1,

the following confideration might well have fome influence in the establishment of a temporal Difpensation for the Ifraelites. No question can be made, but that one principal immediate design of the difpenfation under which the Jews were placed, was; that it might be a standing evidence of the error and falsehood of those Systems of Idolatry, into which all the nations of the earth were at that time funk. And in all those Idolatrous Religions, the fictitious Gods they worshiped were believed to be the dispensers of all National evils and bleffings; as well as in fpecial cafes, even of those which happened to particular persons. To keep the Ifraelites therefore from running into any of these National Systems of idolatry, in which their false Gods were supposed the immediate dispensers of all present punishments and rewards; as well as to be a direct proof to the idolatrous Nations themselves, of the folly and falfehood of their Systems of Religion; it might be exremely useful, perhaps neceffary, to oppose the Pagan Systems, by a Difpenfation to the Ifraelites; in which, at the fame time that God clearly declared himself the One Only True God, the Creator and Sole Moral Governour of the whole World; He likewise engaged to be a National and peculiar God to Them; in the fame light in which the Nations confidered their fictitious Gods; and declared, that he would dispense to them immediate National, as well as particular, blessings and evils, to reward their obedience or disobedience to his laws; as the Heathens vainly supposed their false gods to do by them. It might furely be worthy of God, thus to shew, by a constant feries of present facts, his unspeakable fuperiority over all the fictitious objects of the Heathen worthip. Perhaps no other than such a Temporal and National Difpenfation; which at the fame time instructed them, in the fullest manner,

5

ner, in the real Nature of the One True God; and was likewife exactly oppofed to the Systems of Idolatry then every where embraced; would have been received, or in any degree adhered to by the Ifraelites themselves; or have been capable of producing any effects upon the idolatrous Nations round them. A System, in which, as in the Chriftian, a Future State was positively and clearly revealed; and the rewards and punishments attending obedience and disobedience to its commands referred, in a manner, wholly to That State; might perhaps, through the remoteness of its fanctions, have been unable at that time to work fufficiently upon the hopes and fears of the Ifraelites; habituated by their long refidence in Egypt, to the notion of National Gods, and immediate punishments and rewards; to induce them to receive, or at leaft adhere to it. On this Account perhaps, among others, which the Chriftian world longs earnestly to fee more fully explained by the very learned Bishop Warburton; and perhaps for many reasons besides, which we in our present state at least shall never know; a Temporal Difpenfation, such as that of Mofes, might be the most useful and proper; till the improvement of Moral Philosophy among the Gentiles, and the oppositions of Sects among the Jews, had contributed to wean mankind from their temporal Systems, and made them capable of attending to a more perfect Dispensation, founded on future punishments and rewards.

Upon the whole, so far is it from being true, "That the Law of Mofes does not appear calcu"lated to give mankind just notions of God, and " of his Attributes; or to encourage pure and " rational worship; - Or, that the notions in" culcated in the Law of Moses, either with re

P. 396.

" spect

" spect to the Nature of God, or the duties of " Morality, were wrong in themselves, and fuch " as led the Jews into the most egregious error " and folly2;" which the Author with his usual ease has not hefitated to pronounce; that it is evident upon examining all the precepts of the Mosaic Law, that the essential notions of God there expressly inculcated, and repeatedly insisted on, are fo extremely worthy of the All-perfect Being; and its Moral Doctrines so excellent and pure; that had the Jews adhered to its Moral Commands, as they did in general to its Ceremonial injunctions, they would have been a race of men almost as much diftinguished from every Heathen Nation by the Purity of their Moral Conduct, as by their fingular worship of the One True God..

The Author not only says (p. 346) "That the wrong "notions of God, which the Old Testament shews were incul"cated into the Jews by Moses, led them into egregious

:

error and folly;" but that " this was improved upon, till " men funk into fuch ignorance, that they worshipped God " under any form, which the maddest enthusiasm could de"vife." As if, forsooth, there had been no idolatry till after Moses; and that, in fact, He and the Jezus were the real Authors of all the idolatry in the world. Yet (p. 402) he agrees, that "the world was funk into gross idolatry before "the time of Moses." And in other places he accuses Priests of being the Authors of all idolatry. - Let him prove by Authorities earlier than Mofes, that Priests introduced the idolatry which subsisted before his time.

SECT. XV.

The Author's further Objections against the Old Testament, and particularly bis Misreprefentations of the Setting up of the Golden-Calf, confidered.

A

FTER the view we have just taken of the real Nature and Tendency of the Jewish Difpensation, we shall the more readily difcern the falsehood of several aspersions, which the Author has endeavoured to fix upon various particulars of the Old Testament.

He attempts to vilify the representations of God contained in the Old Testament, by opposing them to those of the New. He says, "God is con" stantly reprefented in the New Testament, as a "God of patience, long-fuffering, flow to anger, " and abundant in goodness and truth; though "the Jews, who were a four gloomy people, often "represent him in the Old Testament, as a jealous, " peevish, passionate, revengeful Being *."-Now if it was the four and gloomy temper of the Jews, which was the cause of thus representing God in the Old Testament; who was it represented him in fo much more amiable a light in the New? Was not the New wrote by Jews as well as the Old? And if the temper of the Jews was the cause of God's being represented as he is in the Old, how comes he not to be represented in the same light in the New? The truth is, that the temper of the Jews had nothing to do with the representations of God either in the One, or the Other; nor has the Author any grounds for afcribing a four and glooming temper to the Jews, in the time of

1

Moses especially, if it had. But besides, the fact itself which he has afferted is false. We have feen that the felf-fame amiable perfections are ascribed to God, as the essential perfections of his nature, both in the Old Testament, and in the New: and these very expressions, that he is long-suffering, low to anger, and abundant in goodness and truth; that he is good to all, and that his tender mercies are over all his works; are common to the Old with the New, though they do not fo often occur in it, as in the New. Nor is it less true that jealousy, avenging, and wrath, are attributed to God in the New, though not so often made mention of, as well as in the Old. Thus it is there faid, he may be provoked to jealousy, and by the very fame means, idolatry: - That God will avenge his elect and bis Apostles, and Propbets, bis fervants ;-That he is the avenger of the fraudulent; a text which the Author himself approves: and that the wicked shall drink of the wine of the wrath of Ged, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignations. And wrath is attributed to God in a great variety of passages throughout the New Testament. The Author's affertions therefore on this point are as false, as they are invidious.

!

... If