"believed that his religion was supported 'by an extraordinary Providence.

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"This," (says the learned writer) "is the

argument of the Divine 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 Mosaic institution was without this ઃઃ support, and yet it did not want it. What follows, but that the Jewish affairs were "administered by an extraordinary Providence, distributing reward and punish"ment with an equal hand, and consequent"ly 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; "in

+ Warburton, B. VI. sect. vi. the Recapitulation, v. 5. particularly 366.

"cluding a severe 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,

* 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. I. Part I. ch. viii. and ix. and Vol. II. Part II.; the entire of which appears to prove, that much of the second Book of Warburton is over-stated. 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 certaiu; 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, ncbody, I think, can believe, who will read with an unprejudiced mind, Plato's Phædon, or the first book of Cicero's Tusculan Quæstions. 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 gene

rally

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 This subject, and prevented him from giving that minute attention to the nature and genius of the Hebrew constitution, which he originally designed, as he never completed the last volume of his work, intended to support what had been already *" in a seventh book, which was proved "intended

66

rally 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. and iv.; and Book IV. sect iii. and iv.

* Vide Warburton, ibid, the two last pages of the Divine Legation.

"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; an eighth book, "which was destined to consider the per"sonal character of Moses, and the genius "of his Law, as far as it concerns or has 66 a relation to the character of the Law

giver, 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

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'and punishments in the sanctions of the "Jewish Law."

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 us to consider 1

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 connection 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 ob

servance