and propriety. And this reliance of their forefathers on the privileges of their law has been more than continued and confirmed in the breasts of the modern Jews. The perverted "ingenuity of rabbinical interpreters since the dispersion of Israel, superadded to the ancient traditions, has inspired them with the full conviction that eternal life is expressly revealed in the law; and to this, among other causes, may be ascribed the tenacious adherence with which the scattered remnant of the Jewish people still cling to the ancient dispensation *. If these reflections be well-founded, the notion of a double covenant and a twofold law proposed by Moses, as of positive enactment, the one his own national covenant with temporal promises, the other the Abrahamic covenant with eternal life, a theory which some eminent divines have adopted with a view of reconciling difficulties, would be in itself an improbable hypothesis; nor

u More especially of Maimonides, who lived in the 12th century.

* Vid. Mr. Lancaster's Supplementary Remarks, p. 373.

are the words upon which this idea is grounded sufficient to support the superstructure raised upon them.

From this general view of the question, it is time to appeal to the word of God, and to examine how far the promises and prophecies relative to the future redemption contained in the inspired writings, previous to the captivity, together with those sentiments and turns of expression which meet our eyes almost in every page, are consistent with the opinion that the peculiar people of God were shut out from the knowledge of a future state. In making this examination, we should be cautious of attributing too much weight to the inferences we are now enabled to draw, by means of the full revelation we enjoy, from passages whether in the law of Moses or in other parts of the Old Testament". The words that convey to our minds clear notions of a future state might not have appeared in the same light to the understanding of the ancient Jews.

y Vide some very just remarks in Dr. Whately's Essays on the peculiarities of Christianity, p. 49. on the passage cited by our Lord himself against the Sadducees.

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. πроσеTélη πρòs Tòv λαov autou. 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