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injustice? since a posterity, when innocent, was affected only in their civil conditional rights; and, when deprived of those which were natural and unconditional, were always guilty.

From all this it appears, that the excellent GROTIUS himself had a very crude and imperfect notion of the whole matter, when he resolved the justice of it entirely into God's sovereign right over his creatures. "Deus quidem in lege Hebræis datâ paternam impietatem in posteros se vindicaturum minatur: sed ipse jus dominii plenissimum habet, et in res nostras, ita in vitam nostram, ut munus suum, quod sine ullâ causâ et quovis tempore auferre cuivis, quando vult, potest."*

II. As to the second point, the charge of contradiction in the dispensation, we now see, that, on the contrary, these different declarations of God's manner of punishing in two so distant periods, are the MOST DIVINE INSTANCE of constancy and uniformity in the manifestations of eternal justice: so far are they from any indication of a milder or severer spirit, as Tindal with equal insolence and folly hath objected to revelation. For while a future state was kept hid from the Jews, there was absolute need of such a law to restrain the more daring spirits, by working on their instincts; or, as Cicero expresses it-ut caritas liberorum amiciores parentes reipublicæ redderet. But when a doctrine was brought to light which held them up, and continued them after death, the objects of divine justice,† it had then no farther use; and was therefore reasonably to be abolished with the rest of the judicial laws, peculiar to the Mosaic dispensation. But these men have taken it into their heads, and what comes slowly in, will go slowly out, that it was repealed for its injustice; though another reason be as plainly intimated by the prophets, as the circumstances of those times would permit; and so plainly by JEREMIAH, that none but such heads could either not see or not acknowledge it. In his thirty-first chapter, foretelling the advent of the NEW dispensation, he expressly says, this law shall be revoked: IN THOSE DAYS they shall say no more, the fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity. Yet, in the very next chapter, speaking of the OLD dispensation, under which they then lived, he as expressly declares the law to be still in force. When I had delivered the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch, I prayed unto the Lord, saying, Thou showest lovingkindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them. Is this like a man who had forgot himself, or who suspected the law of cruelty or injustice?

But the ignorance of freethinking was here unaffected; and indeed the more excusable, as the matter had of old perplexed both Jews and Christians. The synagogue was so scandalized at EZEKIEL'S declarations against this mode of punishment, that they deliberated a long time whether he should not be thrown out of the canon, for contradicting MOSES

* De Jure Bel. et Pac. vol. ii. p. 593,-ed. Barbeyrac, Amst. 1720. † See note I I, at the end of this book. ‡ Ver. 29, 30.

Ver. 16 and 18.

in so open a manner. .* And sentence had at last passed upon him, but that one Chananias promised to reconcile the two prophets. How he kept his word, is not known, for there is nothing of his extant upon the subject; only we are told that he proved himself a man of honour, and, with great labour and study, at length did the business.†

ORIGEN was so perplexed with the different assertions of these two prophets, that he could find no better way of reconciling them than by having recourse to his allegorical fanaticism, and supposing the words of the first to be a parable or mystic speech; which however, he would not pretend to decipher. The learned father, having quoted some pagan oracles intimating that children were punished for the crimes of their forefathers, goes on in this manner: "How much more equitable is what our scriptures say on this point: The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin, Deut. xxiv. 16, &c. But if any one should object that this verse of the oracle,

On the children's children and their posterity;

is very like what scripture says, that God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him, Exod. xx. 5, he may learn from Ezekiel that those words are a PARABLE; for the prophets reprove such as say, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge; and then it follows: As I live, saith the Lord, every one shall die for his own sins only. But this is not the place to explain what is meant by the PARABLE of visiting iniquity unto the third and fourth generation."* There could hardly be more mistakes in so few words. The two texts in Deuteronomy and Exodus, which Origen represents as treating of the same subject, treat of subjects very different: the first, as we have shown above, concerns the magistrate's execution of the law; the other, that which God reserves to himself. Again, because the text of Exodus apparently occasioned the proverb mentioned by Ezekiel and Jeremiah, therefore by a strange blunder or prevarication, the father brings the proverb in

* Les Juifs disent qu' Ezechiel étoit serviteur de Jérémie, et que le sanhedrin delibera long-tems, si l'on rejeteroit son livre du canon des écritures. Le sujet de leur chagrin contre ce prophete vient de son extreme obscurité, et de ce qu'il enseigne diverses choses contraires à Moise-Ezechiel, disent-ils, a declaré, Que le fils ne porteroit plus l'iniquité de son pere, contre ce que Moise dit expressement, Que le Seigneur venge l'iniquité des peres sur les enfans, jusqu'à la troisieme et quatrieme generation. Calmet, Dissert. vol. ii. p. ‡ Exod. xx; Exek. xviii.

361.

† See note KK, at the end of this book.

§Ὅρα δὲ ὅσῳ τούτου βίλτιον τὸ, Οὐκ ἀποθανοῦνται, &c. ἐὰν δί τις ὅμοιον εἶναι λέγῃ τῷ

Ἐς παίδων παῖδας οἳ καὶ ὄπισθεν γένωνται,

τὸ, ̓Αποδιδοὺς ἁμαρτίας πατίρων ἐπὶ τίκνα, ἐπὶ τρίτην καὶ τετάρτην γενεὰν τοῖς μισοῦσί [με·] μαθέτω, ὅτι ἐν τῷ Ἰεζεκιήλ παραβολὴ τὸ τοιοῦτον εἶναι λέλεκται, αἰτιωμένω τοὺς λέγοντας, Οἱ πατίοις ἔφαγον ὄμφακα, καὶ οἱ ὀδόντες τῶν τέκνων ἡμωδίασαν· ᾧ ἐπιφέρεται, Ζῶ ἐγὼ, λέγει Κύριος, ἀλλ ̓ ἤ ἕκαστος τῇ ἑαυτοῦ ἁμαρτίᾳ ἀποθανεῖται. Οὐ κατὰ τὸν παρόντα δὲ καιρόν ἐστι, διηγήσασθαι τι σημαίνει ἡ περὶ τοῦ τρίτην καὶ τετάρτην γενεὰν ἀποδιδόεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας παραβολή. -Cout. Cels. p. 403.

proof that the law which gave birth to it, was but a proverb or parable itself.*

[III.] We have now shown that Moses did not teach a future state of reward and punishment; and that he omitted it with design; that he understood its great importance to society; and that he provided for the want of it. And if we may believe a great statesman and philosopher, "Moses had need of every SANCTION that his knowledge or his imagination could suggest, to govern the unruly people to whom he gave a law, in the name of God."†

But as the proof of this point is only for the sake of its consequence, that therefore the people had not the knowledge of that doctrine, our next step will be to establish this consequence: which (if we take in those circumstances attending the omission, just explained above) will, at the same time, show my argument in support of this omission to be more than negative.

Now though one might fairly conclude, that the people's not having this doctrine, was a necessary consequence of Moses's not teaching it, in a law which forbids the least addition to the written institute; yet 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 reward and punishment.

The BIBLE contains a very circumstantial history of this people throughout the aforesaid period. It contains not only the history of public occurrences, but the lives of private persons of both sexes, and of all ages, conditions, characters, and complexions; in the adventures of virgins, matrons, kings, soldiers, scholars, merchants, and husbandmen. All these, in their turns, make their appearance before us. They are given too in every circumstance of life; captive, victorious; in sickness, and in health; in full security, and amidst impending dangers; plunged in civil business, or retired and sequestered in the service of religion. Together with their story, we have their compositions likewise. Here they sing their triumphs; there, their palinodia. Here, they offer up to the Deity their hymns of praise; and there, petitions for their wants: here, they urge their moral precepts to their contemporaries; and there, they treasure up their prophecies and predictions for posterity; and to both denounce the promises and threatenings of Heaven. Yet 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 even 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.§ Hear then the sum of all. The sacred writings are extremely various both in their subject, style, and composition. They contain an account of the creation, and origin of the human race; the history of a private family, of a chosen people, and of exemplary men and women. They consist of hymns and petitions to the Deity, precepts of civil life, and religious prophecies and predictions. Hence I infer that as, amidst all this variety of writing, the doctrine of a future state never once appears to have had any share in this people's thoughts; it never did indeed make part of their religious opinions.* And when, to all this, we find their occasional reasoning only conclusive on the supposition that a future state was not amongst the religious doctrines of the people, the above considerations, if they needed any, would receive the strongest support and confirmation. To give one example out of many. The psalmist says; for the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous: lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity."† That is, "God will vigorously administer that extraordinary providence which the nature of the dispensation required to be administered, lest the righteous, not seeing themselves exempt from the evils due to wickedness, should conclude that there was no moral Governor of the world; and so, by making their own private interest the rule of their actions, fall into the practice of all kinds of iniquity." But this could never be the consequence where an unequal dispensation of providence was attended with the knowledge and belief of a future state. And here I will appeal to those who are most prejudiced against this reasoning. Let them speak, and tell me, if they were now first shown some history of an old Greek republic, delivered in the form and manner of the Jewish, and no more notice in it of a future state, whether they could possibly believe that that doctrine was national, or generally known in it. If they have the least ingenuity, they will answer, They could not. On what then do they support their opinion here, but on religious prejudices? prejudices of no higher an original than some Dutch or German system: for, as to the BIBLE, one half of it is silent concerning life and immortality; and the other half declares that the doctrine was brought to light through the gospel.

* See note L L, at the end of this book. ‡ Deut. iv. 2; xii. 32.

† Bolingbroke's Works, vol. v. p. 513, See note MM, at the end of this book.

But to set this argument in its fullest light. Let us consider the history of the rest of mankind, whether recorded by bards, or statesmen; by philosophers, or priests: in which we shall find the doctrine of a future state still bearing, throughout all the various circumstances of human life, a constant and principal share in the determinations of the will. And no wonder. We see how strong the Grecian world thought the sanction of it to be, by a passage in Pindar, quoted by Plutarch in his tract of Superstition, where he makes it one circumstance of the superior happiness of the gods over men, that they stood not in fear of Acheron.

But not to be distracted by too large a view, let us select from the rest of the nations, one or two most resembling the Jewish. Those † Ps. cxxv. 3.

* See note N N, at the end of this book.

which came nearest to them (and, if the Jews were only under human guidance, indeed extremely near), were the SUEVI of the north, and the ARABS of the south. Both these people were led out in search of new possessions, which they were to win by the sword. And both, it is confessed, had the doctrine of a future state inculcated unto them by their leaders, ODIN and MAHOMET. Of the Arabs we have a large and circumstantial history: of the Suevi we have only some few fragments of the songs and ballads of their bards; yet they equally serve to support our conclusion. In the large history of the Saracen empire we can scarce find a page, and in the Runic rhymes of the Suevi scarce a line, where the doctrine of a future state was not pushing on its influence. It was their constant viaticum through life; it stimulated them to war and slaughter, and spirited their songs of triumph; it made them insensible of pain, immovable in danger, and superior to the approach of death.* For, what Cicero says of poetry in Rome, may be more truly applied to the doctrine of a future state amongst these barbarians: "Ceteræ neque temporum sunt, neque ætatum omnium, neque locorum. Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, ADVERSIS PERFUGIUM AC SOLATIUM PRÆBENT." ↑

But this is not all. For we find, that when a future state became a popular doctrine amongst the Jewish people (the time and occasion of which will be explained hereafter) that then it made as considerable a figure in their annals, by influencing their determinations,‡ as it did in the history of any other people.

Nor is it only on the silence of the sacred writers, or of the speakers they introduce, that I support this conclusion; but from their positive declarations; in which they plainly discover that there was no popular expectation of a future state, or resurrection. Thus the woman of Tekoah to David: For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. Thus Job: As the cloud is consumed, and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. || And again: "There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again-though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet through the scent of water, it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: so man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep." Here the Jewish writer, for such he was, as shall be shown hereafter (and might, indeed, be understood to be such from this declaration alone) opposes the revival of a vegetable to the irrecoverable death of a rational animal. Had he known as much as St Paul, he had doubtless used that circum

* See note OO, at the end of this book.

1 See the 2d book of Maccabees.

| Sce note PP, at the end of this book.

+ Pro Archia Poeta, sect. 7.
§2 Sam, xiv. 14.
Chap. xiv. ver. 7-12.

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