tine, or in a better country?* Again, where, under the law, we read of temporal promises, we read likewise that they were fulfilled. Where, under the GOSPEL, we read that "those who, for the sake of Christ, forsake houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or lands, shall receive an hundredfold;" what are we there to look for? For the good things of this world, which this sharp-sighted Doctor is so eager and intent to find? Now, admit there might be no great inconvenience in receiving a hundred houses for one; would not a hundred wives a little embarrass his professorship? And as to the house and land -Where did he learn that this was literally fulfilled, even to those who had the best title to them if they were literally promised, I mean the APOSTLES, yet these we always meet on foot; strangers upon earth; and without either house or home. He, who then passed for a learned apostle, once at Rome, indeed, got a warm house over his head; yet let us not forget that it was but a hired one. Here, in this capital of the world, he received all who came to him. But though a good divine, as times then went, he never rose to a regius professorship.

The second elementary rule of interpretation is, "That all the promises of extraordinary blessings, made to the first propagators of the gospel, are not to be understood as extending to their successors of all ages, or to the church in general." To apply this likewise to the thing in question. If it should be admitted that great temporal blessings were promised to the first disciples of Christ, it will not follow that their successors had a claim to them, any more than they had to their spiritual gifts and graces, such as the power of working miracles, prophesying, speaking with tongues, &c. Because as divine wisdom saw these latter to be necessary for the discharge of their peculiar function; so divine goodness might be graciously pleased to bestow the other on them, as the reward of their abundant faith, and superior courage in the day of trial, when the powers of this world were bent on their destruction. But this (blessed be God) is neither the learned professor's case, nor mine. The worst that has befallen me, in the defence of religion, is only the railings of the vile and impotent: and the worst that is likely to befall him, is only the ridicule of all the rest. Happy had it been for himself, and much happier for his hearers, had our professor's modesty disposed him rather to seek instruction from those who have gone before, than to impart it to those who are to come after. HOOKER has so admirably exposed this very specific folly which our Doctor has run into, of arguing against his senses, in making the dispensation of providence under the Mosaic and Christian economies to be the same, that I cannot do him better service than to transcribe the words of that divine ornament of the English priesthood:- "Shall we then hereupon ARGUE EVEN AGAINST OUR OWN EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE? Shall we seek to persuade men that, of necessity, it is with us as it was with them, that because God is ours, in all respects as much as theirs, therefore, either

no such way of direction hath been at any time, or if it have been, it doth still continue in the church? Or if the same do not continue, that yet it must be, at the least, supplied by some such means as pleaseth us to account of equal force? A more dutiful and religious way for us, were to admire the wisdom of God which shineth in the beautiful variety of things, but most in the manifold and yet harmonious dissimilitude of those ways, whereby his church upon earth is guided from age to age throughout all the generations of men." *

But this was one of the charitable expedients employed to set me right, and to prevent the disgrace of scribbling much to no purpose. However, as in a work of this nature, which partakes so much of the history of the human mind, I may be allowed occasionally, and as it falls in my way, to give as well, examples of its more uncommon degrees of depravity and folly, as of its improvements and excellencies, I shall go on. My constant friend Dr Stebbing proceeds another way to work, but all for the same good end. He desires me and my reader to consider, "what it was that Moses undertook; and what was the true end of his mission. It was to carry the children of Israel out of Egypt, and put them in possession of the land of Canaan, in execution of the covenant made with Abraham. The work in the very NATURE of it required the administration of an extraordinary providence; of which it OUGHT THEREFORE TO BE PRESUMED that Moses had both the assurance and experience: otherwise he would have engaged in a very MAD undertaking, and the people would have been as MAD in following him. THIS SHORT HINT POINTS OUT THE TRUE INTERNAL EVIDENCE of Moses's divine legation, and this evidence has no sort of dependence upon the belief or disbelief of the doctrine of a future state. For supposing (what is the truth) that the Israelites did believe it; what could this belief effect? It might carry them to heaven, and would do so if they made a proper use of it, but it could not put them in possession of the land of Canaan. Mr Warburton therefore has plainly mistaken his point."

This intimation of my mistake is kind: and I should have taken his hint, as short as it is, but for the following reasons:

1. This hint would serve the mufti full as well, to prove the divine legation of Mahomet: for thus we may suppose he would argue:"Mahomet's work was not like Moses's, the subdual of a small tract of country, possessed by seven tribes or nations, with a force of some hundred thousand followers; but the conquest of almost all Asia, with a handful of banditti. Now this work, says the learned Mahometan, in the very nature of it, required the administration of an extraordinary providence, of which IT OUGHT THEREFORE TO BE PRESUMED, that Mahomet had both the assurance and experience; otherwise he would have engaged in a very mad undertaking, and the people would have been as mad in following him."

Thus hath the learned Doctor taught the mufti how to reason. The

worst of it is, that I, for whom the kindness was principally intended, cannot profit by it, the argument lying exposed to so terrible a retortion. To this the Doctor replies, that the cases are widely different: and that I myself allow them to be different, for that I hold, the legation of Moses to be a true one; and the legation of Mahomet, an imposture. - Risum teneatis, amici!

But there is another reason why I can make nothing of this gracious hint. It is because I proposed to PROVE (and not, as he says I ought to have done, TO PRESUME upon) the divinity of Moses's mission, by an internal argument. Indeed he tells me, that if I be for proving, he has pointed out such a one to me. He says so, it is true: but in so saying, he only shows his ignorance of what is meant by an INTERNAL ARGUMENT. An internal argument is such a one as takes for its medium some notorious fact, or circumstance, in the frame and constitution of a religion, not in contest; and from thence, by necessary consequence, deduces the truth of a fact supported by testimony which is in contest. Thus, from the notorious fact of the omission of a future state in Moses's institution of law and religion, I deduce his divine legation.

But the learned artist himself seems conscious that the ware he would put into my hands is indeed no better than a counterfeit piece of trumpery; and so far from being an internal argument, that it is no argument at all; for he tells us, IT OUGHT THEREFORE TO BE PRESUMED, that Moses had both the assurance and experience that God governed the Israelites by an extraordinary providence.

But what follows is such unaccountable jargon! - For supposing the Israelites did believe a future state, what would this belief effect? It might carry them to heaven, but it could not put them in possession of the land of Canaan. This looks as if the learned Doctor had supposed that, from the truth of this assertion, That no civil society under a common providence could subsist without a future state, I had inferred, that, with a future state, society would be able to work wonders. What efficacy a future state hath, whether little or much, affects not my argument any otherwise than by the oblique tendency it hath to support the reasoning: and I urged it thus; - "Had not the Jews been under an extraordinary providence, at that period when Moses led them out to take possession of the land of Canaan, they were most unfit to bear the want of the doctrine of a future state:" which observation I supported by the case of Odin's followers, and Mahomet's; who, in the same circumstances of making conquests, and seeking new habitations, had this doctrine sedulously inculcated on them, by their respective leaders. And the histories of both these nations inform us, that nothing so much contributed to the rapidity of their successes as the enthusiasm which that doctrine inspired.

And yet, to be sure, the Doctor never said a livelier thing, who is celebrated for saying many, than when he asked, What could this belief effect? It might carry them to heaven; but it could not put them in possession of the land of Canaan. Now unluckily, like most of these witty things, when too nearly inspected, we find it to be just the reverse of the truth. The belief could never carry them to heaven, and yet was abundantly sufficient, under such a leader as Moses, to put them in possession of the land of Canaan. The Arabians' belief of a future state could never, in the opinion at least of our orthodox Doctor, carry them to heaven; yet he must allow, it enabled them to take and keep possession of a great part of Europe and Asia. But the Doctor's head was running on the efficacy of the Christian faith, when he talked of belief carrying men to heaven. Yet who knows, but when he gave the early Jews the knowledge of a future state, he gave them the Christian faith into the bargain?

SECT. V.

THUS we see that an EXTRAORDINARY PROVIDENCE WAS THE NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF A THEOCRACY; and that this providence is represented in Scripture to have been really administered. TEMPORAL REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS, therefore, (the effects of this providence,) and not future, MUST NEEDS BE THE SANCTION of their law and religion.

Having thus prepared the ground, and laid the foundation, I go on to show,

[I.] That future rewards and punishments, which COULD NOT BE THE SANCTION of the Mosaic dispensation, WERE NOT TAUGHT in it at all: and that, in consequence of this omission, the PEOPLE had not the doctrine of a future state for many ages. And here my arguments will be chiefly directed against the believing part of my opponents; no deist,* that I know of, ever pretending that the doctrine of a future state was to be found in the law.

Moses delivered to the Israelites a complete digest of law and religion: but, to fit it to the nature of a theocratic government, he gave it perfectly incorporated. And, for the observance of the entire institution, he added the sanction of rewards and punishments: both of which we have shown to be necessary for the support of a republic: and yet, that civil society, as such, can administer only one.f

Now in the Jewish republic, both the rewards and punishments promised by heaven were TEMPORAL only. Such as health, long life, peace, plenty, and dominion, &c., diseases, immature death, war, famine, want, subjection, and captivity, &c. And in no one place of the Mosaic institutes is there the least mention, or any intelligible hint, of the rewards and punishments of another life.

When SOLOMON had restored the integrity of religion; and, to the regulated purity of worship, had added the utmost magnificence; in his DEDICATION of the new built temple, he addresses a long prayer to the God of Israel, consisting of one solemn petition for the continuance of * See note Y, at the end of this book. †i. e. Punishments. See vol. I. p. 123.

the OLD COVENANT made by the ministry of Moses. He gives an exact account of all its parts, and explains at large the SANCTION of the Jewish law and religion. And here, as in the writings of Moses, we find nothing but TEMPORAL rewards and punishments; without the least hint or intimation of a future state.

The holy PROPHETS speak of no other. Thus Isaiah; "Then shall he give the rain of thy seed that thou shalt sow the ground withal, and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous; and in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures. And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of water."* And Jeremiah: "I will surely consume them, saith the Lord; there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig-tree, and the leaf shall fade, and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. I will send serpents and cockatrices amongst you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the Lord."† Nay so little known, in these times, was any other kind of rewards and punishments to the Jewish people, that, when the prophets foretell that NEW dispensation, by which life and immortality were brought to light, they express even those future rewards and punishments under the image of the present. Thus Zechariah, prophesying of the times of CHRIST, describes the punishment attendant on a refusal of the terms of grace, under the ideas of the Jewish economy: "And it shall be that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem, to worship the King the Lord of Hosts, even upon them SHALL BE NO RAIN." I would have those men well consider this, who persist in thinking "that the early Jews had the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, though Moses taught it not expressly to them;" and then tell me why Zechariah, when prophesying of the gospel times, should choose to express these future rewards and punishments under the image of the pre

sent?

Indeed, were it not for the amazing prejudices which have obtained on this subject, a writer's pains to show that a future state of rewards and punishments made no part of the Mosaic dispensation, would appear as absurd to every intelligent reader, as his would be who should employ many formal arguments to prove that Sir Isaac Newton's Theory of Light and Colours is not to be found in Aristotle's books de Cælo et de Coloribus. I will therefore for once presume so much on the privilege of common sense, as to suppose, the impartial reader may be now willing to confess, that the doctrine of life and immortality was not yet known to a people while they were sitting in darkness, and in the region and shadow of death;§ and go on to other matters that have more need to be explained.

[II.] I shall show then, in the next place, that this OMISSION was not accidental; or of a thing which Moses did not well understand: but that, ‡ Chap. xiv. ver. 17.