génération; Ezechiel annonce TOUT LÈ CONTRAIRE aux Juifs, et leur dit, que le Fils ne portera point. l'iniquité de son pere: il va même jusqu'à faire dire a Dieu, qu'il leur avait donné des preceptes qui n'etaient pas bons." p. 133.

As for the precepts which were not good, the Reader will see that matter explained at large, as we go along. What I have to do with M. Voltaire at present, is to expostulate with him for his ill faith; that when he had borrowed my argument for the divinity of the Mosaic Mission from that mode of punishment, he would venture to invalidate it from an apparent contradiction between MOSES and EZEKIEL; when, in that very place of the Divine Legation which he refers to, he saw the two Prophets reconciled by an argument drawn from the true natures of two approximating Dispensations; an argument which not only removes the pretended contradiction (first insisted on by Spinosa, and, through many a dirty channel, derived, at length, to M. Voltaire), but likewise supports that very mark of divinity which I contend for.

But it is too late in the day to call in question the Religion or the good faith of this truly ingenious man. What I want, in this Discourse sur la Tolérance, is his CIVIL PRUDENCE. As an ANNALIST, he might, in his General History, calumniate the Jewish People just as his passions or his caprice inclined him: But when he had assumed the character of a DIVINE, to recommend Toleration to a Christian State, could he think to succeed by abusing Revelation? He seems indeed, to have set out under a sense of the necessity of a different conduct: But coming to his darling subject an abuse of the Jews, he could not, for his life, sustain the personage he had assumed, but breaks out again into all the virulence and injustice with which he persecuted this unhappy People in his General History; and of which the Reader will see a fair account, in this volume, p. 6, et. seq.

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P. 175,

P. 175. [MM] This is the precise character of the writings of the Old Testament. And this state of them (to observe it only by the way) is more than a thousand answers to the wild suspicions of those writers, who fancy that the Jews, since Christ, have corrupted their sacred Scriptures, to support their.. superstitions against the Gospel; and amongst other erasements have struck out the Doctrine of life and immortality; which, say these Visionaries, was, till then, as plainly taught in the Old as in the New Testament: For had these supposed Impostors ever ventured on so bold a fraud as the adulterating their sacred Writings, we may be well assured their first attempt would have been to add the doctrine of a future state, had they not found it there, rather than to take it away if they had: since the omission of the doctrine is the strongest and most glaring evidence of the imperfection of the Law; and the insertion of it would have best supported what they now hold to be one of the most fundamental points of their Religion. -But this is not a folly of yesterday. Irenæus tells us that certain ancient Heretics supported their wild fancies against Scripture, which was against them, by the same extravagant suspicion, that it had been interpolated and corrupted. Notwithstanding, I am far from thinking these Moderns borrowed it from them. They found it in our common Nature, which always goes the nearest way to work, to relieve itself..

P. 176. [NN] We shall now understand the importance of a remark, which the late Translator of Josephus employs to prove the genuineness of a fragment or homily, given by him to that Historian: "There is one particular observation (says he) "belonging to the contents of this fragment or homily, that seems to me to be DECRETORY, and to deter"mine the question that some of this Jewish church, "that used the Hebrew copy of the Old Testament, nay rather, that Josephus himself in particular was

T 4

"the

"the author of it. The observation is this, that in "the present address to the Greeks or Gentiles there

are near forty references or allusions to texts of the "New Testament; AND NOT ONE, TO ANY OF THE "OLD TESTAMENT either in Hebrew or Greek; "and this in a discourse concerning HADES; which "vet is almost five times as often mentioned in the "Old Testament as in the New. What can be the

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reason of this? But that the Jewish Church at "Jerusalem used the Hebrew Bible alone, which those "Greeks or Gentiles, to whom the address is here

made, could not understand; and that our Josephus "always and only used the same Hebrew Bible?" Mr. Whiston's Dissert. prefixed to his Transl. of Josephus, p. 105.--What can be the reason (says he) of this mystery? He unfolds it thus: The Jewish Church of Jerusalem used the Hebrew Bible alone, which those Greeks or Gentiles, to whom the address is here made, could not understand. So that because the Audience did not understand Hebrew, the Preacher could not quote the texts, he had occasion for, in Greek. But he supposes the Author could not quote the Greek, because it must nceds have been that of the Septuagint; which the Jewish Church at Jerusalem would not use. Now admit there were no other Greek to be had, or allowed of, Can any man believe that if this Jewish Preacher would turn himself to the Gentiles, he could be such a bigot as to be afraid of quoting the Old Testament in a language they understood, because his. Church used only the Original, which they understood not? Or if he had been such a bigot, Would he have dared to preach to the Gentiles at all? What then but the fondness for an hypothesis could make men ramble after such reasons, when so obvious an one lies just before them? Why did he this, do you ask? For this plain reason: His subject was a future state of reward and punishment, and he had more sense than to seek for it where it was not to be found. O, but HADES is almost five

times as often mentioned in the Old Testament as in the New. Indeed! But the fragment is not about the word, but the thing. In the Old Testament it signified the receptacle of dead bodies; in the New, the receptacle of living souls. But though this learned writer can, without doubt, laugh at those who seek the Trinity in the Old Testament, yet he can in good earnest go thither in search of a Future state. Yet this latter is not in any comparison so clearly hinted at as the other: and no wonder; a Future state is circumscribed to the New Testament, as brought to light by the Gospel; but the doctrine of the Trinity is no where said to be so circumscribed.

P. 178. [00] To all this Dr. Stebbing has an Answer ready. "The History of the persecution "under Antiochus (says he) is written by two Historians, namely, the Author of the first book "of Maccabees, and the Author of the second. "This last writer has recorded the profession of the "Martyrs concerning their belief of the doctrine of "the Resurrection; but the first has entirely omitted "it: nor is there one word about a resurrection or "future state to be found throughout his whole "History, though it is certain it was now the national "belief. So UNSAFE a thing is it to rely upon the MERE silence of historians, when they undertake to write a history not of doctrines but of the trans"actions of men." Exam. p. 116.

I will tell him of an unsafer thing: which is, venturing to draw parallel cases; as he has done here; for they may happen (as hath happened here) to be cases most unlike,

In a large and miscellancous Volume, composed by various Writers of different times and states, and containing the Law, the Religion, and the History of the Jews, from Moses to the Captivity, neither the Doctrines of the resurrection nor a future state are ever once mentioned.

This is the Fact. And to obviate my inference from it," That the Jews, during that period, were unacquainted with the Doctrines," this able Divine opposes the two books of Maccabees, containing the story of one short period, when, it is confessed, these Doctrines were of national belief; in the first of which Books, there is no mention of the Doctrine, and in the second, a great deal: the reason both of the mention and of the silence being self-evident. It is recorded in the second book, where there is a detailed account of the Martyrs for the Jewish Faith: it is omitted in the first, where there is no account of any such thing.

Yet these are brought as parallel cases: Let us therefore do them all honour.

1. Several volumes of the sacred Canon contain a history of doctrines.

The two books of Maccabees contain only a history of civil transactions.

2. None of the inspired Writers of the Canon, before the Captivity, ever once mention the Doctrines of a resurrection or a future state.

Of the two books of Maccabees, one of them méntions the Doctrines fully and at large.

3. The sacred Canon comprises a vast period of time, and treats of an infinite variety of matters.

The two books of Maccabees are small tracts of an uniform subject, and contain only the story of one revolution in the Jewish State.

Unconscious, as should seem, of all this difference, the learned Doctor concludes-So unsafe a thing it is to rely on the MERE SILENCE of Historians, when they undertake to write a history NOT OF DOCTRINES, but of the transactions of Men. In which, these THREE FALSEHOODS are very gravely and magisterially insinuated: That the writers of the two books of Maccabees are equally silent with the Writers of the Canon: 2. That all the Writers of the Canon are writers of a History, not of the Doctrines, but merely

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