them. For it is probable, that it is the cavils, actual or apprehended, of infidels, against so important an omission in the communication made to God's favoured people, that have contributed mainly to suggest a reply which consists in a denial of the fact of such omission: a defence, unfortunately, which gives a great apparent advantage to the adversary, by enabling him to cavil, with much better reason, at the very inadequate manner in which this purpose was accomplished—at the few, and scanty, and obscure intimations of the doctrine, which the Law contains, even admitting every text which has ever been adduced on that side of the question, to be interpreted in the manner most favourable to it.

And this argument, if duly considered, will be found of such weight, as to amount, in fairness, to a decision of the question; to prove, that is, not, of course, that Moses was an impostor, but that, on the supposition of his not being such-in other words, of his being divinely inspired-he could not have been commissioned to inculcate the doctrine of a future state.

For, let it be considered, in the first place, that, as the condition of the departed is unseen,

and as the rewards and punishments of a future life are not only comparatively remote, but also must be considered as of a nature very different from any thing we can have experienced; from all these causes, it is found necessary that the most repeated assurances and admonitions should be employed, even towards those who have received the doctrine on the most satisfactory authority. A Christian minister, accordingly, in these days, finds that his hearers require to be perpetually reminded of this truth, to which they have long since given their assent; and that even, with all the pains he takes to inculcate it, in every different mode, he is still but very partially successful in drawing off men's attention from the things of this world, and fixing it on the

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unseen things, that are eternal." Much more must this have been the case with the Israelites whom Moses was addressing, who were so dull and gross-minded, so childishly short-sighted and sensual, that even the immediate miraculous presence of God among them, of whose judgments and deliverances they had been eye-witnesses, was insufficient to keep them steady in their allegiance to Him. Even the temporal sanctions of the Law,

F

-the plenty and famine,--the victory and defeat, and all the other points of that alternative of worldly prosperity and adversity which was set before them—things in their nature so much more easily comprehended by an unthinking and barbarous people, and so much more suited to their tastes-it was found necessary to detail with the utmost minuteness, and to repeat and remind them of, in the most impressive manner, in a vast number of different passages.*

Is not, then, the conclusion inevitable, that, if to such a people, the doctrine of future retribution had been to be revealed, or any traditional knowledge of it confirmed, we should have found it still more explicitly stated, and still more frequently repeated? And when, instead of any thing like this, we have set before us a few scattered texts, which, it is contended, allude to or imply this doctrine, can it be necessary even to examine whether they are rightly so interpreted? Surely it is a sufficient reply to say, that if Moses had intended to inculcate such a doctrine, he would have clearly stated and dwelt on it in almost every page. Nor is it easy to conceive, a See note (E), at the end of this Essay.

how any man of even ordinary intelligence, and not blinded by devoted attachment to an hypothesis, can attentively peruse the books of the Law, abounding, as they do, with such copious descriptions of the temporal rewards and punishments (in their own nature so palpable) which sanctioned that Law, and with such earnest admonitions grounded on that sanction, and yet can bring himself seriously to believe, that the doctrine of a state of retribution after death, which it cannot be contended is even mentioned, however slightly, in more than a very few

a part of the Mosaic revelation.

passages, formed

And if any one, from a mistaken zeal to vindicate the honour of God's Law against infidels, persists in maintaining that this was intended, how will he reply to the cavil they will immediately raise, against the glaringly inadequate way of fulfilling such an intention? Thus it is, that when men rashly presume to distort the plain meaning of Scripture, for the sake of defending our religion against unsound objections, they expose it to more powerful ones, which they have left themselves without the means of answering.

An unwise attempt to combat Socinian doc

trines also, has probably contributed to produce the same bias in the minds of some, whose abilities and learning would else have led them to judge more fairly of the sense of Scripture. When it is urged against Socinians, that on their hypothesis, which explains away the doctrine of the Atonement into a mere figure of speech, the Gospel-revelation would seem to be of little or no importance, they usually reply, that it established the belief of future retribution. The ready answer to this appears to be, that this belief was already taught in the Old Testament; an assertion which some of the opponents of Socinianism have accordingly undertaken to establish; in conformity with the too common practice, of eagerly catching at any argument which seems to bear against an adversary, without stopping to inquire first whether it is wellfounded. And this carelessness about Truth seldom fails to be in the end injurious to its cause. In the present case, for instance, the Socinian may immediately reply, "you have furnished a decisive refutation of the doctrine that eternal life is procured by the Sacrifice of Christ, and is offered us only through faith in his