Here then arises a question. Why, in those many various revelations which are recorded as having been imparted in the earlier ages of the world to the patriarchs and the chosen people of God, are those clear assurances of a future state withheld, which are now afforded to ourselves under the Gospel?

To offer a few considerations which may possibly conduce to the solution of this difficulty, and help us to trace the footsteps of divine wisdom in the proceeding to which we refer, will be the design of the following treatise. Before, however, we proceed further in our inquiry, there are two observations which it will be right to premise.

My first observation is, that nothing is here assumed respecting the silence of the Mosaic code on the subject of a future life, further than the absence of all express declaration on that head. Explicit declaration is only one out of a great variety of modes by which truth may be made known. That a future state is not thus directly taught in the Pentateuch, is all that is at present asserted as the groundwork of the argument which is to follow. Whether this important doctrine may be gathered in the way of inference from the Mosaic writings; whether those writings were designed to favour such an inference, and to cherish the hope of a triumph over the grave; these are points which will properly offer themselves for discussion in the progress of our inquiry.

Secondly, We shall consider as separate parts of one entire dispensation, all those various revelations contained in holy Scripture, in which God at sundry times and in divers manners hath spoken to

the world, from the fall of our first parents, down to the sealing up of the vision and prophecy under the Messiah. At the same time, it forms no part of the design of this inquiry to take in the whole scheme of revealed religion: its object being limited to a particular provision of the Mosaic law, for the purpose of illustrating the wisdom of that provision in its adjustment and adaptation to the general plan of which it forms a part. The scheme of man's redemption will be contemplated as it is set forth in holy writ; and nothing further is proposed, than to prove, from a general view of this mysterious economy, that the specific point selected for consideration, is perfectly consistent with the design of the whole, wisely adapted to promote its success, and perfectly agreeable to the divine attributes of goodness and mercy. If any thing further should be offered, it will be only incidentally, as occasion may happen in the course of our inquiry to suggest reflections, tending to vindicate the ways of Providence, to strengthen the obligations of piety and gratitude, and to silence the cavils of ignorance and presumption.

This last observation has been deemed important for the following reason. While vindicating from objection one provision of the scriptural scheme, we may have occasion to shew, that a departure from that provision would have been ill adapted, either to the general character of the scheme itself, to the established course of Providence, or to the natural constitution of human minds: all of which we refer to God as their author. Yet if this shall be made satisfactorily to appear, it may still be objected: but

why was this scheme framed as it is? or, why was not the course of events differently ordered? or, why were not the minds of men otherwise constituted? To such objections we profess not to give any distinct reply: as indeed they are capable of none, but that which dismisses the objector with an admonition respecting his ignorance".

To reason thus looks as if we would take the government of the world out of God's hands into our own. The system of religion which we profess to vindicate is, and must be, imperfectly comprehended by us. Enough is revealed for all the purposes of our happiness; but much more is unrevealed. To work contradictions cannot be expected even of Omnipotence: yet we doubt not, that the demands of human pride and inconsideration, such as we have now stated, would appear replete with contradictions to a mind, capable of embracing all those possibilities, relations, and consequences, which lie open to the contemplation of the Supreme Intelligence. It will suffice for us to shew, that the system itself is, with regard to the subject of our present consideration, free from inconsistency and self-contradiction: though, even in this limited point of view, we protest against admitting, as a real inconsistency, that which may appear such to us, whose mental vision, unaided by a light from heaven, can penetrate little further than the surface of the objects which lie immediately around it.

a "Our ignorance, as it is the common, is really a satisfactory, "answer to all objections against the justice and goodness of "Providence." Butler's Analogy, part i. chap. vii.

b See Butler's Analogy, pt. ii. ch. iv. as also pt. i. ch. vii.

CHAPTER II.

REASONS WHY THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE IS

NOT EXPRESSLY TAUGHT IN THE WRITINGS OF MOSES.

Unius PONTIFICIUM Christi est dare animis salutem.

Arnobius adv. Gen. II. 65.

IN examining a complex piece of mechanism, if we would form a right judgment of the structure of any of its component parts, it is requisite that we should have in view the end and purpose which is to be answered by the operation of the whole machine : otherwise it will be impossible to frame a just estimate of the skill with which that component part has been framed to the performance of its subordinate office.

A mode of inquiry analogous to what has now been described, is that which it will be right for us to pursue in the consideration of our present subject. The whole body of revelation must be viewed as one entire dispensation, receiving its full and complete developement in the Gospel. Of this whole, so much as relates to the Israelites under the Law is to be regarded as a subordinate part, having only a relative connexion with the great and final purpose. When therefore we inquire, Why was the knowledge of a future state afforded to the Israelites, so slender in comparison with that which Christians now enjoy? the measure is to be contemplated, not simply as it may have affected the

condition of that single people, but as having an ulterior reference to that glorious redemption, which God had decreed to accomplish in the fulness of time for the benefit of all the children of men. In other words, we must see whether we can discover, in this particular provision, a consistency with the final purpose, to which this and all the other subordinate parts of revealed religion are professedly accommodated.

Let us advert, then, to that great fundamental principle of pure Christianity, that the atonement of Christ is the only warrantable foundation on which a human creature can establish his hopes respecting a future life. Such being the case, would not any explicit declarations respecting a future state, or any clear assurances of the felicity which in that state is prepared for the faithful: would not such declarations and assurances, I say, have been premature, if they had been conveyed antecedently to the performance of that meritorious sacrifice; or, at least, before a distinct explanation had been furnished to mankind of the only ground on which they could entertain any well founded hopes relating to another world? We know, that all expectations of the divine favour which stand upon the basis of human virtue and obedience, are utterly incompatible with the plan of our redemption, and that the plea of merit is one on which no flesh will be accepted before God. But would not a hope of this nature, offensive as it is to God, and utterly unwarrantable in itself, have been fondly cherished by the pride and ignorance of man, if at any earlier period he had possessed that distinct infor