II. I him so competent to dispute them? In a word, who more exactly knew the abominable rites and shocking idolatry of Canaan than Moses himself? Yet the learning of those great men only incited them to seek other sources of truth, piety, and virtue, than those in which they had long been immersed. There is no shadow, then, of a foundation for an opinion, that Moses borrowed the first nine or ten chapters of Genesis from the literature of Egypt; still less can the adamantine pillars of our Christian faith be moved by the result of any debates on the comparative antiquity of the Hindus and Egyptians, or of any inquiries into the Indian theology." The testimony of sir William Jones to the verity and authenticity of the Old and New Testaments is well known lord Teignmouth transcribed it from his own manuscript in his Bible: "I have carefully and regularly perused these Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion, that the volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written." This opinion is repeated, with little variation of expression, in a discourse addressed to the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, in February 1791: "Theological inquiries are no part of my present subject; but I cannot refrain from adding, that the collection of tracts, which we call, from their excellence, the Scriptures, contain, independently of a divine origin, more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected within the same compass, from all other books that were ever composed in any age, or in any idiom. The two parts, of which the Scriptures consist, are connected by a chain of compositions, which bear no resemblance, in form or style, to any that can be produced from the stores of Grecian, Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning: the antiquity of those compositions no man doubts; and the unstrained application of them to events long subsequent to their publication, is a solid ground of belief, that they were genuine compositions, and consequently inspired. But if any thing be the absolute exclusive property of each individual, it is his belief; and I hope I should be one of the last men living, who could harbour a thought of obtruding my own belief on the free minds of others." In his next discourse he mentions the Mosaic history, under a supposition (assumed for the sake of the argument which he was discussing) that it had no higher authority than any other book of history, which the researches of the curious had accidentally brought to light. "On this supposition," says he, "that the first eleven chapters of the book which it is thought proper to call Genesis, are merely a preface to the oldest civil history now extant, we see the truth of them confirmed by antecedent reasoning, and by evidence in part highly probable, and in part certain." But that no misconception might be entertained on this awful subject, by the ignorant, and to avoid the possibility of any perverse misapplication of his sentiments, he adds: "but the connexion of the Mosaic history with that of the Gospel, by a chain of sublime predictions, unquestionably ancient, and apparently* fulfilled, must induce us to think the Hebrew narrative more than human in its origin, and, consequently, true in every substantial part of it; though possibly expressed in figurative language, as many learned and pious men have believed, and as the most pious may believe, without injury, and perhaps with advantage, to the cause of revealed religion." In a discourse, in 1793, he mentions, with satisfaction, the result of the inquiries of the Society over which he presided. "In the first place, we cannot surely deem it an inconsiderable advantage, that all our historical researches have confirmed the Mosaic accounts of the primitive world; and our testimony on that subject ought to have the greater weight, because, if the result of our observations had been totally different, we should nevertheless have published them-not indeed with equal pleasure, but with equal confidence for truth is mighty, and, whatever be its consequences, must always prevail: but, independently of our interest in corroborating the multiplied evidences of revealed religion, we could scarcely gratify our minds with a more useful and rational entertainment, than the contemplation of those wonderful revolutions in kingdoms and states, which have happened within little more than four thousand years; revolutions, almost as fully demonstrative of an all-ruling Providence, as the structure of The word apparently was no doubt meant as synony. mous with clearly, or manifestly. the universe, and the final causes which are discernible in its whole extent, and even in its remotest parts." The preceding sentiments, although they are such as would naturally occur to a believer in the Scriptures, were not necessarily called for by the subject under his discussion, and could only have proceeded from his zeal in the investigation and propagation of truth. This was the fixed object of his whole life, as he has himself declared in the following elegant couplets : Before thy mystic altar, heavenly Truth, |