chapter of the Hebrews comes under consideration, where I endeavour to show that it is so far from opposing, that it is one of the greatest supports of my scheme. Having, I say, done this, I proceed from the proof of this proposition, and of the two others in my first volume, to establish my conclusion, that therefore the Jewish people were under an Extraordinary Providence, and, consequently, Moses' mission divine. To support and illustrate this, I enter into a more particular examination of that Extraordinary Providence; show it extended to particulars as well as to the public; that yet, if it did not, its extending to the public would be sufficient to my point, as superseding all necessity of the doctrine of a future state for the ends of civil society. I then show how it gradually abated. Its first impair was on the people's choosing a king; but the theocracy continuing, as I show, under their kings, it was still dispensed, though not in so high a measure as before. From this time it gradually abated, and as it abated, the doctrine of a future state arose; first, in the preaching of the Prophets; secondly, by the reflections of the people on appearing inequalities; thirdly, from what the neighbouring nations taught: so that by that time the Extraordinary Providence ceased, as it did from the Captivity, a future state was become amongst the Jews a national established doctrine. This appears to carry with it some weight; and the showing at large by whom

it was brought in, whence the several parts of it were gathered, and how it was understood, all contribute to the support of my thesis.

I then proceed to show the reasons that we may suppose God had in omitting a doctrine, which might be well spared in his dispensation, which yet no one can say would not have had its use. After having assigned several which may be thought worthy of God, I next show that God not only did not for these reasons reveal this doctrine in the law, but that, if the law did indeed come from him, it could not for several other reasons then reveal it, agreeably to the method of God's general dispensation delivered in Scripture. The sum of one of my arguments is this: "The future state discoverable by natural reason, and that taught by Revelation, are built upon quite different foundations." That of the first upon this, that the moral attributes of God require that he should punish and reward according to men's behaviour; if it be not done here, it must be done hereafter. This notion of a future state might be taught at any time, and was actually taught by all the ancient legislators; but that Moses, if he was indeed the messenger of God, could not teach this, will be seen by what follows.

But the future state taught by Revelation was solely built upon this foundation,-that Adam having forfeited the free gift of immortality given him on condition, he and his posterity were to be

restored to it by the death or sacrifice of the second Adam. Now a future state according to this notion, I show, could not be taught but at that time only when the gift was restored to us; that redemption and the Redeemer, the workman and his work, must necessarily be coeval. Moses, therefore, being, on the supposition, an agent and instrument of God for the giving a religion which was a part or member of one grand economy and dispensation, could not teach another life according to the notion of it under natural religion, because it was extraneous to that dispensation; could not teach it according to the notion under Revelation, because that doctrine was future in that dispensation. But thoroughly to establish this argument, and several others to the same point, there is need precisely to examine the nature of Christianity. In doing this I endeavour to establish the doctrines of redemption, satisfaction, faith, justification, those bugbears of our great masters of reason in the Socinian way, and to show their reality against their conclusions, and their utmost reasonableness upon their principles. The fruits, I hope, from this are,

1. To evince the truth of the proposition in question, that a future state could not be delivered by Moses. 2. To point out a short and easy road to the end of those odious and perpetual controversies about the nature of grace, of satisfaction, of justification by faith, the preference of moral or positive precepts, pardon on repentance alone, and

utterly to demolish all the overstrained Socinian nonsense of Chubb's late Tracts against Revelation. 3. And principally, to present an entire view of the whole of God's grand dispensation to man, from Adam to Jesus; where may be seen at once the beauty, consistency, harmony, and necessary dependency of all the parts upon one another; which will at the same time, we hope, reflect the most advantageous light over the whole body of the work. And with this it concludes.

Your lordship, as I have said, has been my great master in this career; so that no one surely could conduct me so safely through it. This would naturally tempt me to beg information, to propose my doubts, to seek for directions; but that I reflect I am, as it were, performing quarantine as coming lately from suspected places, from the cabinet council of old lawgivers, and the schools of heathen philophers, and their venom is supposed to be yet sticking on me; in which state it would be presumption and ill manners to come near our superiors. But whatever becomes of this, I can never think myself unhappy while your lordship is so good to believe this one truth upon my bare word-that I am, with the highest gratitude and veneration,

My Lord,

Your lordship's most obliged

and most devoted and faithful servant,

W. WARBURton.

BISHOP SHERLOCK TO REV. W. WARBURTON.

Wallington, near Baldock, Hertfordshire, Dec. 18, 1738. REVEREND SIR,

I am ashamed that I have been so long in acknowledging, not only the present I received of the second edition of your book, but your letter of the 22d of last month. I have a just excuse-I was seized with the epidemical cold at London, which brought such a rheum into my eyes that I am hardly now able to write.

I see the difficulty of your Second Part, and you see it. You have in your first book showed the ends that were to be served by the magistrate in cultivating the notion of a future state: you are now to show that these ends were served under the Jewish polity without the help of this notion.

You say, "this third proposition, and the two other in the first volume, being proved, I come to the establishment of my conclusion, that therefore the Jews at the time of Moses must needs be under an Extraordinary Providence, and, consequently, that Moses' mission was divine."

The point here is this, whether this proposition, "That the Jews at the time of Moses must needs be under an Extraordinary Providence," is to be admitted as a consequence from what you have said. Is it not the main thing to be proved, in