would utterly discredit every other schoolmaster, namely, to teach his children, yet in their elements,* the sublime doctrines of manly science.

5. Fifthly and lastly, if St Paul intended this for any more than an argument ad hominem, he contradicted himself, and misled his disciple Timothy, whom he expressly assured, that our Saviour Jesus Christ hath ABOLISHED DEATH, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And lest, by this bringing to light, any one should mistake him to mean only that Jesus Christ had made life and immortality more clear and manifest, than Moses had done, he adds, that our Saviour had abolished or destroyed death, or that state of mortality and extinction into which mankind had fallen by the transgression of Adam; and in which they continued under the law of Moses, as appears from that law's having no other sanction than temporal rewards and punishments. Now this state must needs be abolished, before another could be introduced: consequently by bringing life and immortality to light, must needs be meant, the introduction of a new system.

I will only observe, that the excellent Mr Locke was not aware of the nature of the argument in question; and so, on its mistaken authority, hath seemed to suppose that the law did indeed offer immortality to its followers: this hath run him into great perplexities throughout his explanation of St Paul's epistles.

Thus we have at length proved our THIRD PROPOSITION, that the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is not to be found in, nor did make part of, the Mosaic dispensation; and, as we presume, to the satisfaction of every capable and impartial reader.

But to give these arguments credit with those who determine only by AUTHORITY, I shall, in the last place, support them with the opinions of three protestant writers; but these three worth a million. The first is the illustrious GROTIUS-" Moses in religionis Judaicæ institutione, si diserta legis respicimus, nihil promisit supra hujus vitæ bona, terram uberem, penum copiosum, victoriam de hostibus, longam et valentem senectutem, posteros cum bona spe superstites. Nam, SI QUID EST ULTRA, in umbris obtegitur, aut sapienti ac DIFFICILI ratiocinatione colligendum est."

The second is the excellent EPISCOPIUS." In tota lege Mosaica nullum vitæ æternæ præmium, ac ne æterni quidem præmii INDICIUM VEL VESTIGIUM extat: quicquid nunc Judæi multum de futuro seculo, de resurrectione mortuorum, de vita æterna loquantur, et ex legis verbis ea extorquere potius quam ostendere conentur, NE LEGEM MOSIS IMPERFECTAM ESSE COGANTUR AGNOSCERE cum Sadducæis; quos olim (et, uti observo ex scriptis rabbinorum, hodieque) vitam futuri sæculi lege Mosis nec promitti nec contineri adfirmâsse, quum tamen Judæi essent, certissimum est. Nempe non nisi per cabalam sive traditionem, quam illi in universum rejiciebant, opinionem sive fidem illam irrepsisse asserebant. Et sane opinionum, quæ inter Judæos erat, circa vitam futuri

*Gal. iv. 3-9.

sæculi discrepantia, arguit promissiones lege factas tales esse, ut ex iis certi quid de vita futuri sæculi non possit colligi. Quod et Servator noster non obscure innuit, cum resurrectionem mortuorum colligit Mat. xxii. non ex promisso aliquo legi addito, sed ex generali tantum illo promisso Dei, quo se Deum Abrahami, Isaaci, et Jacobi futurum spoponderat: quæ tamen illa collectio magis nititur cognitione intentionis divinæ sub generalibus istis verbis occultatæ aut comprehensæ, de qua Christo certo constabat, quàm necessaria consequentia, sive verborum vi ac virtute manifestâ, qualis nunc et in verbis Novi Testamenti, ubi vita æterna et resurrectio mortuorum proram et puppim faciunt totius religionis Christianæ, et tam clarè ac disertè promittuntur ut ne hiscere quidem contra quis possit." *

And the third is our learned bishop BULL:-" Primo quæritur an in V. Testamento nullum omnino extet vitæ æternæ promissum? de eo enim à nonnullis dubitatur. Resp. Huic quæstioni optimè mihi videtur respondere Augustinus, distinguens nomen Veteris Testamenti: nam eo intelligi ait aut pactum illud, quod in Monte Sinai factum est, aut omnia, quæ in Mose, Hagiographis, ac Prophetis continentur. Si Vetus Testamentum posteriori sensu accipiatur, concedi FORSITAN possit, esse in eo nonnulla futuræ vitæ non obscura indicia; præsertim in Libro Psalmorum, Daniele, et Ezekiele: quanquam vel in his libris clarum ac disertum æternæ vitæ promissum VIX AC NE VIX quidem reperias. Sed hæc QUALIACUNQUE erant, non erant nisi præludia et anticipationes gratiæ Evangelicæ, ad legem NON PERTINEBANT.-Lex enim promissa habuit terrena, et terrena TANTUM,-Si quis contra sentiat, ejus est locum dare, ubi æternæ vitæ promissio extat; QUOD CERTE IMPOSSIBILE EST.--Sub his autem verbis [legis ipsius] Dei intentione comprehensam fuisse vitam æternam, ex interpretatione ipsius Christi ejusque Apos tolorum manifestum est. Verùm hæc non sufficiunt ut dicamus vitam æternam in fœdere Mosaico promissam fuisse. Nam primo promissa, præsertim fœderi annexa, debent esse clara ac diserta, et ejusmodi, ut ab utraque parte stipulante intelligi possint. Promissa autem hæc TYPICA et generalia, non additâ aliunde interpretatione, PENE IMPOSSIBILE ERAT, UT QUIS ISTO SENSU INTELLIGERET."†

Thus these three capital supports of the protestant church. But let the man be of what church he will, so he have a superiority of understanding and be not defective in integrity, you shall always hear him speak the same language. The great ARNAULD, that shining ornament of the Gallican church, urges this important truth with still more frankness-"C'est LE COMBLE DE L'IGNORANCE (says this accomplished divine) de mettre en doute cette vérité, qui est une des plus communes de la religion Chretienne, et qui est ATTESTEE PAR TOUS LES PERES, que les promesses de l'Ancien Testament n'étoient que temporelles et ter

* Inst. Theol. lib. iii. sect. 1, cap. 2.

Harmonia Apostolica, Dissertat. posterior, cap. x. sect. S. p. 474, intre Opera omnia,

ed. 1721.

restres, et que les Juifs n'adoroient Dieu que pour les biens charnels.”* And what more hath been said or done by the author of the DIVINE LEGATION? Indeed, a great deal more. He hath shown, "that the absence or omission of a future state of rewards and punishments in the Mosaic religion is a certain proof that its original was from God." Forgive him this wrong, my reverend brethren!

SECT. V.

BUT though it appear that a future state of rewards and punishments made no part of the Mosaic dispensation, yet the LAW had certainly a SPIRITUAL meaning, to be understood when the fulness of time should come: and hence it received the nature, and afforded the efficacy, of PROPHECY. In the interim, the MYSTERY OF THE GOSPEL was occasionally revealed by God to his chosen servants, the fathers and leaders of the Jewish nation; and the dawning of it was gradually opened by the prophets, to the people.

And which is exactly agreeable to what our excellent church in its SEVENTH ARTICLE of religion teacheth concerning this matter.

ARTICLE VII.—"The Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament, everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only mediator between God and man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises."

-The Old Testament is not contrary to the New, is a proposition directed against the Manichean error, to which the opinions of some sectaries of these later times seemed to approach. The Manicheans fancied there was a good and an evil principle; that the old dispensation was under the evil, and that the new was the work of the good. Now it hath been proved, that the Old Testament is so far from being contrary to the New, that it was the foundation, rudiments, and preparation for it. -For both in the Old and New Testament, everlasting life is offered to mankind by CHRIST, who is the only Mediator between God and man. That the church could not mean by these words, that everlasting life was offered to mankind by CHRIST in the Old Testament in the SAME MANNER in which it is offered by the New, is evident from these considerations:

1. The church, in the preceding words, only says, the Old Testament is NOT CONTRARY to the New; but did she mean that everlasting life was offered by both, in the same manner, she would certainly have said, The Old Testament is THE SAME with the New. This farther appears from the inference drawn from the proposition concerning everlasting life-WHEREFORE they are not to be heard, which feign that the old FATHERS did look only for transitory promises. But was this pretended * Apologie de Port Royal. And see note L L, at the end of this book. VOL II.

2G

sense the true, then the inference had been, That ALL THE ISRAELITES were instructed to look for more than transitory promises.

2. The church could not mean, that everlasting life is offered in the Old and New Testament in the same manner, because we learn from St Austin, that this was one of the old Pelagian heresies, condemned by the catholics in the synod of Diospolis,-QUOD LEX SIC MITTAT AD REGNUM [CŒLORUM] QUEMADMODUM ET EVANGELIUM.'

What was meant therefore by the words both in the Old and New Testament, everlasting life is offered to mankind by CHRIST, was plainly this; "That the offer of everlasting life to mankind by CHRIST in the New Testament was SHADOWED OUT in the Old; the SPIRITUAL meaning of the law and the prophets referring to that life and immortality, which was brought to light by JESUS CHRIST."

3. But lastly; Whatever meaning the church had in these words, it cannot at all affect our proposition, that a future state was not taught by the law of Moses; because by the Old Testament is ever meant both the law, and the prophets. Now I hold that the prophets gave strong intimations, though in figurative language borrowed from the Jewish economy, of the everlasting life offered to mankind by JESUS CHRIST.

The concluding words of the article which relate to this matter say,Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the OLD FATHERS did look only for transitory promises; and so say I: because JESUS himself is to be heard, before all such: and he affirms the direct contrary, of the father of the faithful in particular. Your father Abraham, says he to the unbelieving Jews, rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. A fact not only of the utmost certainty in itself, but of the highest importance to be rightly understood. That I may not therefore be suspected of prevarication, I choose this instance (the noblest that ever was given of the HARMONY between the Old and New Testament) to illustrate this consistent truth.

[I.] AND I persuade myself that the learned reader will be content to go along with me, while I take occasion, from these remarkable words of JESUS, to explain the history of the famous cOMMAND TO ABRAHAM TO OFFER UP HIS SON; for to this history, I shall prove, the words refer; and by their aid I shall be enabled to justify a revolting circumstance in it, which has been long the stumblingblock of infidelity.

In the sense in which the history of the COMMAND hath been hitherto understood, the best apology for Abraham's behaviour (and it is hard we should be obliged, at this time of day, to make apologies for an action, which, we are told, had the greatest merit in the sight of God) seems to be this, that having had much intercourse with the GOD of heaven, whose revelations (not to say, his voice of nature) spoke him a good and just being, Abraham concluded that this command to sacrifice his son, conveyed to him like the rest, by the same strong and clear impression on the sensory, came also from the same GOD. How rational soever this * De Gestis Pelagii, cap. xi. sect. 24. † John viii. 56.

solution be, the deist, perhaps, would be apt to tell us it was little better than Electra's answer to Orestes, who, staggering in his purpose to kill his mother by the command of Apollo, says: But if, after all, this should be an evil demon, who, bent upon mischief, hath assumed the form of a god? She replies, What, an evil demon possess the sacred tripod! It is not to be supposed.*

But the idea hitherto conceived of this important history has subjected it even to a worse abuse than that of infidelity: fanatics, carnally as well as spiritually licentious, have employed it to countenance and support the most abominable of their doctrines and practices. Rimius in his Candid Narrative hath given us a strange passage from the writings of the Moravian Brethren, which the reader, from a note of his, will find transcribed here below.†

However, after saving and reserving to ourselves the benefit of all those arguments, which have been hitherto brought to support the history of the COMMAND; I beg leave to say, that the source of all the difficulty is the very wrong idea men have been taught to entertain of it, while it was considered as given for a TRIAL ONLY of Abraham's faith; and consequently as a revelation unsought by him, and unrelated to any of those before vouchsafed unto him: whereas, in truth, it was a revelation ARDENTLY DESIRED, had the CLOSEST CONNEXION with, and was, indeed, the COMPLETION OF ALL THE FOREGOING; which were all directed to one end; as the gradual view of the orderly parts of one entire dispensation required: consequently, the principal purpose of the COMMAND was not to try Abraham's faith, although its nature was such, that in the very giving of it, God did, indeed, tempt or try Abraham. ‡

In plain terms, the action was enjoined as the conveyance of information to the actor, of something he had requested to know: this mode of information by signs instead of words being, as we have shown, of common practice in those early ages: and as the force of the following reasoning is founded on that ancient custom, I must request the reader carefully to review what hath been said in book iv. sect. 4, concerning the origin, progress, and various modes of personal converse; where it is seen, how the conveying information, and giving directions, to another, by signs and actions, instead of words, came to be of general practice in the first rude ages; and how, in compliance therewith, GOD was pleased frequently to converse with the holy patriarchs and prophets in that very manner.

Ορ. "Αρ' αὔτ ̓ ἀλάστως εἶπ' ἀπεικασθεὶς θεῷ;

Ηλ. Ἱερὸν καθίζων τρίποδ ̓; Ἐγὼ μὲν οὐ δοκῶ. —Eurip. Electra, ver. 979.

"He," the Saviour, "can dispose of life and soul; he can make the economy of salvation, and change it every hour, that the hindermost be the foremost; he can make laws, and abrogate them; HE CAN MAKE THAT TO BE MORAL, WHICH IS AGAINST NATURE; the greatest virtue to be the most villanous action, and the most virtuous thoughts to be the most criminal: he can in a quarter of an hour, make ABRAHAM willing to kill his which however is the most abominable thought a man can have."-Count Zinzendorf's Serm, in Rimius, p. 53.

son,

Gen. xxii. 1.