expect very clear and strong reasons, before we are prevailed with to recede from it. As I before instanced in the choice of friends; great caution, diffidence, suspicion, and distrust, are very proper and necessary in the choice: but when the choice has been made, it would be very unreasonable to be still full of scruple and doubt, or not to confide with great assurance in those whom we had so cautiously and deliberately chosen. It would be great injustice towards them to be still prone to suspect them, or not to be partial in some measure in their favour, requiring very full and clear reasons against them before we entertain any doubts of them.

Such is the case also in relation to matters of faith, or principles of religion once deliberately received. They ought, from that time forwards, to be allowed all favourable presumption and equity of construction: and now all the jealousy, diffidence, and distrust is to be thrown upon the other side, till very plain and cogent reasons can be brought to overturn or overrule that which we have espoused.

This appears to be the true and right method of avoiding both the extremes; that of implicit and uncautious credulity on one hand, or of fickleness and desultorious levity on the other.

Now to apply very briefly what hath been here said to our own particular case and circumstances. As many of us as are here present may be presumed to have fixed our choice, first, of the Christian religion, in opposition to Pagan, Jewish, or Mahometan: and, secondly, of a reformed religion, in opposition to Popish novelty and superstition: and, thirdly, of the religion of the Church of England, in opposition to all other sects, parties, or denominations of reformed Christians. They who have examined into these three things know them to be good and they who have not, ought to examine so far as they are able, that they also may know and then nothing remains but to hold them fast, and to make suitable improvements of them in our lives and conversations. "Let us," then, "hold fast the profession of our "faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) " and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to "good works."

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a Heb. x. 23, 24.

SERMON XXIV.

The precise Nature and Force of Christ's Argument, founded on Exod. iii. 6. against the Sadducees.

LUKE XX. 37, 38.

Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when

God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac,

he calleth the Lord the and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto hima.

HESE words are the concluding part of our Lord's reply to

THESE

the Sadducees, a libertine sect of the Jews, who, (like the Epicureans before, and other infidels since,) for the sake only of indulging their lusts, and to remove the dread of an after-reckoning, thought proper to reject the belief of a resurrection and a life to come. But yet, to save appearances, and to keep up an outward show of religion among their countrymen, they professed a great regard to the same common scriptures, as the oracles of God, and sought out colours from those very scriptures, whereby to countenance, or seemingly to authorize, their wanton and wicked opinions. They came to our blessed Lord, and propounded a captious question to him, grounded upon Moses's Law, artfully insinuating, as if Moses himself must have been in their sentiments; for he had ordered that several brothers in succession should take the same surviving wife: a law

* Conf. Matt. xxii. 31. Mark xii. 26.

which seemed to preclude any future resurrection; since, upon that supposition, there could be no adjusting the contradictory claims. "Whose wife," said they, "is she in the resurrection?" Our blessed Lord, in reply, corrected their fond mistake in judging of a life to come by the life that now is, when circumstances would be widely different. In this world, where mankind go off and die daily, there is a necessity of a constant and regular succession to supply the decays of mortality: but in a world to come, where none die any more, the reason then ceases, inasmuch as there will be no occasion for any further supplies. Our blessed Lord, by thus distinguishing upon the case, defeated the objection: but to shew further, how ill the Sadducees had contrived, in appealing to Moses as a favourer of their sentiments, he reminds them of a famous passage in Moses's Law, which was directly contrary to their principles, being indeed a full and clear proof of a resurrection and future state. "Now that "the dead are raised," (or shall be raised,) "even Moses shew"ed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, " and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a "God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him." In discoursing upon which words, I propose more particularly to consider,

I. What the distinguishing principles of the ancient Sadducees really were.

II. Why our Lord chose to confront them with a text out of Moses's writings, rather than with any other out of the Old Testament.

III. Wherein precisely the force of our Lord's argument, built upon that text, consists.

I.

As to the first article; the distinguishing principles of the Sadducees are briefly summed up by St. Luke in the twentythird of the Acts, thus: "The Sadducees say, that there is no

resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the Pharisees con"fess both a." From whence we may observe, that the Sadducees did not only reject the resurrection of the body, but they denied a future state; they did not allow that the soul survived the body: they looked upon the doctrines of a resurrection and future state to be so nearly allied, or so closely connected with

a Acts xxiii. 8.

each other, that they might reasonably be conceived to stand or fall together: wherefore they denied both; as, on the other hand, the Pharisees admitted both. For if the soul survived the body, it was very natural to suppose, that some time or other the body would be again raised up, and reunited, to make a whole man: but if the soul died with the body, it was obvious to infer there would be no resurrection; since that would amount, in such a case, to a new creation, rather than a resurrection properly so called, and the parties so raised would not be the same persons as before. This observable connection of the two several doctrines seems to have made the Sadducees deny both; and the consideration thereof will be of use to us in explaining the force of our Lord's argument; as will be seen in the sequel.

There is one noted difficulty in St. Luke's account of the Sadducees, relating to their denial of the existence of angels. Other accounts of Jewish writers are silent on that head; and it might seem very needless for the Sadducees to clog their cause with it, since it was sufficient for their purpose to reject only the separate subsistence of human souls; and it is odd that they should run so flatly counter to the history of the Old Testament, (which is full of what concerns angels,) when they had really no great necessity for it, nor temptation to it, so far as appears. But, perhaps, they thought it the shortest and surest way to reject the whole doctrine of spirits, or, at least, of created spirits, and so to settle in materialism, after the example of some Pagan philosophers; and therefore they at once discarded both angels and separate souls: and as to the Old Testament standing directly against them, with respect to angels, there are so many various ways of playing upon words, especially in dead writings, that men, resolute to maintain a point, (whatever it be,) can never be at a loss for evasions. This appears to be a fair account of the whole case, if it be certain that St. Luke is to be understood of their denying angels, properly so called. Nevertheless, I apprehend, there may be some reason to question whether he might not use the word in a particular sense, so as to mean no more by it than a human soul. It is certain that the Pagan writers, before his time, had been used to give the name of angels to good souls departed; and that the Jews also sometimes did the same may appear from the writings of Philo the Jew, who lived in that age. Possibly, St. Luke, knowing that the word angel had been so used, might mean only to say, that

the Sadducees rejected the doctrine of the resurrection, and the other doctrine of separate souls, whether called angels, as by some, or spirits only, as by others. There is another place in this book of the Acts where the word angel seems to have been used in the like improper sense; when some, speaking of Peter confidently reported to be at the door, and the thing was thought impossible, said, "It is his angela;" as much as to say, It is his ghost: for they had reason to believe, that he had been executed by that time. I am aware, that interpreters give quite another gloss to that passage: but it is obvious to observe withal, how much they are perplexed with it, and how difficult it is to make tolerable sense of the place in their way, or in any way, excepting such as I have mentioned.

However, I would be understood to offer this other interpretation as conjecture only, and as tending to clear up some noted difficulties in St. Luke's account of the Sadducees in the easiest manner; while we do not want a solution of them, if this should not satisfy; for I have myself given one before: but if this second solution, which I have here offered, appears preferable to the other, we may then acquit the Sadducees of the charge of discarding angels, properly so called, and condemn them only as rejecting a resurrection and a future state. This account will appear the better, when it is considered that St. Luke says the Pharisees admitted both. Both what? There had been three things mentioned, if angel makes a distinct article: but if angel there means no more than an human soul, then the articles are reduced to two only, and so it was very proper to say both; namely, both the resurrection and the separate state of the soul.

However that be, (for I would not dwell long upon a bypoint,) this is certain, that the captious question put to our Lord, and his answer to it, concerned only the case of mankind, and had nothing to do with angels. The point in dispute was only this whether men should live again after death, and live in the body; which though seemingly two points, yet in effect amounted but to one, as I before observed.

II.

I proceed now, secondly, to inquire, why our blessed Lord chose to confront the Sadducees with a text out of Moses's writings, rather than out of any other part of the Old Testament.

a Acts xii. 15.