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    invidious men then ceajse W accuse the Jews I or let them accuse those multitudes among all nations who have incurred the voluntary % uilt of zealously embraciug' base and foreign * in the room of their own honourable

    institutions . If we ourselves were not sensible of the superior excellence of our laws , we should fall below that multitude of converts who glory in theme" Here it is stated that the religion of Moses and the prophets

    had at this time universally prevailed among the Greeks and barbarians ; that the Jaw of Goa , like God himself * had pervaded the world ; not a country , nor hardly a family existing where ifs influence was not felt and

    acknowledged ; that those Heathens who had embraced it practised the same virtues , and evinced in support of it the same patience and constancy with the Jews who taught it . and died itt attestation of its truth . This

    assertion was made about six ty years after the resurrection of Jesus ; and if Josephus meant , by the law of God 9 as fie * calls ... it * the Mosaic law , improved and finished by Christ , the assertion is strictly true ; but if he meant Judaism in the sense now

    understood , it is altogether \ false , not a syllable of it being justified by the fact . The sanctions of the Jewish religion before the promulgation of the gospel were temporal , its rewards and jmnishments being till then underj&f&qd to extend not beyond the limits

    pfr the present state . The blessed Jesus drew asunder the veil that hung on the law of Moses in this respect : he brought life and immortality into light , and gave a satisfactory proof of it in his own resurrection . This was in tended and represented as a pledge from God of the resurrection of all

    t&ankind , as a solid ground of hope in a future state . The notion was prevalent not only in Judea * but in other countries , that the human soul , being immortal , survived its dissolution from the bod y * Our Lord and Ms apostles might have adopted this

    opinion as a powerful auxiliary to the doctrine , of a-future existence . But they have declined this aid , thinking It either unsatisfactory or altogether erroneous . At all events they knew it to be an opifiion , and not txfact ; and therefore , they wisely considered

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    it as an . improper subject of historical testimony- Accordingly , whoever looks into the Acts of the Apostles , will find , that faith in a new life was the principal cause of spiritual Judaism being received by the -Gentiles , that the resurrection of Christ was

    the proof of it , that as he rose from the dead , so all his faithful followers are to rise , thus receiving a new life after the present shall have been suspended during a revolution of ages in the-. grave . These decisive and characteristic truths are implied in the

    following important passage of Josephus ,. where he alludes to the resurrection of Jesus as a mighty proofp HTxvftxv tfts"iv , of another life : " The reward of those , who live in every respect conformably to our laws , is not silver or gold , or a garland of olive , but the testimony , of ithe truths

    of which each of us is convinced that , after a revolution of years , we shall receive a better life , our -lawgiver havi 4 ig foretold this * and God having con ~ firmed it hym mighty proof For this reason we stedfastly adhere to , and * , if necessary , cheerfully die for them * And 1 should have been reluctant to

    write these things , if it had not been proved by facts , and made known to all men , that multitudes in many places have bravely submitted to every species of torture rather than even in words renounce our law . " Contra . Apion . L . 2 . S . SO . '

    I shall conclude this paper with two or three inferences ; firsts that the book dedicated to Epaphroditus , in which Josephus apologizes for tHe Jews ,- is really an apology for the Jewish Christians and for the Heathen

    converts to Christianity ; that had no evidence existed to prove Epaphroditus to have been himself a believes ^ we might hence conclude that he was one ; and that in all the other places , where Josephus speaks of Heathens converted to Judaism , lie always means Judaism spiritualized and enforced by Jesus Christ . JOHN JONES .

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    On J } r . StocJts Conversion * Sir , - Bristol , Dec . < 2 4 , 1817-YOUR Correspondent L . J . J . [ XII . 665 , 666 , *} has offered some ^ strictures on what he . justly styles " Dr , Carpenter ' s excellent remarks , on the letter of Br « Stock /*

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    4 ® r ; - = " © it Dr . 'Stack * * € ktmieimm

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1818, page 40, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2472/page/40/