In examining the record of the revelation made through Moses, we have not found that he anywhere represents himself as charged with the disclosure of the great doctrine of a future life, or refers to its retributions as providing a sanction for his laws. Further; without moving the question, at this stage of our inquiries, how far there are traces in the Old Testament, of a belief in that doctrine, I shall take no risk of contradiction, when I say, that nowhere, throughout the series of books, is it referred to as having made a subject of divine revelation.* Undoubtedly, the fact is remarkable; and a very few words respecting the light in which it is to be viewed, may not be considered to be here out of place. It may be presumed, that the Israelites, when they authority they were accustomed; and the circumstance could not have failed to attract a strong veneration to Aaron and Moses, among a people who revered age as did the Jews. Certainly, there is nothing incredible in the statement, apart from the supposition of miracle. The age alleged is very uncommon, but not unprecedented; and events, singly within the course of nature, do undoubtedly sometimes occur in such wonderful combinations, that if not sustained by the strongest evidence, the statement of them would be received with great distrust. A remote posterity, for example, will not improbably be inclined to treat as a fable, contrived for effect, the fact, so notorious to us, that of the individuals, who prepared the document which gave independence to this country, the only two who afterwards filled the highest office of the government they had erected, both died on the exact day when a half century from that act of theirs was completed. At all events, there is no room for any inference from the age of Aaron and Moses, respecting the common length of human life at that period. On the contrary, the whole spirit of the arrangement for the Israelites to wander forty years in the wilderness, in order for a new generation to take the place of those already included in the census, points to sixty years as the received term of life; and the scale in Lev. xxvii. 3-7, specifying no higher age than sixty years, affords ground for a similar conclusion. *The thesis of Bishop Warburton, on this point, is of this comprehensiveness; that "the Israelites, from the time of Moses to the time of their captivity, had not the doctrine of a future state of reward and pun-. ishment." "Divine Legation" &c., book 5, § 5. - How the later Jews proved it, may be seen in Pearson's "Exposition of the Creed,” Art. 11. came out of Egypt, entertained the views respecting a future state, which prevailed in that country. If it was so, I think we have substantial reason to conclude, that a divine revelation of the truth of an existence beyond the grave, would, in the actual state of their minds, have done them no good; but, on the contrary, would have been so likely to be perverted by them, and mingled with the grossest errors, that it was for their advantage to have that revelation withheld, till such time as, having become established in a true theology, educated in the doctrine of one God, and trained to some just conceptions of his attributes and agency, they would be prepared to receive the other doctrine with some just estimation of its worth, and preserve it in some degree of purity. Respecting the belief of the ancient Egyptians in the state of the human soul after death, it would not be reasonable to expect to obtain full satisfaction from such sources of information as remain to us. The supposition, however, that any reasonable views of its condition were entertained by a people, whose theology was so monstrous, would be in violation of all probability; and, in fact, the best authorities instruct us, that, whatever might be the esoteric doctrine on the subject (which probably amounted to no more than the resumption of the spirit into its divine source, and accordingly its loss of individual existence, and of the capacity of punishment and reward), the popular doctrine indissolubly connected the continued life of the soul with a metempsychosis, with a circuit of transfers from the body of one animal to that of another.* • Τοῦ σώματος δὲ καταφθίνοντος, ἐς ἄλλο ζῶον αἰεὶ γινόμενον ἐσδύεται· ἐπιὰν δὲ περιέλθη πάντα τὰ χερσαῖα καὶ τὰ θαλάσσια καὶ τὰ πετεινὰ, αὖτις ἐς ἀνθρώπου σῶμα γινόμενον ἐσδύνειν· τὴν περιήλυσιν δὲ αὐτῇ γίνεσθαι ἐν τρισχιλίοισι ἔτεσι, κ. τ. λ. Herodotus, 6, 123. See Brucker's "Historia Critica Philosophiæ," lib. 2, cap. 7, § 18; "Universal History," book 3, chap. 3, § 2. Of what avail would it have been to confirm the doctrine of an immortality to a people who identified it with the belief, that the undying essence, the human spirit, was but one of the forms of bestial nature? Of what avail to communicate it to them in any shape, when the existing habits of their minds would have forcibly brought it back to this base and pernicious semblance? As far as we may reverently entertain such a question, does it not seem reasonable to say, that it was more fit for God, and more consistent with what we know, in other respects, of his method of educating this people, to reserve this great doctrine from their consideration as part of his disclosures to them, till other generations should arise, which, educated far beyond the reach of the brutalizing follies of Egypt, and made capable of some better conceptions of the spiritual world, and of man's place in it, by what their Law taught them of the undivided sovereignty and excellent perfections of its head, should not put out again in deep darkness the light meant to enlighten the world? But, was it intended, I shall be asked,- that this great doctrine, without which, religion, as a practical thing, can scarcely be said to exist, should be still withheld for fifteen centuries? Did God intend that the preparation for its disclosure should occupy so long a time? Not unconscious of the caution with which such ground requires to be trodden, I reply; that I know nothing of intentions of God in such matters, irrespective of the condition and the acts of men. Christianity revealed a future life, in "the fulness of time," -when it was most suitable that it should be revealed. Had the suitable time come earlier, the revelation would have been earlier made. I find no reason to doubt that God gave Judaism to a portion of men under similar conditions to those under which he gave Christianity; and that one of those conditions was, that the better or the worse should be their use of the gift, the sooner or the later, and to the greater or the less extent, should be their enjoyment of the benefits it promised. Christianity was in abeyance during the dark ages, not by God's irrespective decree, but by man's self-destructive perversity. Judaism did not speedily educate the people, and through them prepare the world, for a revelation of more truth. It did not presently fulfil its office, because they whom it should have trained were wanting to their duty. And accordingly, the incomplete work of Moses, -the proper foundation for higher truth, remained incomplete through many ages. The Prophet, like unto himself, whom he predicted, delayed to come, because they whom he was to teach delayed to prepare themselves for his instructions. We have repeated and emphatic declarations of God through Moses, that, in one important respect, his dealings with the Jewish nation should take a character from their deserts. If they should prove obedient, their state would be prosperous; if rebellious, it would be visited with all sorts of calamity. On the same familiar principle of the application of divine dealings to human conduct, I find no reason withholding me from the belief, that, if the Jews had better used their first privileges, they would sooner have been blessed with more ;- that, if the discipline of Moses had raised them, as, rightly applied, it was capable of doing, on the scale of a religious civilization, life and immortality might have been brought to light ages earlier in the Gospel. END OF VOLUME FIRST. |