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an individual; but the " anger of the Lord was “kindled against the children of Israel," and their army was punished with a defeat by the enemy. And, when the offender is brought to light, his whole family, though nothing is said which charges them with being accessary to his guilt, are involved in the same destruction with himself. The sin of David in numbering the people was punished by the destruction of seventy thousand persons: but these persons were so far from being implicated in the act of their sovereign, that the offender himself says, with regard to them, "Lo, I have sinned, " and I have done wickedly: but these sheep, what "have they done b?" The apostasy of Jeroboam was punished by the death of his son: and the son was especially selected as the subject of a premature death, by reason of those very qualities which enjoyed the Divine approbation. The idolatry of Solomon was punished in the calamities of his son's reign. I will only add, that the principle was maintained in cases of reward, as well as of punishment. Of this Solomon was himself an example : for the judgment which his sin had provoked was suspended during his own life, as the reward of his father's pietye.

In these instances, the nature of the extraordinary providence is so illustrated, as at once to confirm our description of it, and to make it evident, that such an administration could never operate to veil the prospect of a future life. Temporal bless

a Josh. vii.
d 1 Kings xi. 11.

b 2 Sam. xxiv.

e 1 Kings xi. 12.

< 1 Kings xiv. 13.

ings and calamities are here dispensed by special and manifest interpositions on a declared principle of judicial retribution. Like the public proceedings of corrective justice, they have an obvious reference to the conduct which occasioned them. Like them also, they declare the authority of the ruler and judge. In this, we contend, the providence of the Israelites differed from the ordinary providence of mankind. But this, as we also discover from those striking examples which have just been adduced, would not obviate, but rather increase, the present inequalities belonging to the dispensation of temporal good and evil. The reasoning, therefore, in favour of a future state, which we are accustomed to frame on the ground of these inequalities, would be left, in the case of the Israelites, in its unimpaired strength: and the extraordinary providence by which they were governed would never operate in conjunction with the reserve of their law, to the suppression of that doctrine.

Under such a system of things, the manifest interference of God for the reward of obedience would be striking and influential wherever it was known: and the judgments of his severity would be the more alarming, and therefore the more operative, because the innocent would often be involved in the same destruction with the guilty. Such an administration would therefore be fully effectual to the purpose which was contemplated in it: namely, that of maintaining the honour of the true God by continual interpositions of his power in conformity with the declarations of his law. Nor would the inequalities thus occasioned in any degree derogate from the truth

and authority of a system which professed the manifest retribution of obedience and transgression: because these cases of inequality formed a part of the sanction of the Law itself, and the denunciations of the Lawgiver were so framed, as to convey an assurance that they would frequently arise.

God is the author of everlasting life. In this character he stands related to all mankind. But this is not the character in which he stood peculiarly related to the seed of Jacob. To them, exclusively, he was made known as the dispenser of temporal rewards and punishments. In this character he acted, as the political head and ruler of their national government. The peculiar nature of that government, and the station which God was pleased to fill in it, would both concur, to produce an expectation of nothing further than temporal rewards and punishments, as the sanction of those ordinances by which they were governed: for political sanctions are always of this nature f. But this would in no degree tend to annihilate the belief of those other rewards and punishments, which are more accordant with the universal relation subsisting between him and the whole race of mankind: nor would it suppress the anticipation of any proceedings which he

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{ "Deo visum est, inter Israelitas regis politici nomen et personam sumere, et omnia ad morem principis secularis in regno "illo administrare..—Cum leges suas dedit, subditos ejus, (prin"cipum secularium ritu) præmiis et pœnis vitam hanc caducam "solummodo afficientibus, ad earum obedientiam sollicitavit : nam "præmium cæleste proponere, personæ regis civilis quam Deus ac"ceperat, parum convenire videbatur." Spencer de Legibus Ritualibus Hebræorum, lib. i. cap. iv. p. 45. ed. 1727.

might be expected to adopt as the judge of the whole earth. Yet I see not how this consequence could have been avoided, if eternal life had been the sanction of the Law: for in that case it would have been an obvious conclusion, that all but the subjects of the Mosaical economy were shut out from that transcendent benefit..

It is hardly necessary to add, that though the notion of an equal providence over the Israelites were admitted, it would never warrant the inference which is drawn from it. Even on this supposition, they must have had as much reason to believe a future state as any other people had. How could it be otherwise, unless they were persuaded that the same exact and equal administration had prevailed in all past ages, and was actually in force among all other nations? But the contrary of this would appear, both from the sacred records they possessed, and from their own observation: and they well knew the extraordinary providence (whatever character might belong to it in regard to the subject of our present discussion) to be restricted and peculiar to their own theocratical polity. If indeed the disbelief of a future state had been the consequence of this theocratical government, it must have discovered itself in the form of an inference which applied exclusively to themselves; they must have regarded themselves only as shut out from the hope of a future life, for among them only did that government exist: a monstrous supposition, as it applies to a nation, who were taught to consider themselves eminently favoured. The absurdity involved in it can only be equalled, by supposing them to have reasoned

thus: Because we receive our rewards and punishments here, therefore the rest of mankind can have no reason to expect them hereafter.

Such are the reasons on which we ground our conclusion, that the silence or reserve of the law of Moses would not tend to efface from the minds of the Israelites their belief of a future retribution. These reasons it was necessary to state, for the purpose of clearing away obstructions from the path on which we are about to enter: but the inference we deduce from them will be most powerfully corroborated by the considerations which we shall offer in the following section.

It was the object of a former part of this treatise to shew, that a more explicit announcement of a future state in the Law would have been inconsistent with the purpose of the Gospel, to which the Law was a preparatory dispensation. We have now seen, that it would have been equally inconsistent with the immediate purpose of the Law itself. On the whole, we affirm, that it would in every respect have violated that consistency which is now discernible in the plan of revelation, and have deranged those proportions in which the several parts of the Divine economy stand related to each other, and united into one body.

SECTION III.

The writings of Moses were specially adapted to countenance the belief in a future state.

WE have now exhibited a view of those general sources, in which we conceive that the doctrine of a

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