Warrior-Tribes with a certain number of good and fervicable Mufkets. Which engagement was fo ill performed, that at their next general meeting, the Chiefs of the Barbarians complained, that, tho' indeed the Colony had fent them the number of Muskets agreed upon, yet, on examination, they were all found to be without Locks. This mifchance (occafioned by the Mufkets and the Locks being put into two different cargoes) the Governor promised should be redreffed. It was redreffed accordingly; and the Locks fought out, and fent. He now flattered himself that all caufe of umbrage was effectually removed; when, at their next meeting, he was entertained with a fresh complaint, that the Colony had fraudulently fent them Locks without Mufkets. The truth was, this brave People, of unimpeached morals, were only defective in their military Logic; they had not the dexterity, till they were firft fhewn the way, to put the major of the Mufket and the minor of the MutketLock together; and from thence to draw the concluding trigger.

But then it will be faid, "If, as is here pretended, the PREMISSES have been indeed proved, in these two Volumes, with all the detail which their importance required, and with all the evidence which a moral fubject can fupply; and the CONCLUSION, therefore, established with all the conviction which the Laws of logic are able to inforce; Why was another Volume promised? For no other end, as would feem, than to mislead a well-meaning Reader, in the vain purfuit of an Argument already ended."

It was promised for a better purpose-To remove all conceivable objections against the CONCLUSION, and Dd 3

to

to throw in every collateral light upon the PREMISSES. For it is one thing to fatisfy Truth, and another, to filence her pretended friends. He who defends Revelation has many prejudices to encounter; but he who defends it by Reafon only, has many

more.

The third and last Volume, therefore, is distined to SUPPORT What hath been already proved: not, as has been abfurdly fuggefted, to continue and conclude an unfinished Argument.

It confifts of three Books, like each of the preceding Volumes.

1. The seventh Book therefore is employed in fupporting the MAJOR and the MINOR Propofitions of the firft Syllogifm: in a continued History of the RELIGIOUS OPINIONS of the Jews, from the time of the earlier Prophets, who firft gave fome dark intimations of a different Difpenfation, to the time of the Maccabees, when the Doctrine of a future ftate of rewards and punishments was become national,

2. The eighth Book is employed in fupporting the MAJOR and MINOR Propofitions of the fecond Syllogifm, in which is confidered the PERSONAL CHARACTER Of Mofes and the GENIUS OF THE LAW, as far as it concerns or has a relation to the character of the Lawgiver. Under this latter head, is contained a full and fatisfactory Anfwer to thofe who may object, "That a revealed Religion with a future ftate of rewards and punishments is unworthy the Divine Author to whom it is afcribed."

3. The ninth and laft Book, explains at large the nature and genius of the CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION For having towards the end of the eighth Book, examined the PRETENDED REASONS (offered both by Believers and Unbelievers to evade my conclufion) for omitting the Doctrine of a future State of rewards and punishments in the Mofaic Difpenfation, I was naturally and neceffarily led to inquire into the TRUE. For now, it might be finally objected, "That tho', under an extraordinary Providence there might be no occafion for the doctrine of a future State, in fupport of Religion, or for the ends of Government; yet as that Doctrine is a truth, and confequently, under every regiment of Providence, useful, it feems hard to conceive, that the Religious Leader of the Jews, because as a Lawgiver he could do without it, that therefore, as a Divine, he would omit it." The objection is of weight in itself, and receives additional moment from what hath been obferved in the fifth Book, concerning the Reafon of the Law of punishing children for the crimes of their Parents. I held it therefore infufficient barely to reply, "Mofes omitted it, that his Law might thereby ftand, throughout all ages, an invincible Monu"ment of the truth of his pretences:" but proceeded to explain the GREAT AND PRINCIPAL reason of the omiffion. And now,-ventum ad VERUM est.

66

The whole concludes with one general but diftinct view of the entire courfe of Gods univerfal Economy from Adam to Chrift. In which it is fhewn, that if Mofes were, in truth, fent from God, he could not teach a future State; that Doctrine being out of his Commiffion, and referved for him who was at the head of another Difpenfation, Dd 4

by

by which life and immortality was to be brought to light.

This Difcourfe, befides the immediate purpofe of fupporting and illuftrating the ARGUMENT here compleated, ferves another end, which I had in view, as to the general difpofition of the whole work which was to explain and discriminate the diftinct and various natures of the PAGAN, the JEWISH and the CHRISTIAN Religions: the Pagan having been confidered in the first Volume, and the Jewish in the fecond; the Chriftian is reserved for the third and laft. Let me conclude therefore, in an addrefs to my Reverend Brethren, with the words of an Ancient Apologift. Quid nobis invidemus, fi veritas Divinitatis, noftri temporis

tate maturuit? Fruamur bono noftro, et recti fententiam temperemus: cohibeatur SUPERSTITIO, IMPIETAS expietur, VERA RELIGIO refervetur,

a Minucius Felix.

The End of the SIXTH BOOK,

APPEN

APPENDIX

Concerning the Book of JO B.

N excellent Writer having freely and candidly

A examined the late Bishop of London's collec

tion of Sermons, and in page 165 of his Examination, asked this queftion, Where was Idolatry ever punished by the Magiftrate, but under the Jewish. Economy? The Oxford Profeffor, in the fecond Edition of his Prelections, concerning the facred Poetry of the Hebrews, thinks fit to give the following anfwer" It was punished under the Economy "of the Patriarchs, in the families and under the "DOMINION of Abraham, Melchifedec and Joв. * Idolatry fpreading wider and wider, Abraham 66 was called by God from Chaldea, for this end, "to be the father of a People, which, divided " from all others, might continue to worship the "true God; to be fet up for an exemplar of "true Religion, and to be ready to give tefti"mony against the worfhip of vain Deities. "Was not Abraham, therefore (exercifing the "SOVEREIGNTY in his own family) to punish Ido"latry? Were not Melchifedec and Job, and all "the SOVEREIGNS of Tribes of that time, who still "retained the knowledge and worship of the true "God, amidft a general defection of all the fur"rounding People, to take care that their own

did not backflide? To curb offenders, and to

inflict