'This narrative is remarkable, for it commemorates a public solemnity held for no other purpose than that the laws of Moses might be impressed on the minds of the Jewish people. The writer also tells us that it was held in accordance with the book of Moses, and yet he does not tell us that the book of Moses was produced on that occasion, though we are to suppose that it was in existence. Yet something is then done which seems to prove by implication that there was no such book at all at that time. Joshua is said to have engraved on certain stones a copy of the law of Moses, and afterwards to have read all the words of the law, and the concluding paragraph relates that "there was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel." Must we, then, suppose that the whole of the Pentateuch was inscribed on those {88} stones by Joshua? What could be the use of inscribing the historical parts of the Pentateuch on those stones, or reading them afterwards to the people if the object was simply to admonish them that they should observe the law of Moses? It is more probable that an inscription, much shorter than the whole of the Pentateuch, was carved upon those stones, and as no mention is made of any book at all on the same occasion, we have a negative proof that no such book was in existence at that time. 'The delivery of the two tables renders it unlikely that any other writing was bequeathed by Moses to the Israelitish people, particularly as the age in wnich Moses lived precedes by many centuries the times in which books, as far as we know of them, can be proved to have been written.' *Chapter xxviii. The remarks on page 61 apply more forcibly here. In this chapter Moses exerts himself to the utmost to depict the blessings attendant upon obedience to the laws; he uses the most expressive words he can command to define the rewards which God will give his chosen people, but he never dreams of a crown in heaven, or of an eternal life of happiness after death. If man possessed an immortal soul in the days of Moses, it is certain that Moses was ignorant of its existence. When threatening the people with terrible punishments if they disobeyed the laws, when using terms which would degrade the Deity into a cruel and horrible monster, when speaking of events which, if they had occurred, would have made life a burthen, when using the most vindictive and diabolical curses, Moses never hinted at a hell fire in which men were burned 'for ever and ever,' by the fire which is never quenched, and, at the same time, further tormented by the worm that never dieth. The doctrines of the existence of a soul, and of its punishment or reward in a future state, were entirely unknown to the Jewish lawgiver. Verse 23. Here the heaven is to be 'brass,' and the earth 'iron.' In Leviticus, chap, xxvi., v. 19, the heaven is to be 'iron,' and the earth 'brass.'