ters which compose them and in their respective significations, so that whether Sanskrit, Chaldee, Arabic or Hebrew, they may be all considered (as in fact they are) dialects of each other, and all derived from one common source, however transposed and commuted the letters of those roots may be. It is necessary to premise, in order that no misconception may arise, as to the object of the whole of the observations which occur in the following articles, that they are submitted with the sole view of endeavouring, in the first place, to disprove the possibility of Moses having invented any portion whatever of the five books of the Holy Scriptures, attributed to him, and that the assertion, which has not unfrequently been made, that as a leader of the Jews, he wrote them to serve political purposes, and to secure his position as the head and governor of the Israelites, is untenable and impossible to be maintained. In the next place, to offer such evidence as may tend to prove that the narrative of the Scriptures respecting the Creation, was as well known to the whole of Asia, a thousand years. before Moses was born, as it was to that minute portion of it occupied by the Israelites in Palestine, and therefore was, what is usually denominated a tradition. And lastly, as a necessary consequence to show the absurdity of the very term Tradition, with respect to the Creation, unless it means a Revelation to the first created human being, from some one who was in existence, previous to that creation. A tradition, originating in one, who himself was posterior to the event he delivers an account of is mere speculative guessing, and no tradition at all. But, if the tradition be true, and if every chapter of the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation be a commentary and a paraphrase of the history of the Creation, and of the events which sprung from it, if the whole of the Scriptures, during a period of 1500 years tell but one tale, “Si "servatur ad imum, qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constat," and the difficulty, not of gainsaying, but of disproving those truths stamped with the unbroken testimony of every generation of mankind since the Creation, be tenfold greater than the ease with which they may be ridiculed and rejected, then the assumption that the first few chapters of Genesis are really a tradition, in the literal sense of the word, (that is a delivery or announcement of certain facts and occurrences from one, who was "before all things," from him indeed, of whom St. John speaks (ch. i, v. 1) "In the "beginning was the word, and the word was God.") is neither extravagant nor extraordinary, and the tradition in such case sub sides into a Revelation, and the Holy Scriptures are what they purport to be, a Revelation from the Creator to his creature, Man. It is equally necessary to say that the evidence, such as it may be, contained in the following pages is offered with the sole view of shewing that the whole scheme of the Creation, Fall and Redemption of man by the Son of God, however it might be deemed by the Greeks to be "foolishness and some new thing," was no new thing to all Asia, who spoke of it in the very words they used in their daily communications with each other, who kept up a remembrance of it in their customs, in their names of persons and places, and their forms of worship, down to the very instruments of service of the Temple, and did by anticipation what St. Paul, (1 Cor. ch. x, v. 31,) counselled his Corinthian converts to do: "Whether they eat or drank, or whatsoever they did, they did all," without perhaps the consciousness of so doing "to the glory of "God." The Holy Scriptures, as the Almighty has been pleased to give them to us, are able to make every one who studies them with a humble prayerful heart for grace to profit by them "wise "unto salvation, through faith which is in Jesus Christ, (2 Tim. ch. iii, v. 15.) The command of Our Saviour contains all that can be said on the subject; (John ch. 5, v. 39,) "Search the scrip"tures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they "which testify of me." It is impossible however for the most learned, as well as the most ignorant to read these Scriptures, without doubts and misgivings arising in their minds, whether they apply them rightly to their own case, whether they do not exaggerate the mercy or the justice of the Almighty, and whether they even seek the salvation they need and long for as they ought, and to this effect St. Paul speaks of himself, (2 Cor. ch. vii, v. 5:) "We were troubled on every side, without were fightings, within were fears." It is not merely the opposition of enemies by which these troubles are engendered, but a fruitful source of them is to be found amongst even friends; David experienced precisely what St. Paul describes, (1 Sam. ch. xvii.) Having been sent by his Father to salute his brethren, he found the Israelites, the so called "army of the li"ving God," (v. 26,) on the one side, and the host of uncircumcised Philistines in array against them. All the salutation he re ceived in return from his friends, and especially from his eldest brother whose anger was kindled against him (v. 28,) was this affectionate grecting: "Why camest thou down hither? with whom "hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy "pride and the naughtiness of thine heart," and when he essayed to go forth to battle against Goliath, he was disdained by his enemies, his youth became a jest as well as a reproach, and his weapons were deemed mere staves for dogs. It is proposed therefore, whilst subscribing to any extent that may be desired to the reproach that "our speech is contemptible," (2 Cor. ch. x, v. 10,) so far to follow the example of David as to take "five "smooth stones out of the brook," (1 Sam. ch. xvii, v. 40,) a brook which has been flowing during the greater part of 6,000 years; and having neither power nor strength of ourselves to sling, as of ourselves, even one of these stones; but with full confidence, that if he who alone can cause it to be slung with effect, should vouchsafe his blessing on the effort, and direct it as we pray he may, not to sink into the forehead but into the heart of both friends and enemies, we trust we may be able to shew to the humblest follower of the Lord Jesus, for his especial comfort and consolation amidst his fightings and his fears, that the Gospel of his salvation, as he reads it in the New Testament, so far from being some new thing, was proclaimed by the Almighty himself in the Garden of Eden 2,500 years before it was repeated at greater length and detail by Moses, and subsequently prophesied of by Joshua, Samuel, David and the rest of the Prophets, and completed when Our Saviour on the cross gave up the ghost, and said: "It is "finished," (John ch. xix, v. 30.) The humblest believer in His Redeemer's atonement will, it is hoped and prayed, be able to glean this assurance from the following pages, that the sure mercies of David (g) (the beloved) were ordered in all things, from the Creation itself, and that the purposes of mercy of God towards every believer in his Son Jesus Christ, are unchangeable and eternal, that they existed before the Creation, and will last through Eternity, and if possible are surer than sure, that his name is now what it ever was, and such as he proclaimed it to Moses, (Exod. ch. xxxiv, v. 6,) "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gra"cious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and "sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty," and that this name has ever since the Creation been proclaimed from man to man, from generation to generation, throughout all Asia. 777 (DVD) Beloved. Created. (GENESIS CHAPTER I, VERSE 1.) In the New Testament, (Rev.ch. xix, v. 10,) it is said, that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." If therefore the New Testament bears evidence respecting the Old Testament, that it is throughout embued with the very spirit of the testimony *The following decomposition of the word BRASHITH, is not intended to be maintained, either grammatically or otherwise, its pertinent signification however cannot be overlooked. It is inserted chiefly as affording an example of what is very common with the writers of the Old Testament, viz.: to produce by affixes, suffixes, &c. to certain words, a sort of Echo to some principal word in the context, by which apparently fortuitous, although actually designed repetition of the main word, the attention is more firmly riveted to it; this Echo however, if it may be so called, by the admirable skill of its arrangement always bears some kindred affinity to the principal word, and in whatever way it may be capable of being decompounded, it never fails to elucidate, in some varied and unexpected manner, the main idea attached to the primary word. (BRASHI TH), in the beginning. I will constitute, ap- It will be seen, that the same letters of the word BRASHI TH may be decompounded in two different ways, (1 and 2) so as to form two distinct, yet allied significa tions. No. 2 may be variously paraphrased, but whatever might be the arrangement of the combinations of the meanings, no result would be obtained, that did not include the idea of an appointed Son as Creator, and by the following decomposition of the word BRA, the signification of "to be born" will appear, as well as who the Son is. This double signification of a word is of perpetual recurrence throughout the Old Testament, and occasionally in the New; thus in Matt. ch. xvi, v. 18 our Saviour makes the acknowledgement of Peter "Thou art the Christ, the "Son of the living God" to be the only foundation of his Church, described by the word "Rock," which in the original expresses the name of Peter, as well as Rock which is an epithet, or a name of our Saviour, (2 Sam. ch. xxii, v. 2, and 1 Cor. ch. x, v. 4.) "I say unto thee, thou art "Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church." It may he necessary to state that the vowels corresponding to vowel points in Hebrew, &c. are in no case expressed; those which are them of Jesus, every communication made through it to the Israelites, whether by parables, by allegories, by actual events, by commandments, by doctrines, or by whatever other modes the Almighty might be pleased to communicate with his creatures, each and all, like the needles of the various compasses, with which the vessel may be furnished, however different the respective makers of them may be, ever true under all circumstances, to one, and one only object, the North, ought to be found pointing to Jesus, as the Alpha and the Omega, the first as well as the last, the one thing needful to ensure a safe passage through this life into the everlasting kingdom of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through faith in his Holy name. And it would be naturally and reasonably imagined, if the evidence of the New Testament with regard to the Old is true, that this testimony of Jesus should appear in some early communication made through it to mankind, and the Old Testament should vouch for the truth of the statement made by the New, by giving the earliest proof of it;—This testimony is accordingly given, not merely in the very first word of the first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Old Testament, which Moses wrote, but is repeated also in the second word so as to ensure the remembrance of it by its repetition, and selves letters, are necessarily inserted, but no notice is taken of them, as parts of roots, inasmuch as they have no fixed and unalterable sound, being commuted the one for the other continually. N (BRA), Create. Be born. Hebrew. Form. 172 (BRU), Create. Chaldee. (BRA), Create. Arabic. Justify. BR A DECOMPOSITION. { Son, Corn, Wheat, Pure In otio. By the decomposition of BRA, there is obtained its root, BR a son, the remaining A, although, as will be shown hereafter, this letter is frequently used in the composition of Hebrew words as a symbol, is for the present considered as in otio or having no force or meaning. It has been endeavoured to be shown that all language is composed of certain roots, (in no case probably exceeding some two or three hundred) transposed in every possible manner, and the letters of the original root, commuted for others of kindred sound, and the word, with its letters so commuted becomes, what is popularly termed a dialect of the other. Derivatives also from these roots take additional letters or syllables, generally either at the commencement or the end of the root, and these derivatives are again added to in like manner, as Able, Un-able, Abl-y, Ability, Incomprehensibility. The Etymology of these words, if strictly confined to the roots, would require Ability to be written Able-ity; but as it has been frequently asserted that the modification in sound of the five vowels, a EIOU would increase their numbers to twenty and upwards, it is evi בא } BA Enters. AR The Light. |