oses which he set forth was the very law which
had been handed down from ancient times, and of which we have frequent
notices in the books of Kings and Chronicles.

It is generally supposed that Ezra himself wrote the books of
Chronicles. They were certainly composed about his time. To
admit, as all do, that in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah the law
of Moses means the Pentateuch as a whole, and to deny that it
has the same meaning in the books of Chronicles, is very
inconsistent. Certainly the book which Ezra set forth was the
book which he found ready at hand, and therefore the book
referred to in the Chronicles, and the Kings also. Any
explanatory additions which he may have made did not affect its
substance. It remains for the objector to show why it was not,
in all essential respects, the book which Hilkiah found in the
temple, 2 Chron. 34:14, and to which David referred in his dying
charge to Solomon, 1 Kings 2:3.

6. Passing by, for the present, the notices of the law of Moses
contained in the book of Joshua, we come to the testimony of the book of
Deuteronomy. We have seen that the Mosaic authorship of the book, as a
part of the Pentateuch, is everywhere assumed by the writers of the New
Testament. But, in addition to this, they make quotations from it under
the forms, "Moses wrote," "Moses truly said unto the fathers," etc. Mark
10:3-5; Acts 3:22; Rom. 10:19. If we examine the book itself, its own
testimony is equally explicit. In chap. 17:24 Moses directs that when
the Israelites shall appoint a king, "he shall write him a copy of this
law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites." In
the opinion of some, this language refers to the whole law of Moses,
while others would restrict it to the book of Deuteronomy; but all are
agreed that it includes the whole of the latter work, with the exception
of the closing sections. By a comparison of this passage with chaps.
28:58; 31:9, 24-26, the evidence is complete that Moses wrote this law,
and delivered it to the priests, to be laid up by the side of the ark in
the tabernacle. If this testimony needed any corroboration, we should
have it in the character of the work itself. It is the solemn farewell
of the aged lawgiver to the people whose leader he had been for the
space of forty years. In perfect harmony with this are the grandeur and
dignity of its style, its hortatory character, and the exqui