the Bible.

As for the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, having
been written by Moses, or at least by far the greater part of them,
I cannot see the least reason to doubt it.

The Bible itself does not say so; and therefore it is not a matter
of faith, and men may have their own opinions on the matter, without
sin or false doctrine. But that Moses wrote part at least of them,
our Lord and his Apostles say expressly. The tradition of the Jews
(who really ought to know best) has always been that Moses wrote
either the whole or the greater part. Moses is by far the most
likely man to have written them, of all of whom we read in
Scripture. We have not the least proof, and, what is more, never
shall or can have, that he did not write them. And therefore, I
advise you to believe, as I do, that the universal tradition of both
Jews and Christians is right, when it calls these books, the books
of Moses. {7}

But now no more of these matters: we will think of a matter quite
infinitely more important, and that is, WHO is this God whom the
Bible reveals to us, from the very first verse of Genesis?

At least, he is one and the same Being. Whether he be called El,
Jehovah, or Adonai, he is the same Lord.

It is the Lord who makes the heaven and the earth, the Lord who puts
man in a Paradise, lays on him a commandment, and appears to him in
visible shape.

It is the Lord who speaks to Abraham: though Abraham knew him only
as El-Shaddai, the Almighty God. It is the Lord who brings the
Israelites out of Egypt, who gives them the law on Sinai. It is the
Lord who speaks to Samuel, to David, to all the Prophets, and
appears to Isaiah, while his glory fills the Temple. In whatever
'divers manners' and 'many portions,' as St. Paul says in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, he speaks to them, he is the same Being.

And Psalmists and Prophets are most careful to tell us that he is
the God, not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles; of all mankind--
as indeed, he must be, being Jehovah, the I Am, the one Self-
existent and Eternal Being; that from his throne he is watching and
judging all the nations upon earth, fashioning the hearts of all,
appointing them their bounds, and the times of their habitation, if
haply they may seek after him and find him, though he be not far
from any one of them; for in him they live and move and have their
being.

This is the message of Moses, of the Psalmists and the Prophets,
just a