THE GENESIS OF NATDRK. 



81 



enactments of the wilderness, as to fix their correlation, and 

 indicate that Moses might have been in part restoring to his 

 nation, debased by Egyptian bondage, the better economy of 

 tlieir pristine fatherland. The founder of Babylon — a link in 

 the line of Sheni — has thus become the oldest alien witness of 

 the historic character of the l*entateuch. 



(3) It is also to be observed, that the unity of the Bible, as 

 from a single source, is to be supported internally by numerous 

 undesigned coincidences. These, often almost imperceptible 

 in their individual selves, occur in so great crowds as to bind 

 the whole book together into one organic whole, both confirming 

 its historic truth as a record, and showing all its parts to be, 

 whatever their human authorship, evolved from a single 

 intelligent over-ruling source. 



(-4) It is also to be observed, that the moral teaching in the 

 Bible has yet to be accounted for, unless its claim to inspiration 

 be allowed. To judge the Bible fairly, as to its moral character, 

 we must take it as a whole. The Gospel fulfils, not destroys, 

 the law. From Genesis to Eevelation there is a concrruous 

 moral whole, in whicli is found no more specific difference than 

 is found in nature between the bud, the tiower, and the fruit. 

 And how is that whole, that compendium of moral law, to be 

 explained ? It may be compared with other human produc- 

 tions ; but in doing so from the latter must be of course 

 eliminated whatever is, or may have been, derived from the 

 former. Only by this process from these unassisted human 

 productions can we find the sum of morality of which 

 unassisted humanity is known to be capable. It is this 

 residuum which has to be compared with the morality of the 

 Bible ; and comparing this, the vastness of the difference is at 

 once apparent. What remains we may call the special 

 morality of the Bible, and with regard to that (and how great 

 it is) we have this dilemma. It professed to have come from 

 God. Therefore, if its source was merely human, its profession 

 being false, it was not only human but, because false, immoral. 

 Thus the highest morality was derived from immorality, and 

 that may well be said to be absurd. Therefore the special 

 morality of the Bible is a decisive proof of its divine inspiration. 



(5) It is also to be observed that the religious teaching of 

 the Bible has yet to be accounted for, unless its claim to 

 inspiration be allowed. What has been said of the moral 

 tenets of the Bil)le may be said with still greater force of the 

 religious teaching. Unless the Bible be inspired, its whole 

 religion, its whole theology, falls to the ground. If it be true, it 



