327 of wicked men; which the instinctive fondness of Parents to their offspring would make terrible even to those who had hardened themselves into an infenfibility of perfonal punishment: I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, vifiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me".

Now that this punishment was only to supply the want of a Future ftate is evident frem hence, Towards the conclufion of this extraordinary. Economy, when GOD, by the later Prophets, re

EXOD. XX. 5. Chap. xxxiv. 7. But as God acted with them in the capacity of the Creator and Father of all Men, as well as of tutelary God and King, he was pleafed, at the fame time, to provide that they should never lose the memory of the attributes of the Almighty: and therefore adds, And fhewing mercy unto thousands in them that love me and keep my commandments. NUMB. xiv. 18. DEUT. v. 9.

"The Author of the D. L. (fays Dr. Sykes) goes on, and "obferves that this punishment [of vifiting the iniquities of "Fathers upon their Children] was only to supply the want of a "future ftate. But how will this extraordinary œconomy SUP

r

PLY this want? The Children at prefent fuffer for their "Parents' crimes; and are fuppofed to be punished when they "have no guilt. Is not this a plain act of HARDSHIP? And "if there be no future ftate or compenfation made, the hardship done must continue for ever a hardship on the unhappy "fufferer." [Exam, of Mr. W's. account, &c. p. 202-3.] For a Reasoner, it would be hard to find his fellow. J. The queftion is, whether this Law of punishing, was a SUPPLY to the want of a future ftate? If it laid hold of the paffions, as he owns it did, it certainly was a sUPPLY. However, he will prove it was none. And how? Because it was a HARDSHIP.. 2. He fuppofes, I hold, that when Children were punished, in the proper fenfe of the word, they were innocent, whereas I hold, that then they were always guilty. When the innocent were affected by their Parents' crimes, it was by the deprivation of benefits, in their nature forfeitable. 3. He fuppofes, that if Mofes taught no future ftate, IT WOULD FOLLow, that there was none.

BOOK V. Yet fill the violence of irregular paffions would make fome men of ftronger complexions fuperior to all the fear of perfonal temporal evil. To lay hold therefore on Thefe, and to gain a due afcendant over the moft determined, the punishments, in this Inftitution, are extended to the PoSTERITY

lute, as they then might have admitted of two fenfes,' did not common ingenuity require, that I should be understood in that which was eafieft to prove, when either was alike to my purpose ? But there was fill more than this to lead an ingenuous man into my meaning; which was, that he might obferve, that I ufed, throughout my whole difcourfe of the Jewish Economy, the words extraordinary Providence and equal Providence, as equivalent terms. By which he might underftand that I all along admitted of exceptions. Fourthly, If fuch rare cafes of exception destroyed an equal Providence to Particulars, (which Providence I hold) it would destroy, with it, the equal Providence to the State, (which Dr. Sykes pertends to hold.) But if not for the fake of truth in opinion, yet for fair dealing in practice, Dr. Sykes fhould have interpreted my words not abfolutely, but with exceptions. For thus stood the cafe. He quoted two pofitions from the Divine Legation. 1. That there was an extraordinary Providence over the State in general. 2. Over private men in particular. He grants the firft; and denies the fecond. But is not the extent of that providence understood to be in both cafes the fame? Now in that over the State, he understands it to have been with exceptions, as appears from his own mention of the cafe of Achan, p. 190. and of David, p. 197. Ought he not then, by all the rules of honeft reafoning, to have understood the propofition denied, in the fame fenfe he understands the Propofition-granted? If in the adminiftration over the State in general, there were fome few exceptions, why not in That over private men in particular?

But if now the candid reader fhall afk me, Why I employed expreffions, which, when divorced from the context, might be abufed by a Caviller to a perverfe meaning, I will tell him. I used them in imitation of the language of the Apostle, who favs that, under the Jewith Economy, EVERY tranfgreffion and dif obedience received a just recompence of reward*. And if He be to be understood with latitude, why may not I?

* HEB. ii. 2.

of

of wicked men; which the instinctive fondness of Parents to their offspring would make terrible even to those who had hardened themselves into an infenfibility of personal punishment: I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, vifiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

Now that this punishment was only to fupply the want of a Future ftate is evident frem hence, Towards the conclufion of this extraordinary. Economy, when GOD, by the later Prophets, re

d EXOD. XX. 5. Chap. xxxiv. 7. But as Gop acted with them in the capacity of the Creator and Father of all Men, as well as of tutelary God and King, he was pleased, at the fame time, to provide that they should never lofe the memory of the attributes of the Almighty: and therefore adds, And fhewing mercy unto thousands in them that love me and keep my commandments. NUMB. xiv. 18. DEUT. V. 9.

-

"The Author of the D. L. (fays Dr. Sykes) goes on, and "obferves that this punishment [of vifiting the iniquities of "Fathers upon their Children] was only to Supply the want of a future ftate. But how will this extraordinary economy SUPPLY this want? The Children at prefent fuffer for their "Parents' crimes; and are fuppofed to be punished when they "have no guilt. Is not this a plain act of HARDSHIP? And "if there be no future ftate or compenfation made, the hardfhip done must continue for ever a hardship on the unhappy "fufferer." [Exam. of Mr. W's. account, &c. p. 202-3.]

tr

For a Reafoner, it would be hard to find his fellow. J. The queftion is, whether this Law of punishing, was a SUPPLY to the want of a future ftate? If it laid hold of the paffions, as he owns it did, it certainly was a SUPPLY. However, he will prove it was none. And how? Because it was a HARDSHIP. 2. He fuppofes, I hold, that when Children were punished, in the proper fenfe of the word, they were innocent, whereas I hold, that then they were always guilty. When the innocent were affected by their Parents' crimes, it was by the deprivation of benefits, in their nature forfeitable. 3. He fuppofes, that if Mofes taught no future ftate, IT WOULD FOLLow, that there was none.

Y 4

veals

veals his purpose of giving them a NEW Difpenfa tion', in which a Future state of reward and punishment was to be brought to light, it is then declared in the most exprefs manner, that he will abrogate the Law of punishing Children for the crimes of their Parents. JEREMIAH, fpeaking of this new Difpenfation, fays: "In those days they fhall fay "no more, The Fathers have eaten a four grape, " and the Children's teeth are fet on edge: but "every one fhall die for his own iniquity, every man "that eateth the four grape, his teeth fhall be fet "on edge. Behold the days come, faith the "Lord, that I will make a NEW COVENANT with "the House of Ifrael,- NOT according to the "Covenant that I made with their Fathers in the "day that I took them by the hand to bring them

To this it hath been objected "As to the proof, that "vifiting the iniquities of Parents on their Children was defigned to fupply the want of a future state, because in a new Dif"penfation, it is foretold, that this mode of punishing will be "changed, this argument will not be admitted by the Deifts, "who do not allow that a new Difpenfation is revealed under "the phrafe of a new Covenant." Here the Objector should have diftinguished. The Deifts make two different attacks on Revelation. In the one, They difpute that order, connexion, and dependency between the two Difpenfations, as they are delivered in Scripture, and maintained by Believers: In the other, they admit (for arguments' fake) this reprefentation of revealed Religion; and pretend to fhew its falfhood, even upon that footing. Amongst their various arguments in this laft method of attack, one is, that the Jewish Religion had no fanction of a future ftate, and fo could not come from God. [See Lord Bolingbroke's Pofthumous Writings.] The purpofe of this work is to turn that circumftance against them; and from the omiffion of the Doctrine, demonftrate the Divine original of the Law. So that the Reader fees, I am in order, when, to evince a defigned omiffion, I explain the Law of punishing the crimes of Fathers on the Children, from the different natures of the two Difpenfations; as going upon principles acceded to, tho' it be only difputandi gratia, by the Deifts themfelves.

❝ out

out of the land of Egypt, &c. And EZEKIEL fpeaking of the fame times, fays: "I will give them one heart, and will put a NEW fpirit "within you, &c. But as for them, whofe "heart walketh after the heart of their abominable things I will recompenfe their way UPON 66 THEIR OWN HEADS, faith the Lord God." And again: "What mean ye, that you use this "Proverb concerning the land of Ifrael, faying, "The Fathers have eaten four grapes, and the "Childrens' teeth are fet on edge? As I live, "faith the Lord God, Ye fhall not have occafion "any more to use this Proverb in Ifrael. Behold all "fouls are mine, as the foul of the Father, fo "alfo the foul of the Son is mine: the foul that "finneth, it fhall die *"

And yet (to fhew more plainly that the abrogation of the Law was folely owing to this new Difpenfation) the fame Prophets, when their fubject is the prefent Jewish Economy, fpeak of this very Law as ftill in force. Thus JEREMIAH: "Thou "fheweft loving kindness unto thousands, and "recompenfest the iniquity of the Fathers into the

bofom of their Children after them!" And HOSEA: " Seeing thou hast forgotten the Law of thy "God, I will alfo forget thy Children"."

Chap. xxxi. 20-33.

h

Chap. xi. ver. 19—21.

It hath been objected, "That the Prophet here upbraids. "the Jews as blameable in the use of this proverb." Without doubt. And their fault evidently confifted in this, That they would infinuate that an innocent pofterity were punished for the crimes of their forefathers; whereas we have shewn, that when the childrens' teeth were fet on edge, they likewife had been tasting.