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SECTION II.

The silence of the Mosaic law would have no tendency to eradicate from the mind of the Israelite that belief in a future state, which, independently of that law, he would have entertained in common with the rest of the world.

THE universal and constant prevalence among mankind of the belief in a future state, with the single exception of one people, has been not only acknowledged, but satisfactorily proved, by the learned Warburton. To the propriety of that exception we have already objected on a strong, though very general, ground of argument. We now propose to bestow on it a more detailed examination.

It has been the purpose of our own remarks in the foregoing section to shew, that this universality must have originated in the special will and appointment of God, and that it can have been primarily derived from no other source than Divine revelation. We are now to examine the validity of those principles, by which, as to the point at issue, this nation is distinguished from all others. For unless those principles can be maintained, the case of the Israelites will obviously fall within the operation of the general cause to which we have attributed the introduction and diffusive prevalence of this belief: and it will be also comprehended under the general design of Providence in propagating such belief among men.

It is contended, then, that the Israelites could have no knowledge of a future state, because Moses omitted to teach that doctrine'. We maintain, on

See the note, page 23 of this work.

the other hand, the true state of the case to be this: They would both have and cherish a belief of that doctrine, because Moses omitted to contradict it.

It forms a necessary part of the theory against which we contend, that this nation should be regarded as participating, till the time of Moses, in the common sentiments of mankind on this subjectTM: for it is plain that their alleged ignorance, which is supposed to have been the peculiar consequence of their law, could not have existed before that law was given.

Now let it be observed, that this law required of the Israelites, in general, an abandonment of every principle and practice of false religion: and, in particular, every such principle and practice to which that people lay more particularly exposed, is therein distinctly specified and condemned. Consider, then, the situation of the Israelite when first he became the subject of a peculiar covenant. We grant, that he would find in that covenant no explicit assurance of future rewards and punishments: but it is, at least, equally certain, that he would find in it no contradiction of that doctrine. Where then would be his inducement to discard his former sentiments and hopes? He would view the code of his nation as a system of declared and irreconcileable hostility to every species of religious error: he would find the various false tenets and superstitious observances of his idolatrous neighbours enumerated and condemned in it all and each of these he would find himself

m It is admitted by Warburton, that till this time, they "must "needs be much prejudiced in favour of so reasonable and flattering a doctrine." Div. Leg. vi. §. 6. vol. vi. p. 125.

distinctly enjoined to renounce: but he would not find the doctrine of future rewards and punishments in the number of them. Under such circumstances, silence must have been a confirmation, rather than a discouragement, of his belief. He would naturally infer the doctrine to be true, because Moses had not declared it to be false: for he could never imagine that his lawgiver would have passed over, as beneath his notice, that which is confessedly the most important and the most operative of all religious principles whatever.

"We might naturally expect," says Mr. Gibbon, "that a principle so essential to religion would have "been revealed in the clearest terms to the chosen "people of Palestine"." We grant that such expectation is natural: because among other instances of that moral and intellectual corruption which belong to the fallen nature of man, we often find, that a bold presumption in judging of matters which we do not understand is more congenial to our pride, than a humble confession of ignorance and a patient inquiry after truth. But if by "the clearest terms" we are to understand any degree of clearness beyond that which has actually been afforded, as the purpose of this writer implies; then we must strenuously contend, that such expectation, however natural, is by no means reasonable.

For those explicit terms, of which the insertion would, in the opinion of this writer, have been so advantageous in the structure of the Mosaic law, could not have been employed consistently with the proper

"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c. 15.

design of that law. They would also have contravened the estimate of that design which the Israelites were intended to frame, and which they naturally would frame on a view of its present provisions.

The primary object of the Mosaic economy was, as Warburton justly expresses it, "to preserve the "memory of the one true God in an idolatrous world "till the coming of Christ." Such is the notion which we, aided by evangelical light and subsequent discovery, justly entertain of the purpose contemplated in a preparatory dispensation. With regard to the immediate subjects of that economy, though they could not so well estimate its relative design, they would at least understand, what they were taught by many unequivocal declarations of the Pentateuch, that its leading object was, to maintain the honour and worship of the only true God to the exclusion of every false and pretended object of adoration. How was this end to be accomplished? Could the honour of the true God have been maintained by promulgating the sanction of a future and invisible retribution? The nature of the case demanded the employment of very different means: it called for a present and sensible evidence.

"The superiority of the true God," says Dr. Graves, "could never be established by a comparison of his power in the distribution of future "and invisible rewards and punishments; it was "only by proving decisively, that he, and he alone, was the dispenser of every blessing and every calamity in the present life, and that he distributed "them with the most consummate justice, yet tempered with mercy, that he could completely ex-

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"pose, and for ever discredit the pretensions of idolatry"."

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Under the apparently promiscuous allotments of Providence, and under that deficiency of religious light which was inseparable from the earlier progress of revelation, there had grown up, at the time of the delivery of the law, an almost universal ignorance and infidelity in regard to the proper object of religious worship. These the Divine wisdom (among other preparatory measures adopted in subserviency to the final purpose of man's redemption) judged it right to dissipate, in the case of a peculiar nation, by sensible interpositions and manifestations of the Divine power and attributes. To this end Moses, for the evidence of his authority, appeals to the mighty hand and the stretched out arm: he provides the requisite sanction of his laws, by declaring the continual interposition of the Deity in the government of the commonwealth of Israel; by promising a present reward for obedience; and by denouncing a present punishment on transgression.

On this peculiar basis the authority of the law was professedly established: and it is plain, that the sanction of a future state could never have been substituted in its place. For, how could a distinction have been provided between true and false religion by the employment of a doctrine which was common to all the religions of the world? How could a sensible evidence have been provided by an appeal to that which was distant and invisible?

The principles for which we contend being well

• Lectures on the Four last Books of the Pentateuch, P. iii. Lect. iii. p. 162.

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