Page:God Manifest.djvu/164

154 He speak those words, but He also wrote them down; in order that they might remain and be remembered. He wrote them, it is declared, on tables of stone, which tables Moses brought down with him from the mount, and deposited in the sacred Ark, where they were kept and carefully preserved for several hundred years. Thus, the, the beginning and basis of the Holy Scriptures, were not only of God's teaching, but of God's own hand-writing. In addition to this, Moses himself, by Divine command, wrote or copied in a book these ten great laws, together with many other more particular ones, declared to him by Jehovah in the mount; and this book, termed "the book of the covenant," he read in the hearing of the people; and they answered, "All that the Lord hath said we will do, and be obedient." This book was also carefully laid up, being committed to a special body of persons, the Levites, for preservation. And this book still exists—not indeed the identical manuscript—for it is impossible that a manuscript written on perishable materials should remain for such a length of time—but we have most exact and perfect copies of it. And this is by far the most ancient writing in existence. God was the first of authors, as He is infinitely the greatest,—as He is, indeed, the very Author of all authors themselves. Homer did not live till five hundred years after Moses. And compare Homer's Jupiter shaking Olympus with his nod, to the descriptions of the thunders and lightnings, and the sound of the trumpet, and the quaking of Sinai before the God of Israel. But we ought not to compare, for the one work is human, the other Divine. Homer himself, indeed,—as shown in a