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fions were curbed and restrained, by the fame Spring, or principle of action, with those of all other men; viz. by a profpect of good and evil, that might befall them in this world. They were temporal prosperity and temporal adverfity, temporal or bodily pleasures and temporal or bodily pains, temporal life and temporal death, that were fet before the Jews, in order to command and restrain their appetites and passions; and which, together with the incentives to affociation, that arife from the human conftitution, were intended, and were, in fact, fufficient, to hold them together in fociety, even whilft the belief of the doctrine of futurity is declared to be wanting among them. And, if the forementioned principles were fufficient to hold the Jews together in fociety, exclufive of the belief of the doctrine of futurity; then, furely, they may be fufficient to answer that purpose to any other nation, or people; at least, the question is, why fhould they not? and confequently, the admitting Mr. Warburton's third propofition destroys his firft. For, admitting the Jews were under a theocracy, that God was their civil goit alters not the cafe; because, they were governed in the fame way, were

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influenced by the fame principles of action, by the same maxims of policy, as all other civil focieties are; viz. by connecting their present happiness with their duty, or fociablenefs; and by making their prefent happiness and their disobedience, or unfociablenefs, to be incompatible. But then, it is to be remembered, that tho' God did give the Jews, by the hand of Mofes, a body of laws, guarded with fanctions as aforefaid, and thereby provided for their fafety, in the fame way that other civil governors provide for the fafety of the people, refpectively, who are committed to their care; yet he did not put those laws in execution, nor charge himself with the execution of them; but left the Jews to govern themselves, by those laws that he gave them, or kindly provided for them; and therefore, he was not their civil governor, nor were they under a theocracy, as is pretended.

IF it should be faid, had God only given the Jews a body of laws, by the hand of Mofes, guarded with fanctions as aforefaid, this would have been altogether infufficient to have answered the purposes of government to them, because their appetites and paffrons would not have been curbed or restrained

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thereby; but this was not all, for, befides this, he governed them by a particular, fpecial, and immediate interpofition of his and providence, in counselling and advising them, by Urim, and by his Prophets; and alfo by specially interpofing, in bringing down his extraordinary blessings and his judgments upon them and by theje they were held together in fociety, and rendered a fociable people, which otherwife they would not have been. Upon which I obferve, that the giving the Jews a body of laws, guarded with proper fanctions, together with those excitements to association, which arise from the human conftitution, were proper and fufficient, when duly attended to, to hold them together in fociety, or they were not? If they were, then they would have been fufficient, had God's extraordinary interpofitions been wanting; and confequently, those interpofitions were not necessary to that end. If they were not proper, nor would have been fufficient for that purpose; then the Deity stands arraigned of indifcretion and misconduct, in providing means that were not adapted, nor fufficient, to reach the end proposed to be obtained by them; but the Jews were held together in fociety by thofe means,

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and, therefore, what is urged must needs be a most grievous calumny upon him. That God did extraordinarily interpofe, by way counsel to the Jews, their history fets forth, as in the case of their going to war with the Benjamites; (Judges xx.) tho' that advice, upon the whole, feems to have turned to bad account; twenty-two thousand men of Judah being flain in their first encounter, eighteen thousand men of Ifrael in the fecond, and twenty-five thousand men of Benjamin in the third. God alfo fent prophets among them, to reprove them for their evil deeds, and to forewarn them what would be the confequences thereof; tho' thefe kind monitions feem to have had but little effect. God likewife, fometimes, tho' very rarely, interpofed, in an extraordinary way, by bringing down his Special blessings and curfes, or judgments, upon that people, as in the cafe of fire coming down from heaven, and deftroying the two captains and their fifties; (2 Kings i.) which extraordinary interpofitions may. confidered as marks, or inftances, of God's extraordinary kindness, or difpleafure to them. But then, as these fpecial providences, (according to the accounts that are given us, in the Jewish hiftories) were very feldom difG 3 pensed,

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penfed, were founded on arbitrary pleasure, there being no fixed rule when they should, or should not, take place, and confequently, must have been moft uncertain, they might, or might not happen; fo, in the nature of the thing, these extraordinary difpenfations could not be a fufficient foundation for government fafely to reft upon, nor a proper principle for the holding men together in fociety by. Civil fociety and civil government require fome fixed, ftable, permanent principle for these to rest upon, in order to render them lafting, and to answer the purposes of afsociation; and not what is fluctuating and uncertain, which was the cafe of God's extraordinary providences among the Jews. Good and evil at a distance, or when uncertain, has but little influence upon the human appetites and paffions, as experience fheweth. Ecclefiaftes viii. II. Because fentence against an evil work is not Speedily executed; therefore the heart of the fons of men is fully fet in them to do evil. If God had given a body of laws to the Jews, guarded with proper fanctions, and, instead of leaving it to them to execute those laws, had charged himself with the execution of them, and, without the inftru

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