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"those days; I will put my Law in their "inward parts, and write it in their hearts, "and will be their God, and they shall be

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my people." And Ezekiel, speaking of the same times, says, * "I will give them one

heart, and will put a new spirit within you, &c. "I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an "heart of flesh, that they may walk in

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my statutes and keep mine ordinances; "and they shall be my people, and I will "be their God. But as for them whose "heart walketh after the heart of their "detestable things, and their abominations, "I will recompense their way upon their "own heads, saith the Lord God."

Thus in the Jewish system, a people of gross and carnal minds and short-sighted views, slow to believe any thing they could not themselves experience, and therefore almost incapable of being sufficiently influenced by the remote prospect of a future life, and the pure and spiritual blessedness of a celestial existence, were wisely and necessarily placed under a Law, which was supported

* Ezek. xi. 19.

supported by a visible extraordinary Providence, conferring immediate rewards and punishments on the person of the offender; or laying hold of his most powerful instincts, by denouncing, that his crimes would be visited upon his children, and his children's children, to the third and fourth generation: a proceeding which made a necessary part of that national discipline, under which the Jews were placed, and which was free from all shadow of injustice; because, when the innocent were afflicted for their parents' crimes, (as Warburton has well observed) it was by the deprivation of temporal benefits, in their. nature forfeitable. Or should this not so clearly appear, yet we may bê sure, God who reserved to himself the right of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, would perfectly rectify any apparent inequality in the course of his providential government over the chosen people, in another and a better world; by repaying the innocent, who had necessarily suffered here, with an eternal and abundant recompence.

PART III.

LECTURE IV.

SECT. I.

PART III.

LECTURE IV.

SECT. I.

Doctrine of a future state, though it does not form the sanction of the Mosaic Law, is yet contained in the writings of Moses-Warburton's assertions on this subject hasty and inconsistent with each otherAnd with the seventh article of the Church of England-Future state intimated in the history of the creation and the fall-By the circumstances at→ tending the death of Abel-By the translation of Enoch— By the command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac-Future state must have been known to the Patriarchs, and influenced their conduct-Attested in the Epistle to the Hebrews-instanced in the history of Jacob-of Moses-By our Lord's reply to the doubts of the Sadducees-The declaration of Balaam-Future state an object of popular belief among the Jews From the laws relating to necromancers, &c.

PART III.

LECT. IV.

SECT. I.

HEBREWS, xii. 13.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, "but having seen them afar off; and were persuaded of "them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were "strangers and pilgrims upon earth."

IN a former Lecture,* I have endeavoured to establish the first position I had laid down, respecting the connexion that subsisted between the Mosaic Law, and the belief of a future state of retribution; even that Moses did not sanction his Laws by the promise of future rewards and punishments; and to assign such reasons for this part of the divine economy, as the nature of the subject suggested. I now proceed to discuss the second conclusion, which an attentive perusal of the Old Testament appears

* Part III. Lect. III. sect. i. supra. p. 212, &c.

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