The people's angering Moses at the water of strife, provoking his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes, Ps. cvi. 32, 33,

Israel's sending messengers to the king of Edom, saying, "Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land," and the king of Edom's refusing to hearken thereto, Judg. xi. 17.

The people's compassing, or going round the land of Edom, going along through the wilderness, Judg. xi. 18, agreeable to Num. xxi. 4, and Deut. ii. 1-8.

The people's passing through a great and terrible wilderness, a land of pits, and of great drought, a waste and desolate country, Jer. ii, 2. 6. Hos. xiii. 5.

The people compassing the land of Moab, and coming by the east side of the land of Moab, and pitching on the other side of Arnon, because Arnon was the border of Moab, Judg. xi. 18, exactly agreeable to the history of the Pentateuch, Num. xxi. 11. 13, and xxii. 36.

The people not being suffered to pass through the land of Moab, Judg. xi. 17, 18.

Israel's sending messengers from their camp in the borders of Moab to Sihon, king of the Amorites, saying, "Let as pass, we pray thee, through thy land," and Sihon refusing, but upon this, gathering all his people together, and coming to Jahaz to fight against Israel, Judg. xi. 18, 19, 20.

God's delivering Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and Israel's possessing their land from Arnon, even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan, dwelling in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that belonged to Sihon, exactly agreeable to the history, Judg. xi. 21-26. Josh. xxiv. 8. Ps. cxxv. 10, 11, cxxxvi. 17-22.

And afterwards smiting Og, the king of Bashan, and possessing his land, Josh. xxiv. 8. Psalm cxxxv. 10, 11, and cxxxvi. 17-22.

But that Balak, the king of Moab, durst not venture, after he had seen this, to go out against Israel, and never engaged them in battle, until Israel went against them, Judg. xi. 25, 26, agreeable to Num. xxii. 2, and the consequent history.

Balak's stirring Balaam, the son of Beor, to curse the people, and God's turning the curse into a blessing, while Israel abode in Shittim, Josh. xxiv. 9, 10. Micah vi. 5.

Israel's sinning by joining themselves to Baal Peor, and eating the sacrifices of their gods, and God's being provoked, and executing wrath on the congregation for this sin, and Phineas's executing judgment on this occasion, that was counted to him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore, Psalm cvi.

28-31.

The war of Israel with Balak, and their victory, Josh. xxiv. 9, 10.

The people's long sojourning in the wilderness, Josh. xxiv. 7, and Isai. Ixiii. 9.

God's speaking from time to time to Moses and Aaron from a pillar of cloud, Ps. xcix. 6, 7.

Moses's faithfulness in his office, Ps. xcix. 7, agreeable to Num. xii. 7. Their great perverseness, hardness of heart of that generation, and their frequent rebellions, and provoking, and vexing God's Spirit, and tempting of him in the wilderness, even for forty years, Ps. lxxviii. throughout, especially ver. 40, 41, and Ixxxi. 11, 12, and xcv. 8-11. Isai. Ixiii. 10. Ezek. xx. 13.

God's repeated and continual judgments against them, wasting them by a great mortality that pursued and destroyed with great manifestations of divine wrath. Ps. xc. Isai. Ixiii. 10.

God's often pardoning and sparing the people, so as to forbear to destroy the whole congregation at Moses's intercession, but yet not without giving great manifestations of his wrath towards their sins, taking vengeance of their inventions, as Moses ground their calf to powder, Ps. lxxviii. 38, &c., and xcix.

The people's promising time after time to repent when smitten with terrible judgments, but yet turning again quickly to sin, not being steadfast in God's covenant, Ps. lxxviii. 31–37.

God's showing great favour to the young generation, Jeremiah xxxi. 2.

God's entering into covenant a second time with that young generation, Jer. ii. 2, 3. Ezek. xx. 18, 19, 20.

He that can observe the facts of the history of the Pentateuch after this manner mentioned and referred to in the writings of the several ages of the Israelitish nation, and not believe that they had all along a great and standing record of these things, and this very history, can swallow the greatest absurdity. If they had not had this history among them, or one that exactly agrees with it, it would have been morally impossible, but that amongst this vast number of citations and references, with so great a multitude of particularities and circumstances mentioned by so many different writers in different ages, there must have been a great many inconsistencies with the history, and a great many inconsistencies one with another; and it would have puzzled and confounded the skill of any writer who should have attempted to form an history afterwards that should every where without jarring so harmonize with such various manifold citations, and rehearsals, and references so interspersed in, and dispersed through, all those writings of several ages; and unless these writers had such a record to be their common guide, it could not have been otherwise than utterly impossible.

It was impossible that this vast number of events, with so many circumstances, with names of persons and places, and minute incidents, should be so particularly and exactly known, and the knowledge of them so fully, and distinctly, and without confusion or loss, kept up for so many ages, and be so often mentioned in so particular a manner, without error or inconsistency through so many ages, without a written record. How soon does an oral tradition committed to a multitude vary, and put on a thousand shapes, and mix, and jumble, and grow into confusion! Here appears in fact to have been an exact consistent knowledge and memory of things kept up, and that shows that there was in fact a standing record; and the comparing of the records of the Pentateuch with these innumerable citations and references, shows that this was in fact that identical record.

The facts of this history are very often rehearsed just in the same order and manner as they are in the history of the Pentateuch; and in many places there is a rehearsal of the facts of very great parts, and sometimes a kind of abridgment of the bigger part of the history, as Josh. xxiv., Ps. lxxviii., and cv., and cvi., and cxxxvi., Ezek. xx. 5-23. And we sometimes find the facts of former parts of the history of Genesis joined with the story of the children of Israel's redemption out of Egypt, and travels in the wilderness, as introductory to it, and sometimes even beginning with the story of the creation, in like manner as it is in the Pentateuch, and after the captivity, in Nehem. ix.

These events are commonly mentioned after such a manner as plainly supposes that a full account of them was already in being, and well known and established, as in those words, Though Noah, Daniel, and Job stood before me. It supposes the history of those men extant and well known among the people, and so in these words, We should have been like Sodom and like unto Gomorah. It is supposed that the history of the destruction of those cities was what the people were well acquainted with. So those words, Ps. lxxviii. 40, How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert, plainly supposes an history extant, that gives a particular account of those things. It is after the manner of a reference to a history. So it is very often elsewhere, as Ruth iv. 11. "The Lord make this woman that is come into thine house like Rachel, and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel." So Josh. xiii. 33. "But unto the tribe of Levi Moses gave not any inheritance, the Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as he said unto them;" the words are mentioned plainly after the manner of a citation. So Judg. i. 20. "And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said. Ps. cx. "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek:" it supposes an extant account of Melchizedek. See also 2 Sam. viii. 3. Isai. xiii. 19. Jer. xlix. 18, and 1. 40. Ezek. xvi. 46-56. Amos iw 11

Zech. ii. 9. Isai. xli. 1-8, and li. 1, 2. 9, 10. Micah vi. 5, and very many other places there are that show the same thing, which it would be tedious to mention.

And sometimes these historical events are mentioned so much in the words of the history of the Pentateuch, as could not be without a written history to be a guide; as particularly Jephthah's rehearsal, Judges xi. 15-28.

That the children of Israel had a great standing record among them of those facts that they looked upon sacred and holy, is evident from Ps. cxi. 4. The psamlist, speaking of these works, says that God had made his wonderful works to be remembered. They are those works of which we have an account in the Pentateuch, as is manifest from ver. 7. 9. The words in the original that are translated, he hath made to be remembered, are no he hath made a record. The word signifies memorial or record. The word recorder, 2 Sam. viii. 16, 1 Kings iv. 3, 2 Kings xviii. 18, Isai. xxxvi. 3. 22, and other places is which is a word of the same root; the words Zeker and Mazkir, are just in the same manner akin to one another, as the English words recorder and record.

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So the history of these facts is called God's report, (as it is in the original,) Hab. iii. 2. "I have heard thy report, and was afraid." What that report was, appears from what follows: it was the report of those works there mentioned; which works he, in this verse, prays God to revive. But in the 15th and 16th verses the prophet more plainly tells us what that report was that made him afraid, viz., the account of God's marching through the Red sea, with the other great works of God, mentioned in the foregoing part of the chapter.

And that this great record that the writers of the Old Testament cited so often, was contained in the book of the law, may be argued from the manner in which these facts are sometimes mentioned. The psalmist, in the introduction which he makes to his rehearsal of the story of the Pentateuch in the lxxviii. Psalm, calls that story by the name of law, ver. 1; and the precepts and history are united in the notice he here takes of them, and mentions the history as what God had commanded the memory of to be carefully kept up as the proper enforcement of the precepts, ver. 7, with the foregoing verse. And being given of God as an enforcement of the precepts of the law, is as properly looked upon as a part of the law, as the prophecies and other arguments made use of in Deuteronomy, and other parts of the law. So the history is introduced in such a manner in the cv. Psalm, speaking in the introduction of the covenant and law which God established with the people, ver. 5. 8, 9, 10, that makes it naturally to be supposed that the history he rehearses is taken out of the

book of the law. The wonderful works and precepts of the law are spoken of together, as in like manner to be remembered; ver. 5. "Remember his marvellous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth." So these wonderful works are repeatedly mentioned or referred to together, Ps. cxi. And so again they are in the introduction to the rehearsal we have of this history in the cvi. Psalm, as in ver. 2, 3. So the law and the historical facts are mentioned together, Ps. ciii. 7, as being both alike of divine revelation. "He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel." We find the precepts and history cited together, mixed, and blended in the lxxxi. Psalm, as they are in the Pentateuch.

It appears from profane history to have been the manner of the nations of old to keep the ancient histories of their nation, and their genealogies, and the genealogies and acts of their gods in their temples, where they were committed to the care of their priests as sacred things. This, in all probability, was in imitation of the example of the Israelites in keeping the Mosaic history which Moses committed to the care of the priests, to be laid up in the sanctuary as a sacred thing, and the ancient records of the neighbouring heathens, particularly of the Phoenicians, show the priests of the Jews had such a history in keeping, giving an account of the creation of the world, &c., even so long ago as the days of the Judges. This appears from Sanchoniathon's history, wherein he mentions many of the same facts, and confesses that he had them from a certain priest of the god Iao. The ancient heathen writers do make mention of Moses as the writer of the things contained in the former part of the book of Genesis. [See instances, Miscoll. No. 1012 and 1014, at the place marked thus () in the margin. See also ff. No. 429, at the same mark, and 432.]

Again: Another argument that will invincibly prove that the history of the Pentateuch, as well as the precepts, was of old, from the beginning, contained in the book of the law, that sacred book which the children of Israel had among them laid up in the sanctuary from the days of Moses, is this, viz. that it is certain that the book which the Jews had among them, when they first returned from the Babylonish captivity, which they called the book of the law, and the law of Moses, and made use of as their law, as the same book of the law that their nation had all along as their great and standing record and rule, and as such had kept in the sanctuary of old, was that very Pentateuch which we now have, containing both the history and the precepts. This was the book of the law that Ezra made use of, and that Ezra and the Levites that were with him did so publicly and solemnly read and explain to the people, as we have account, Nehem. viii., and which was