CHAPTER IV.

AN INQUIRY INTO THE SOURCES FROM WHICH THE ANCIENT ISRAELITES MAY HAVE DERIVED THEIR BELIEF IN A FUTURE STATE.

THE difference between the religious condition of the ancient Israelite and that of the heathen world, was entirely favourable to the Israelite: it did not consist in a partial superiority counterbalanced by corresponding disadvantages; but in all particulars, whether as to knowledge or happiness, the Israelite was superior. This proposition we have endeavoured to establish. Admitting the validity of the reasoning by which it was supported, we must infer, that if the belief in a future state was entertained by the Gentile world, it must have been entertained in common with them by this peculiar nation. When therefore we propose to inquire into the origin of that belief, as it was received among the Israelites, it will be requisite that we should, in the first place, investigate those common sources from which it was derived into the religious system of the whole world. This branch of our inquiry will therefore form the first head of the ensuing disquisition. We shall, secondly, advance a step further towards the object in view, by illustrating the negative tendency of the Mosaic Law. This will be for the purpose of shewing, that the omission in that code of any positive declarations respecting a future state would have no tendency to eradicate from the mind of the Israelite that belief, which he would otherwise have cherished

in common with his fellow-creatures. Thirdly, we shall undertake to prove, that the provisions of the Law, far from tending to suppress this doctrine, were positively adapted to countenance and keep it alive, in a degree which far exceeded any encouragement which was afforded to the belief of it among the heathen.

SECTION I.

Inquiry into the origin of the belief in a future state, considered as a doctrine belonging to the universal religion of mankind.

Qua de re ingens apud philosophos disceptatio est: nec quidquam tamen explicare aut probare potuerunt ii, qui verum de anima sentiebant; expertes enim hujus divinæ eruditionis, nec argumenta vera, quibus vincerent, attulerunt, nec testimonia, quibus probarent. Lactantii Div. Inst. iii. 13.

FIRST then, we are to investigate the causes which must have operated on the minds of the Israelites, in common with the rest of mankind, to produce a belief in a future state of retribution.

A few prefatory remarks will here be serviceable in the way of introduction to this branch of our inquiry.

It is by no means a necessary part of the reasoning we are about to pursue, that we should account for the universal prevalence of this doctrine, by accurately tracing the connexion between the effect and its cause. It is sufficient for our purpose, that the doctrine itself did universally prevail among mankind; as the celebrated writer, against whose principles we contend, has sufficiently proved in a

learned and elaborate disquisition on the subjecta. If then it be certain, that this doctrine was universally incorporated into the religious systems of the Gentile world; if it be certain that the Israelite, as to all points of religious distinction between him and the Gentile, was eminently favoured, and that he was not, as to any such point, subject to a disadvantage in which the other did not partake; lastly, if it be also certain, that the want of this doctrine would, in its influence on the happiness of man, be a very great disadvantage: if these things be undeniable, how can you evade the conclusion, that the chosen people of God must have enjoyed at least as much light upon this subject as the rest of the world?

But it is, on the other hand, a principle highly important to our argument, that the universality of this belief in a future retribution be regarded as the result of a special appointment of the divine will. We are fully warranted in so regarding it: nay, we cannot without impiety regard it otherwise, even though the secondary causes, through which that will has been carried into effect, may lie concealed from our view. It is not necessary in order to recognise an appointment of Providence, that we should be able to trace the various successive steps which have intervened between its first origin and its final accomplishment. The mode of operation belonging to some of the most important laws which regulate the movements of the natural creation, will ever baffle the utmost penetration and sagacity of

a Div. Leg. book ii. §. 1. et seq.

man: such are the gravitation of bodies, the process of vegetation, and the connexion subsisting between the volition and the motions of animal life. Now as we alike refer to God, as their author, both the dispensations of revealed religion and the constitution of the natural world, it is reasonable to suppose, that a similarity of proceeding should be observable in both. It cannot therefore be required, that we should distinctly unfold all the means which may have been employed by Infinite Wisdom, for the purpose of bringing about a general concurrence in the expectations of mankind respecting a future retribution. Methods may have been employed, and those too of powerful operation, with a view to this end, which the unsearchable wisdom of God may have judged it right to withhold from the knowledge of his creatures". The possible employment of such methods we may well conceive.

b"There might possibly be among the few faithful in the "world a traditionary exposition of the promises of God, ground"ed upon more express revelations, made either before or soon "after the flood, than have come down to our times." Bishop Sherlock's Dissertations, Diss. II. p. 176. in the 4th vol. of his works, edit. Oxford, 1812. The observation relates to the celebrated passage in Job, xix. 25, 26, 27. The term promises is not, indeed, strictly agreeable to the views maintained in this treatise; but we may by a parity of reasoning suppose, that means sufficiently efficacious may have been providentially employed for the same purpose, of which means no knowledge has been transmitted to us. But indeed I do not object to the above term, provided that nothing further is understood by it than the promise of a Messiah, the blessedness of whose expected advent could in no other way have been reasonably understood, than by regarding him as the author of everlasting life, and of man's deliverance from the effects of the fall.

This ought to be borne in mind as a weighty consideration in the reasoning which is about to be introduced; since it is adequate to supply any deficiency of proof under which that reasoning may be supposed to labour. Let it suffice that the doctrine of a future state was believed by the whole Gentile world. This, we say, is a fact which cannot be accounted for on Christian principles otherwise than as an express appointment of Providence. For to suppose that a principle of such powerful influence on the conduct and the happiness of rational beings should have been thus universally diffused, without any provision in the counsels of Supreme Wisdom for the production of such an effect, and without any providential design as to the consequences resulting from it: this would evince a mode of thinking on the subject of the divine attributes, for which a patron or an advocate can be found only in the school of Epicurus.

And I think it will appear, after mature consideration, that we have good reason to admit the probability of certain means having been thus employed by God, which have not been distinctly unfolded in the Mosaic writings. We have already examined the consequences which might have been expected to flow from the insertion in those writings of any explicit declarations relative to the condition of men after death. We have endeavoured to illustrate, in the omission of such declarations, an instance of the wisdom with which the earlier dispensations of religion were adapted to promote the final success of the Gospel. And may not the same consequences be contemplated as the probable result