Matters being in this odd situation, the reader will excuse me, if I turn a little to consider those texts of scripture which CHRISTIAN writers have produced to prove, That a future state of rewards and punishments does indeed make part of the Mosaic religion.

[II.] But here let me observe, that the thing of most consequence in this part of my discourse will be to state the question clearly and plainly. When that is done, every common reader will be able, without my help, to remove the objections to my system; or rather, the question being thus truly stated, they will fall of themselves.

I. My declared purpose, in this work, is to demonstrate the divine legation of MOSES, in order to use it for the foundation of a projected defence of revelation in general, as the dispensation is completed in Christianity. The medium I employ for this purpose is, that there was no future state of reward and punishment in the Mosaic religion. I must needs therefore go upon these two principles: - 1. That Moses did not disbelieve a future state of reward and punishment. 2. That his religion was preparatory to the religion of JESUS which taught such future state. Hence proceed these consequences:

1. From my holding that Moses did not disbelieve a future state, it follows, that all those texts of scripture which are brought to prove that the ancient Jews believed the soul survived the body, are nothing to the purpose: but do, on the contrary, greatly confirm my thesis: for which reason I have myself shown that the early Jews did indeed suppose this truth.

2. From my holding that the religion of Moses was only preparatory to the religion of JESUS, it follows, that all such texts as imply a future state of rewards and punishments in their TYPICAL signification only, are just as little to the purpose. For if Moses's religion was preparatory to one future, it is, as I have shown,* highly reasonable to suppose, that the essential doctrine of that new religion was shadowed out under the rites, or by the inspired penmen, of the old. But such texts are not only inconclusive, but highly corroborative of the opinion they are brought to oppose. For if future rewards and punishments were taught to the people under the law, what occasion was there for any typical representation of them, which necessarily implies the throwing things into shade, and secreting them from vulgar knowledge? What ground was there for that distinction between a carnal and a spiritual meaning (both of which it is agreed the Mosaic law had, in order to fit it for the use of two dispensations) if it did not imply an ignorance of the spiritual sense during the continuance of the first? Yet as clear as this is, the contrary is the doctrine of my adversaries; who seem to think that the spiritual and the carnal sense must needs always go together, like the jewel and the foil in Aaron's breastplate.

Both these sorts of texts, therefore, conclude only against SADDUCEES and INFIDELS. Yet hath this matter been so little attended to, in the judgments passed upon my argument, that both sorts have been urged as confutations of it. I speak not here of the dirty calumnies of one or two forgotten scribblers, but of the unequitable censures of some who better deserve to be set right.

II. But farther, as my position is, that a future state of reward and punishment 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 this 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.

And now, when all these texts are taken from my adversaries, what is there left, to keep up the quarrel? Should I be so severe as to insist on the common rights of authors, of not being obliged to answer to convict impertinences, this part of my task would be soon over. But I shall, in charity, consider these texts, such as they are. However, that I may not appear altogether so absurd as the enforcers of them, I shall give the reader my reasons for this condescension.

1. As to the FUTURE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL, we should distinguish between the mention of it by Moses, and by the following writers. These might, and as we have shown, did conclude for its existence from the nature of the thing. But Moses, who, we suppose, intentionally omitted the mention of future rewards and punishments, would not, we must needs suppose likewise, proclaim the preparatory doctrine of the existence. Nor could he, on the other hand, deny what he knew to be the truth. Thus, being necessitated to speak of Enoch's translation, it could not be, but that a separate existence might be inferred, how obscurely soever the story was delivered. But had he said any thing, in his account of the creation, which literally implied (as the words, of man's being made in the image of God, and the breath of life being breathed into his nostrils, are supposed to do) that man had an immortal soul, then must Moses be supposed, purposely, to have inculcated that immortality; contrary to what we hold, that he purposely omitted the doctrine built upon it, namely, a future state of reward and punishment. It will not be improper therefore to show that such texts have not this pretended meaning.

2. Concerning a FUTURE STATE OF REWARD AND PUNISHMENT; several texts are brought as teaching it in a typical sense, which teach it in no sense at all: several as teaching it in a direct and literal sense, which only teach it in a typical. Both these, therefore, it may be proper to set in a true light.

3. Lastly, concerning the texts from the later prophets, which are without the period in question; I own, and it is even incumbent on my argument to prove, that these prophets opened the first dawning of the doctrine of a resurrection, and consequently of a future state of reward and punishment: even these therefore shall in their proper place be carefully considered. At present let me just observe, that the dark veil under which the first set of prophets delivered their typical representations was gradually drawn aside by the later.

SECT. II.

HAVING premised thus much to clear the way, and shorten the inquiry, I now proceed to my examination.

And first, of the texts brought from the OLD TESTAMENT.

Now as the book of Job* is supposed to teach both a SEPARATE EXISTENCE and a FUTURE STATE OF REWARD AND PUNISHMENT; and is besides thought by some to be the first of Moses's writings; and by others to be written even before his time, and by the patriarch himself, I shall give it the precedence in this inquiry: which it deserves likewise on another account, the superior evidence it bears to the point in question; if indeed it bear any evidence at all. For it may be said by those who thus hold it to be the earliest scripture (allowing the words of Job, I know that my Redeemer liveth, &c. to respect a future state) that the Jewish people must not only have had the knowledge of a FUTURE STATE of rewards and punishments, but, what is more, of the RESURRECTION of the body, and still more, of the REDEMPTION of mankind by the Son of God: therefore Moses had no need to inculcate the doctrine of a future state. But I much suspect that the clear knowledge of so sublime a mystery, which, St Paul says, had been hid from ages, and from generations, but was now (on the preaching of the gospel) made manifest to the saints,‡ was not at all suited to the times of Job or Moses. The learned and impartial divine will perhaps be rather inclined to think, that either THE BOOK OF JOB WAS WRITTEN IN A MUCH LATER AGE, or that THIS FAMOUS PASSAGE HAS A VERY DIFFERENT MEANING. I shall endeavour to show, that neither of these suspicions would be entertained without reason.

[I.] First, then, concerning the book itself.

As to the person of Job, the eminence of his character, his fortitude and patience in afflictions, and his preceding and subsequent felicity; these are realities so unquestionable, that a man must have set aside sacred antiquity before he can admit a doubt concerning them. But that the book which bears Job's name was written by him, or in any age near his own, a careful and capable examiner will, I persuade myself, be hardly brought to believe. In the order of this discourse therefore I shall inquire,

I. What kind of composition the book of Job really is.

II. In what age it was written. And,

I. Even those who are inclined to suppose this a work of the highest antiquity, and to believe it an exact history of Job's sufferings and'patience, and of God's extraordinary dispensations towards him, recorded by his own hand, are yet forced to confess that the introduction and conclusion are of another nature, and added by a later hand, to give that fulness and integrity to the piece, which works of imagination, and only such works, require. This is a large concession, and plainly intimates that he who wrote the prologue and epilogue, either himself believed the body of the work to be a kind of dramatic composition; or, at least, intended that others should have that opinion of it. I shall therefore the less scruple to espouse the notion of those who conclude the WHOLE TO BE DRAMATICAL. For the transferring the prologue and epilogue to a late writer, was only an expedient to get rid of a circumstance which showed it to be such a sort of work; and which consequently might bring it down to an age remote from that of the subject. But those who contrived this expedient seem to have had but a slender idea of the ancient drama, which was generally rounded with a prologue and epilogue of this sort; to give, by way of narrative, information of such facts as fell not within the compass of the one entire action represented.*

I am induced to embrace this opinion from the cast of the STYLE, the SENTIMENTS, and COMPOSITION: all perfectly suited to such a kind of work, and ill agreeing with any other.

1. As to the style, it hath been observed by the critics, even from the time of Jerom, that all but the introduction and conclusion is in measure. But as it was the custom of antiquity to write their gravest works of religion, law, and history, in verse; this circumstance alone should, I think, have little share in determining the nature of the composition. And as little, I think, on the other hand, ought the frequent use of the Arabic dialect to be insisted on, in support of its high original, since, if it be of the nature, and of the date, here supposed, an able writer would choose to give his fable that air of antiquity and verisimilitude.

2. But when we take the sentiments along, and find throughout the whole, not only verse but poetry, a poetry animated by all the sublimity of figures and luxuriance of description; and this, on the coolest and most abstracted subject; we cannot choose but conclude it to be a work of imagination. Nor is it sufficient to say, that this is owing to an eastern genius, whose kindling fancy heats all his thoughts into a glow of expression: for if the two ends be his who wrote the middle, as we have no reason to doubt, they show him not unused to the plainest form of narration. And as to that eastern genius itself, though distinguishingly sublime when a poetic subject has inflamed its enthusiasm, yet in mere history, nothing can be more cool and simple; as all acquainted either with their ancient or modern writers can inform us. But, what is more to our purpose, the sacred prophets themselves, though rapt in ecstasy * See note D, at the end of this book.

of the divine impressions, when treating of the question here debated, namely, whether and wherefore the good are frequently unhappy, and the bad prosperous, a question that came sometimes in their way, while they were reproving their impious and impatient countrymen, who by their repeated apostasies had now provoked God to withdraw from them, by degrees, his extraordinary providence; when, I say, they touch upon this question, they treat the matter with the utmost plainness and simplicity.

3. But the last and most convincing circumstance is the form of the composition. And here I shall not urge, as of much weight, what hath been observed by some who take this side of the question, the scenical image of Job and his friends sitting together on the ground seven days and seven nights without a word speaking.* Because we reasonably suppose no more to be meant than that excess of mutual grief making them unfit to give, and him to receive consolation, they were some dayst before they entered on the subject of their visit.

This rather is the thing to be admired, (if we suppose it all historic truth) that three cordial friends should make a solemn appointment to go to mourn with Job and to comfort him; that they should be so greatly affected with his extreme distresses, as to be unable to utter a word for seven whole days together; and yet, after this, to be no sooner set in, than entirely to forget their errand, and (miserable comforters as they were) instead of mourning with him in the bitterness of his soul, to wrangle, and contradict him in every word he spoke; and this without the least softening of friendship; but with all the fierceness and acrimony of angry disputants contending for a victory. It was no trifle neither that they insisted on, in which indeed disputatious men are often the warmest, but a contradiction in the tenderest point. They would needs have it, against all Job's protestations to the contrary, that his misfortunes came upon him in punishment for his crimes. Suppose their friend had been wrong in the judgment he passed on things, was this a time to animadvert in so pitiless a manner on his errors? Would not a small share of affection, pity, or even common humanity, have disposed them to bear one seven days longer with their old distressed acquaintance? Human nature is ever uniform; and the greater passions, such as those of friendship and natural affection, show themselves to be the same at all times: but we have an instance in these very times, in that amiable domestic story of Joseph. This patriarch had been cruelly injured by his brethren. Providence at length put them into his power; and, in just resentment of their inhuman usage, he thought fit to mortify and humble them: but no sooner did he find them begin to be unhappy, than his anger subsided, violated affection returned, and he melted into their