the history, from which you must have derived your observation, will not support you, in imputing carelefs indifference to the contemporaries of Mofes, or ftubborn incredulity to the forefathers of the Jews; I know not what can have induced you to pass so severe a cenfure upon them, except that you look upon a lapfe into idolatry as a proof of infidelity. In answer to this, I would remark, that with equal foundness of argument we ought to infer, that every one who tranfgreffes a religion, difbelieves it; and that every individual, who in any community incurs civil pains and penalties, is a difbeliever of the exiftence of the authority by which they are inflicted. The fanctions

of

of the Mofaic law were, in your opinion, terminated within the narrow limits of this life; in that particular then, they must have refembled the fanctions of all other civil laws: tranfgrefs and die is the language of every one of them, as well as that of Moses; and I know not what reason we have to expect, that the Jews, who were animated by the fame hopes of temporal rewards, impelled by the fame fears of temporal punishments with the reft of mankind, should have been fo fingular in their conduct, as never to have liftened to the clamours of paffion before the still voice of reafon; as never to have preferred a prefent gratification of fenfe, in the lewd celebration of

idolatrous rites, before the rigid obfervance of irksome ceremonies.

Before I release you from the trouble of this letter, I cannot help obferving, that I could have wifhed you had furnished your reader with Limborch's answers to the objections of the Jew Orobio, concerning the perpetual obligation of the law of Moses; you have indeed mentioned Limborch with respect, in a fhort note; but though you have ftudiously put into the mouths of the Judaifing Chriftians in the Apoftolic days, and with great ftrength inferted into your text, whatever has been faid by Orobio, or others against Christianity, from the fuppofed perpetuity of the Mofaic difpenfation; yet you have

not

not favoured us with any one of the numerous replies, which have been made to these feemingly ftrong objections. You are pleased, it is true, to say, "that the industry "of our learned divines has abun

dantly explained the ambiguous "language of the old Teftament, "and the ambiguous conduct of "the Apoftolic teachers." It requires, Sir, no learned industry, to explain what is fo obvious and fo exprefs, that he who runs may read it: The language of the old Teftament is this; Behold, the days come, faith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Ifrael, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in

the

the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. This, methinks, is a clear and folemn declaration, there is no ambiguity at all in it, that the covenant with Mofes was not to be perpetual, but was in fome future time to give way to a new covenant. I will not detain you with an explanation of what Mofes himfelf has faid upon this fubject; but you may try, if you please, whether you can apply the following declaration, which Mofes made to the Jews, to any prophet or fucceffion of prophets, with the same propriety that you can to Jefus Chrift; The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me,

unto