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candid inquirer, that, using the term Mosaic law in its strict and limited sense, as the code delivered on mount Sinai, the doctrine of future retribution is not to be found in it. For the cabalistic interpretations and distortions of words and phrases, by which many of the Jewish rabbin attempt to establish a different opinion, are too absurd to require refutation; and those solemn expressions of Moses, I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life, which some theologians understand of a future and eternal life, appear, when taken in connection with their context, to refer, in their simple and primary sense at least,

the immortality, Exod. xix. 6. xxxiii. 20. Levit. vii. 25. Deut. xiv. 1, 2. xxii. 7. xxxii. 47. For the resurrection, Gen. iii. 19. xxxvii. 10. Exod. xv. 6. Levit. xxv. Numb. xv. 30. xviii. 28. Deut. iv. 4. xxxii. 39. xxxiii. 6. He has also given at length Rabbi Tanchum's ridiculous Comment on 1 Sam. xxv. 29. Vide also Michaelis Argumenta Immortalitatis, sect. 9. p. 96. Syntagma Comment. Goettingæ 1759. who enumerates several texts from the Diatribe of Theodorus Dassovius, some of which are the same with those mentioned above, others different.

to the benefits of this life only'. And most certainly this promise of temporal good and evil on the part of the legislator, as the recompense of obedience or disobedience, when combined with the historical fact, that the fortunes of the Jewish people for ages are in exact accordance with it, an agreement which no human wisdom could have foreseen, and no human power could have fulfilled, does prove that the legislator himself was an ambassador from heaven, and that he must have been appointed by that omniscient and omnipotent Being, who alone could make the contingent designs and contingent operations of free agents, whether acting individually or as nations, contribute to the accomplishment of his own certain and unchangeable pur

f Deut. xxx. 19. Mr. Peters contends that the Abrahamic covenant was renewed in this chapter, and bishop Bull understood it in the same way. Vid. Critical Dissertation on Book of Job, by Mr. Peters, part iii. sect. 3. also bishop Bull's Harmon. Apostol. Dissert. Poster. cap. 11. This able divine argues very strongly throughout the chapter in favour of the hypothesis alluded to.

g Vid. Joshua xxiii. 14. All are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.

poses. But to argue that, in consequence of this omission, it was intended by Moses, or rather by the Almighty, whose servant he was, that the Jews should be shut out from the knowledge of a future state, would imply a far greater acquaintance with the counsels of divine wisdom than we may

presume to lay claim to. The question,

whether the Jews believed on such a doctrine or not, would depend upon the means they might have of acquiring information from other sources besides their legal code; and whether the necessary effect of the Mosaic code would be to check or annihilate every other source of instruction. In order to understand the subject rightly it is necessary to keep in mind the object of that law, which was, to preserve the

h The law in its sanctions is only positive, that God will do so much, not exclusive, that he will do nothing more. Davison on Prophecy, p. 175.

Warburton's work was translated into German in 1751. J. D. Michaelis published a short Dissertation (if not written, corrected by him) against it, Argumenta Immortalitatis Animorum humanorum ex Mose collecta. Goettingæ 1752. Vide Schröckh. viii. Theil. vol. xliii. p. 753.

i Warburton, book v. sect. 2. vol. iii.

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memory of the one God in an idolatrous world, till the coming of Christ. And it is difficult to conceive how this object could be effected by any other than temporal rewards; by any other than some signal and visible manifestations of the divine power, which might convince the heathen nations that the God of the Hebrews was indeed a God that doeth wonders, and might recall to the carnal-minded Jew himself, when tempted to forget his Benefactor, by the immediate vengeance attendant upon transgression, a sense at once of his obligations and his privileges: I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.

1And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

Such was the promised recompense of obedience; but in case of disobedience the threat is denounced:

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m I will set my face against you, and shall be slain before your enemies.

ye

" And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.

Nor does it appear that this promise of temporal good, as many of the opponents of Warburton° contended, was confined to the nation only: health and wealth, fertility to the field and fruitfulness to the cattle, the blessing of the olive and the vine, the basket and the store, every kind of prosperity, was promised to the individual also; yet as well to the individual as to the state, in reference to the main object, the preservation of both from idolatry, which would generally be best effected by the more striking example of national blessings and national punishments. Yet it is difficult to understand how such a condition of things should destroy in the minds of the people either those natural expecta

m Levit. xxvi. 17.

n Levit. xxvi. 33. • Mr. Peters and other opponents of Warburton.

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