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he had promised; it is ftill harder on the poor Dependant, that he is not at liberty to receive more. True it is, that, in this cafe, the conditions are not FULLY ftated; and therefore, according to his Lordship's Logic, BY CONSEQUENCE NOT FAIRLY. To ftrengthen this Confequence, his Lordship concludes in these words - And their whole Hiftory feems to fhew how much need they bad of thefe additional motives [future Rewards and Punishments] to reftrain them from Polytheism and Idolatry, and to answer the ASSUMED purposes of Divine Providence.

Whoever puts all thefe things together" That Mofes was himfelf of the race of Ifrael→→→ was learned in all the wifdom of Egypt and capable of freeing his People from their Yoke that he brought them within fight of the promised Land a fertile Country, which they were to conquer and inhabit that he inftituted a fyftem of Laws, which has been the admiration of the wifeft men of all ages-that he understood the doctrine of a FUTURE STATE: and, by his knowledge gained in Egypt, was not ignorant of the efficacy of it in general; and by his full experience of the rebelTious and fuperftitious temper of his own People, could not but fee how useful it would have been to them in particular."Whoever, I fay, puts all thefe things together (and all thefe things are amongst his Lordship's CONCESSIONS) and at the fame time confiders, that Moses, throughout his whole fyftem of Law and Religion, is entirely filent concerning a future ftate of Rewards and Punishments, will, I believe, conclude, that there was fomething more in the OMISSION than Lord BoLINGBROKE Could fathom, or, at least, was willing to discover.

But

But let us turn from Moses's conduct, (which will be elsewhere confidered at large) to his Lordfhip's, which is our present business.

1. First, he gives us his conjectures, to account for the Omiffion, exclufive of MOSES's Divine Le gation: but, as if diffatisfied with them himself (which he well might be, for they destroy one an other)

2. He next attempts, You fee, to prove, that the Legation could not be divine, from this very circumftance of the omission.

3. But now he will go further, and demonftrate that an EXTRAORDINARY PROVIDENCE, fuch a one as is reprefented by Mofes, and which, the Author of the Divine Legation has proved, from the circumftance of the OMISSION, was actually administered in the Jewish Republic, could not poffibly be adminiftered, without destroying free will, without making Virtue fervile; and without relaxing univerfal benevolence.

4. And lastly, to make all fure, he shuts up the account by fhewing, that an extraordinary Providence could answer no reasonable end or purpose.

In his first and last order of evafions, he seems to be alone; but in the second and third, he had the pleasure of seeing, many an orthodox Writer against the Divine Legation, in CONFEDERACY With him, to ufe his Lordship's language, when he speaks of the good understanding between DIVINES and ATHEISTS.

I have examined his firft and fecond order. The third and fourth remain to be confidered; it is the last refuge of his infidelity.

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1. His principal objection to the adminiftration of an extraordinary Providence, fuch as MOSES promised to his people, on the part of God, is, that it would DESTROY FREE-WILL. But here let me obferve, that he affects to difguife the immediate Object of his attack; and, in arguing against an extraordinary Providence, chufes to confider it in the general, as the Point rifes out of an imaginary difpute between Himself and the Divines; who, he pretends, are diffatisfied with the present order of things, and require, as the terms of their acquiefcence in God's government, the adminiftration of an equal Providence, here. But, this obliquity in difguifing the true object of his attack, not being of itself fufficient to embarras the quef tion, he further fupports it by a prevarication: for it is not true, that Divines are diffatisfied with the prefent order of things, or that they require a better. All the ground they ever gave his Lordship for imputing this fcandal to them, being only their affertion, "That if the prefent ftate be the whole "of Man's existence, then the juftice of God would have more exactly difpenfed good and evil here: but, as he has not done fo, it follows, that there will be a state of Rewards and Punishments bereafter."

This premifed, I proceed to his first objection,"In good earneft (fays his Lordship) is a fyftem

of particular providences, in which the fupreme "Being, or his Angels, like his Minifters to re"ward, and his Executioners to punifh, are con"ftantly employed in the affairs of mankind, "much more reasonable?" [than the Gods of EPICURUS or the morals of POLEMO] "Would the 66 JUSTICE of God be more MANIFEST in fuch a ftate of things than in the present? I fee no

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"room for MERIT on the part of Man, nor for JUSTICE on the part of God, in fuch a ftate."

His Lordship asks, whether the Justice of God would be more manifeft in fuch a state of things, where good is conftantly difpenfed to the virtuous, and evil to the wicked, than in the prefent, where good and evil happen indifferently to all men? If his Lordship, by the prefent ftate of things, includes the rectification of them in a future ftate, I answer, that the juftice of God would not be more manifeft, but equally and fully manifeft in either cafe. If his Lordship does not include this rectification in a future ftate, then I anfwer his queftion by another: Would the Juftice of the Civil Magiftrate be more manifeft, where he exactly dif pentes rewards to good men, and punishment to evil, than where he fuffers the Cunning and the Powerful to carve for themselves?

But be fees no room for merit on the part of Man, nor Juftice on the part of God. If he does not fee, it is his own fault. It is owing to his prevaricating both with himself and his Reader; to the turning his view from the Scripture-reprefentation of an equal Providence, to the iniquities of Calvinistical election, and to the partialities of Fanatics concerning the favoured workings of the Spirit; and to his giving these to the reader, in its stead. How dextrously does he flide Enthufiafm and Predeftination into the Scripture-doctrine of an equal Providence !-If fome men were DETERMINED TO GOODNESS by the fecret workings of the fpirit, &c. Yes indeed, if you will be fo kind to allow him, that under an equal Providence, the Will is overruled, he will be able to fhew you, there is an end

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of all merit and demerit. But this fubftituting ARTIFICIAL THEOLOGY (as he calls it when he is in an humour to abuse it) in the place of bible-theology, is his ufual leger-de-main. So again,I can conceive ftill lefs, that individual Creatures before they have done either good or evil, nay, before their actual existence, can be the objects of predilection or averfion, of love or hatred, to God. Who, of the Gofpel-Divines, against whom he is here writing, would have him conceive any thing of this at all? It is the ARTIFICIAL THEOLOGER, the depraver, as he fays, of the Gospel, who would draw him into fo abfurd a fyftem. But what has this exploded Theology, that abounds only in human inventions, to do with the extraordinary Providence, represented in holy Writ! To fay, that this Providence takes away man's merit and God's juftice, is confounding all our ideas of right and wrong. Is it not the higheft merit of a rational creature to comply with that motive which has most real weight? And is not God's justice then most manifeft when the order of things prefent fewest diffi culties and obfcurites in our contemplation of it? His Lordship was plainly in these fentiments, when, arguing against God's compliance with the Jewish hardness of heart, he thought it more becoming the Mafter of the Universe, to bend the perverse stiffness of their Wills: and, when, arguing against a future ftate from the prefent good order of things, he will fhew, he says, AGAINST DIVINES AND ATHEISTS IN CONJUNCTION, that there is little or no irregularity in the prefent difpenfations of Providence; at least, not fo much as the World commonly imagine. And why was this paradox advanced, but from a consciousness that the more exact the prefent administration of God's providence appeared, the more manifeft it

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