i

in the terms ALTAR, SACRIFICE, &c., is employed to convey these prophetic intimations of the gospel. The ancient fathers of the church very improvidently continued the use of these terms, when speaking of the Christian rites: for though they used them, and professed to use them metaphorically, yet it gave countenance to strange extravagance of scripture interpretation amongst the Romanists. The ingenious author of the Principes de la foi Chretienne, tom. i. p. 273, brings this prophecy of Malachi for a proof of the divine institution of the sacrifice of the mass.

P. 524, Q Q Q. It is wonderful to consider how little the writers on either side the question, have understood of the logical propriety and moral fitness of types, and secondary senses of prophecy.

Dr Middleton and Dr Sykes, who agreed with Mr Collins in laughing at these modes of information, agreed with him likewise, in laying down such principles, and inculcating such ideas of the Mosaic religion, as most effectually tended to evince this logical propriety and moral fitness.

On the other hand, Bishop Sherlock, Dr Stebbing, and other advocates for types and secondary senses of prophecy, lay down such principles, and inculcate such ideas of the Mosaic religion, as would totally supersede the use of these modes of information, and consequently destroy both their logical propriety and moral fitness. - See the Free and Candid Examination of Bishop Sherlock's Principles, &c., chap. ii.

P. 528, RRR. M. BOUILLER, the ingenious author of the "Court Examen de la Thése de M. L'Abbé de PRADES, et Observations sur son Apologie," having charged de Prades with taking his idea of the Mosaic economy from this work, without owning it, goes on in his own way, to show that the ARGUMENT of the Divine Legation, as delivered in these volumes, is CONCLUSIVE.

-"La loi Mosaïque, considerée comme le fondement d'un établissement national et temporel, n'avoit que des promesses et des menaces, ne proposoit que des peines des recompenses temporelles: au lieu qu'à considerer les grandes vues de cet établissement, par rapport à l'église méme, la loi étoit une espèce de tableau emblématique, qui sous l'enveloppe des objets charnels figuroit les spirituels; ensorte que, en raisonnant selon les principes d'une juste analogie, la foi des Israélites éclairés et pieux, trouvoit dans les promesses de la loi, qui portoient uniquement sur les biens presens, un nouveau garand de la certitude des biens à venir. Mais comme on doit bien se souvenir, que dans cette nation, les fideles ne faisoient QUE LE PETIT NOMBRE, l'argument de WARBURTON tiré du silence de la loi sur une economie à venir, en faveur de la divinité de cette loi même, conserve toute sa force; car il demeure toujours vrai qu'il n'a pas fallu moins que la vertu des MIRACLES et l'efficace d'une impression surnaturelle, pour faire ployer le gross de la nation, c'ést-à-dire les Juifs charnels, que ne pénétroient point ces vues mystérieuses, sous le joug pesant de la dispensation Mosaïque." -Pp. 94, 95. And again, "Ce double caractère de la dispensation Mosaïque met sa divinité hors d'atteinte à tous les traits les plus envenimés du déisme qui l'attaque par deux batteries opposées. Quoi? disent nos libertins, une religion qui promet uniquement les biens de la terre, peut-elle être digne de dieu! Et lorsque, pour leur répondre, ayant recours au sens mystique, on dit que les promesses legales qui prises à la lettre, n'offrent qu'un bonheur temporel, doivent s'éntendre spirituellement; ces Messieurs se retournent aussi-tôt avec une merveilleuse adresse pour vous demander comment un oracle, qui trompe les hommes, et qui n'a point d'accomplissement dans le sens le plus clair, le plus propre, et le plus littéral de ce qu'il promet, peut être regardé comme un oracle divin? Question, qui dans l'hypothèse commune, me paroit plus difficile à résoudre d'une façon satisfaisante. Mais l'une et l'autre objection tombe, dès qu'on envisage l'ancienne economie telle qu'elle est; c'est-à-dire, tout à la fois comme alliance nationale et comme economie religieuse. En qualité d'alliance nationale, ses promesses sont toutes charnelles, et s'accomplissent à terre à l'egard des Juifs. Mais en qualité d'economie religieuse, essentiellement liée au plan de l'évangile, elle est pour les fidéles la figure et le gage des biens spirituels. Doublement digne du Dieu de vérité, et par l'accomplissement litteral de ses promesses, et par leur usage typique, la réunion de ces deux rapports y annonce l'ouvrage de son infinie sagesse. Addition à l'Article. iv. p. 104. Thus far this ingenious writer. But now a difficulty will occur. He owns the author of the Divine Legation hath made out his point, that the law of Moses is from God: he contends that the author's system is the only one that can support this revelation against the objections of deists and libertines: yet when he has done this, he has thought fit to call this very system, a paradox; though it goes upon his own principle, "That the Mosaic dispensation had a double character; that it was a national alliance, and was at the same time essentially united to the gospel plan; that this double character, though not apprehended by the body of the Jewish people, yet was well understood by those peculiarly favoured of God, their prophets, and leaders." This censure, if it be intended for one, I say, appears to me a little mysterious. However, the learned writer's words are these: "Quand M. de Prades a dit que l'economie Mosaïque n'étoit fondée que sur les peines et les recom

penses temporelles, et qu'il a soutenu que cela même fournit une bonne preuve de la divinité de cette economie, il n'a fait autre chose que suivre la trace du savant Warburton, qui avança ce PARADOXE, il y a déja quelques années dans son fameux ouvrage de la Divine Legation de Moïse, et employa tour à tour pour le defendre, le raisonnement et l'erudition. Nôtre Bachelier, aussi-bien que M. Hooke, qu'il cite pour son garand, auroient bien dû faire honneur à l'illustre Docteur Anglois, d'une pensée que personne ne doutera qu'ils n'ayent puisée chez lui."-P. 88. Now, I have so good an opinion of this learned writer's candour as to believe that either he used the word paradox in an indifferent sense, or that he was misled in his judgment of the Divine Legation by M. de Prades, and Mr Hooke: who although they borrowed what they have delivered concerning the nature of the Mosaic economy from that book, which they did not think fit to confess, yet it is as certain that what they borrowed they either did not understand, or at least have misrepresented. The learned Sorbonist has since published his course of theology, intitled Religionis naturalis et revelatæ Principia. In which, though he has consulted his ease and perhaps his reputation, in transcribing the reasonings of the Divine Legation on various points of theology, and generally without reference to the book or the author; yet his affairs with his body have taught him caution, and obliged him to declare against the PROPOSITION, in support of which, those reasonings were employed by their original author. For when he comes to the question concerning the sanction of the Jewish law, he introduces it in the following manner :-Quæstionem inchoamus difficilem, in qua explicanda adhibenda est summa verborum proprietas, ne Pelagianis ex una parte non satis fœdus Mosaicum et Evangelicum discriminantibus, aut contrariis RECENTIORUM QUORUMDAM erroribus favere videamur. And so, fortifies himself with Suarez and St Thomas. The consequence of which is, that the two large chapters in his second volume (the first, To prove that a future state was always a popular doctrine amongst the Jews; and the second, That temporal rewards and punishments were really and equally distributed amongst them under the theocracy) just serve to confute one another: Or, more properly, the second chapter, by aid of the arguments taken from the Divine Legation, effectually overturns all that he has advanced in the first. - See Mr Hooke's second volume of his course, intitled, Religionis naturalis et revelatæ Principia, from pp. 208 to 236. For the rest, this justice is due to the learned and ingenious writer, that these principles of natural and revealed religion compose the best reasoned work in defence of revelation which we have yet seen come from that quarter.

THE

DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES

DEMONSTRATED.

BOOK VII.-INTRODUCTION.

(BOOK IX. ON THE AUTHOR'S PLAN.*)

TRUTH, the great object of all honest as well as rational inquiries, had been long sought for in vain; when, the search now become desperate, after the fruitless toil of the best qualified sages, and of the most improved times, she suddenly appeared in PERSON to put these benighted wanderers in their way. I AM THE TRUTH, says the Saviour of the world. This was his moral nature; of more concern for us to know, than his physical; and, on that account, explained more at large in his eternal gospel.

This last book, therefore, being an attempt to explain the true NATURE AND GENIUS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; I shall,

I. First of all, previously examine those sceptical objections, which in the long absence of truth, the world had begun to entertain of her very being and existence; or at least of our capacity to discover, and get hold of her. And these being removed,

II. I shall, in the second place, lay down, under what laws, and with what disposition of mind, I have ventured to use the aids of REASON to explain the TRUTHS OF REVELATION.

III. And, lastly, I shall attempt to remove the prejudices which may arise against any new discoveries in support of REVELATION, which the method here employed to analyze that capital truth of all, THE FAITH, may possibly enable us to make.

[I.] THAT ancient remedy against error, a Pyrrhonian, or, if you like it better, an academic SCEPTICISM, only added one more disorder to the human mind; but being the last of its misbegotten issue, it became, as is usual, the favourite of its parent.

Our blessed MASTER himself was the first to encounter its attacks, and the insolence of that school has kept the church in breath ever since. When Jesus was carried before Pilate as a criminal of state, for calling himself king of the Jews, he tried to shorten the intended process by pleading that his kingdom was not of this world. But Pilate, alarmed at the names of king and kingdom, asked, Art thou a king then? The other replied, -For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the TRUTH. Pilate saith unto him, WHAT IS TRUTH? And when he had said this, he went out again.* For when he found that the kingdom claimed by the supposed criminal, was a kingdom merely spiritual, or, in the Roman governor's conceit, a kingdom only in idea, he considered the claim as no proper subject of the civil tribunal. So far he acted well, and suitably to his public character. But when he discovered his indifference to, or rather contempt of, TRUTH, when offered to be laid before him as a private man, by one who, he knew, had the repute of exercising every superior power proper to enforce it, he appears, to me, in a light much less excusable.

The negligent air of his insulting question will hardly admit of an apology" You tell me," says he, "of TRUTH, a word in the mouth of every leader and follower of a SECT; who all agree (though in nothing else) to give that name to their own opinions: while TRUTH, if, indeed, we allow of its existence, still wanders at large, and in disguise. Nor does the detection seem worth the pains of the search, since those things which nature intended for general use she made plain and obvious, and within the reach of all men."

Sentiments like these bespoke the ruler of an Asiatic province, who had heard so much of TRUTH in the schools of philosophy; and had heard of it to so little purpose. This corrupt governor, therefore, finding a Jewish sage talk of bearing witness to the truth, (the affected office of the Grecian sophists) was ready to conclude that Jesus was one of their mimic followers. For it was now become fashionable amongst the learned rabbins to enlist themselves into one or other of those celebrated schools. Thus the famous Philo was an outrageous PLATONIST: and Jesus calling himself a KING, together with the known purity and severity of his morals, probably made Pilate consider him as one of the STOICAL wise men, who alone was free, and happy, and a king.

Liber, honoratus, pulcher, REX denique Regum.

Now, as on the one hand, the character of the Greek philosophy, which was of an abstract nature, and sequestered from civil business, made Pilate conclude, that these claims of Jesus had nothing in them dangerous or alarming; so, on the other hand, its endless disputes and quarrels about TRUTH, and which of the sects had her in keeping, made men of the world, and especially those in public stations, whose practice declined the test of any moral system whatsoever, willing to be persuaded, and ready to conclude, that this boasted TRUTH, which pretended to be the sole directress of human conduct, was indeed no better than a shifting and fantastic vision.

This, I presume, was the light in which Pilate considered the SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD. Had he suspected Jesus of being the founder of a public and a popular religion, which aimed to be erected on the ruins of the established worship, the jealousies of the Roman court, since the loss of public liberty, had, doubtless, made this servile minister of power very attentive, and even officious, to suppress it in its birth.

But if the ill usage of TRUTH by the philosophers could so disgust the politician of old, as to indispose him to an acquaintance of this importance, what must we think will be her reception amongst modern statesmen, whose views are neither more pure nor more generous; and whose penetration, perhaps, does not go much beyond the busy men of antiquity; when they see her so freely handled by those, amongst us, who call themselves her ministers, and profess to consecrate her to the service of religion? Amongst such, I mean of the active no less than of the idle part of the fashionable world, Pilate's scornful question is become proverbial, when they would insinuate, that TRUTH, like virtue, is nothing but a name.

What is this TRUTH, say they, of which the world has heard so much, and has received so little satisfaction? But above all, what is that GOSPEL TRUTH, the pretended guide of life, which its ministers are wont so much to discredit in their very attempts to recommend? For while objections to religion lie level to the capacities of the vulgar, the solution of them requires the utmost stretch of parts and learning in the teacher to excogitate, and equal application and attention in the learner to comprehend. From which, say they, we are naturally led to conclude, that the gospel doctrines are no truths, or at least, truths of no general concern; since they are neither uniformly held by those who are employed to teach them, nor subject to the examination of such as are enjoined to receive them.

Something like this, I apprehend, may be the way of thinking and talking too, amongst those who have more decently discarded all care and concern about the things of religion.

And as our acquired passions and appetites have concurred with the constitutional weakness of our nature to form these conclusions against TRUTH, and especially against that best part of it, RELIGIOUS TRUTH, charity seems to call upon us to detect and lay open the general causes which have given birth to men's prejudices against it.

I. And first with regard to TRUTH in general; - of the various hinderances to its discovery, and of men's backwardness to acquiesce in it, when luckily found.

The first and surest means of acquiring the good we seek, is our love