the sea returning to his strength, and swallowing up the host of Pharaoh: they "would fear the Lord, they would believe the Lord," and they would express their faith and their fear by praising the Lord; they would not behold such a great work with "careless indifference," but with astonishment and terror; nor would you be able to detect the slightest vestige of "stubborn incredulity" in their song of gratitude. No length of time would be able to blot from their minds the memory of such a transaction, or induce a doubt concerning its author; though future hunger and thirst might make them call out for water and bread, with a desponding and rebellious importunity.

But it was not at the Red Sea only that the Israelites regarded with something more than a "careless indifference" the amazing miracles which God had wrought; for when the law was declared to them from Mount Sinai, "all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the tempest, and the mountains smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off: and they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." This again, Sir, is the Scripture account of the language of the contemporaries of Moses and Joshua; and I leave it to you to consider, whether this is the language of "stubborn incredulity and careless indiffer

ence."

We are told in Scripture, too, that whilst any of the contemporaries of Moses and Joshua were alive, the whole people served the Lord; the impression which a sight of the miracles had made, was never effaced-nor the obedience, which might have been expected as a natural consequence, refused-till Moses and Joshua, and all their contemporaries, were gathered unto their fathers; till "another generation after them arose which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel." But "the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel."

I am far from thinking you, Sir, unacquainted with Scripture, or desirous of sinking the weight of its testimony; but as the words of the history from which you must have derived your observation, will not support you in imputing "careless indifference" to the contemporaries of Moses, or "stubborn incredulity" to the forefathers of the Jews, I know not what can have induced you to pass so severe a censure upon them, except that you look upon a lapse into idolatry as a proof of infidelity. In answer to this I would remark, that with equal soundness of argument we ought to infer, that every one who transgresses a religion, disbelieves it; and that

every individual, who in any community incurs civil pains and penalties, is a disbeliever of the existence of the authority by which they are inflicted. The sanctions of the Mosaic law were, in your opinion, terminated within the narrow limits of this life; in that particular, then, they must have resembled the sanctions of all other civil laws: “transgress and die," is the language of every one of them, as well as that of Moses; and I know not what reason we have to expect that the Jews, who were animated by the same hopes of temporal rewards, impelled by the same fears of temporal punishments, with the rest of mankind, should have been so singular in their conduct, as never to have listened to the clamours of passion before the still voice of reason; as never to have preferred a present gratification of sense, in the lewd celebration of idolatrous rites before the rigid observance of irksome ceremonies.

Before I release you from the trouble of this Letter, I cannot help observing, that I could have wished you had furnished your reader with Limborch's answers to the objections of the Jew Orobio, concerning the perpetual obligation of the law of Moses. You have indeed mentioned Limborch with respect, in a short note; but though you have studiously put into the mouths of the Judaizing Christians in the apostolic days, and with great strength inserted in your text whatever has been said by Orobio or others against Christianity, from the supposed perpetuity of the Mosaic dispensation; yet you have not favoured us with any one of the numerous replies which have been made to these seemingly strong objections. You are pleased, it is true, to say, "that the industry of our learned divines has abundantly explained the ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous conduct of the apostolic teachers." It requires, Sir, no learned industry to explain what is so obvious and so express that he who runs may read it. The language of the Old Testament is this: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt." This, methinks, is a clear and solemn declaration-there is no ambiguity at all in it that the covenant with Moses was not to be perpetual, but was in some future time to give way to a new covenant. I will not detain you with an explanation of what Moses himself has said upon this subject; but you may try, if you please, whether you can apply the following declaration, which Moses made to the Jews, to any prophet or succession of prophets, with the same propriety that you can to Jesus Christ :-"The Lord thy

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God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken." If you think this ambiguous or obscure, I answer, That it is not a history, but a prophecy, and, as such, unavoidably liable to some degree of obscurity, till interpreted by the event.

Nor was the conduct of the Apostles more ambiguous than the language of the Old Testament: They did not, indeed, at first comprehend the whole of the nature of the new dispensation; and when they did understand it better, they did not think proper upon every occasion to use their Christian liberty; but, with true Christian charity, accommodated themselves in matters of indifference to the prejudices of their weaker brethren. But he who changes his conduct with a change of sentiments, proceeding from an increase of Knowledge, is not ambiguous in his conduct: nor should he be accused of a culpable duplicity, who in a matter of the last importance endeavours to conciliate the good will of all, by conforming in a few innocent observances to the particular persuasions of different men. One remark more, and I have done. In your account of the Gnostics, you have given us a very minute catalogue of the objections which they made to the authority of Moses, from his account of the creation, of the patriarchs, of the law, and of the attributes of the Deity. I have not leisure to examine whether the Gnostics of former ages really made all the objections you have mentioned; I take it for granted, upon your authority, that they did but I am certain, if they did, that the Gnostics of modern times have no reason to be puffed up with their knowledge, or to be had in admiration as men of subtile penetration or refined erudition: they are all miserable copiers of their brethren of antiquity; and neither Morgan, nor Tindal, nor Bolingbroke, nor Voltaire, have been able to produce scarce a single new objection. You think that the Fathers have not properly answered the Gnostics. I make no question, Sir, you are able to answer them to your own satisfaction, and informed of every thing that has been said by our "industrious divines" upon the subject; and we should have been glad, if it had fallen in with your plan to have administered together with the poison its antidote: but since that is not the case, lest its malignity should spread too far, I must just mention it to my younger readers, that Leland and others, in their replies to the modern Deists, have given very full, and, as many learned men apprehend, very satisfactory answers to every one of the objections which you have derived from the Gnostic heresy. I am, &c.

SIR,

LETTER II.

"The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth," is the second of the causes to which you attribute the quick increase of Christianity. Now, if we impartially consider the circumstances of the persons to whom the doctrine, not simply of a future life, but of a future life accompanied with punishments as well as rewards,-not only of the immortality of the soul, but of the immortality of the soul accompanied with that of the resurrection, was delivered,—I cannot be of opinion that, abstracted from the supernatural testimony by which it was enforced, it could have met with any very extensive reception amongst them.

It was not that kind of future life which they expected; it did not hold out to them the punishments of the infernal regions as aniles fabulas. To the question, Quid si post mortem maneant animi? they could not answer with Cicero and the philosophers-Beatos esse concedo; because there was a great probability that it might be quite otherwise with them. I am not to learn that there are passages to be picked up in the writings of the ancients, which might be produced as proofs of their expecting a future state of punishment for the flagitious; but this opinion was worn out of credit before the time of our Saviour: the whole disputation in the first book of the Tusculan Questions, goes upon the other supposition. Nor was the absurdity of the doctrine of future punishments confined to the writings of the philosophers, or the circles of the learned and polite; for Cicero, to mention no others, makes no secret of it in his public pleadings before the people at large. You yourself, Sir, have referred to his oration for Cluentius: in this oration, you may remember, he makes great mention of a very abandoned fellow, who had forged I know not how many wills, murdered I know not how many wives, and perpetrated a thousand other villanies; yet even to this profligate, by name Oppianicus, he is persuaded that death was not the occasion of any evil.* Hence, I think, we may conclude, that such of the Romans as were not wholly infected with the annihilating notions of Epicurus, but entertained (whether from remote tradition or enlightened argumentation) hopes of a future life, had no manner of expectation of such a life as included in it the severity of punishment denounced in the Christian scheme against the wicked.

Nor was it that kind of future life which

*Nam nunc quidem quid tandem mali illi mors attulit? nisi fortè ineptiis ac fabulis ducimur, ut existimemus apud inferos impiorum supplicia perferre, ac plures illic offendisse inimicos quam hic reliquisse- -quæ si falsa sint, id quod omnes intelligunt, &c.

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they wished they would have been glad enough of an Elysium, which could have admitted into it men who had spent this life in the perpetration of every vice which can debase and pollute the human heart. To abandon every seducing gratification of sense, to pluck up every latent root of ambition, to subdue every impulse of revenge, to divest themselves of every inveterate habit in which their glory and their pleasure consisted; to do all this and more, before they could look up to the doctrine of a future life without terror and amazement, was not, one would think, an easy undertaking: nor was it likely that many would forsake the religious institutions of their ancestors, set at nought the gods under whose auspices the Capitol had been founded, and Rome made mistress of the world; and suffer themselves to be persuaded into the belief of a tenet, the very mention of which made Felix tremble, by any thing less than a full conviction of the supernatural authority of those who taught it. The several schools of Gentile philosophy had discussed, with no small subtlety, every argument which reason could suggest, for and against the immortality of the soul; and those uncertain glimmerings of the light of nature would have prepared the minds of the learned for the reception of the full illustration of this subject by the gospel, had not the resurrection been a part of the doctrine therein advanced. But that this corporeal frame, which is hourly mouldering away, and resolved at last into the undistinguished mass of elements from which it was at first derived, should ever be "clothed with immortality," that this corruptible should ever "put on incorruption,"—is a truth so far removed from the apprehension of philosophical research, so dissonant from the common conceptions of mankind, that amongst all ranks and persuasions of men it was esteemed an impossible thing. At Athens, the philosophers had listened with patience to St Paul, whilst they conceived him but a "setter forth of strange gods;" but as soon as they comprehended that by the avaσraris he meant the resurrection, they turned from him with contempt. It was principally the insisting upon the same topic, which made Festus think "that much learning had made him mad." And the questions, "How are the dead raised up?" and, "With what body do they come ?" seem, by Paul's solicitude to answer them with fulness and precision, to have been not unfrequently proposed to him by those who were desirous of becoming Christians.

The doctrine of a future life, then, as promulged in the gospel, being neither agreeable to the expectations, nor corresponding with the wishes, nor conformable to the reason of the Gentiles, I can discover no motive (setting aside the true one, the divine power of its first preachers) which could induce them to receive it; and, in consequence of their belief, to con

form their loose morals to the rigid standard of gospel purity, upon the mere authority of a few contemptible fishermen of Judea. And even you yourself, Sir, seem to have changed your opinion concerning the efficacy of the expectation of a future life in converting the Heathens, when you observe, in the following chapter, that "the Pagan multitude, reserving their gratitude for temporal benefits alone, rejected the inestimable present of life and immortality which was offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth."

Montesquieu is of opinion, that it will ever be impossible for Christianity to establish itself in China and the East, from this circumstance, that it prohibits a plurality of wives. How then could it have been possible for it to have pervaded the voluptuous capital, and traversed the utmost limits of the empire of Rome, by the feeble efforts of human industry, or human knavery?

But the Gentiles, you are of opinion, were converted by their fears; and reckon the doctrines of Christ's speedy appearance, of the millennium, and of the general conflagration, amongst those additional circumstances, which gave weight to that concerning a future state. Before I proceed to the examination of the efficiency of these several circumstances in alarming the apprehensions of the Gentiles, what if I should grant your position? Still the main question recurs,-From what source did they derive the fears which converted them? Not surely from the mere human labours of men, who were every where spoken against, made a spectacle of, and considered as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things; not surely from the human powers of him who professed himself “rude in speech, in bodily presence contemptible," and a despiser of "the excellency of speech, and the enticing words of men's wisdom." No such wretched instruments were but ill fitted to inspire the haughty and the learned Romans with any other passions than those of pity or contempt.

Now, Sir, if you please, we will consider that universal expectation of the approaching end of the world, which, you think, had such great influence in converting the Pagans to the profession of Christianity. The near approach, you say, of this wonderful event had been predicted by the Apostles, "though the revolution of seventeen centuries has instructed us not to press too closely the mysterious language of prophecy and revelation." That this opinion, even in the times of the Apostles, had made its way into the Christian church, I readily admit; but that the Apostles ever either predicted this event to others, or cherished the expectation of it in themselves, does not seem probable to me. As this is a point of some difficulty and importance, you will suffer me to explain it at some length.

It must be owned that there are several passages in the writings of the Apostles, which, at first view, seem to countenance the opinion you have adopted. Now," says St Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, "it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand." And in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians he comforts such of them as were sorrowing for the loss of their friends, by assuring them that they were not lost for ever; but that the Lord, when he came, would bring them with him; and that they would not, in the participation of any blessings, be in any wise behind those who should happen then to be alive. "We," says he, (the Christians of whatever age or country, agreeable to a frequent use of the pronoun we,) "which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep; for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord." In his Epistle to the Philippians he exhorts his Christian brethren not to disquiet themselves with carking cares about their temporal concerns, from this powerful consideration, that the Lord was at hand: "Let your moderation be known unto all men ; the Lord is at hand; be careful about nothing." The Apostle to the Hebrews inculcates the same doctrine, admonishing his converts" to provoke one another to love, and to good works; and so much the more, as they saw the day approaching." The age in which the Apostles lived is frequently called by them the end of the world, the last days, the last hour. I think it unnecessary, Sir, to trouble you with an explication of these and other similar texts of Scripture, which are usually adduced in support of your opinion; since I hope to be able to give you a direct proof, that the Apostles neither comforted themselves nor encouraged others, with the delightful hope of seeing their Master coming again into the world. It is evident, then, that St John, who survived all the other Apostles, could not have had any such expectation; since in the book of the Revelation, the future events of the Christian church, which were not to take place, many of them, till a long series of years after his death, and some of which have not yet been accomplished, are there minutely described. St Peter, in like manner, strongly intimates, that the day of the Lord might be said to be at hand, though it was at the distance of a thousand years or more; for in replying to the taunt of those who did then, or should in future ask, "Where is the promise of his coming?" he says, " Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is

with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day: The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness." And he speaks of putting off his tabernacle as the Lord had shewed him ; and of his endeavour, that the Christians after his decease might be able to have these things in remembrance: so that it is past a doubt, he could not be of opinion that the Lord would come in his time. As to St Paul, upon a partial view of whose writings the doctrine concerning the speedy coming of Christ is principally founded; it is manifest that he was conscious he should not live to see it, notwithstanding the expression before mentioned, we which are alive;" for he foretells his own death in express terms- "the time of my departure is at hand;" and he speaks of his reward, not as immediately to be conferred on him, but as laid up and reserved for him till some future day-"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." There is moreover one passage in his writings, which is so express and full to the purpose, that it will put the matter I think beyond all doubt; it occurs in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians: they, it seems, had either by misinterpreting some parts of his former letter to them, or by the preaching of some, who had not the Spirit of truth; by some means or other, they had been led to expect the speedy coming of Christ, and been greatly disturbed in mind upon that account. To remove this error, he writes to them in the following very solemn and affectionate manner: "We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand; let no man deceive you by any means.” He then goes on to describe a falling away, a great corruption of the Christian church, which was to happen before the day of the Lord. Now by this revelation of the man of sin, this mystery of iniquity, which is to be consumed with the spirit of his mouth, destroyed by the brightness of his coming, we have every reason to believe is to be understood the past and present_abominations of the Church of Rome. How then can it be said of Paul, who clearly foresaw this corruption above seventeen hundred years ago, that he expected the coming of the Lord in his own day? Let us press, Sir, the mysterious language of prophecy and revelation as closely as you please, but let us press it truly, and we may perhaps find reason from thence to receive, with less reluctance, a religion, which describes a corruption, the strangeness of which, had it not been foretold

in unequivocal terms, might have amazed even a friend to Christianity.

I will produce you, Sir, a prophecy, which, the more closely you press it, the more reason you will have to believe, that the speedy coming of Christ could never have been "predicted" by the Apostles. Take it, as translated by Bishop Newton : "But the Spirit speaketh expressly, that, in the latter times, some shall apostatize from the faith; giving heed to erroneous spirits, and doctrines concerning demons, through the hypocrisy of liars; having their conscience seared with a red-hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." Here you have an express prophecy-the Spirit hath spoken it-that in the latter times-not immediately, but at some distant period some should apostatize from the faith- some who had been Christians, should in truth be so no longer - but should give heed to erroneous spirits, and doctrines concerning demons: Press this expression closely, and you may, perhaps, discover in it the erroneous tenets, and the demon or saint worship of the Church of Rome: Through the hypocrisy of liars, you recognize, no doubt, the priesthood, and the martyrologists: Having their conscience seared with a red-hot iron,- callous, indeed, must his conscience be, who traffics in indulgences: Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, this language needs no pressing; it discovers, at once, the unhappy votaries of monastic life, and the mortal sin of eating flesh on fast days.

If, notwithstanding what has been said, you should still be of opinion, that the Apostles expected Christ would come in their time; it will not follow, that this their error ought in any wise to diminish their authority as preachers of the gospel. I am sensible this position may alarm even some well-wishers to Christianity, and supply its enemies with what they will think an irrefragable argument. The Apostles, they will say, were inspired with the Spirit of truth; and yet they fell into a gross mistake, concerning a matter of great importance: how is this to be reconciled? Perhaps in the following manner: When the time of our Saviour's ministry was nearly at an end, he thought proper to raise the spirits of his disciples, who were quite cast down with what he had told them about his design of leaving them, by promising that he would send to them the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who should teach them all things, and lead them into all truth. And we know, that this his promise was accomplished on the day of Pentecost, when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost; and we know farther, that from that time forward they were enabled to speak with tongues, to work miracles, to preach the word with power, and to comprehend the mystery of the

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new dispensation which was committed unto them. But we have no reason from hence to conclude, that they were immediately inspired with the apprehension of whatever might be known; that they became acquainted with all kinds of truth: They were undoubtedly led into such truths as it was necessary for them to know, in order to their converting the world to Christianity; but in other things they were probably left to the exercise of their understandings, as other men usually are. But surely they might be proper witnesses of the life and resurrection of Christ, though they were not acquainted with every thing which might have been known; though, in particular, they were ignorant of the precise time when our Lord would come to judge the world. It can be no impeachment, either of their integrity as men, or their ability as historians, or their honesty as preachers of the gospel, that they were unacquainted with what had never been revealed to them; that they followed their own understandings where they had no better light to guide them speaking from conjecture, when they could not speak from certainty; of themselves, when they had no commandment of the Lord. They knew but in part, and they prophesied but in part; and concerning this particular point, Jesus himself had told them, just as he was about finally to leave them, that it was not for them to "know the times and the seasons, which the Father had put in his own power." Nor is it to be wondered at, that the Apostles were left in a state of uncertainty concerning the time in which Christ should appear; since beings far more exalted, and more highly favoured of Heaven than they, were under an equal degree of ignorance: "Of that day," says our Saviour, "and of that hour, knoweth no one; no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only." I am afraid, Sir, I have tired you with Scripture quotations; but if I have been fortunate enough to convince you, either that the speedy coming of Christ was never expected, much less "predicted," by the Apostles, or that their mistake in that particular expectation can in no degree diminish the general weight of their testimony as historians, I shall not be sorry for the ennui I may have occasioned you.

The doctrine of the Millennium is the second of the circumstances which you produce, as giving weight to that of a future state; and you represent this doctrine as having been "carefully inculcated by a succession of the fathers, from Justin Martyr and Irenæus down to Lactantius ;" and observe that, when "the edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support was laid aside :" and in the notes you refer us, as a proof of what you advance, to " Irenæus, the disciple of Papias, who had seen the Apostle