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724 Dr . Jones ' s View of the Evidence which proves Philo and Josephus
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of our Saviour brought it to light * By that event * godliness , which is confessedly a great mystery , received its solution , and , all good men , as well as Christ , appear in the prospect of
eternal life , as Gods , in the flesh , — as , though subject to death and corruption , heirs of immortality . Now Josephus , in the very place where he says that the Judaism of which he speaks , is founded on a solid proof of
a future existence to mankind , asserts that it was predicted by Moses , thus making the prediction of the Jewish legislator and the illustration of it by tke divine mission of Jesus , to correspond to each other , as they are in the New Testament .
4 . Farther , at the command of their Divine Master , the apostles propagated spiritual Judaism over the world , so that in half a century after the
death of the founder , there was scarcely a place in the habitable globe where it was not preached and received by multitudes , Josephus ascribes the same diffusion to the Judaism of which
he speaks . His words are emphatic wd triumphant . § . 39 : " And as God pervades the whole world , so his law has at length pervaded all mankind . " This was sixty or seventy years aftef the commission to preach it to the Gentiles was given the apostles .
5 . Moreover , from the New Testament we might infer , and from ecclesiastical history we are assured , that those among the nations who
received spiritual Judaism , were not inferior to the Jews who preached it , either in their attachment to it ,-or in the sufferings or sacrifices which they made on account of it . This
circumstance is not omitted by Josephus . Ci if we" ( Jews ) - " were not sensible of the superior excellence of our laws , we should be taught to glory in them , by the multitudes that embrace them among other nations /'
6 . Lastly , though the doctrine of a future state , as founded on the iminprtality of the human soul , was of high antiquity , and general among Jews and Gentiles , the Saviour appears
to have enjoined on his apostles , while preaching his gospel , not to avail themselves of this powerful prejudice in their favour , not to notice it , not to eutejc iato dispute about it with its
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advocates , but \ o leave its truth or falsehood to the progress of reason to refute or establish - but , on the other hand , to call upon the nations to embrace the doctrine of a future life , solely by virtue of his resurrection ,
Accordingly , I am free to say that no convert was made to Christianity by the apostles , who did not con skier himself as dead to a future state , till he was bora again to that hope by the resurrection of Christ * Spiritual
Judaism , then , holds forth the reneuml of being , in some distant period , known only to God , and not the survival of death by the immaterial and imperishable nature of the human soul , as the only ground of future existence to the human race .
Now ,, the Jewish historian has done to himself , and to the religion which he defends , the justice to state this peculiar and distinguishing feature of the gospel : ESwxfy o &eog yavsaBai re TZCtklV KOLl { BlOV afXtWOO Xa ^ 3 « V £ K TTCjiTpOTttfiy God hath given them to come into
being again , end after a period to receive a better life . If the hope of a future state , cherished by those converts , were founded on the immortality of the human soul , Josephus would have given a very different account of it . I am able to affirm this
with perfect certainty ; for the officers that were with him ia the cave at Jotapata came to a resolution to destroy themselves rather than ; surrender to the Romans . These men might not be believers in the gospel . Josephus , therefore , in attempting to dissuade
them from suicide , tjius reasons with them on their own principles : The bodies of men are indeed mortal " , ap composed of corruptible matter ; but the soul , being a portion of the divinity dwelling within us , can never die . Do not you know that those who
depart this life , and , in conformity to the law of nature , restore the deposit received from jGfod i when it pleases , him to recall it ,, enjoy eternal fame ; that their abodes and their po&terity are blessed ; that their souls are pure and obedient , obtaining a most holy
place in heaven , whence , after a revolution of ages , they shall agjuin be united with bodies , while the souls of those who madly lift their hands against themselves are received in the darkest place in hades * " J . W ., B . iii .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1824, page 724, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2531/page/20/
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