the children of God, by setting before them life and immortality ..

To all this, I hope, the reader will not be so inattentive to object, "That what is here produced from the New Testament, to prove that the followers of the Law had no future state, contradicts what I have more than once observed, That the later Jewish Prophets had given strong intimations of an approaching Dispensation, with a future state." For the question is concerning a future state's being the Sanction of the LAW, not of later intimations, of its being ready to become the sanction of the GOSPEL.

As inconsiderate would be this, other objection, "That my point is to prove that this Dispensation had no future state of reward and punishment at all, and my evidence from the New Testament only shews they had not the Christian Doctrine of it." For to this I answer, 1. That those I argue with, if they hold any difference between the Christian and general Doctrine of a future state of reward and punishment, it is only this, that the Christian Doctrine was revealed; the other, a conclusion of natural reason. Now if the Jews had this Doctrine, they must needs have it, as revealed; consequently the same with the, Christian. 2. That though I myself suppose the natural and the Christian Doctrine of a future state of reward and punishment to be very different things; yet I shall shew, in due time, that if Moses were indeed God's Messenger, and would teach a future state, it could be no other than the Christian Doctrine of it. But as those, I have to do with, may be ready to tell me, Rom. viii. 21.3011 tou

+ For the further illustration of this matter, I would recommend to the Reader's serious perusal the first chapter of The free and candid Examination of the Bishop of London's Principles...

that

that this due time, like that of the Jews' Messiah, is either past or will never come, they will, I suppose, readily bear with me while I anticipate the subject, and in a very few words prove what is here asserted. Revelation teacheth that mankind lost the free gift of immortal life by the transgression of Adam; and, from thence, became mortal, and their existence confined to this life. Revelation likewise teacheth that the MEAN which Divine Wisdom thought fit to employ in restoring man from death to his first state of immortality, was the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Hence it appears to be a thing impossible, that any Messenger from God, any Agent or Instrument made use of for conducting this grand Dispensation towards its completion, could (were it in his choice or in his office to promulgate the doctrine of a future State) speak of any other but that purchased by Christ, and promulged and proclaimed'in the Gospel, since in fact, on the principles of Revelation, there is no other; and to inculcate another, would be impeaching the veracity of God, and the eternal stability of his councils.

To conclude, There is one thing which plainly evinceth, that if the Jews had the knowledge or belief of a FUTURE STATE of reward and punishment, they must have had the knowledge of the REDEMPTION of man by the death and suffering of Jesus Christ, likewise. And it is this, That all the Sacrifices in the Jewish Ritual regarded only temporal things. A very competent judge in these matters assures us, Universa Judæorum simul congesta Sacrificia ad assequenda hujus vitæ commoda omnia facta erant *. The consequence is this, That if the Jewish religion taught its followers a future state of rewards and punishments, it either afforded them no means of

Outrain de Sacr. p. 305.
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attaining

attaining future happiness, or it instructed them in the doctrine of the Redemption. To say the first, contradicts the nature of all Religion; to say the latter, makes the Jewish useless, and the Christian false, as contradicting its repeated declarations, that life and immortality, or the doctrine of the Redemption, was brought to light through the Gospel.

But what was asked by St. Paul's Adversaries, will perhaps be asked by mine, Is the Law then against the PROMISES of God? Or does the Law, because it had no future state, contradict the GOSPEL, which hath? The Apostle's answer will serve me,-God forbid: For if there had been a LAW which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the LAW. That is, if the genius of the Law had produced such a Dispensation as was proper to convey to mankind the free gift of life and immorta lity, this gift would have been conveyed by it. All this shews that the Law was not contrary to the Gos pel, but only that it was not of sufficient excellence to be the vehicle of God's last best gift to mankind. And it shews too (and it is a very fit remark, as the result from the whole, with which to conclude this fifth Book) that a future state was not the Sanction of the Law of Moses, or, in the Apostle's more emphatic words, that the Law did not (because it could not) give life.

Thus, I presume, it is now proved beyond all reasonable question, THAT THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE

STATE OF REWARD AND PUNISHMENT IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN, NOR DID MAKE PART; OF, THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION.

It will be asked, then, "What were the real sentiments of these early Jews, concerning the soul?"

* Gal. iii. 21.

Though

Though the question be a little out of time, yet as the answer is short, I shall give it here. They were doubt→ less the same with those of the rest of mankind, who have thought upon the matter; that IT SURVIVED THE BODY: But having, from Moses's silence and the establishment of another Sanction, no expectation of future rewards and punishments, they simply con-1 cluded that it returned to him who gave it *. But, as to any interesting speculations concerning its state' of survivorship, 'tis plain they had none. Indeed how should they have any? when PERSONALITY did not enter into the idea of this survivorship, that being only annexed to the rewards and punishments of a future state. Hence it was that those ancient Philosophers (almost all the theistical Philosophers of Greece) who considered the soul as a SUBSTANCE' distinct from the body, and not a mere QUALITY of it (for they were not such idiots as to conceive, that thought could result from any combinations of matter and motion), those Philosophers, I say, who considered the soul as a substance, and yet disbelieved a future state of rewards and punishments, denied it all future personality, and held the refusion of it into the rò tv, or the soul of the world †. And just such INTERESTING SPECULATIONS concerning it had the few philosophic Jews of the most early times, as appears from the book of Ecclesiastes, which speaks their sentiments. Who knoweth (says this author) the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? And again: "Then shall "the dust return to the earth as it was, AND THE SPIRIT SHALL RETURN UNTO GOD WHO GAVE ir§." Yet this writer, perfectly conformable to

66

See Div. Leg. b. iii.

*Eccles. xii. 7. Ch.iii. 21. Vid. Cler. & Drus. in loc. Ch. xii. 7. Vid. Cler. in loc.

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what

what I have delivered, says, at the same time; But the dead know not any thing, neither have they in MORE A REWARD, for the memory of them is for gotten*.

And where was the wonder? that a matter which so little concerned them, namely, the future condition of a portion of etherial Spirit divested of its Personality, should only float idly in the brain, when we reflect that even the knowledge of the FIRST CAUSE OF ALL. THINGS, while he made no part of the National Iorship, was entertained by the Gentiles (as appears from all Antiquity) with the utmost unconcern, neither regu-. lating their notions, nor influencing their actions..

But from this uninteresting state, in which the Doctrine, concerning the Soul, remained amongst the early Jews, the SADDUCEES, concluded that their Ancestors believed the extinction of the soul on death. Hence likewise came some late Revivers of this opinion, of the extinction of the soul; though maintained under the softer name of its SLEEP between death and the resurrection: For they go upon the Sadducean principle, that the soul is a quality only, and not a substance.

In support of this opinion, the Revivers of it proceed on the sophism, which Polytheists employ to combat the unity of the Godhead. All Philosophical arguments (says the Reviver, after having quoted a number of wonderful things from Scripture, to prove the soul a quality, and mortal) drawn from our notions of matters and urged against the possibility of life, thought and agency, being so connected with some portions of it as to constitute a compound Being or Person, are merely grounded on our ignorance †, Just so the * Chap. ix. ver. 5.

† Considerations on the Theory of Religion, p. 398. Ed. 34. ↑

Polytheist,