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Untitled Article
apologist— 1 . " " ¦ Because be has de * rfrcated this work to Epaphrodi . tus . 2 . Because he has described tbe religion of Mos £ s and the prophets , not such as the Jewish doc tors would have described it *
a mixture of external ordinances and moral precepts , but such as our Lord and his apostles made the gospel to consist in , a pure system of piety and benevolence , founded on a firm assurance of a
future state- < The reward of those , * says he , ' who live in every respect conformably to our laws , is not silver , or gold , or a
garland of olive , or some such honour , but the approbation of his own conscience , which each possesses , in consequence of believing that the faithful observer of these
l&ws , shall , after a revolution of y ^ ars , live again and receive a better * life , our lawgiver having foretold this , and God having confirmed it by a powerful assurance . " Ecctes . Res , p . 694 . Against Apiott , lib . ii . § 30 .
A striking difference between JXidaism spiritualised by Christ , and Judaism properly so called , Consists in this , that , according to the former , the rewards of
obedience \ vere temporal , and confined to this life ; according to the latter , they were spirit uaf , and ex . tended to the life to come . Josephus , therefore , means this last , i . e . the gospel , because he expressly refers them to a future state and that exclusively .
Though Christ and his apostles Considered a life to come as predicted in the Jewish scriptures , no powerful assurance of that animating fact was ever givetv by God , before the resurrection of Christ . Of this fact we have full evidence in the New Testament .
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Tha apostles on every oecasidhf preached a future state ef existence , and on every occaston they rest the evidence of it on the fact that Christ rose &s a proof and a
pledge of the resurrection of all mankind . By the powerful assurance which God has given of a new existence , Josephus therefore meant the assurance given by the resurrection of Jesus . God is
said to have given it , because it was God that raised him from the dead ; and he calls it a powerful assurance , and not the resurrection of Christ , because he preferred to express the fact by its object or
relation to mankind , this being : relation to mankind , thjs being the only circumstance which gave it importance . Josephus here intimates that death is to all men a suspension of existence , and that God . after
a revolution of years , will confer on good men a happier state of being . Here he virtually rejects the doctrine of a separate ~ soulf * and concurs with the gospel in
placing the hope of a future state on the powerful assurance ^ giveit by God himself . The following passage of itself contains a glorious * and decisive evidence that in hb
book against Apion , Josephus i £ a ' Christian writer : As God per * vades the whole world , so t his law has at length pervaded all man- *
kind ; and whoever reflects on his own country , and even his own family , will find evidence of th < $ assertion now made by me . And if we Jews were not sensible of thtr
superior excellence of our laws ; we should fall below that rrmhU tude of converts who glory irt them . " Soon after the re ' sutrec-r tionof Christ , thegospel which orU ginnted in Judaism , and was Juduism itself purified of its grosser
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R& ^^ 3 ottes * z > lEtftteiiasiical Rese&rcfafc 59
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1814, page 51, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2436/page/51/
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