. OF MOSES DEMONSTRATED. 177 that Doctrine was National, or generally known in it, If they have the least ingenuity, they will answer, They could not. On what then do they support their opinion here, but on religious Prejudices? Prejudices of no higher an original than some Dutch or German System for, as to the BIBLE, one half of it is silent concerning life and immortality; and the other half declares that the doctrine was brought to light through the Gospel. But to set this argument in its fullest light. Let us consider the History of the rest of mankind, whether recorded by Bards, or Statesmen; by Philosophers, or Priests: in which we shall find the doctrine of a future state still bearing, throughout all the various circumstances of human life, a constant and principal share in the determinations of the Will. And no wonder. We see how strong the Grecian world thought the sanction of it to be, by a passage in Pindar, quoted by Plutarch in his tract of Superstition, where he makes it one circumstance of the superior happiness of the Gods, over men, that they stood not in fear of Acheron. Both these Possessions, And both, it But not to be distracted by too large a view, let us select from the rest of the Nations, one or two most resembling the Jewish. Those which came nearest to them (and, if the Jews were only under human guidance, indeed extremely near), were the SUEVI of the north, and the ARABS of the south. People were led out in search of new which they were to win by the sword. is confessed, had the doctrine of a Future state inculcated unto them by their leaders, ODIN and MAHOOf the Arabs we have a large and circumstantial history: Of the Sueyi we have only some few fragments of the songs and ballads of their Bards; VOL. V. MET. N yet yet they equally serve to support our Conclusion. In the large history of the Saracen Empire we can scarce find a page, and in the Runic rhymes of the Suevi scarce a line, where the doctrine of a future state was not pushing on its influence. It was their constant Viaticum through life; it stimulated them to war and slaughter, and spirited their songs of triumph; it made them insensible of pain, immoveable in danger, and superior to the approach of death*. For, what Cicero says of Poetry in Rome, may be more truly applied to the Doctrine of a Future state amongst these Barbarians; "Ceteræ neque temporum sunt, neque ætatum omnium, neque locorum. · Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, "secundas res ornant, ADVERSIS PERFUGIUM AC SOLATIUM PRÆBENT†.” 66 But this is not all. For we find, that when a future state became a popular doctrine amongst the Jewish People (the time and occasion of which will be explained hereafter) that then it made as considerable a figure in their Annals, by influencing their determinations, as it did in the history of any other people. Nor is it only on the silence of the sacred Writers, or of the speakers they introduce, that I support this conclusion; but from their positive declarations; in which they plainly discover that there was no popular expectation of a future state, or Resurrection. Thus the woman of Tekoah to David: For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again §. Thus Job: As the cloud is consumed, and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more||. And * See note [00] at the end of this Book. See the 2d book of Maccabees. See note [PP] at the end of this Book. again: "There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, "that it will sprout again-though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in "the ground, yet through the scent of water, it will "bud and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man "dieth and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fall from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth-up: so man "lieth down and riseth not till the Heavens be no more, they shall not awake nor be raised out of "their sleep*." Here the Jewish Writer, for such he was, as shall be shewn hereafter (and might, indeed, be understood to be such from this declaration alone) opposes the revival of a vegetable to the irrecoverable death of a rational animal. Had he known as much as St. Paul, he had doubtless used that circumstance in the vegetable world (as St. Paul did) to prove analogically, the revival of the rational animal. 1 66 The Psalmist says, In death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks? And again: What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee, shall it declare thy truth? And again : "Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? Shall the "dead ARISE and praise thee? Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in "destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the "dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forget"fulness §?" The writer of the book of Ecclesiastes is still more express: For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they-any # Chap. xiv. ver. 7—12. N 2 † Psalm vi. 6. § Psalm lxxxviii. 11—13. more more a REWARD, for the memory of them is forgotten*. Hezekiah, in his song of Thanksgiving for his miraculous recovery, speaks in the same strain: "For "the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate "thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope "for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: The father to the children "shall make known thy truth t." Lastly Jeremiah, in his Lamentations and complaints of the people, says, OUR FATHERS HAVE SINNED AND ARE NOT, AND WE HAVE BORN THEIR INIQUITIES. Which implies, that the fathers being dead bore no part of the punishment of their sins, but that all was thrown upon the children. But could, this have been supposed, had the People been instructed in the doctrine of future rewards and· punishments? Yet a learned Answerer, in contradiction to all this, thinks it sufficient to say, That "these passages may imply no more than that the dead cannot set forth "God's glory before men, or make his praise to be "known upon earth §." Now I think it must needs imply something more, since the dead are said to be unable to do this under the earth as well as upon it. For it is the Grave which is called the land of forgetfulness, or that where all things are forgotten. in another place it is said, The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence. Surely, a plain intimation that all intercourse of praise between man and his Maker ceased on death, as well below ground as above; otherwise why did the sacred writer See note [QQ] at the end of this Book. Dr. Stebbing's Exam. &c. p. 64. And Chap. v. ver. 7. tell us it was the Grave which was the place of silence to the dead? If the Answerer's interpretation be right, this world, and not the other, was the place. Had the Psalmist supposed, as the Doctor does, that the dead continued in a capacity of remembering the goodness of God, this remembrance could be no where more quickly or forcibly excited than in that World where the divine goodness is clearly unveiled to thẻ spirits of just men made perfect*. On the contrary, the Grave is uniformly represented by all of them, as the land of darkness, silence, and forgetfulness. But since, of all the sacred writers, the Psalmist is he who is supposed by the adversaries of the D. L. to have most effectually confuted the Author's system, I shall quote a passage from his hymns, which, I think, fairly enough decides the controversy.-Hitherto we have only heard him say, that the dead forget God; we shall now find him go further, and say that God forgets them.-"I am counted with them that go down into the pit.-FREE amongst the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest nò more: and THEY ARE CUT OFF FROM THY HAND. Let the serious reader take notice of the last words,-they (the dead) are cut off from thy hand, i.e. they are no longer the object of thy Providence or moral Government. On this account it is, that in the beginning of the sentence he calls these dead FREE; that is, manumised, set at liberty; in the same sense that Uzziah the leper's freedom is spoken of by the sacred historian--And Uzziah the King was a Leper, and dwelt in a several house [or, as the margin of our translation tells us, it signifies in the Hebrew, a FREE HOUSE, or house of freedom] being a Leper, for he was CUT OFF from the house of the Lord. The phrase of + Ps. lxxxviii. 4, 5. * Heb. xii. 23. C N 3 cutting |