In the Expositor for June is an article with the heading, "On the Knowledge of a Future State Possessed by the Ancient Hebrews," and signed by A. Roberts. After showing that the more enlightened Hebrews from the earliest time certainly possessed a knowledge of a future state, the writer comes to the question why nothing was said of it in the legislation of Moses; and from this part of the essay I quote the following:

      Let us now revert to the words of Mr. Gladstone, quoted at the beginning of this paper: "The religion of the Jews in no way rested upon future rewards and punishments." If this statement is accepted without any modification, as I suppose it must be, it brings us face to face with a very strange, if not unaccountable, phenomenon. We have seen, on the very highest authority, that the ancient patriarchs, and pre-eminently Moses, lived under the power of the world to come. But now we are confronted with the fact that the great Jewish lawgiver, in the religious system which he established, took no account whatever of a future state. Such is the position occupied by those who believe (as the present writer does) that Moses was the author of the legislative code contained in the Pentateuch. I may remark, however, in passing, that many in our day do not assent to this. We are told by Wellhausen and his followers that Moses had little or nothing to do with the system of laws which bears his name. That code, it is said, must be relegated to post-exilic times. With this theory I am just now in nowise [283] concerned, beyond expressing my disbelief in it, and pointing out that, if adopted, it simply intensities the difficulty which has been suggested. For, by general consent, the Jews as a nation had come firmly to believe in a state of rewards and punishments hereafter before their return from the exile, and yet it is believed that their law was then for the first time promulgated without the slightest reference to a world beyond the grave. That, however, as has been already said, is a point with which I have at present nothing to do, and which must be left to be dealt with by Wellhausen and those who adopt his views. I have here only to consider the position of those who hold that Moses was the human author of the Jewish religious system, and yet that, while himself a steadfast believer in immortality, he made no reference in any of his enactments to the doctrine of a future state. Some explanation of this singular fact must be attempted.

      The first theory at which we may glance is that of Bishop Warburton. Warburton's bold and original idea was to change what was thought a formidable objection to the Jewish religion into a conclusive proof of its supernatural character. Let me endeavor to state the argument as briefly as possible. Warburton rests his theory on the two following principles: First, that no religion could, in ordinary circumstances, be established in the world without a reference to future rewards and punishments; and, secondly, that no doctrine as to recompense or retribution hereafter is to be found in the system instituted by Moses. From these premises his inference is that the Jewish dispensation must have been set up and sustained by "an extraordinary providence;" i. e., it must have had a superhuman origin, and been attended by constant miraculous interpositions on the part of God. The divine mission of Moses is thus thought to have been proved, and the author regards his demonstration as "very little short of mathematical certainty."

      Another solution which, although accepted by some, appears to me far more paradoxical than that of Warburton, has been proposed by the late Dean Stanley. In his "Lectures on the Jewish Church" (I., 135), the Dean says: "The fact becomes of real religious importance if we trace the ground on which this silence respecting the future was based. Not from want of religion, but (if one might use the expression) from excess of religion, was this void left in the Jewish mind. The future was [284] not denied or contradicted, but was overlooked, set aside, overshadowed by the consciousness of the living, actual presence of God himself. That truth, at least in the limited conceptions of the youthful nation, was too vast to admit of any rival truth, however precious." [Mr. Roberts easily refutes this theory by reminding us how far the early Israelites were from entertaining such an idea of God. The Dean when propounding his theory was forgetful of their conduct in the wilderness and in the period of the judges.]

      This leads me to state in conclusion what I humbly regard as the true reason why Moses did not include in his legislative code any reference to a future state of rewards and punishments. The people of the Jews were not then prepared for such a revelation, nor would they have profited by it. Their long and abject slavery in Egypt had wrought its own proper work upon them. Everything leads us to regard the Israelites of the Exodus as having been in the most debased condition. They were, in fact, little better than a barbarous horde, having no noble aspirations and capable only of being influenced by the most sordid motives. [Here the writer brings forward many facts in support of this assertion which I omit.] What cared they about the invisible world? Rewards and punishments in this life they could understand, but in the language of Scripture they were too "brutish" to feel the influence of what was future and unseen. And hence it is no reproach to the Mosaic law that it limited its sanctions to the present world. That was the only discipline which could have any good effect upon such a people.

      The reader will not fail to see that the theory here briefly propounded by Mr. Roberts stands at the opposite extreme, as respects the people for whom Moses legislated, from that of Dean Stanley, and that it is the more plausible of the two; but I think the last word has not yet been said on this interesting subject. I am glad it has been called up again for consideration in such a magazine as the Expositor, and I trust that the result will be the production of a more satisfactory explanation than any yet given. I have some thoughts of my own on the subject which I may yet publish, and which, [285] whether correct or incorrect, may contribute to its final elucidation.

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