But not to insist upon inferences more or less doubtful from particular texts, it would seem extraordinary, if, intrusted as they were with the oracles of God, in which the scheme of mercy and deliverance from the death denounced upon Adam and his posterity is the one great object, proceeding gradually to its accomplishment, from the fall to the birth of our Saviour, they could passively and without reflection have yielded themselves to the punishment of Adam, the bitter sting of death, without meditating upon the promises and blessings scattered through the same early records which related the original transgression. In a narrative so concise as the history of the fall is, we cannot determine with what degree of clearness the revelation of redemption, and of future triumph over the tempter, was conveyed to the minds of our first parents in the curse pronounced upon the serpent, that his head should be bruised by the seed of the woman: but it is impossible (as Warburton himself allows) that the words could have been understood in the bare literal sense; and without attempting to give any

undue extent to their signification, through the reflected light thrown upon them subsequently by the progressive developement of the Almighty's purposes, it is surely most probable, (because most consistent with that union of justice and mercy which pervade all the divine dispensations,) that at a time when the Father of mankind was bowed down under the weight of a penalty which condemned him to eat bread with the sweat of his brow, till he returned to the dust from whence he came, they were intended to convey to him the only hope of which he could be susceptible, the anticipation of final deliverance from his misery. What reflections would naturally suggest themselves to the ancient Israelite, when, bearing this promise in mind, he was taught, as he proceeded in the sacred volume, that God looked with an eye of regard on the sacrifice of Abel, and rejected the offering of Cain, and yet suffered the same righteous Abel to be murdered through envy excited by his righteousness! He might read that the patriarchs of his race were the friends and favourites of God, and yet were strang

ers and pilgrims upon earth; and while they rejoiced that their pilgrimage was drawing to a close, and they were about to be gathered to their fathers, would he believe that this joy was excited by the termination of their earthly labours in the insensibility of the grave; and that being "gathered to their fathers meant no more than that the same sepulchre which had covered the bones of their fathers should soon be the receptacle of their own? We learn that Abraham looked for a city which hath foundations, and that he was commanded to train up his children and household in the way of the Lord; and would the memory of these instructions be eradicated entirely from the breasts of the children of Abraham? Can we imagine that the

z Warburton allows that the origin of this phrase must have been derived from the notion of a common receptacle for souls, vol. iii. book vi. sect. 3. p. 320. Michaelis observes, that the Hebrew word signifies non congregari, solum sed et hospitio excipi. Argumenta immortalitatis sect. 17. πроσerélη πρòs Tòv λαov αúrou. Sept. Interp. Genesis xxv. 8. 17. xxxv. 29. xlix. 33. Numbers xx. 24. 26. xxvii. 13. xxxi. 2.

a Vid. Genesis xviii. 19. Hebrews xi. 10. 17, 18, 19.
b"It appears that Enoch preached to the age in which

translation of Enoch would have awakened no reflections, intended as we may sup

" he lived, the doctrine of a future judgment; his extra"ordinary death would be a confirmation of its truth." Jude 14, 15. Davison on Prophecy, p. 122.

Quoniam quidem Enoch placens Deo, in quo placuit corpore translatus est, translationem justorum præmonstrans, &c. Irenæus adversus Hæreses, lib. v. cap. 5. p. 439. edit. Paris. 1675.

The ancient fathers do not enter into the question, except incidentally, as to the belief of the Jews in the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments; for it does not appear in the early history of the church to have been much controverted, and the Christian apologists in general allude to it as if it were an acknowledged doctrine of the old dispensation, whether they are writing against Jews or against Gentile philosophers. Thus Eusebius, (Præpar. Evangel. lib. x. xi.) in arguing (with what justice it matters not to the present question) that the Gentile sages borrowed all that is valuable in their writings from the Hebrews, speaking of Plato, observes, "That he derived his notions of the "soul's immortality from Moses, and that there was no dif"ference in their opinions on the subject;" xal év Toïs πEpì ψυχὴς ἀθανασίας, οὐδὲν Μώσεως ὁ Πλάτων διέστηκε τῇ δόξῃ, x. T. λ. lib. xi. c. 27. Vigeri edit. Paris. 1628. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the assertion is beyond the truth, but it will at least serve to prove, with many other passages that might be adduced, that Eusebius did not agree with Warburton as to the doctrine either of Plato or the ancient Jews. The argument indeed throughout this treatise, as well as the Demonstratio Evangelica

E

pose it to have been, since so many patriarchs and righteous men were suffered to die the common death of all men, not so much as a privilege to himself, as a lesson to his own age and succeeding generations. And are all those expressions in the Old Testament, more especially in the Prophets and the Psalms, which appear to us clearly to point to a future life, satisfactorily explained by Warburton, who uniformly interprets the plain as relating to this life only, and the figurative as illustrative of some other truth, to be conveyed through the medium of a figure, which in itself was not intended to be considered as having any foundation in truth? Thus such expres

clearly evinces, that he did not suppose either the patriarchs or the people of Israel to have looked only to transitory promises.

c Divine Legation, book vi. sect. 2. vol. iii. p. 312. Warburton, in combating Dr. Felton's plain and simple principle, that all words used in a figurative sense must first be understood in a literal, adopts the same argument which the opponents of Tertullian made use of when they attempted to refute the doctrine of the resurrection. They asserted that the language of the prophets was to be understood figuratively, to which Tertullian replies, "Si omnia figuræ, quid erit illud cujus figuræ ?" In con