gory? No. It is the allegorical interpretation that has drawn all this clamour from me, of weakening the authority of Moses and favouring infidelity. Must we believe it to be all literal? No. We are not allowed to do that, since there is certainly much mystery in it. What then are we to do? Why we are to consider it as neither fact nor fable, neither literal nor allegorical; to interpret one sentence literally; the next allegorically; the third again literally; and so on to the end of the chapter; which, like the very Serpent it treats of, is all over spotted and speckled; here with letter, there with mystery; and sometimes, with a dash of both."*

This, on a supposition, (the truth of which, both the Deist and the Believer took for granted) that the Mosaic account of the FALL was an ALLEGORY, hath its weight. But none at all, on the supposition, whose truth I have endeavoured to evince, that the Mosaic account is a HISTORY OF FACT, and not, as the learned Doctor pretends, a MERE ALLEGORY; interlarded, indeed, as the ancient Histories of greatest weight have always been, with strong figurative expressions, as well allegorical as metaphorical. In such a kind of composition, the best rules of interpretation not only justify the rational Critic in understanding some expressions literally and others allegorically, but necessarily require his observance of this rule. To do what the learned Doctor requires of him-To stick throughout, either to the letter or the figure, would betray much ignorance of the genius of ancient literature. When Adam is said to have eaten of forbidden fruit, and Israel to have committed whoredom, Do these phrases (used by the same Historian in his History of the Fall, and afterwards in the History of the Jewish Defection) make one more an Allegory than the other? Are not both narratives of facts figuratively adorned? the first, to denote Adam's transgression of a positive Command; and the other, to signify the defection of the Israelites into Idolatry.

The cold raillery, therefore, of our learned Doctor, while he considers the Mosaic Account of the FALL, as neither fact nor fable, neither literal nor allegorical, but to be sometimes interpreted one way, sometimes another-might, for his credit, have been spared; as informing us of nothing but his inattention to, or ignorance of, literary composition, as it was in its primeval state; early formed, and still continuing to exist, amongst People undisciplined by arts and polished manners.

The truth is, our Critic in his censure, and those learned Divines in their defence, have equally confounded two distinct Species of Writing with one another; that is to say, an ALLEGORY with a real HISTORY Ornamented with metaphorical and allegorical colouring.

See the Doctor's "Defence" of his Letter to Waterland.

The Divines, to serve their occasions, did it, either wittingly or inadvertently; and the learned Doctor, to serve his, either followed their example or imitated their practice. These Divines had observed, that preceding Commentators on the Bible had, occasionally, in the narrative parts, jumped from the literal to the allegoric sense, and so backward and forward to the end of the Chapter, because they found, that where the language was full of figurative terms, it was reasonable and necessary so to do. Their error was, in supposing they might do the same, in what they believed to be an ALLEGORY. On the other hand, our Doctor saw the absurdity of this practice in an Allegory; but his error was, in supposing it to be equally absurd to do the same in a figurative narration of fact.

And what occasioned the common mistake of both parties was, their having (as we say) confounded these two species of Composition with one another; which they would never have done, had they but considered, that the end of an ALLEGORY is to hide, and the purpose of allegorical, that is figurative expressions, only to ornament.

But, as the History of the Fall is, in Dr. Middleton's sense, a MERE ALLEGORY, and as his MORAL of the Fable tends to reduce the whole Doctrine of the Gospel to MERE DEISM; I shall now endeavour to shew, from the very genius of Antiquity, that his Moral is not of the nature of those which the most early times loved to disguise under that cover.

It is, in the learned Doctor's opinion, A MERE ALLEGORY, in the manner of the eastern Fables, signifying, that Man was formed to a state of happiness and perfection; which he enjoyed as long as he continued innocent, but lost and forfeited it by following his lusts and passions, and so became miserable.

The truth of his idea, of its being a MERE ALLEGORY, hath been examined already. But this is not the whole of his idea: It is, if you will believe him, in the MANNER OF THE EASTERN FABLES.

An observation that betrays his ignorance both of Eastern Fables and Eastern Truths. The Fables of the Ancients, whether of the East or West, were invented, as I have shewn elsewhere, for this end, and for no other, namely, to hide from the People, under that cover, such Truths as were above the People's capacity to comprehend; or were judged inexpedient, for the sake of public utility, that they should know. This Veil, however, their Wise Men were able to penetrate; and so could benefit themselves of all the Truth conveyed under it; and the Public, of just so much as was judged expedient for them to be made acquainted with.

But what pretence is there to say, that either of these causes of concealment had any place in the MORAL, which the Doctor is pleased to tell us is conveyed under the fable of the Fall. The Moral con

tains a Truth of the utmost clearness, and most general use; whose publication could be of no possible disservice to Society, or be abused by one single individual in it.

On the other hand, if, instead of this MORAL, of a simple lapse from innocence to guilt, we believe that Jesus and his Apostles have rightly interpreted the Mosaic account of the FALL, where they inform us of the specific nature of the loss which Adam sustained thereby; and if, from the nature and course of God's Dispensations, we see the fitness of its remaining a Mystery for many ages, that Mystery which (the Apostle tells us) was hid from ages and generations, but was at length made manifest to the Saints;* if this, I say, were the case, then, indeed, though the Doctor's Moral required none of this Cover to his MERE ALLEGORY: yet such a Cover very well suited the History of Moses; and justified the interpretation of the Apostles.

Thus the POSITIVE COMMAND, whatever it specifically was, is contained in the words of not eating of the Fruit of the tree of good and evil-the TEMPTER, THE EVIL BEING, is shadowed under the Serpent-and the CONDEMNATION TO DEATH, by Adam's return to his first state of MORTALITY.

Having thus cleared the revealed Doctrine of the FALL from the absurdity of this deistical interpretation, I now go on with my Subject.

Man, having forfeited the free gift of Immortality, is driven out of Paradise, and returned back to the state and condition in which he was created, a Subject only of NATURAL RELIGION. With this difference, that, before his entrance into Paradise, he was altogether ignorant of the extent of his finite duration: on his expulsion from thence, he might learn, from the terms of his Sentence, that the execution of it, by DEATH, was at no great distance.—In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.t

But when we speak of the two Religions, natural and revealed, we must distinguish (in our use of the term, REVELATION) between a System of revealed Religion, and an occasional Communication of the divine Will to Man, for his conduct on particular points, or for his comfort in general, when the course of God's moral government required that he should, from time to time, have intimations given to him, more or less obscurely, of the hidden purpose of Providence in his favour; and this, through various Dispensations, till, at the final completion of them, life and immortality should be again brought to light and restored. These occasional Communications began with that contained in the Sentence denounced on the Serpent, or the EVIL

ONE, that the Seed of the Woman should bruise his head; and that he should bruise its heel :* And ended with that given by the mouth of Jacob, that the Sceptre should not depart from Judah, nor a Lawgiver from between his feet, until SHILOH should come, to whom the gathering of the People should be.†

What followed these occasional Communications was that SECOND SYSTEM of Revealed Religion, delivered to the Posterity of Abraham, by Moses, preparatory to the THIRD and last, under the Reign or rule of Shiloh, or JESUS CHRIST, which took in and embraced the whole Posterity of Adam.

So that, of Revelations, in the sense of REVEALED SYSTEMS of RELIGION, there were but THREE: the first, given to Adam when placed in Paradise; the second, to the Posterity of Abraham, when going (under the ministry of Moses) to possess the promised Land; and the third, promulged to all Mankind, by Jesus the Messiah.

Ignorance, of this matter, made the Rabbins invent a fanciful System of Revealed Religion as given to the Sons of Noah, under the name of the SEVEN PRECEPTS.-So that it seemed proper just to hint at this distinction; which, for want of attending to, hath been the occasion of much error and mistake.

We have now seen MAN under the two first States of God's Moral Government, the natural and the revealed; and how, by his misconduct in the second, he was returned back again to the first; in which he remained throughout the long interval from Adam to Moses; when, by this time, the NATURAL LAW was become so viciated, and obscured, that all memory of the LAWGIVER was lost and forgotten. So that the knowledge of the one true God, on which all natural as well as revealed Religion is founded, was, of necessity, to be REPUBLISHED to the world, by Moses, when he entered on his Mission; who not only rekindled its extinguished flame, but, by the Dispensation committed to his care, in which the first Cause constantly and immediately directs all things, obviated the like misfortune for the future.

And as this Dispensation, called the LAW, being the prelude and preparation to the GOSPEL, whose Author was the promised MESSIAH, the Restorer of what was lost in Adam, could be only made intelligible by the previous knowledge of the cause and nature of that loss, therefore hath Moses studiously recorded that previous Knowledge.

And here it will be proper to observe, that had Jesus been only a MESSENGER sent from heaven, with no other purpose than to propagate a System of revealed Morals, or to republish the Law of Nature, we can see no reason why LIFE AND IMMORTALITY might not have been promulged by MOSES for the Sanction of the Law, as well as by

:

JESUS CHRIST, who hath made it the peculiar Sanction of the Gospel and so both Doctrines, that of the true God, and of eternal life, have come from Heaven together. The SOCINIANS, and they who deny a REDEMPTION by the Atonement of a REAL SACRIFICE on the Cross, would do well to re-consider this matter. But more of it in a fitter place.

To proceed. By the Penalty inflicted on Adam he (with all his Posterity) was again made mortal; that is, became EXTINCT, at the natural dissolution of the union between Soul and Body.

But that distribution of reward and punishment, which God, under every mode of his Moral Government, makes, with supreme justice, either here in this world, or hereafter in another, was (when the sentence of DEATH was denounced on Man's Transgression) at first made here in this world, so long as he continued to be favoured with the administration of an equal or extraordinary Providence. Which, as we learn from the Mosaic History, continued from the FALL down to the time when Polytheism universally prevailed. For, when the World, by reason of the Vices and Corruptions of its inhabitants, did not like to retain God in their knowledge, but changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an Image made like to corruptible Man,* that first dispensation of Providence was withdrawn.

Yet, as soon as God had selected a chosen Race, and had separated it from the rest of Mankind, to place his name there, we see, with astonishment, this equal Providence revive in Judea; for Man was still under the Curse or doom of death. And this existed, till repeated Idolatries, the crime which first caused the equal Providence to be withdrawn from the Nations at large, did at length deprive the chosen People, likewise, of their share of this blessing.

And, by such time as they had invariably returned from their Apostacy to the pure worship of the God of their Fathers, the Course of God's moral government required, that the nature and genius of the GOSPEL (the Religion which compleated all the foregoing, and which, by the recovery of what was lost in Adam, made an equal Providence no longer necessary) was gradually revealed unto them. This, as we say, superseded the use, and prevented the return, of that equal Providence; which, otherwise, on their adherence to the God of Israel, and perseverance in his worship, they might naturally have expected. Nay, the full conviction of their recent loss, joined to the scattered lights in the later Prophets, together with other less legitimate helps, enabled them to gather and arrange their ideas in favour of a FUTURE STATE; as hath been shewn at large in the foregoing Books.

These lights Divine Providence, in its course, did indulge to them,

• Rom. i. 23-28.