own principles, that the Law of Moses could not now oblige; which he does in this irresistible manner. "The Law, says he, we know is spiritual*; that is, in a spiritual sense promises immmortality: for it says, Do this and livet. Therefore, he who does the deeds

the Law shall live . But what then? I am carnal§ And all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: So that no flesh can be justified by the deeds of the Law ¶, which requires a perfect obedience. Works then being unprofitable, we must have recourse to Faith: But the Law is not of Faith**: Therefore the Law is unprofitable for the attainment of salvation, and consequently no longer obligatory."-Never was an important argument more artfully conducted, where the erroneous are brought into the right way on their own principles, and yet the truth' not given up or betrayed. This would have been admired in a Greek or Roman Orator.

But though the principle he went upon was common both to him and his adversaries, and consequently true, that the Law was spiritual, or had a spiritual meaning, whereby, under the species of those temporal promises of the Law, the promises of the Gospel were shadowed out; yet the inference from thence, that the Law offered immortality to its followers, was solely Jewish, and urged by St. Paul as an argument ad hominem only; which appears certain from these considerations :

1. This spiritual sense, which St. Paul owns to be in the Law, was not a sense which was conveyed down with the literal, by Moses, to the followers of the Law; but was a sense invented or discovered long † Lev. xviii. 5. Gal, iii. 12.

* Rom. vii. 14. Rom. x. 5.

Gal. i. 16.

§ Rom. vii. 14.

Chap. iii. ver. 11.

#Rom. iii. 23 ** Gal, iii. 12.

after;

after the spurious, by the later Jewish Doctors;, and the genuine and real, by the Apostles; as appears from these words of St. Paul:-But now we are delivered from the Law, that being DEAD wherein we were held, that we should serve in NEWNESS OF SPIRIT, and not in the OLDNESS OF THE LETTER * We see here, the Apostle gives the letter to the Jewish Economy, and the spirit to the Christian. Let me observe how exactly this quadrates with, and how well it, explains, what he says in another place; where having told the Corinthians that he and his Fellow-Apostles: were ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the spirit, he adds, the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. The Jews had only the letter delivered to them by the Law, but the Letter killeth; the consequence is, that the Law (in which was only the letter) had no future state.

2. Secondly, Supposing St. Paul really to hold that the Law offered immortality to its followers, and that. that immortality was attached (as his argument supposes it) to Works, it would contradict the other reasoning which both he himself and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews urged so cordially against the second error of the Jewish Converts; namely, of immortality's being attached to works, or that justification, was by works under the Gospel: for to confute this error, they prove, as we have shewn, that it was faith which justified, not only under the Gospel, but under the Law also.

3. Thirdly, If immortality were indeed offered through works, by the Law, then justification by faith, one of the great fundamental doctrines of Christianity†, would

Rom. vii. 6.

This I shall shew hereafter; and endeavour to rescue it from the madness of enthusiasm on the one hand, and the absurdity of

would be infringed. For then faith could, at best, be only supposed to make up the defect of works, in such a sense as to enable works to justify.

4. Fourthly, It would directly contradict what St. Paul in other places says of the Law; as that it is a shadow of things to come, but that the body is of CHRIST. But the offer of immortality on one condition, could never be called the shadow of the offer of it on another. That it is the schoolmaster to bring men to Christ t. Now, by the unhappy dexterity of these men, who, in defiance of the Apostle, will needs give the doctrines of grace and truth, as well as the doctrines of the Law, to MoSES, His appointed SCHOOLMASTER, the Law, is made to act à part that would utterly discredit every other schoolmaster, namely, to teach his children, yet in their Elements, the sublime doctrines of manly science.

5. Fifthly and lastly, If St. Paul intended this for any more than an argument ad hominem, he contradicted himself, and misled his disciple Timothy, whom he expressly assured, that our Saviour Jesus Christ hath ABOLISHED DEATH, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. And lest, by this bringing to light, any one should mistake him to mean only that Jesus Christ had made life and immortality more clear and manifest, than Moses had done, he adds, that our Saviour had abolished or destroyed Death, or that state of mortality and extinction into which mankind had fallen by the transgression of Adam; and in which, they continued under the Law of Moses, as appears from that Law's having no other sanction than temporal rewards and punishments. Now this

state

the common system on the other, and yet not betray it, în explaining it away under the fashionable pretence of delivering the Scripture Doctrine of it. Gal. iv. 3-9.

Col. iii. 17. + Gal. iii. 24.

state must needs be abolished, before another could be introduced: consequently by bringing life and immortality to light, must needs be meant, the introduction of a new system.

I will only observe, that the excellent Mr. Locke was not aware of the nature of the argument in question; and so, on its mistaken authority, hath seemed to suppose that the Law did indeed offer immortality to its followers: This hath run him into great perplexities throughout his explanation of St. Paul's epistles.e

Thus we have at length proved our THIRD PHOPOSITION, That the Doctrine of a future state of Rewards and Punishments is not to be found in, nor did make part of, the Mosaic Dispensation; and, as we presume, to the satisfaction of every capable and impartial reader.

But to give these arguments credit with those who determine only by AUTHORITY, I shall, in the last place, support them with the opinions of three Protestant Writers; but these Three worth a million. The first is the illustrious GROTIUS" Moses in

Religionis Judaica Institutione, si diserta Legis "réspicimus, mihil promisit supra hujus vitæ bona, “terram uberem, penum copiosum, victoriam de "hostibus, longam & valentem senectutem, posteros "cum bona spe superstites. Nam, SI QUID EST ULTRA, in umbris obtegitur, aut sapienti ac DIFFI"CILI ratiocinatione colligendum est."

The second is the excellent EPISCOPIUS." In tota "Lege Mosaica nullum vitæ æternæ præmium, ac në æterni quidem præmii INDICIUM VEL VESTIGIUM extat: quicquid nunc Judæi multum de futuro seculo, de resurrectione mortuorum, de vita æterna "loquantur, & ex Legis verbis ea extorquere potius

quam

IMPERFECTAM ESSE COGANTUR AGNOSCERE CUM

"Sadducæis; quos olim (&, uti observo ex scriptis "Rabbinorum, hodieque) vitam futuri sæculi Lege "Mosis nec promitti nec contineri adfirmasse, quum "tamen Judæi essent, certissimum est. Nempe non &6 nisi per Cabalam sive Traditionem, quam illi in "universum rejiciebant, opinionem sive fidem illam

irrepsisse asserebant. Et sane opinionum, quæ inter "Judæos érat, circa vitam futuri sæculi discrepantia, "arguit promissiones Lege factas tales esse, ut ex iis "certi quid de vita futuri sæculi non possit colligi. Quod & Servator noster non obscure innuit, cum "resurrectionem mortuorum colligit Mat. XXII. non

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แ

ex promisso aliquo Legi addito, sed ex generali "tantum illo promisso Dei, quo se Deum Abrahami, "Isaaci, & Jacobi futurum spoponderat: quæ tamen “illa collectio magis nititur cognitione intentionis "divinæ sub generalibus istis verbis occultatæ aut

comprehensæ, de qua Christo certo constabat, quàm "necessaria consequentia, sive verborum vi ac virtute "manifestâ, qualis nunc & in verbis Novi Testamenti, "ubi vita æterna & resurrectio mortuorum proram " & puppim faciunt totius Religionis Christianæ, & "tam clarè ac disertè promittuntur ut ne hiscere qui"dem contra quis possit *.

And the third is our learned Bishop BULL:"Primo quæritur an in V. Testamento nullum omnino

extet vitæ æternæ promissum? de eo enim à non"nullis dubitatur. Resp. Huic quæstioni optimè "mihi videtur. respondere Augustinus, distinguens "" nomen Veteris Testamenti: nam eo intelligi ait aut pactum illud, quod in Monte Sinai factum est, "aut omnia, quæ in Mose, Hagiographis, ac Prophetis * Inst. Theol. lib. iii. sect. 1. c. 2.

"continentur.