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lays the foundation of Christianity in Judaism. Befides, right reason, as well as St. Paul (which with us, at prefent, are still the fame thing) would teach you to reply to fuch Convertists: Boaft not against the branches of the native olive-tree: but if thou boaft, thou beareft not the root, but the root thee ".

Much less would I employ, in this address, the quainter project of our common Adversary, the FREE-THINKER. For you are to know, that as those I spoke of before, make Chriftianity too recent, so these make it as much too old; even as old as the Creation. Those fall short of the support of Judaism; These overleap it; and affure us, that the only way to bring you to believe in JESUS is to prove Mofes an impoftor. So, fays a late writer : who, by the fingular happiness of a good choice, having learnt his morality of our Tyndal, and his philofophy of your Spinoza, calls himself, by the courtefy of England, a MORAL PHILOSOPHER .

The road I have taken is indeed very dif ferent: and the principles I go upon for your converfion, will equally ferve, to their confutation. For I have fhewn that the Law of Mofes was from GOD; and, at the fame time, that it is only PREPARATORY to the more perfect Religion of JESUS.

ROM. xi. 18.

d MORGAN.

The

The limits of this address will not allow me to point out to you any other arguments than what arife immediately from thofe important circumstances of the Law, difcourfed of in this Work. Much lefs fhall I have room to urge you with a repetition of those reasonings, which chriftian writers have already used with fo fuperior a force against you.

Let us fee then what it is that keeps you ftill enslaved to a galling Difcipline, fo long after the free offers of Redemption. The two principal reasons, I fuppofe, are thefe:

I. First, a prefumption that the Religion of Mofes is perfect; fo full and complete in all its members as to be abundantly capable of supplying the spiritual wants of men by preparing and fitting human nature for the enjoyment of the fupreme Good, and by propofing and procuring the poffeffion of that Good. Hence you conclude, and were your prefumption well grounded, not unreasonably, that the Law was given as a perpetual ordinance, to be obferved throughout all your generations for ever.

II. The second is a perfuafion that the Prophecies (a neceffary credential of the Meffiah) which, we fay, relate to JESUS, relate not to him in a primary fenfe; and that a fecondary fenfe is a fanatic vifion raised by deluded Chriftians to uphold a groundless claim.

For

For thus one of our common enemies, who hath inforced your arguments against us, tells the world, you are accuftomed to fpeak. All the books written by Jews against the chriftian Religion (fays he) fome of which are printed, and others go about Europe in manufcript, chiefly attack the New Testament for the allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament therein, and with the greatest infolence and contempt imaginable on that account; and oppofe to them a fingle and literal interpretation as the true fenfe of the Old Teftament. And accordingly the allegorical interpretations given by chriftian expofitors of the Prophecies are now the grand obftacle and ftumbling-block in the way of the converfion of the Jews to Chriftianity.

These, it seems, are the two great impediments to your converfion. Give me leave then to shew you how the reasoning of this book removes them.

I. As to the perfection of your Religion, it is here proved, that, though it indeed had that specific perfection, which no Religion coming from GOD can want', that is, a full capacity of attaining its end, which was the feparation of the race of Abraham from an idolatrous world; yet that it was perfect only

e Grounds and Reafons of the Chriftian Religion, p. 82, 83.

f See this proved against Lord Bolingbroke, vol. iv. p. 207, & feq.

in

in this restrained, and relative fenfe. As to abfolute independent perfection, the Law had it not.

1. That it had no perfection with regard to the improvement of human nature for the enjoyment of the fupreme good, I have fhewn from the genius of your whole religious Worfhip; and its general direction against the various idolatries of thofe early ages. And in this. I have a Doctor of your own, the famous MAIMONIDES, for my warrant: who indeed little thought, while he was proving this truth in fo invincible a manner, that he was preparing the more reasonable part of his Brethren for the reception of the Gospel. It is true, fome of your later writers have seen better into this confequence: and Orobio, in his dispute with Limborch, hath part of a chapter to disprove, or, rather, to deny the fact. But if your religious Worship confift only of a multifarious burdenfome Ritual, relative to the Superftitions of those early times, it must needs be altogether unable to perfect human nature in fuch a manner, as you do and must allow to be God's defign, in a revealed Religion, univerfal and perpetual.

2. Again, as to the second branch of this perfection, the propofing and procuring the pof

The title of the chapter is: Quod ritualia non erant præ. cisè ut Ifrael ab aliis populis fepararetur; neque lex neque populus propter Meffiam, fed hic propter populum, ut ei inferviret, p. 86. Ed. Goud.

Seffion

feffion of the supreme Good : I have sewn that the Law of Moses revealed NO FUTURE STATE of rewards and punishments, but studiously declined the mention of any doctrine

preparatory to it: that no Mofaical Tradition supplied this omifsion : and that it did not become a national doctrine amongst you till the later times of your republic; when it arose from various and discordant sources; and was brought in on foreign occasions. But it is certain, that That Religion must fall very short of absolute perfection, which wants a doctrine so essential to Religion in general ";

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Here Dr. Stebbing charges me with contradiction ; (Exam. p. 9.) first in asserting, that a future fate made no part of the Religion of Moses; and then that a future fate was essential to Religion in general. Now this which he is pleased to call a. contradi&tion, I brought as an argument for the divinity of the Law; and supposed it to be conclusive by its consistency. Where I speak of Religion in general, I explain my meaning to be, a Religion universal and perpetual, such as Natural Religion and the Christian; and from thence I argue, that if a future ftate be effential to a Religion universal and perpetual; and a' future state be not found in the Religion of Moses, that then the Religion of Moses was not universal and perpetual, but local and temporary; the point I was inforcing, in order to bring over the Jews to the Gospel of Jesus. If the Doctor fupposes, that what is essential in one species of Religion must be essential in the other, this is supposing them not to be of different species, but one and the same; that is, it supposes, that they are and thar. they are not of the same species. — But, continues our Doctor, If you should say, that your argument is levelled against the « Jews, considered only in their present state, in which they are “ not under an equal Providence, this answer will not ferve you. “ Por as in their present state they are not under any extraordi. “ nary Providence, so neither do they want the doctrine of a “ future ftate, of which you tell us they have been in possession

long ago." p. 11. What pains does this learned Doctor take to make my application to the Jews, in favour of Chriftianity,

ineffectual !

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