and prevarication in fetting afide the authority of one half of the Bible, in order to establish the other?

If we be refolved to adhere to the common system, and to defend the Jewish religion on those principles, we fhall be obliged to take great liberties both with the Old and New Teftament. It will be neceffary to add many plain and explicit revelations of a future state to the Old: and it will be as neceffary to ftrike out of the New, all thofe paffages, which suppose this doctrine was referved for the teaching of our Saviour.

One would indeed fufpect, that these paffages had been long erased and forgotten, from the little attention which has been paid to them by fome late defenders of revelation. "For we are told, that the true religion, given

by God, has always been SUBSTANTIALLY "the fame, or that the promise of a refto"ration to the life and immortality forfeited

by the fall had been revealed to our first parents, and ever after continued a part "of the primitive religion derived from "them h."

h Dr. Leland's View of Deistical writers. Vol. ii. p. 479, 480.

Happily for the facred fcriptures, the learned Doctor has only afferted, and not proved, thefe pofitions. For had he proved them, the confequence had been dreadful. It would have convicted the many paffages produced in this chapter from the New Testament of the moft palpable and direct falfehood.

I would afk, whether the author of this View proposes to establish his hypothefis on the authority of the Old or New Testament? If on the first, he makes the Old Teftament inconfiftent with the New. If on the laft, he makes the New Teftament inconfiftent with itself.

Even my Lord Bishop himself will be embaraffed, if he should engage to remove the infidel objection, which fuppofes the Jewish religion was unworthy of God, because it had not the doctrine of a future state. He does, indeed, tell unbelievers, that our SAVIOUR says, the law afforded a good proof of a future life. But they will fay, he also tells them, that this was a mystery, which God reserved to himself, without divulging it to the world, before the coming of Chrift. And they will obferve withal, that he has collected feveral ! Vol. i. p. 188.

paffages

paffages out of St. PAUL's epiftles in confirmation of this laft affertion *.

They may perhaps therefore be bold enough to tell him, that according to his interpretation, as well as Lord Bolingbroke's, Jefus Christ taught one doctrine, and St. Paul another; and the apoftle fent, not to establish, but to overturn, one of the principal positions laid down by his master.

The supporters of the common fyftem are often reminding us, "that God, confiftently with his wisdom and goodness, COULD not omit revealing this doctrine to the Ifraelites." That is, God could not, confiftently with his wisdom and goodness, omit to reveal a doctrine, which the infpired writers of the New Teftament affure us was not revealed by him.

And are we to believe, on the authority of the common system, that God ought to have done, what these inspired writers declare he did not do? Is not this erecting a fyftem on the ruin of the gofpel difpensation? Or, more properly, is it not preferring human wifdom to the divine?

The objection, therefore, can make but little impreffion on the believer, who no more at

*Vol. i. p. 133, 4, 5.
G 3

tempts

tempts to mend the works of grace than those of nature, and prefumes not to dictate and prescribe in what manner God should or ought to have acted, when the written word has informed him in what manner he really did act.

It is much better calculated to ferve the cause of the libertine, as it will enable him to prove, on the authority of the New Testament, that God did not do what he should or ought to have done in the Old. Allow him but this principle', and you put the fceptre in his hand, or authorife him to rejudge his God, and to weigh his opinion against providence.

It is abfurd, therefore, to inculcate the neceffity of fuppofing, that the Jewish religion had a future ftate, as neceffary to the defence of it. The believer will not think him-self at liberty to affume a principle, which is flatly contradicted by the New Testament, or to affign the Jewish religion such a degree and measure, of perfection, as neither did, nor poffibly could belong to it, if the Chriftian

be true.

To fay he shall be unable to defend the Law, without affuming this principle; is in

Viz. That God ought to have revealed this doctrine to the ancient Jews.

effect

effect to fay, he shall be unable to defend the Law, without giving up the Gofpel.

We are often told, it would have been cruel in God to leave the Jews under a continual fubjection to the fear of death, without any prospect or expectation of a better life. Which is only faying in other words, and in contradiction to the New Teftament, that it would have been cruel in God, to leave the Jews fitting in darkness, and in the region and Shadow of death; or to have fuffered them to continue fubject to bondage through fear of death, during the whole period of their lives.

The followers of Lord Bolingbroke will not be displeased to hear, that it was CRUEL in that God whom he accufes of cruelty, that he did not communicate the doctrine of life and immortality to the antient Jews. For as St. Paul evidently afcribes this conduct to him, they will think this fufficient to justify all the venom and malignity, which their master has so copiously shed on the character of the Apostle. The only question is, whether the paffages of the New Testament above quoted do, or do not imply, that God did leave the Jews without the promise of life and immortality? For if they imply that