'In the 1st chapter of Judges, the writer, after announcing the death of Joshua, proceeds to tell what happened between the children of Judah and the native inhabitants of the land of Canaan. In this statement, the writer, having abruptly mentioned Jerusalem in the seventh verse, says immediately after, in the eighth verse, by way of explanation, "Now the children of Judah _had_ fought against Jerusalem, and had _taken_ it:" consequently, this book could not have been written before Jerusalem had been taken. In the quotation just made from the 15th chapter of Joshua, verse 63, it is said, that _the Jebusitea dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day_, meaning the time when the Book of Joshua was written. 'The evidence I have already produced, to prove that the books I have hitherto treated of were not written by the persons to whom they are ascribed, nor till many years after their death, if such persons ever lived, is already so abundant, that I can afford to admit this passage with less weight than I am entitled to draw from it. For the case is, that so far as the Bible can be credited as a history, the city of Jerusalem was not taken till the time of David; and consequently, that the Books of Joshua and of Judges were not written till after the commencement of the reign of David, which was 370 years after the death of Joshua. 'The name of the city that was afterwards called Jerusalem, was originally Jebus or Jebusi, and was the capital of the Jebusites. The account of David's taking this city is given in 2 Samuel, chap, v., v. 4, etc; also in 1 Chron., chap, xiv., v. 4, etc. There is no mention in any part of the Bible that it was ever taken before, nor any account that favours such an opinion. It is not said, either in Samuel or in the Chronicles, that they _utterly destroyed men, women, and children; that they left not a soul to breathe_, as is said of their other conquests; and the silence here observed implies that it was taken by capitulation, and that the Jebusites, the native inhabitants, continued to live in the place after it was taken. The account, therefore, given in Joshua, that _the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah_ at Jerusalem unto this day, corresponds to no other time than after the taking the city by David.' 'Chap, xix., 47. And the coast of the children of Dan went out too little for them; therefore the children of Dan went up to fight against Leshem [called Laish in Judges, chap, xviii., v. 29], and took it and smote it with the edge of the sword, and possessed it and dwelt therein! and called Leshem Dan, after the name of Dan, their father.