CHAP. XIII.

The Great TOLERATION exercifed among

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the JEWS.

HUS then, under Mofes, the Judges, and the Kings, we find numberless inftances of toleration. Moreover, we are told by Mofes, that "God will vifit the fins of the "fathers upon the children, unto the third and "fourth generation." This threat was neceffary to a people to whom God had not revealed the immortality of the foul, and the rewards and punishment of a future ftate. Thefe truths are not to be found in any part of the Decalogue, nor in the Levitic, or Deuteronomic law. They were the tenets of the Perfians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Cretans; but made no part of the Jewish religion. Mofes does not fay, "Honour thy father and "thy mother, that thou mayest inherit eternal "life;" but "that thy days may be long in "the land, which the Lord thy God giveth

thee:" that is, in this life; and the punishments with which he threatens them, regard only the prefent mortal state; fuch as being fmitten with the fcab and with the itch; with.

blaft

blafting and with mildew; that they shall betroth a wife, and another man fhall lie with her; that they fhall build houses, and others fhall dwell therein; that they fhall plant vineyards, and fhall not gather the grapes thereof; that they shall eat the fruit of their own bodies, the flesh of their fons, and of their daughters, and be obliged to bow down before the stranger that is within their gates +: but he never tells them that their fouls are immortal, and fhall tafte of felicity or punishment after death. God, who conducted his people himself, punished or rewarded them immediately according to their good or evil deeds. Every thing relating to them was temporal, and this the learned bishop Warburton brings as a proof of the divine origin of the Jewish law ; inafmuch,

Deut. chap. xxviii. ver. 28. & feq.

There is but one paffage in the whole Mofaic law, from which one might conclude that Mofes, was acquainted with the reigning opinion among the Egyptians, that the foul did not die with the body. This paffage is very particular, and is in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy: "There fhall "not be found among you any one that ufeth divi"nation, or an obferver of times, or an inchanter,

fays he, as God being their king, and exercifing juftice immediately upon them, according to

"or a witch, or a charmer, or a confulter with "familiar fpirits (Python), or a wizard, or a ne"cromancer." From this paffage it appears, that by invoking the fouls of the dead, this pretended necromancy, fuppofed a permanency of the foul. It might alfo happen, that the necromancers of whom Mofes fpeaks, being but ignorant deceivers, "might not have a diftin&t idea of the magic they operated. They made people believe that they forced the dead to fpeak, and by the power of their art reftored the body to the fame ftate as when living; without once examining whether their ridiculous operations might authorize the doctrine of the immortality of the foul. The antient magicians were never philofophers, they were at best but a fet of ftupid jugglers, who played their tricks before as illiterate fpectators.

But what is very frange and worthy of obfervation is, that the word Python fhould be found in Deuteronomy, fo long before that Greek term was known to the Hebrews; and indeed, this word is not to be found in the Hebrew, of which we have never had a good tranflation.

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their tranfgreffion or obedience, found it not neceffary to reveal to them a doctrine which he reserved for after-times, when he should no longer fo immediately govern his people. Those who through ignorance pretend, that Mofes taught the immortality of the foul, deprived the New-Teftament of one of its principal advantages over the Old. It is certain, that

There are many infurmountable difficulties in this language: it is a mixture of Phoenician, Egyptian, Syriac, and Arabic, and has undergone many alterations to the present time. The Hebrew verbs had only two moods, the prefent and the future: the reft were to be gueffed at by the fenfe. The different vowels were frequently expreffed by the fame characters, or rather indeed they were not expreffed at all; and the inventors of points have only increased the difficulties they meant to remove. Every adverb had twenty different fignifications, and the fame word had frequently feveral contrary fenfes. Add to this, that the language was in itfelf very dry and barren; for the Jews not being acquainted with the arts, could not exprefs what they knew nothing of, In a word, the Hebrew is to the Greek what the language of a pedant is to that of an academic.

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the law of Mofes taught only temporal punishments, extending to the fourth generation; and yet, notwithstanding the positive declaration of God delivered in this law, Ezekiel preached the very contrary to the Jews; telling them, "The fon fhall not bear the iniquities of the "father + ;" and, in another place, he goes

+ Ezek. chap. xviii. ver. 20.

The opinion of Ezekiel was at length the prevailing one of the fynagogue; not but that there were always fome Jews, who, tho' they believed in a state of eternal punishments, yet believed at the same time that God punished the fins of the fathers upon the children. At present indeed they are punished even beyond the fiftieth generation, and yet are in danger of eternal punishment. It may be asked how the offspring of thofe Jews who were not concerned in putting Christ to death, can be temporally punished in the perfons of their children who were as innocent as themfelves? This temporal punishment, or rather this manner of living, fo different from all other people, and of trading over the whole earth without having any country of their own, cannot be confidered as a punishment, compared with what they are to expect hereafter on account of their unbelief, and which they might avoid by a fincere repentance.

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