precarious. The materials of an author may be inauthentic; his sagacity may be foiled; or his judgment warped by prejudice and partiality: while, at the best, the motive of his toil is the love of letters, or the hope of reputation.

Sacred history is of quite another stamp. Its writers felt themselves accountable for what they wrote; they knew that their works would form part of the religious treasures of mankind. In writing, they did their duty and God's will.

Of such principles we see the result in the absolute candour of their narratives and the pure simplicity of their style.

In these characteristics the first of the Holy Scriptures is, at least, not inferior to all the rest.

The author of the Book of Genesis was the man "slow of speech," and pre-eminently meek; who "by faith, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;" whose prayer, when the people sinned, was, (Exod. xxxii. 32,) "Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which Thou hast written:" and who left the inheritance of the temporal government of the nation, not to his sons, but to a stranger.

He was, by his own account, responsible for his acts. Because he had omitted the known duty of the circumcision of his son, "the Lord (he says) sought to kill him ;" and because, in the exercise of his sacred office, he "spake unadvisedly," he died in Abarim.

The style of the book is beautifully simple, utterly unambitious, inimitably touching and sublime. The intercession of Abraham for the guilty cities; the journey of the steward to fetch a wife for his master's son; the history of Joseph, are, I suppose, unparalleled in human literature.

But, in short, the Book of Genesis is a piece of sacred history, written by a prophet; by that servant of the Lord whom He empowered to work wonders, and with whom "He spake face to face, as a man speaketh with his friend;" by him who, foretelling the coming of the son of God in the flesh, said truly, "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you from among your brethren, like unto me.”

Now it is obviously inconsistent to suppose a holy prophet, selected by the Creator to reform, not one nation only, but mankind, inventing a cosmogony, or bringing his poor stores of Egyptian knowledge in needless aid of his Divine commission. Secular motives are excluded both by his personal character and by his sacred office.

We conclude, then, in the first place, that the Book of

Genesis is genuine, and that it evinces the single object of the writer to have been to tell the simple truth.

But in the second place it may be shown that the book is authentic; that the writer not only meant to tell, but does tell the truth, and nothing but the truth.

There has been no tampering with that sacred record. Marginal additions, subsequently incorporated in the text, have been made here and there; but apparently by persons in authority, and with the single view of making the writer understood.

For the book was part of the sacred library of Israel. To wardens more scrupulously faithful could not have been committed an "heir-loom of all ages."

To clear the way, I beg leave here to bring to mind the authentication of the book, so familiar to us in the remainder of the Scriptures.

It was part of the law, which it was made the duty of the Jewish people, their teachers, and their future kings to read.

Prophets and sacred poets assumed, and our Lord and his apostles confirmed its authenticity. This confirmation consists, not in precept only, but in prophecy. (Isaiah, liv. 9.) "As I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee." "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also at the coming of the son of man.' "The world, being overwhelmed with water, perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire."

The evidences of Christianity are therefore evidences of the authenticity of the Mosaic record. The Noachian deluge is just as much an historical fact as is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

From the words of our Lord in John, v. 45, &c. and Luke, xvi. 31, it appears that the Jews were responsible for their belief or disbelief of the writings of Moses; and, of course, so are Christians. Now, such responsibility as to faith manifestly implies the truth of the things believed.

Further, the Book of Genesis contains momentous prophecies, of the future condition of the descendants of the sons of Noah, and of those of Jacob and of Ishmael; above all, prophecies of the Redeemer; of the instrument, the lineage, and the period of man's salvation; prophecies, of the actual fulfilment of which every well-instructed Christian is a witness. Who does not feel the truth of the promise made to Abraham, "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed"?

But the book, though it be a distinct volume, is only the first of five. In the other four is the record of a series of miraculous

events, of the perpetual visible proofs of Divine interposition; the appointed agent in which events was the author of those volumes.

Again, in the fifth of those volumes we see, as in a mirror, the actual fortunes of the Jews; denunciations equally terrible in their prediction and in their fulfilment.

The prophet was empowered to work wonders (Exod. iv.) for the express purpose that the people might believe him when he spake the truth. Did he not speak it? Or did he speak truth, and write falsehood? Could he so clearly foretell what no human wisdom could anticipate: and was he mistaken when he recorded what he had received as true? The future was disclosed to him was the past concealed? Is it likely that he was left in error, or even in uncertainty about it?

Surely Analogy will not suffer this. He obviously writes also as one informed, if not minutely yet accurately, and with certainty informed, on the facts which he records in the Book of Genesis.

Once more, then, it is a book of sacred history, recording the most ancient judgments and mercies of God in his government of the accountable inhabitants of this our globe.

The more sacred, the more authentic. If its sanctity be accidental to its historical value, it is also confirmatory of it. In the final cause of its being written, which was the good of mankind, we have that security for its truth, which nothing else could give us. If it had not been a religious document, it would never have existed-certainly would not have been extant now. The motives for its composition, the possibility of its preservation, would have been wanting. Thus of the earliest fortunes of our species we should have been as ignorant as a Hindoo Brahmin, or a Grecian sage.

But it comes next in order to examine the very important question of the authenticity of its materials.

In this inquiry it is prudent to consider what opinion may be most consistent with analogy. The peculiar antiquity of the subject matter, however it may affect our imagination, must not be presumed to constitute a case of real exception.

Now, of all other sacred histories the most part at least of the materials were orally extant before they were recorded with the pen; and in the case of the Book of Genesis, it is no disparagement of the author's inspiration, if the fact should be the

same.

In the first place, then, it is probable that he received its materials by tradition from his fathers.

From the time of Moses, to this hour, the tradition of the ancient facts which he records has been successfully preserved.

The means of its preservation have been complicated, and almost paradoxical. A mark in the flesh;-a singularity of habits and diet; national pride, cherished to this day; thence the notorious insociability of the Jews; their ancient agricultural life, strangely superseded by their modern commercial pursuits; a superstitious veneration for their written oracles, which are their national, their literary, and their religious treasures; all these, in the manifold wisdom of God, have conspired to secure for us both the possession of the inestimable records of which they were the keepers, and their unsuspected testimony to the authenticity of the deposit.

All care, humanly speaking, has been taken to secure the fidelity of tradition (by word, deed, and writing) since the time of Moses. By analogy we may infer that an equal Providence, for a like end, was exercised before his time.

Antecedently, then, it is most probable that the facts which he records were handed down to Moses from his forefathers. But we are, in the next place, able to state that it is even more than probable (I.) from the longevity of the patriarchs; (II.) from their prophetical character; and (III.) from the nature of the subjects.

I. The longevity of the patriarchs in question is attested by modern geological discoveries. The gigantic size of many relics of ancient animals is an indication that, to attain that size, they lived longer than their kindred now live. A vigorous vitality may reasonably be conceived to have been the general condition of the youthful world. With this, again, accord the remaining proofs of the genial or equable climate and prolific vegetation of those ages.

On the supposition that the habits of man were at that time simple, his longevity also may be assumed. Again, if the habits of some men were active, their climate genial, their food plentiful, and their hereditary vigour and tenacity of life considerable, that effect might be expected to result which we find to be a recorded fact, that "there were giants in the earth in those days."

The extreme wickedness of those times were such as, I fear, we might now expect on an assurance of longevity.

It does not appear that, hitherto, the remains of man have been discovered among those of brutes. Has it been considered what region most men would then select for their abode? and whether that very region be not now submerged, or otherwise unexplored? That it would be well watered, and therefore relatively low, seems not unlikely: but these are scientific questions.

With reference to the present subject, perhaps we may use

fully recollect how difficult it is to realize to our own apprehension a state of things of which we have not experience. But the fact of a former condition of our planet, other than the present, is ascertained. Consistently with this fact (indeed, in confirmation of it), authentic history furnishes the record of a longevity and stature in mankind entirely probable.

We have, then, in modern discoveries, an incidental attestation of the fidelity of the sacred historian. After the lapse of more than three thousand years, we have ocular corroboration of the probable accuracy of the Mosaic genealogies, and of the truth of the narrative.

It is a legitimate conclusion that tradition, in the ages anterior to that of Moses, was in a high degree authentic. The effect of the longevity of the patriarchs was, that the younger were for a long time contemporaries of the elder, and the youngest for some time of the oldest. This is clear on a glance at any comparative table of their births and deaths. The memory of the earliest events (Bishops Stillingfleet and Gray) passed through very few hands to Noah; and from him to Abraham.

But this tradition was corradiating and accumulative. Not one senior member of a family alone may be assumed to have informed his descendants of what he knew, but all alike. Curiosity, emulation, love of narration, whatever instincts of our common nature bear upon the question, confirm the probability of authentic tradition in those ages. The love of oral narrative is, perhaps, the greater where written records are more scanty.

II. From the prophetical character of many of the patriarchs, we may infer that the memory of the most ancient facts was perpetually renewed by inspiration, if needful—or religiously preserved without inspiration-till the time of Moses.

If it was a duty enjoined on the Israelites to tell in the ears of their sons, and of their sons' sons, what the Lord had done for them, it is natural to think that the "sons of God," they who "called themselves by the name of the Lord" in the times of old, performed the like duty for conscience' sake. Piety then, must surely have been what piety is now.

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, "walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." Of the righteousness and prophetic character of Noah, it is superfluous to speak. From the family of Shem, when (it seems) they fell into idolatry, Abraham, the father of the faithful, was specially selected to the rescue of sacred truth, as one who would "teach his children after him." Of his knowledge of the then past history of man, we may guess from his knowledge of the future. "Shall I hide