From the Asmonean New York, June 14, 1853.

Editor of the Asmonean: Sir, —Many unavailing endeavours to invalidate the Pentateuch have been made in former ages, as in the present; but until I noticed in your last weekly that it is alleged the Pentateuch was not in existence previous to, and during the Hebrew monarchy, I was not aware how a sensible writer could arrive at that conclusion.

It is well known that the ancient Hebrews viewed that sacred document as the modern Americans view the Declaration of Independence, and that all subsequent laws (say the Mishna,) were predicated upon from that document.

We know also that the Holy Land was vouchsafed to them only so long as they obeyed the Law given to them at Sinai, which owing to ignorance and internal discord, &c., was totally discarded, when they were scattered among the heathen and the cities became desolate and the lands wasted, as Moses predicted in chapter 26^th, Leviticus, (before they had put a foot in the Promised Land) as it is even to this day.

We ought to recollect the state and condition the nation was in at that time, and that they were surrounded by fierce nations that bore them an hereditary hatred, and they were too grossly idolatrous to arrive at a sound conclusion.

That the Pentateuch was appealed to very often, therefore, there cannot be a reasonable doubt, but to put it beyond the shadow of a doubt, we will suppose a case in point. Suppose a political infidel or sceptic, should in after ages doubt the History of the Independence, the document of its declaration. How would its advocate prove the fact of its occurrence? Would he not prove by writers of good authority that cited the facts? Exactly so. I refer the reader to Psalms 78: 3-4,6, where are such evident allusions made to prominent facts recorded in Genesis and Exodus, that cannot be misunderstood by the most unlearned Bible reader or obstinate sceptic; that the Pentateuch was in existence previous to the writer of the Psalms (which was previous to the monarchy,) I quote as follows: —“Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.” “We will not hide from their children, showing the generations to come,” &c. “That the generations to come might know, even the children which should be born, and should arise and declare them to their children;” verses 3, 4, 6. That the Psalmist made the Law his study, we have assurances in verses 15, 16, 92, 148, of Psalm 119.

In fact, so strong is the internal evidence of the Divine Inspiration of the Pentateuch, so many predictions pervade it which cannot have emanated from the wisest men, which history proves to have happened, that with Solomon we may say, “There hath not failed one word of all which He promised by the hand of Moses his servant.”—1 Kings 8: 56.

From the fact so repeatedly foretold in the Five Books of Moses that we were to be scattered all over the earth, literally, to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south, as we are now and have been many days (ages) without “a king and without a Prince, and without a sacrifice and without an Image, and without an Ephod, and without Teraphim”—Hosea 3: 4.

Yet not destroyed or amalgamated with the nations among whom Providence has cast our lot, this appears to me to betoken a design we are made the unwilling instruments to carry out—a design so Godlike so truly gracious to all his creatures, so stupendous, that “ye will not believe though it be told you,” as it is written in Habakkuk 1: 5, viz. the accomplishment or fulfilment of his oath to Abraham, to which Micah 7: 20 alludes. Awaiting with confidence the fulfilment of the Promise by Hosea, to wit, verse 5, chapter 3.

I am Respectfully Yours,

D. DAVIES.

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“What a tangled web they weave,

“When erst men practise to deceive.”

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To be poor in purse, and poor in faith, is abject poverty indeed.

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To believe in “a kingdom beyond the skies,” is not to believe in the kingdom in the Holy Land. The future establishment of the latter in that covenanted region is the burden of all the prophets, and the proclamation of the apostles: the former is promised neither to saint nor sinner, in a single chapter of the testimony of God.