that tells us so, for certainly Moses could not himself tell where
he was buried.

The writer also tells us, that no man knoweth where the sepulchre of
Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in which this writer lived;
how then should he know that Moses was buried in a valley in the land
of Moab? for as the writer lived long after the time of Moses, as is
evident from his using the expression of unto this day, meaning a great
length of time after the death of Moses, he certainly was not at his
funeral; and on the other hand, it is impossible that Moses himself
could say that no man knoweth where the sepulchre is unto this day. To
make Moses the speaker, would be an improvement on the play of a child
that hides himself and cries nobody can find me; nobody can find Moses.

This writer has no where told us how he came by the speeches which he
has put into the mouth of Moses to speak, and therefore we have a right
to conclude that he either composed them himself, or wrote them from
oral tradition. One or other of these is the more probable, since he
has given, in the fifth chapter, a table of commandments, in which that
called the fourth commandment is different from the fourth commandment
in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. In that of Exodus, the reason given
for keeping the seventh day is, because (says the commandment) God made
the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh; but in
that of Deuteronomy, the reason given is, that it was the day on which
the children of Israel came out of Egypt, and therefore, says this
commandment, the Lord thy God commanded thee to kee the sabbath-day This
makes no mention of the creation, nor that of the coming out of Egypt.
There are also many things given as laws of Moses in this book, that are
not to be found in any of the other books; among which is that inhuman
and brutal law, xxi. 18, 19, 20, 21, which authorizes parents, the
father and the mother, to bring their own children to have them stoned
to death for what it pleased them to call stubbornness.--But priests
have always been fond of preaching up Deuteronomy, for Deuteronomy
preaches up tythes; and it is from this book, xxv. 4, they have taken
the phrase, and applied it to tything, that "thou shalt not muzzle
the ox when he treadeth Out the corn:" and that this might not escape
observation, they have noted it in the table of contents at the head of
the chapter, though it is only a single verse of less than t