1 16 Ou the Cosmogony of Moses. 



agreement will be found between them, by those persons whose 

 minds are not too contrac^ted to be capable of comprehensive 

 views, or of surveying facts on a great scale '^. 



F. E s has observed, that the points in discussion do not 



require that he should oflfer any opinion on the historical facts 

 which determine me to believe that Moses was not the original 

 author of the Cosmogony. This seems to me somewhat strange. 

 Let us suppose the fact to be conceded, in the proofs of which 



T. E s is in no wise interested, that a record of the creation 



existed before the age of Moses, which contained nearly the same 

 account as that in Genesis, and let us consider what inferences ne- 

 cessarily follow from this concession. First, if tlie latter was 

 derived from revelation, we can scarcely refuse to allow the same 

 origin to the former, when we consider how nearly they agree. 

 Let any person compare the Etruscan Cosmogony cited in 

 p. 114, voi.xlvii. with that of Moses, and say if they were derived 

 from distinct sources. But if a revealed record of these events 

 already existed, where could be the necessity of a new revelation? 

 The old precept," Nee deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus in- 

 ciderit," forbids such a supposition. Again, if such a record 

 existed, derived and known to be derived from revelation, there 

 is no essential difference between the case of Moses, who com- 

 piled his narration from it, and that of the Evangelists, who 

 framed genealogies from previously extant documents. St. 

 Matthew could no more ascertain infallibly the correctness of 

 the documents from which he compiled, than Moses could un- 

 erringly discriminate what was authentic from what might be 

 ."superadded in the revealed record transmitted by the Patriarchs. 

 The cases are parallel, notwithstanding F. E s's repeated at- 

 tempts to prove the contrary. To suppose either or both of 

 those writers endowed with an infallible power of discriminating 

 the true from the false, is to attribute to them that very sort of 



inspiration against which F. E s, from some unaccountable 



reason, has so particular an objection. For my own part, I can 

 as readily admit one sort as the other ; and I observe that most 

 of the divines who have considered the nature of the historical 

 testimony of the Scriptures adopt the hypothesis which I have 

 just stated. 



Thus far concerning the consequences which flow from the 

 facts which F. E s does not care to dispute. On the pro- 

 lability that the history of the creation was known before the 



* I am, however, by no means disposed to maintain that there can be 

 no exceptions. Some facts liave recently come to my knowledge, which 

 seem likely to furnish a real exception, which, if it be confirmed, I shall not 

 fail to avow. It is however totally in a diU'creiit region from that in which 

 r. E— — s has been eraployod. 



time 



