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would set upon an army of twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse, with only eight hundred straggling desperadoes; which rash and fanatic attempt was followed with the fortune that might, at this time, have been expected.* - In such a season too, artful leaders are most disposed to support themselves by inspirations; have most need of them; and are thought, by the people, most worthy to receive them.

There is the same difference between the writers of the New Testament and of the Old, as between the writers of the several ages of the Old. The apostles (who worked miracles as well as Moses and the prophets) represent the followers of CHRIST as under the same common providence with the rest of mankind: unlike, in this, to the first propagators of the LAW, who always declared the Israelites to be under an extraordinary providence.

From all this I conclude, that as amidst the concurrence of so many favourable circumstances, no such claim was made; but that, contrary to the universal practice of all false religions, the Jews saw and owned a great change in the divine economy, that therefore their former pretensions to the peculiar protection of Heaven were TRUE.

But it hath been objected, that the early sacred writers themselves frequently speak of the inequality of providence to particulars:† and in such a manner as men living under a common providence are accustomed to speak. It is very true that these writers do now and then give intimations of this inequality. And therefore, though we shall hereafter prove an extraordinary providence to have been actually administered, in which, not only this objection will be seen to drop of itself, but the particular passages, on which it is founded, will be distinctly considered, yet, for the reader's satisfaction, it may not be amiss to show here, that these representations of inequality are very consistent with that before given of the extraordinary providence. We say, therefore,

I. That when the sacred writers speak of the inequalities of providence, and the unfit distribution of things, they often mean that state of it amongst their pagan neighbours, and not in Judea: as particularly in the book of Psalms and Ecclesiastes.‡

II. We sometimes find men complaining of inequalities in events, which were indeed the effects of a most equal providence. Such as the punishment of posterity for the crimes of their forefathers; and of subjects for their kings. Of the first, the prophet Ezekiel gives us an instance in the people's case: "What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?"*_ Of the second, David gives it in his own; not duly attending to the justice of this proceeding where he says; But these sheep, what have they done?t And that he was sometimes too hasty in judging of these matters appears from his own confession: "Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me: until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction. So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee."‡ That is, I understood not the course of thy justice, till I had considered the way in which an equal providence must necessarily be administered under a theocracy, and the consequences of such an administration. For,

*1 Mac. ix. 6.

†- Asaph de Dei providentia dubitavit, et fere a vera via deflexisset-Salomon etiam, eujus tempore res Judæorum in summo vigore erant, suspicatur omnia casu contingereDenique omnibus fere prophetis hoc ipsum valde obscurum fuit, nempe quomodo ordo naturæ et hominum eventus cum conceptu quem de providentia Dei formaverant, posset convenire. Spinozzæ Theologico-Pol.-Pp. 73, 74.,

‡ See Appendix.

III. Even admitting the reality of an equal providence to particulars in the Hebrew state, the administration of it must needs be attended with such circumstances as sometimes to occasion those observations of inequality. For, 1. It appears from the reason of the thing, that this administration did not begin to be exerted in particular cases till the civil laws of the republic had failed of their efficacy. Thus where any crime, as for instance disobedience to parents, was public, it became the object of the civil tribunal, and is accordingly ordered to be punished by the judge. But when private and secret, then it became the object of divine vengeance. || Now the consequence of this was, that when the laws were remissly or corruptly administered, good and ill would sometimes happen unequally to men. For we are not to suppose that providence, in this case, generally interfered till the corrupt administration itself, when ripe for vengeance, had been first punished. 2. In this extraordinary administration, one part of the wicked was sometimes suffered as a scourge to the other. 3. The extraordinary providence to the state might sometimes clash with that to particulars, as in the plague for numbering the people. 4. Sometimes the extraordinary providence was suspended for a season, to bring on a national repentance: but at the same time this suspension was publicly denounced. And a very severe punishment it was, as leaving a state which had not the sanction of a future state of rewards and punishments in a very disconsolate condition. And this was what occasioned the complaints of the impatient Jews, after they had been so long accustomed to an extraordinary administration.**

IV. But the general and full solution of the difficulty is this, The common cause of these complaints arose from the GRADUAL WITHDRAWING the extraordinary providence. Under the judges it was perfectly equal. And during that period of the theocracy, it is remarkable that we hear of no complaints. When the people had rebelliously demanded

* Ezek. xviii. 2.

‡ Ps. lxxiii. 12-22.

† 2 Sam. xxiv. 17.

§ Exod. xxi. 15, and 17.

Is. iii. 5; lix. 2; lxiv. 7.

|| Deut. xxvii. 16; and Prov. xxx. 17. ** Is. v. 19; Jer. xvii. 15; Amos v. 18; Zeph. i. 12; Mal. ii. 17.

a king, and their folly was so far complied with, that God suffered the theocracy to be administered by a viceroy, there was then, as was fitting, a great abatement in the vigour of this extraordinary providence; partly in natural consequence, God being now farther removed from the immediate administration; and partly in punishment of their rebellion. And soon after this it is that we first find them beginning to make their observations and complaints of inequality. From hence to the time of the captivity, the extraordinary providence kept gradually decaying, till on their full re-establishment, it entirely ceased.* For what great reasons, besides punishment for their crimes; and what consequences it had on the religious sentiments of the people, will be occasionally explained as we go along.

But now, let it be observed, that though I have here accounted for the appearances of an unequal providence, yet this is ex abundanti; the very nature of my general argument evincing, that there must needs have been an equal providence actually administered: for a people in society, without both a future state and an equal providence, could have no belief in the moral government of God: and under such circumstances, it hath been shown, that they could not long subsist, but must fall back again into all the confusion of a savage state. We must conclude therefore, that what appearances soever there may be of inequality in the administration of providence, in the early times of the Jewish theocracy, they are but appearances: that is, nothing which can really affect such a mode of administration.† The adversaries therefore of the Dirine Legation, such of them, I mean, who profess themselves believers, should consider that, while they oppose the reality of an extraordinary providence over the Jewish people, they are weakening the evidence for the miracles recorded in the Old Testament. But this is the least of their care. One of them, with an assurance that hath something in it of a prodigy, affirms, "that the providence administered under the law was exactly the same kind with that administered under the gospel." How this could be the case, without impeaching the veracity of God himself, as not making good his repeated engagements, this man would do well to consider before he becomes the scorn and contempt of unbelievers. But as such sort of men bear worse the disgrace of folly than impiety, I shall consider this portent on its ridiculous side only.

Temporal rewards and punishments administered by the hand of God, followed, as a consequence, from the Jewish government's being theocratical; and an extraordinary providence followed, as a consequence, from the dispensation of temporal rewards and punishments. Yet here we have a regius professor of divinity affirming, that both temporal sanctions and an extraordinary providence are administered under the gospel in the very same manner they formerly were under the law. In * See note U, at the end of this book. † See note X, at the end of this book.

‡ Dr Rutherforth.

which it is difficult to determine what most to admire; his modesty or his wit. For if it does honour to his wit to maintain conclusions destitute of their premises, it as strongly recommends his modesty to contradict the whole tenor of the New Testament. But there is neither end nor measure to party bigotry. Faustus, the Manichean, contended that the Jews and Christians got the doctrine of the one only God from the gentiles. Is this a wilder fancy than what many modern divines have asserted, that the gentiles got the doctrine of future rewards and punishment from the law of Moses? Or are either of these more extravagant than the folly I am going to expose, namely, that the temporal sanctions of the LAW are transferred into the GOSPEL? Now, if you should ask whether the gospel claimed to be a theocracy; I suppose, at first, they would say no; till they found the advantage you get over them by this answer. And then, I make no doubt, they would as readily say yes. For what should hinder them? Does the gospel disclaim, in stronger terms, its being a TEMPORAL KINGDOM, when Christ says, his kingdom was not of this world, than it disclaims TEMPORAL SANCTIONS, when it says, "Yea, and all that will live godly in Jesus Christ shall suffer persecution,"* or than it disclaims an extraordinary providence where it declares that the Jews had the promise of the life that now is, and the Christians of that which is to come?t

But not to stretch our conjectures to the lengths these men are disposed to go; let us consider how far they have already gone. They say the temporal sanctions of the law are transferred into the gospel: and they prove it by these two notable texts:

The first is of St PAUL, "Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is right. Honour thy father and thy mother (which is the first commandment with promise) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth."‡ All that I here find transferred, from the law to the gospel, are the words of the fifth commandment. For the apostle having said, "Children obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right," he supports his exhortation by a quotation from the decalogue; just as any modern preacher, on this, would do, without ever dreaming of temporal sanctions in the gospel; the observation the apostle makes upon it being in these words which is the first commandment with promise; as much as to say, "You may see from this circumstance, how very acceptable the performance of this duty is to God:" the only inference which common sense authorizes us to draw from it being what in another place, he thus expresses, -" Godliness [or the observance of God's commands] is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is [under the LAW] and of that which is to come [under the GOSPEL]."

The other colour for this clandestine transfer of temporal sanctions, is from St PETER: "Who is he that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is good?"§ So says the apostle; and so too said his *2 Tim. iii. 12. †1 Tim. iv. 8. ‡ Eph. vi. 2, 3. §1 Pet. iii. 13.

Master; to whose words Peter alludes, "Fear not them which kill the body: but rather fear him which is able to destroy body and soul in hell."* But as if the apostle had it in his thoughts to guard against this absurd vision of temporal sanctions, he immediately subjoins-" But, and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye."

Our Doctor having so well made out this point, we need not wonder at his confidence, when he assures us, that there is full as good evidence of an extraordinary providence under the Christian dispensation as under the Jewish. This though the language of Toland, Tindal, Collins, and the whole tribe of freethinkers, yet comes so unexpected from a regius professor of divinity, that we should be very careful not to mistake his meaning.

If, by full as good, he would insinuate that an extraordinary providence was administered under both dispensations, I shall be in pain for his intellects: if he would insinuate, that an extraordinary providence was administered in neither, I shall be in pain for his professorship. But he is in pain for nothing; as the reader may perceive by his manner of supporting this impertinent paradox. His proofs follow with equal ease and force." I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth, as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." † -" And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." -"Take therefore no thought saying, What shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." §-And again, "If ye ask any thing in my name, I will give it." || -" No more, my most wise friend? Thou hast my wonder; that's enough. My understanding shall come after;" said, once on a time, a plain good man to a profound philosopher like this.

Now not to repeat again the illogical bravado of taking and supporting a conclusion divorced from its premises; such as is the contending for temporal sanctions and an extraordinary providence where there was no theocracy, from whence they could be derived; we have here a professor of divinity who has his elements of scripture-interpretation yet to learn. The first rule of which is, 1. "That all, does not signify all simply, but all of one kind; and, of what kind, the context must direct us to determine." When, therefore, the members of Christ's spiritual kingdom are promised they shall obtain all they ask, this all must needs be confined to things spiritual. Now when here we find those, who are bid to leave their temporal possessions and propagate the gospel, have the promise of a hundredfold, are we to seek for the performance, in Pales‡ Mat. xix. 29.

* Mat. x. 28.

Mat, vi. 31, et seq.

† Mat. xviii. 19. || John xiv. 14.

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