multitudes now of the more intelligent Clergy, who do not believe in the historical truth of the Noachian Deluge, as recorded in the book of Genesis. Yet did ever a layman hear his clergyman speak out distinctly what he thought, and say plainly from the pulpit what he himself believed, and what he would have them to believe, on this point? Did ever a Doctor or Bishop of the Church do this —at least, in the present day? I doubt not that cases may be found, where such 'plainness of speech' has been exercised by the Clergy. But I appeal to the Laity, generally, with confidence. Have you ever heard your Minister—able, earnest, excellent, as you know him to be-tell out plainly to his people the truth which he knows himself about these things? Or if not to the congregation at large-for fear lest the 'ignorant and unlearned' should 'wrest it to their own destruction'-has he ever told these things to you in private, to you, men and women of education and intelligence, parents of families, teachers of youth,-and so helped you to lay wisely from the first, in the minds of your children and pupils, in order to meet the necessities of this age of advancing science and 'free inquiry,' the foundation of a right understanding in respect of these matters? As before, I doubt not that here also exceptions may be found to the general rule. But is not the case notoriously otherwise in the vast majority of instances?

But how can a clergyman be expected to indulge free thought, on some of the most interesting and important questions of physical, historical, and critical science, when he knows that, for arriving at any conclusions on certain points of Biblical criticism, which contradict the notions of our forefathers, living in days of comparative darkness and ignorance in respect of all matters of scientific research, he is in danger of being dragged into the Court of Arches, and of being there ejected, or, if not ejected, at least suspended, from his living, and saddled, it may be, with a crushing weight of debt? Is it any wonder that a young man of University distinction and intellectual activity, however ready he may be, for the love of God and his fellow-men, to engage himself in the holy and blessed, though in respect to this world's goods often ill-rewarded, labours of the ministry of souls, should yet be found unwilling to subject himself to the 'tender mercies' of such a system as this, and so, perhaps, suddenly, in the middle of his life, when the fire and energy of youth are spent, and the day is too far gone for him to begin work again, and devote his powers to the heavy toil of mastering the details of some new profession, (if even such a profession were open to him, which by the present law of England is not the case,)—find himself deprived of the moderate competence which he had earned by having 'spurned delights, and lived laborious days,' and stripped at a stroke of all his means of livelihood, as one of the pains and penalties of thinking?

I have felt obliged to express dissent from one expression in the late Charge of the Bishop of LONDON. But I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of quoting other words of the same Prelate, which show how well he appreciated, at the time when he spoke them, the special needs of the present day.

Wherever a general suspicion is engendered, however unfounded it may be, that something is amiss in our system of religion, which from policy or cowardice we are anxious to conceal, there hidden infidelity will make rapid progress, and many a man of honest mind will in secret be tortured with anxiety, having no leisure to examine for himself the difficulties he has heard of, and be distressed by a painful impression that those, who ought to examine for him, are deliberately or unwittingly banded together to mislead. Thus, as is usual, wherever men take upon themselves to act against God's purposes, that very infidelity, the fear of which scared them from their duty, will grow with tenfold vigour because they have neglected to perform it.

And here it seems well to remark that the critical study of the Bible is more than ever necessary to be encouraged now, from the particular circumstances of our own age and country. Whatever may be thought of the honesty or policy of endeavouring to conceal difficulties and stifle inquiry formerly, the days, when such methods of propping up the truth of God were possible, are at an end. The old times,

with their mingled good and evil-the old ideas of the paternal duty of government both in Church and State to lead the mass of men, as it were, blindfold, and to shut up knowledge within the privileged caste of those who were thought likely to make a good use of it, have passed. The old state of things can never be brought back. It is in our own generation and amid the men of our own generation-amid their thoughts, bad as well as good, their questionings and doubtings and shallow disputations, as well as their energetic impatience of concealment and hatred of all formalism, that God has placed the scene of our responsibilities; and it is vain to think that we can do any good amongst them by attempting to teach them on the principles of a departed state of society, and not as their own characters and circumstances require. Dangers and Safeguards, p. 83-87.

Can we not trust God's Truth to take care of itself in this world? Must we seek, in our ignorant feeble way, to prop it up by legal enactments, and fence it round by a system of fines and forfeitures and Church anathemas, lest the rude step of some 'free inquirer' should approach too near, and do some fatal injury to the Eternal Truth of God? Have we no faith in God, the Living God? And do we not believe that He himself is willing, and surely able as willing, to protect his own honour and to keep in safety the souls of His children, and, amidst the conflict of opinion that will ever be waged in this world in the search after truth,-which may be vehement but need not be uncharitable,-to maintain in each humble, prayerful, heart the essential substance of that Truth which maketh wise unto salvation'? Surely, as a friend writes— To suppose that we can serve God's cause by shutting our eyes to the light, much more to suppose that we can serve it by asserting that we see what we do not see, because we wish to see it, is simply intellectual Atheism.

6

And when men declare, as some have done, that there can be no belief in God, no Religion, no laws binding on the conscience, no principles to purify the heart, no authoritative sanction for the most sacred duties of private, social, and public life, unless these old stories of the Pentateuch are received with implicit faith—at least, in their main features-as literally and historically true, is not this really, in however disguised a form, the very depth of Infidelity? J. W. NATAL.

LONDON: Jan. 24, 1863.

PART II.

THE AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE

PENTATEUCH CONSIDERED.

CHAPTER I.

SIGNS OF DIFFERENT AUTHORS IN THE

PENTATEUCH.

numbers, 186,400, 151,450, 108,100, 157,600, are added together, and make up the same total as before, 603,550.

190. These numbers, indeed, are all round numbers, each ending with a cipher; and it has been suggested that there may be a clerical error, extending through the whole set of them, and that, if these ciphers be struck out, (which is equivalent to dividing all the numbers by ten,) the sum-total will be reduced to a more manageable number. But, in fact, most of the difficulties will remain really as formidable, with a camp of 60,000 warriors, that is, with a population of 200,000 or 300,000 people, as with the larger camp of 600,000. We should only have to substitute in our imaginations the town of LIVERPOOL or MANCHESTER for the city of LONDON. Could the total number be reduced to about 6,000, some of the difficulties might, indeed, as we have said, disappear, but, even then, not all of them; for we should still have to imagine a town of 20,000 or 30,000 people, as OXFORD or CAMBRIDGE. But the separate numbers of the tribes in N.i,ii,xxvi, forbid this last reduction, as the numbers do not all consist of so many round hundreds.

189. In the First Part of this work we have been considering some of the most remarkable inconsistencies and contradictory statements, which a closer examination of the Pentateuch, as it now lies before us, reveals to the attentive reader. Most of these are of an arithmetical character, and some of them might be greatly diminished, or, perhaps, got rid of altogether, if it were possible to suppose that the number of warriors in the wilderness was only 6,000, instead of 600,000. But the story itself, as we have seen, forbids such a supposition. Not only is the number of warriors, 600,000 on foot that were men, besides children,' given in round numbers in E.xii. 37, N.xi.21, but it is stated more accurately, as 603,550, thrice over in different forms, in E.xxxviii. 25-28. And, besides this, the numbers of the armed men of the separate tribes are given on two different occasions, and the sumtotal of these twelve tribe-numbers is, in the one case, 603,550, N.i.46, and in the other, 601,730, N.xxvi.51; and, on the first occasion, the separate tribe- 191. Besides, the number of the numbers and the sum-total are again, Levites is expressly fixed by its relaa second time, accurately repeated in tion to the number of firstborns, N.ii,-nay, are repeated carefully twice N.iii.39-51. These latter were 22,273, over, for the three tribes constituting a number without a cipher, which each of the four camps are numbered cannot, therefore, be reduced'; and and summed up together separately, it is stated that these exceeded the and then these four sum-totals or camp-male Levites by 273, v.46, for each

one of whom a tax of five shekels was | Pentateuch, must have been of a very paid, and the whole number of shekels peculiar kind. For not only are the so paid is reckoned, v.50, as 1,365. twelve tribe-numbers in the first two Hence there can be no room for sup- instances, N.i,ii, so fixed that their posing that the whole number of male sums, taken in different ways, give Levites was any other than 22,000, accurately the first sum-total, 603,550, N.iii.39, numbered separately as Ger- but in the third case, N.xxvi, they are shonites, 7,500, v.22, Kohathites, 8,600, all changed, each being either inv.28, Merarites, 6,200, v.34,-the sum creased or diminished by a certain of which three numbers, however, is amount,—yet so judiciously changed, actually 22,300 instead of 22,000, that the result is obtained, which was where we have a remarkable inaccuracy, apparently desired, of having the towhich has to be 'reconciled.' And of tal nearly the same as before, 601,730. these, we are told, 8,580, N.iv.48,—viz. It is very plain that this Hebrew Kohathites, 2,750, v.36, Gershonites, author, whoever he may have been, 2,630, v.40, Merarites, 3,200,* v.44,- was not so ignorant and helpless in were from thirty years old and up- matters of arithmetic as some have ward, even unto fifty years old,' repre- imagined. senting (say) 10,000 above the age of twenty, at which the census of the other tribes was taken, N.i.3. But, if there were 10,000 Levites 'from twenty years old and upward,' it is absurd to imagine that there were only 6,000 warriors of all the twelve tribes, and very unreasonable to suppose that there were only 60,000, even if the difficulties of the story would really be relieved by such a supposition.

192. If, therefore, it were still possible to believe that a whole series of numbers, such as the tribe-numbers and totals, had been systematically corrupted and exaggerated in consequence of clerical errors, yet it would then follow that all the above particulars about the Levites and first-borns must have been a pure invention of a later date, implying that the interpolating inventor had no particular reverence for the original text. Besides which, the corruption' of the text, required to produce the numbers of the

*The whole number of the male Kohathites, as above given, 8,600, is more than onefourth as large again as that of the Merarites, 6,200; whereas the converse is the case with the adults, since the number of Merarite males from thirty to fifty years old, 3,200, is just one-sixth as large again as that of the Kohathites, 2.750. Besides this palpable inconsistency, the Merarite males from thirty to fifty' are more than half the whole number of males of that family, from a month old and upward,' contrary to all the data of modern statistical science. It is obvious that, with all the appearance of extreme accuracy, there is no real historical truth in any of these numbers.

193. We are thus, it would seem, compelled to adhere to the Scripture number of 600,000 warriors, as that which was intended by the sacred writer, whatever contradictions and impossibilities it introduces into the story; and, therefore, these arithmetical' arguments are really of the greatest importance, in the consideration of the present question. And they have this special advantage, that they can be clearly stated in definite terms, so as to be readily appreciated by practical men, and are not mixed up with those other difficulties of a moral nature, which, however strongly felt by very many, are not realised in the same degree by all devout readers of the Bible.

194. Thus, then, whatever process of reduction may be applicable to the immense Hebrew numbers which occur everywhere throughout the Bible,(and my belief is that these numbers are merely set down loosely at random, in oriental fashion, not exaggerated systematically by mistake, or design, or accident, as some suppose,)-yet with regard to these particular numbers in the story of the Exodus, there can be no mistake, and no uncertainty. There can be no uncertainty, because the number, 603,550, is checked in so many ways, by so many different statements,-especially by the statement of the amount of silver contributed for the Tabernacle,*-that there * Suppose it were stated on authority that

can be no doubt as to the number of warriors actually intended by the writer of the story. There can be no mistake at least, if Moses wrote the story of the Exodus; because, we are told, he himself personally took a careful census of the people, the results of which, for each tribe, are set down exactly in N.i, repeated carefully in N.ii, and again, with variations, in N.xxvi.

to see that even a small body of men, women, and children, must have needed water during the long interval of nearly forty years between the miracles at Horeb, E.xvii, and Meribah, N.xx. They wanted also firewood for daily use, and must have certainly perished, if exposed to the bitter cold of the desert of Sinai during the severe winter months without such constant supplies of fuel, as were not to be obtained in 195. It remains only to suppose that that desolate waste. Further, their Moses did not write these chapters at sheep and cattle, however few in all, (as we believe,) or did not write number, must have needed grass, as them as they now stand, so that these well as water; and the rules for enpassages, and all the others, where suring perfect cleanliness, by carrythese numbers are involved, have been ing out the refuse of the sacrifices, and systematically and deliberately falsified all their rubbish, &c., to a place within later days, which would indicate out the camp, would have been futile, that they were not regarded as so un-if laid down for the population of an speakably sacred and divine, as to be ordinary English town, as well as for secured from such 'free handling.' I a much greater multitude. Nor would confidently challenge investigation on this point; and I call upon any, who are prepared to maintain the possibility of the story being true, although these numbers may be wrong, not merely to suggest that the numbers may have to be reduced, but to point out in what way it is conceivable that they can be reduced, 197. Once more, therefore, I repeat, so as to get rid of the contradictions it is vain to argue that the story is in and impossibilities which they involve, the main correct and historically true, without, at the same time, introducing though marred by the mistake, so comother difficulties into the question, as mon among Eastern writers, of exaggrave as any which the numbers them-gerating, perhaps a hundredfold, the selves occasion. Until this is done, I must assume that I have proved above that such a reduction is impossible, without sacrificing some of the most essential details of the story, and, in fact, its general historical character.

196. But the reasonings, adduced in Part I, are by no means all arithmetical, though they are all of a practical character.

Thus, for instance, it requires only the application of common sense, and no arithmetical calculation whatever,

the receipts at the International Exhibition for ten days, at a shilling a head, amounted to

30,1777.10s., would any one doubt that it follows as a necessary consequence that the number of persons, who entered on those days at a shilling a head, was 603.550? This

is exactly the inference to be drawn from E.xxxviii.25-28.

a small body of such fugitives any more than a large one, have been able to carry tents with them; and it would have been just as impossible for ten poor men, as for ten thousand, to have supplied themselves easily with pigeons or turtle-doves under Sinai.

numbers of the people, and placing this large body under laws, and in circumstances, which were only possible for a small community. In fact, we have only to realise for once to our minds the idea of a city, as large and as populous as modern LONDON, set down, if that be conceivable or possible, in the midst of the Sinaitic waste,-and set down, not at one place only in that Desert, but at more than forty different places, N.xxxiii, if so many places can be imagined in the wilderness, where such a city could have been planted,-without any kind of drainage, with no supplies of water, for purposes of cooking or cleanliness, brought round, as in a modern town, by running streams or waterpipes to the neighbourhood, at least, of every house,-nay, with no supplies of water

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