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ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.

IN preparing for this Edition, I have endeavoured to avail myself, as far as I could, of the different kind and candid criticism which have been passed upon this Work. But it is particularly gratifying to me to find that no criticisms have been offered, which rendered it necessary to alter my statement of facts, or my reasoning upon them, in any material particular.

I have judged it expedient to add THREE Lectures; one on the Originality and Design of the Jewish Ritual, which appeared necessary to complete the series of reasonings there adduced to confirm the divine original of the Jewish religion;—and the other two on the Accomplishment of Prophecy in the past history of the Jews, and the expectations which the same prophecies appear to justify as to the future Conversion and Restoration of this chosen People, and on the Circumstances of the World, at the period when these Lectures were written, which seemed preparatory to the accomplishment of these Expectations-a speculation into which the existence of those circumstances, together with the nature of the subject on which I had treated, almost irresistibly led me, but in which, I trust, it will not be found I have unreasonably or presumptuously indulged.

LECTURES

ON THE

FOUR LAST BOOKS OF THE PENTATEUCH.

PART I.

ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE PENTATEUCH, AND THE
TRUTH OF THE HISTORY, BOTH OF COMMON AND
MIRACULOUS EVENTS, CONTAINED IN THE
FOUR LAST BOOKS OF IT.

LECTURE I.

The Jewish Nation has received the Pentateuch as containing the only authentic History of their Lawgiver and his Institutions, from the very Era when these Institutions commenced at the present day. Arguments to prove the reception of the Pentateuch from the present day, back to the return of the Jews from the Babylonish CaptivityArguments to prove that the Pentateuch was not first compiled at that Era, or altered and modified according to circumstances then existing; but that it was a previously existing and acknowledged Code-Pentateuch proved prior to the separation of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah-Prior to the establishment of the Regal Government in Israel-Not first compiled by Samuel—Acknowledged by Joshua.

DEUTERONOMY, xxxi. 9, 10, 11.

"And Moses wrote this Law, and delivered it unto the Priests the sons of Levi, which bare the "Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and unto all the Elders of Israel: and Moses commanded "them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the "Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God, in the place "which he shall choose: thou shalt read this Law before all Israel, in their hearing."

SUCH is the charge which the Jewish Lawgiver is related to have delivered to his nation, while they were yet collected in one body under his command, on the borders of the land of their inheri tance; solemnly publishing the volume of his law, and inculcating its constant preservation and periodical public recitation as a

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