p. 89Ladies and Gentlemen,—
I hope I am not boring you. The matter is old, but not stale. It is extensive but not bewildering. It is antique, yet ever pressing in its modern significances. How much that is momentous depends upon it. I invite you to take the problem of the Bible’s truth in hand as the most important than can engage the human intellect; and to persevere with it till you arrive at a definite solution one way or other. It is one that will become clearer and easier to you the longer you apply your mind to it. There is nothing will convince you so much as the study of the Bible itself.
If there is one thing in the Bible that cannot be brought into the category of fictitious writing, or forged writing, or idle writing, or legendary writing, or false writing, it is the speeches of Moses. There has been much employment and learned ingenuity to try and make out that Moses did not write them, but that they were produced at a very late p. 90 age after him. Learned ingenuity on this side has naturally great weight with most people who do not study the matter for themselves. Ladies and Gentlemen, there is every reason for asking you to dismiss this learned ingenuity entirely from your minds; for there is quite as much learnedness on the side of the Mosaic authorship as there is against, and therefore as far as that goes it is a drawn battle. It was not without good grounds that Mr. Gladstone the other day, in a published letter, advised his correspondent to reserve his judgment on the so-called “higher criticism” till it had spoken its last word.
Ladies and Gentlemen, read the speeches. Read the book of Deuteronomy. I submit that the mere reading of this book in a deliberate and attentive way is calculated to impress you with the conviction, that the only rational explanation of the existence of such speeches is the fact that they were by Moses, and recorded by him, as Christ bears record (John v. 46; Luke xxiv. 44). I submit, in the exercise of a calm judgment, it is impossible to conceive of a literary concocter of any kind whatever writing such things. Try the experiment, Ladies and Gentlemen. You have got your Bibles. Turn to Deuteronomy. Some one wrote it, and wrote for a reason. Can you imagine any class of writer, except a writer of truth, and writing for truth’s sake, penning such a passage as this, as part of a speech addressed by Moses to his own people on emerging from the wilderness upon the borders of the land of promise? “Hear, O Israel, Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven. . . . Understand, therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess p. 91 it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people. Remember and forget not how thou provokest the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord. Also in Horeb ye provoked the Lord to wrath so that the Lord was angry with you to have destroyed you. . . . and at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, ye provoked the Lord to wrath. Likewise, when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you, then ye rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice. Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you” (ix. 1, 6, 8, 22, 24).
If Moses did not say these things, it is impossible to imagine any writer representing him as saying them. Some things a fictitious writer might represent Moses as saying, such as that they were a credit to their ancestors, and that they had bravely borne all the fatigues of the way, and had set a pattern to posterity in their docile submission to the law of God, given by his hand, but could you imagine him inventing and putting into the mouth of Moses statements like these—so altogether offensive to the national credit, and to the feelings that would naturally inspire a fictitious writer, writing to produce some pleasing effect or other? You cannot account for the writing and preservation of such disagreeable statements in Israel’s national literature, except on the supposition that Moses really uttered them; and if he uttered them, they are true, for he could have no other object in uttering them—except that they were true—could he? If you think he could have some other motive, try and imagine what p. 92 his motive could be. You will fail. And if these statements were true (that Israel had been rebellious against the Lord from the beginning of their journey out of Egypt), then consider what follows: that God was with them in their coming out, and guiding and directing them in all their way.
You will find that this feature is a very common one throughout the whole of these sublime addresses. I have cited one passage only as a sample of the rest. If you will only think it out thoroughly, you will find this one point of itself is an irresistible proof of the genuineness and truth of the writings of Moses. It is very easy for elegant criticism to launch plausible suggestions: they all run clear of the real facts. It is like an enemy in a balloon, looking down upon a fortress, and capturing it in imagination. He will find it different work if he come down to terra-firma. The practical facts of the case, treated in a commonsense way, are invulnerable to attack from either earth or air. The existence of the stories as stories and the speeches as speeches, is unaccountable on any supposition that denies the actual historic occurrence of the things done and said.
If this is the case with the merely uncomplimentary features of the speeches of Moses, consider how much stronger is the argument arising from the judicial and prophetic elements of these speeches of Moses. It is not only that Moses delivers such a splendid law (the true splendour of which can only be adequately appreciated in our day when looked at against the background of barbaric heathenism, Egyptian and Chaldean, of the age that saw its birth), but he takes a position with regard to the result of the obedience or disobedience of that law, that is absolutely inconceivable and inexplicable on the p. 93 supposition of the law being his own as ordinary laws are the authorship of human law-givers: “It shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee: cursed shalt thou be in the city: and cursed shalt thou be in the field: cursed shalt be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, and the increase of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall send upon these curses, vexation, and rebuke in all that thou settest thine hand to: pestilence shall cleave unto thee: the rain of thy land shall become powder and dust,” etc. What human law ever enacted penalties like these? They are all beyond human control. Moses could not carry them out. How are we to understand him threatening such consequences? If God sent Moses and gave the law through him, it is all plain. If Moses contrived the law out of his own head, how came he to attach penalties that no man could inflict? Consider this problem, Ladies and Gentlemen. You will find it insoluble, except in one way.
But the strongest point is to come: The consequence of disobedience was not only to be trouble in the land: it would go further: it would end in conquest by their enemies, and dispersion among all nations: “The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them, and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. Thou shalt grope at noonday as the blind grope in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways, and p. 94 thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. . . . The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other. . . . and among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest, but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart and failing of eyes and sorrow of mind,” etc. (Deut. xxviii. 15-20, 25, 64, 65).
Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, seriously face this fact: Israel has been disobedient to the law of Moses, and these humanly-uncontrollable curses have all been experienced by them down to this very day. They suffered many evils through physical derangements affecting their land; they were invaded and subdued by hostile nations, and for ages the people brought out of Egypt by Moses have been scattered among all people, and “among these nations they find no ease,” but are “only oppressed and spoiled evermore.” Here is an actual proof before our eyes of the truth of the superhuman penalties attached to the law of Moses. They have come to pass exactly as specified. How can you account for this if Moses contrived the law out of his own head? The supposition is utterly inadmissible. Moses disavows the authorship of the law (Num. xvi. 28). Had he been the author, it would have been both human nature and simple honesty for him to have claimed the authorship. Shall you stultify reason by contradicting him and attributing to him an impossibility in order that you may get away from that self-evident Divinity of the performance which is its only true value?