overlook; and the latter has been represented as a violation of natural justice, which God cannot be supposed to perpetrate or authorize.* While, on the other side, the defenders of revelation contend, that both these circumstances naturally arise from the peculiar character and views of the Jewish law, and are closely connected with the reality of that extraordinary providence by which the Jewish scheme was introduced and supported; and therefore, far from being inconsistent with the divine original of that system, they, on the contrary, illustrate and confirm it.

On this subject the celebrated Warburton has peculiarly distinguished himself: to do him justice, I shall state his argument in his own words.† "In reading the law and history of "the Jews, with all the attention I could give to them, amongst "the many circumstances peculiar to that amazing dispensation, (from several of which, as I conceive, the divinity of its original may be fairly proved) these two particulars most forcibly struck my observation; the omission of the doctrine of a future state, and the administration of an extraordinary provi"dence. As unaccountable as the first circumstance appeared, "when considered separately and alone, yet when set against "the other, and their mutual relations examined and compared, "the omission was not only well explained, but was found to "be an invincible medium for the proof of the divine legation "of Moses which, as unbelievers had been long accustomed "to decry from this very circumstance, I chose it preferably to "any other. The argument appeared to me in a supreme de"gree strong and simple, and not needing many words to en"force it, or, when enforced, to make it well understood."

Religion hath always been held necessary to the support of "civil society, because human laws alone are ineffectual to “restrain men from evil with a force sufficient to carry on the "affairs of public regimen; and (under the common dispensa"tion of Providence) a future state of rewards and punishments

* These objections have been brought forward by a number of infidel writers. Vide their arguments, collected and answered by Warburton, Div. Leg. Vol. IV. In the appendix to his Fifth Book, he refutes those of Bolingbroke. Vide also Leland's View of the Deistical Writers, Vol. II. Letters xxv. xxvii. xxx, and xxxiii. Vide also Leland's Answer to Morgan, ch. xi. Vide also Calmet's Dissertation sur la Nature de l'Ame, Tom. xxvi. p. 196.

† Warburton's Divine Legation, B. VI. sect. vi. the Recapitulation, p. 362,

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"is confessed to be as necessary to the support of religion, because nothing else can remove the objections to God's moral government under a providence so apparently unequal, whose phenomena are apt to disturb the serious professors of religion "with doubts and suspicions concerning it, as it is of the essence of religious profession to believe, that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

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"Moses, who instituted a religion and a republic, and incorporated them into one another, stands single amongst ancient " and modern lawgivers, in teaching a religion without the "sanction, or even so much as the mention of a future state of "rewards and punishments. The same Moses, with a singularity as great, by uniting the religion and civil community of "the Jews into one incorporated body, made God, by natural consequence, their supreme civil magistrate, whereby the form "of government arising from thence became truly and essentially a THEOCRACY. But as the administration of govern"ment necessarily follows its form, that before us could be

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no other than an extraordinary or equal providence. And "such indeed not only the Jewish Lawgiver himself, but all "the succeeding rulers and prophets of this republic, have in"variably represented it to be. In the meantime, no lawgiver or founder of religion amongst any other people ever promised 66 so singular a distinction; no historian ever dared to record so “remarkable a prerogative. This being the true and acknowledged state of the case, whenever the unbeliever attempts "to disprove, and the advocate of religion to support, the "divinity of the Mosaic dispensation, the obvious question (if each be willing to bring it to a speedy decision) will "be, whether the extraordinary providence thus prophetically promised, and afterwards historically recorded to be perform❝ed, was real, or pretended only. We believers hold that it "was real and I, as an advocate for Revelation, undertake to 66 prove it was so employing for this purpose as my medium, "the omission of a future state of rewards and punishments, "the argument stands thus.

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"If religion be necessary to civil government, and if religion "cannot subsist under the common dispensation of Providence, "without a future state of rewards and punishments; so con"summate a lawgiver would never have neglected to inculcate

"the belief of such a state, had he not been well assured that "an extraordinary providence was indeed to be administered over "his people. Or were it possible he had been so infatuated, the "impotency of a religion wanting a future state, must very soon "have concluded in the destruction of his republic: yet never"theless it flourished and continued sovereign for many ages.

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"These two proofs of the proposition, that an extraordinary providence was really administered, drawn from the thing "omitted, and the person omitting, may be reduced to the fol'lowing syllogisms.

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"First, Whatsoever religion and society have no future state "for their support, must be supported by an extraordinary "providence. The Jewish religion and society had no future "state for their support; therefore the Jewish religion and society were supported by an extraordinary providence.

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“And again, secondly, The ancient lawgivers universally believed, that a religion without a future state could be supported only by an extraordinary providence. Moses, an ancient law"giver, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, (the princi"pal branch of which wisdom was inculcating the doctrine of a "future state,) instituted such a religion: therefore Moses be"lieved that his religion was supported by an extraordinary "providence."

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This," says the learned writer, " is the argument of the Di“vine Legation; plain, simple, and convincing, in the opinion of "its author; a paradox in the representation of his adversaries.”

This argument he afterwards sums up in the following words. "The doctrine of a future state is necessary to the well-being "of civil society, under the ordinary government of providence ; "all mankind have ever so conceived of the matter. The Mo"saic institution was without this support, and yet it did not "want it. What follows, but that the Jewish affairs were ad"ministered by an extraordinary providence, distributing re"ward and punishment with an equal hand, and consequently "that the mission of Moses was divine."*

The learned writer, in another passage,† explains why he judged it necessary to prosecute his argument in the very extended manner in which he has pursued it; "including a severe * Warburton, B. VI. sect. vi. vol. v. p. 404.

‡ Warburton, B. VI. sect. vi. the Recapitulation, particularly 366.

"search into the religion, the politics, and the philosophy of "ancient times, as well as a minute examination into the nature "and genius of the Hebrew constitution." It is indeed to be "lamented that he was induced to take so wide a range: as, in his researches into heathen antiquity, and sometimes in his theological criticisms, he has been led into discussions altogether unnecessary for the defence of revelation: and in some of which, it can scarcely be denied, that his proofs are deficient` and his conclusions precipitate. And this is still more to be lamented, as the bulk into which these discussions swelled, and the controversies arising from them, occupied his attention so long, that they appear to have made him finally weary of his subject, and prevented him from giving that minute attention to the nature and genius of the Hebrew constitution, which he originally designed. Thus he never completed the last volume of his work, intended to support what had been already proved,† “in a seventh book, which was intended to contain a continued "history of the religious opinions of the Jews, from the time "of the earlier prophets to the time of the Maccabees

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; an *I believe few impartial reasoners will be found to admit the full truth of this learned writer's opinions, as to the origin and use of the Pagan mysteries, in Book II. sect. iv. Compare Leland on the advantage of Revelation, Vol. 1. Part I. ch. viii. ix. and Vol. II. Part III.; the entire of which appears to prove, that much of the Second Book of Warburton is overstated. In truth, the supposition that "none of the ancient philosophers believed a future state, nay, that they held "such principles that they could not possibly believe it, though they universally "taught it," appears as ill-founded as it is paradoxical. The views of these ancient sages on this subject were indeed obscure, and their arguments neither clear nor certain; their opinions therefore were unsteady and fluctuating. But that they

all steadily agreed in firmly disbelieving, and yet hypocritically affirming, the doctrine of a future state, nobody, I think, can believe, who will read with an unprejudiced mind Plato's Phædon, or the first book of Cicero's Tusculan Questions. I have always been impressed with the fullest conviction of the sincerity of these writers; while I could not but pity and lament the darkness and uncertainty which concealed from these great luminaries of the heathen world this most important truth. Consult, on this subject, Leland's Advantage of Revelation, Vol. II. Part iii. Warburton's opinion as to the recent date of the book of Job, is, I believe, very generally questioned by the best critics; vide Peters on Job, and Dr Magee's Dissertation on that subject, in his work On Atonement and Sacrifice, from p. 321 to 347. And surely much of what Warburton has advanced, on the sixth book of the Æneid, the Rise of the Art of Medicine, the Interpretation of Dreams, &c. however ingenious and entertaining, can scarcely be considered as necessarily connected with the defence of Revelation. Vide Warburton, Book I. sect. iv.; Book I. sect. i. iii. iv.; and Book IV. sect. iii. iv.

+ Vide Warburton, the two last pages of the Divine Legation.

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eighth book, which was destined to consider the personal "character of Moses, and the genius of his law, as far as it concerns or has a relation to the character of the lawgiver, "and to supply a full and satisfactory answer to those who may object, that a revealed religion without a future state of rewards "and punishments is unworthy the Divine Author to whom it is "ascribed." And we have still further to lament, that only a fragment exists of the ninth book, "intended to explain at large "the nature and genius of the Christian dispensation, and to assign the great and principal reason of the omission of future "rewards and punishments in the sanctions of the Jewish law."

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This able writer has thus left us to deplore the want of his learning and sagacity, in the illustration of those topics which it is necessary here to discuss it becomes therefore the more incumbent on us to consider this important subject with the most patient attention, and conduct our reasonings concerning it with the most cautious sobriety.

That there is a close connexion between the extraordinary providence by which the Jewish law was supported, and the omission of future rewards and punishments in the sanctions by which the inspired lawgiver enforced its observance, was, I believe, first perceived by this able writer, though, when stated, it appears not only undeniable, but obvious. It does not however appear to me, that the reasoning of this celebrated prelate establishes his conclusion as certainly and clearly as he himself supposes, or that the omission of a future state of retribution in the sanction of the Mosaic Law, will singly and independently prove, that an immediate and extraordinary sanction must have subsisted. It appears to me, a concurrence of circumstances may be conceived, where such a conclusion would not follow from the omission of future sanctions. Because the good effects generally resulting in the present life from virtue, particularly from the observance of our social duties, and the corresponding pernicious consequences of vice, may form a certain degree of present sanction to the moral precepts of religion, even without any certainty of an immediate extraordinary providence, and the punishments of civil law, and the protection of the civil magistrate may supply an additional present sanction to the practical part of religion, and give some authority to its positive institutions. True it is, both these sanctions must ne