And this, you yourselves at length seemn to have been aware of: for though, during the existence of your Republic, the deniers of a future state, such as the Sadducees, were not cut off from the rights of the Synagogue ; yet since that time, it hath been generally held by your Doctors for a prime cause of excommunication :- One of them says, that it is the very fundamental of fundamentals" ;

ineffectual! Your Religion (say I to them) teaches no future state. You are at present under the common unequal Providencé of Heaven. How disconfolate is your condition! Not so bad neither, replies their Advocate, Doctor Stebbing. They Now have a future state. How came they by it ? By the Law? No matter, says he, they have it, and that is enough to destroy all the force of your persuasion to embrace the Gospel. Not altogether enough, good Doctor: for if they have not the future Itate by the Law, (and that truth I take for granted in this address to them, as I think I reasonably might, after I had proved it at large) their future ftate, even by their own confeffion, is a Phantom; and to gain the Substance there is no way left but to embrace the Gospel. They themselves own this truth: for in the words quoted below, they confess that to believe a future state, and

yet that it was not revealed by the Law, is the same thing as not to believe it at all.- -It is a sad thing when Polemics or blacker passions have gotten so entire possession of a man's heart that he cares not what harm he does to a common cause, or even to common sense; so he can but ANSWER the man or the opinion he happens to dislike.

Scripfit Rab. (Maimon.) p. m. Articulus fundamentalis de. cimus tertius agit de resurrectione, cujus rationem (quomodo fe habeat) & fundamenta jam expofuimus. Quod fi homo credi. derit fundamenta illa omnia, feque illa credere declaraverit, in. greditur Ecclefiam Ifraëlis, & jubemur diligere illum, & mifericordiam illi exhibere, & conversari cum illo juxta omnia, quae præcepit Deus benedictus cuilibet erga proximum facienda. Si quis autem vilipenderit hoc fundamentum excellentium fundamentorum, ecce exit ille ex Ecclefia, quippe qui abnegat articulum fidei, & vocatur impius ac Epicureus, amputatque plantas, quem odio habere & perdere jubemur, Ex beth Elohim. Vid. Dasovium de Resurrectione. Ed. 1693. VOL. III.

b

Another,

i

Another, that to deny this is the fame thing as to deny GOD himself, and the Divinity of his Law; and a third, that even to believe it, and yet not believe that it was revealed by the Law, is the fame thing as not to believe it at

all1.

have con

But will do well, when you you fidered the force of those reasonings by which I prove a future ftate not to be revealed by the LAW of Mofes, to go on with me, (for the free thoughts of many amongst you, concerning Revelation in general, give scandal to the profeffors of more than one Religion) while I prove, from thence, by neceffary confequence, that this LAW came from Gop: And, in conclufion, join with me in adoring the infinite Wisdom of the God of your Fathers, here fo wonderfully displayed, in making one and the fame circumftance a standing evidence of the divinity of the Mofaic Religion, and, at the fame time, an irrefragable proof that it was preparatory only to the Christian; The logical refult of all our reafoning being the confirmation of this facred truth, long fince

numeretur

k Hæc fides [de Refurrectione mortuorum] inter articulos Legis & fundamenta ejus, quam qui negat, perinde facit acfi negaret effe Deum, legem effe a cœlo, & quod in aliis iftis articulis tractatur. R. Salomo ap. Dafovium de Refurrect.

1 Oportet te fcire articulum fidei de refurrectione mortuorum ex lege effe. Quod fi quis fide firma crediderit refurrectionem mortuorum, non autem crediderit effe illam ex lege, ecce ille reputatur acfi hæc omnia negaret. R. Jehud. Zabara apud Dafov.

enounced

enounced by a great Adept in your Law, That THE LAW MADE NOTHING PERFECT, BUT THE BRINGING IN OF A BETTER HOPE DID ".

Permit me to observe farther, that this rabbinical notion of a future ftate of rewards. and punishments in the Mofaic Difpenfation, which ftill encourages the remnant of your Nation to perfift in rejecting the Gospel of Jefus, was the very prejudice which, in the first ages of Christianity, fo fuperftitioufly attached the Converts from Judaifm, to the whole obfervance of the Law.

As a Corollary to all this, I have fhewn, that the punishment of Children for the crimes of their Parents, which hath given a handle to the enemies of your Law to blafpheme, can be only well explained and vindicated on the Principle of no future ftate in the Religion of Mofes And farther, that, on this Principle, all the inextricable embarrass of your Rabbins, in their endeavours to reconcile the different accounts of Mofes and the Prophets concerning that method of punishment, is intirely removed, and a perfect harmony and concord is feen to reign amongst them. But at the fame time that the Principle does this, take notice, it difables you from accounting for the length of your prefent difperfion. For the only reafon your best defender, Orobio, had to affign

m HɛB. vii. 19.
b 2

for

for it was, that you now fuffer not for your own fins but for the fins of your Forefathers. But the Principle which reconciles Mofes and the Prophets, shews that this mode of punishment hath long fince ceased.

II. In answer to the fecond part, your prejudices against the credentials of JESUS's Meffiahfhip, for the want of rational evidence in

Secondary fenfe of Prophecy; I have proved those prejudices to be altogether vain and groundlefs, 1. By tracing up the nature of human converse in speech and writing, from its early original; and from thence evincing, that a fecondary fenfe of Prophecies is proper, rational, and conformable to the justest rules of grammar and logic. 2. By fhewing that this method of information was fo exactly fuited to the occafion, that if ever you were to have a Meffiah to compleat your Law, the body of the Prophecies, relating to him, muft needs be given in the very manner which thofe in difpute are actually given: For that, had thefe Prophecies recorded the nature of the Meffiah's Kingdom in plain and direct terms, it would have defeated the very end and purpofe of the Law. And this, on reflexion, you will find a fufficient answer to thofe FOUR QUERIES into which your ableft Defender". has collected the whole ftrength of your caufe.

As

As a Corollary, likewife, to this part, I fhew, in order to reconcile you ftill farther to the Meffiahfhip of JESUS, that the hiftory of God's Difpenfations to your Fathers, even before his giving the Law, can never be rightly underftood, or fully cleared from the objections of Unbelievers, but on the fuppofition of the redemption of mankind by the death and fufferings of JESUS. And of this I have given a convincing proof in the famous history of the Command to Abraham to offer up his Son. Which I prove to be no other than a REVELA→ TION of that Redemption, delivered in action instead of words. This ftrongly corroborates the Miffion of JESUS, and fhould incline you seriously to confider its force.-Here God reveals to your father Abraham the Redemption of Mankind by the death and paffion of his Son. Why then, I ask you, fhould you not

neceffaria ad falutem generis humani; adeo ut qui non crediderit damnandus effet.

2. Ut affignetur locus, in quo Deus dixerit, quod unicum medium ad falutem Ifraelis, et reftitutionis in divinam gratiam, eft fides in Meffiam jam adventum.

3. Ut affignetur locus, in quo Deus dixerit, quod Ifrael propter infidelitatem in Meffiam erat deperdendus, et abjiciendus in nationibus, ut non fit amplius Populus Dei, fed in æternum damnandus donec Meffiam adventum non crediderit.

4. Tandem affignetur locus, in quo dixit Deus, omnia Legalia præter moralia, fuiffe umbram, feu figuram futurorum in adventu Meffiæ, et quod fere omnia quæ & in divina Lege et in Prophetis fuere revelata, MYSTICE et TROPOLOGICE explicare liceat, quantumvis fenfus literalis omnino defpiciatur. Amica collatio Limb. p. 1, 2.

b 3