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life, and the pure and spiritual blessedness of a celestial existence, were wisely and necessarily placed under a Law, which was supported by a visible extraordinary Providence, conferring immediate rewards and punishments on the person of the offender: or which laid hold of his most powerful instincts, by denouncing that his crimes would be visited upon his children and his children's children to the third and fourth generation. And this proceeding was a necessary part of that national discipline under which the Jews were placed, and was free from all shadow of injustice. Because, when the innocent were afflicted for their parents' crimes (as Warburton has well observed) it was by the deprivation of temporal benefits, in their nature forfeitable. Or should this not so clearly appear, yet we may be sure, God, who reserved to himself the right of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, would perfectly rectify any apparent inequality in the course of his providential government over the chosen people, in another and a better world; by repaying the innocent, who had necessarily suffered here, with an eternal and abundant recompense

LECTURE IV.

A FUTURE STATE KNOWN TO THE JEWS.

SECT. I.-Doctrine of a future state, though it does not form the sanction of the Mosaic Law, is yet contained in the Writings of Moses. Warburton's assertions on this subject hasty and inconsistent with each other, and with the Seventh Article of the Church of England. Future state intimated in the history of the creation and the fall-by the circumstances attending the death of Abel-by the translation of Enoch-by the command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Future state must have been known to the Patriarchs, and influenced their conduct-attested in the Epistle to the Hebrews--instanced in the history of Jacob-of Mosesby our Lord's reply to the doubts of the Sadducees-the declaration of Bakiam Future state an object of popular belief among the Jews-from the laws relating to necromancers, &c.

HEBREWS, Xi, 13.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and "were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth."

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IN a former Lecture,* I have endeavoured to establish the first position I had laid down respecting the connexion that subsisted between the Mosaic Law and the belief of a future state of retribution; even that Moses did not sanction his Laws by the promise of future rewards and punishments; and to assign such reasons for this part of the divine economy, as the nature of the subject suggested. I now proceed to discuss the second conclusion, which an attentive perusal of the Old Testament appears to me to establish on this subject; even that the history recorded by the Jewish Lawgiver shows, that he himself believed a future state of retribution; and that it contains such proofs of it, as must naturally suggest it to every serious and reflecting mind, though with less clearness than the succeeding scriptures of the Old Testament, which exhibit this great truth with a perpetually increasing lustre, until by the Prophets it was so authori tatively revealed, as to become an article of popular belief and

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practical influence amongst the Jewish people, and thus prepare the way for the reception of the Gospel.

This position is abundantly confirmed by the Apostle to the Hebrews, in his eleventh chapter. It appears, however, very different from the opinion of the celebrated Warburton, with whose sentiments on the former part of this subject, I so nearly agreed. The subject of his fifth book* is to prove, That the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is not to be found in, and did not take part of, the Mosaic dispensation. One part of this proposition, that a future retribution was not employed as a sanction of the Mosaic Law, and in this sense made no part of the Jewish dispensation, I admit, and have endeavoured to account for, in agreement with the principles of this celebrated prelate. The other part, that the doctrine of a future state is not to be found in any part of the Mosaic records, I am compelled to dissent from. This opinion is, however, strongly expressed by this learned writer. He asserts," In no one place "of the Mosaic institutes, is there the least mention, or any

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intelligible hint, of the rewards and punishments of another "life" and afterwards, "I shall show, from a circumstance the "clearest and most incontestable, that the Israelites, from the "time of Moses to the time of their captivity, had not the "doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments."+ This circumstance, if really existing, would certainly be decisive to establish the conclusion it is brought to support. It is in brief, that throughout the entire Old Testament, various as the Sacred Writings are, in their subject, style and composition, and various as the occasions on which they were composed, and the characters of their authors; yet, says this eminent writer, "in none of these different circumstances of life, in none of "these various casts of composition, do we ever find them "acting on the motives, or influenced by the prospect of future "rewards and punishments, or indeed expressing the least hope "or fear or common curiosity concerning them; but every "thing they do or say respects the present life only, the good "and ill of which are the sole objects of all their pursuits and "aversions."§ And again, "I infer, as amidst all this variety "of writing the doctrine of a future state, never once appears

* Vide Book V. sect. i. Vol. iv. p. 133.

+ Divine Legation, Book V. sect. v. Vol. iv. p. 318.

Ibid. p. 344.

§ Warburton, Vol. iv. p. 344.

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"to have had any share in this people's thoughts, it never did "indeed make any part of their religious opinions." And again, "Their subterfuge is quite cut off, who pretend, that Moses did not indeed propagate the doctrine of a future state of rewardo and punishments, in writing, but that he delivered it to tra dition. For we see he was so far from teaching it, that he studiously contrived to keep it out of sight, nay, provided for "the want of it; and that the people were so far from being "influenced by it, that they had not even the idea of it."*

The authority of this learned writer would have raised considerable doubts in my mind, but that his own subsequent concessions, on the very same points, appear so different from the opinions I have now stated, as either entirely to overturn them, or at least limit them in such a manner as is perfectly consistent with the second position I have laid down. For, in the Sixth Book, sect. v. he thus explains his opinion: "But though it "appears that a future state of rewards and punishments made "no part of the Mosaic dispensation, yet the law had certainly "a spiritual meaning, to be understood when the fulness of "time should come: And hence it received the nature, and "afforded the efficacy, of prophecy. In the interim, the mystery of the Gospel" (including by this learned writer's own definition, the doctrine of a future retribution " was occasionally "revealed by God to his chosen servants, the fathers and leaders of "the Jewish nation; and the dawning of it was gradually opened "by the Prophets, to the people. And which is exactly agreeable "to what our excellent church, in its Seventh Article of Religion teacheth, concerning this matter:

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"ARTICLE VII.—The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament, everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises." +

It seems difficult to reconcile this tenet of the church with nis learned writer's opinion, "that through the whole Old "Testament, we never find any of the authors of the various compositions it contains, acting on the motives or influenced by the prospect of future rewards and punishments.”

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* Warburton, Book V. sect. v. Vol. iv. p. 359.

Ibid. Book VI. sect. v. at the beginning, Vol. v. p. 194.

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In truth, the mischief of rashly adopting a system, and orcing Scripture to bend to that system, is most conspicuous in this celebrated writer, on this subject. When he first states the idea, and adopts it as the basis of his reasoning, he advances in the most unqualified manner, "that throughout the whole "Old Testament, from Moses to the Captivity, the Israelites had "not the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments; " and that so much as an intelligible hint of it is not found in "the Mosaic law." In the passage immediately before us, he admits, "that it was occasionally revealed by God to his chosen "servants, the fathers and leaders of the Jewish nation; and “that it was gradually opened by the Prophets to the People." And in another passage he limits his assertion thus: "As my position is, that a future state of rewards and punishments "was not taught in the Mosaic dispensation, all texts brought "to prove the knowledge of it, after the time of David, are as impertinent as the rest (for what was known from his time, "could not supply the want of what was unknown for so many ages before): this therefore puts all the prophetic writings out "of the question."* The direct opposition between the assertion, that it was unknown until the Captivity, and yet gradually opened by the Prophets after the time of David, is obviously the consequence of that excessive rapidity of reasoning, and obstinate adherence to a preconceived system, which are too plainly discernible in this celebrated writer. But the opinion I have above stated will, I trust, be found to combine the various truths which his system has exhibited, while it avoids the inconsistencies in which it is involved. I shall therefore endeavour to establish it by direct evidence, somewhat at large; as it is a point of considerable importance in contemplating the progress of the divine economy, and the connexion between the Jewish and the Christian schemes.

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In the Mosaic account of the creation, the manner in which the formation of man is recorded, seems important in the view of this subject. God is represented as entering on this part of his work, as it were, with peculiar deliberation and solemnity: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our "likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, "and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the * Warburton, Book VI. sect. i. Vol. v. p. 9.

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