this matter.

contradict the Prophets, who say, the one God was publicly worshipped no where but in Judea alone. The not distinguishing between the private teaching and the public worship of one God, made Cudworth, Stillingfleet, and Newton grossly mistake in They cherished this mistake for the reason (we have shown) Prideaux cherished his about Zoroaster; namely, because it might serve religion. Great disservice; which will always be the case where error is employed to serve truth. In a word, the Jews got nothing by their captivity, but by turning their punishment to their profit by a lasting repentance. On the return, they found they had lost a great deal. Extr. Provid. how they were affected by it, Book of Job shows. Yet that rather to teach them humility and submission than to instruct them. The reason the Jewish Prophets did not teach them life and immortality, that belonged to another dispensation. So the writer does not decide, but leaves the two parties in possession of their opinions; resolves all into the unsearchable counsels of God.]

See the progress of the doctrine. At first the denial of future state no heresy; Sadducees not excommunicated; afterwards were; and this was natural in a doctrine deduced from Scripture with so much difficulty, and from Paganism with so much secresy. The Jewish Church, first content with it as a truth, afterwards contending for it as

a necessary truth; for, after the coming of Christ, they found no other way of defending the Jewish religion against the Gospel, as perfect and independent, but by maintaining that it taught a future state. Strongest argument brought by Orobio for it against Limberch, for no complete dispensation, is, that the Jews had a future state.

Read Dassovius.

Jesus' treatment of the two sects explained: severe to the Pharisees, more gentle to the Sadducees. Of the Sadducees he only says, " they do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God," and taking silence for denial. The Pharisees much worse, who by their traditions had made void the Law; departed from the genius of it so far as to supersede the power of the Gospel. The Sadducees adhered to the genius of the Law; found no future state; and so showed the use and necessity of the Gospel. What they erred in was, mistaking the silence of the Law for a denial of it.

The temper likewise that Jesus observed with regard to the doctrine of the two parties is very remarkable. Life and immortality being brought to light by the Gospel, his point was to show to the Pharisees that the Law did not teach it; and against the Sadducees that the Law did not oppose it. First to the Pharisees against their traditions ; then to the Sadducees by the admirable reasoning on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

See what P. Simon says of Jesus' argument, "I am the God," &c. in his answer to the "Sentimens," p. 245.

The Pharisees made not only the Law but the Gospel void by their traditions.

Recapitulation.-Shown how the Jews got the doctrine of a future state; useful for the support of my main argument.

BOOK VIII.

The Pentateuch of Moses' composition. Read Le Clerc. One internal proof, no future state; one external, Samaritan Pentateuch. Character of Moses and the people from the Pentateuch. Character of Moses. No fanatic, proved from his temper, mild and diffident; from his Egyptian education, in which every thing was done by prescribed legal forms, which damps all fanatical flights.

Though a fanatic, this would not have hindered but forwarded a future state. Mahomet, though a fanatic, long enough in the wilderness to cure him. of it. Fumes of fanaticism wear off.

A fanatic might imagine an Extraordinary Providence; but this, so far from excluding a future state, that it would naturally bring it in, as it did among ancient legislators; nay, necessarily, for a pretence of Extraordinary Providence could only be supported by future state.

Suppose him a cool impostor,-still more improbable that he should expose the pretence to Extraordinary Providence by not covering it with a future state. He knew the use of a future state to society in general, and particular use to his people. Easy reception. Odin. Mahomet. Moses, if not acting by commission, mad to reject a future state, though pretending to Extraordinary Provi dence; because religion and society cannot subsist without it, as he had been taught by his Egyptian politics. Ancient legislators pretended to the same. All taught a future state. He bound this doctrine of Extraordinary Providence still stricter on the expectations of the people by a theocracy; for by this he made an Extraordinary Providence an equal one.

This not all; he exposed his pretence to detection, by many dangerous and heavy institutions, without occasion.-Sabbatic year; the annual repair to Jerusalem; leprosy.

Besides, the pretence more desperate in their circumstances; secluded from all others in the wilderness. Different thing in the commerce of the world, for mutual aid supports the pre

tence.

The reasoning of the Divine Legation has at least had this effect, that it seems to have now become the general opinion, both of believers and unbelievers, that Moses did not teach a future state; nor is it to be found in his Law.

And both have attempted to discover the reason of the omission.

Unbelievers, (by the mouth of Lord B.) Moses ignorant of the doctrine. That he could not dis envelope from fables.

Believers, that he had no need to teach what was known before. This true had he not pretended to a divine mission; false as he did.

2. Not a proper occasion, as a system of laws. This not true. The principal system was a system of religion; the laws only for the sake of the religion. If only a system of laws, that no reason. We find it in the ancient systems of laws both practical and speculative. See Divine Legation, vol. I.

3. The people headstrong, that future things would not work upon.

C