and to seek expiation for it by the blood of the sacrifice. Lastly, supposing that God had from the beginning formed the wise and gracious design to send his own Son into the world in the fulness of time to take upon him our nature, and to shed his blood as a propitiation for the sins of the world; and that this was the way in which he had appointed to confer salvation on guilty mankind; that so he might declare his righteousness in the remission of sins, and vindicate the authority of his government and laws even in the very methods of reconciliation: taking in this view of things, it was very proper to institute and appoint sacrifices, the better to prepare the world for receiving that method of redemption through the blood and sacrifice of his Son, and to typify and prefigure the true atonement. And upon this state of the case, the propriety of this constitution of sacrifices, and the comprehensive views the divine wisdom had in it, do more fully appear.

Thus it appears, that there were great and wise ends in this institution of sacrifices, and at the same time care was taken that they should be managed so as not at all to interfere with the civil laws, or to be any way detrimental to the society, by derogating from the justice and public order necessary for the preservation of the commonwealth.

CHAPTER VII.

His pretence that the law of Moses made no distinction between morals and rituals, and never urged things as in themselves fit and reasonable; and that the stories of the miracles recorded there were the cause of the Jews' obduracy and impenitency throughout all their generations. His bitter invectives against the Jews, and the strange representation he makes of that people, with a view to cast a reproach upon their law. It is shown that by the advantage of their law, they far exceeded all other nations in the knowledge of religion, and that they were famed for wisdom even among the Heathens. The proper use that should be made of the accounts given us of their faults, and of the punishments inflicted on them.

We have not yet done with this writer's objections against the law of Moses, with a view to expose that law and the Jews. He tells us, p. 271, that Moses gave them a law, not as a law or religion of nature, but as the immediate voice and positive will of God, the grounds or reasons of which they were never to examine or inquire into, nor to look upon it either as founded in the eternal immutable fitness of things, or the result of any human reason or prudence; and having this opinion of their law in general, they made no distinction between morals and rituals, between eternal and immmutable, and temporary and mutable obligations, or between the ws of nature, and the perfect reverse of them.' And he had ob

served before, that they would believe nothing as necessarily and eternally true in nature and reason, but depended for the proof of every thing upon miracles, prodigies, &c. And that they had really no such thing among them as a notion of what is right and wrong in morality,' p. 256.

It will be easily granted that Moses represents the law he gives as enjoined by the immediate authority and will of God himself. And I suppose none will deny but that this must give a mighty force and efficacy to laws however fit or reasonable in themselves. And I believe every considerate person will allow that in a divine law it is not necessary to enter into the particular reasons of all the commands that are given, or to deduce them by a chain of philosophical reasonings from what this writer calls the eternal fitness of things. But if he means to insinuate, as seems plainly to be his intention, that in the law of Moses things are never urged upon the people as in themselves fit and reasonable, nor the grounds and reasons of the law ever set before them, nothing can be more false, as is evident to any one that is in the least acquainted with that law. They are not urged to obedience from a mere regard to the authority of God who gave them those laws, but they are frequently urged to it from a consideration of his goodness; and the reasonableness and fitness of the thing required of them is often signified in the most expressive and comprehensive manner, with admirable fulness as well as brevity. It were easy to produce a considerable number of instances out of the books of Moses, in which the reasons of the law are clearly set forth along with the laws themselves, and that both with regard to moral and ritual precepts. It is true, that Moses never talks of the eternal reason and immutable fitness of things; nor does the gospel, though it so evidently tends to give us good and excellent notions of pure and refined morality, ever express itself after this manner. And I apprehend this way of expression will scarce be thought necessary for enlightening the understandings of the people in the knowledge of morals; especially in the crude and confused manner in which this author and some others use it. But it is evident that Moses often teaches the people to regard his laws as founded in reason, and righteousness, and equity, and commendable for their wisdom and excellency. Thus Deut. iv. 6, 7, 8. 'What nation is there so great which hath statutes and judgments so righteous, as all this law which I set before you this day? Keep and do them, for this is your wisdom and understanding.' And he there supposes the excellency of their laws to be so manifest, that other nations that should hear and observe them would be ready to say, 'surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' He frequently tells them that the statutes and commandments which God required them to obey, were for their own good, Deut. xxvi. 24. x. 13. And it is certain in fact, that the greatest and wisest men among the Jews, and indeed the people in general, had a very high opinion of the wisdom, the goodness, the equity, and reasonableness of their laws. So far is it from being true which this author confidently alleges, that they did not regard

the 'moral law or statutes and judgments delivered by Moses in the name of God, as true and right, in nature and reason. The noble account given of the law, Psal. xix. 7-12, to which might easily be added many other passages celebrating the righteousness, the purity, the loveliness of the laws enjoined them, sufficiently shows what were the sentiments of all wise and good men among the Jews on this head.

And indeed, this writer himself elsewhere thinks fit to own, that 'the lawgiver himself (Moses) directed the people to the right motive and principle of action, i.e. to the inward love of God and their neighbour, as the principal thing that would be regarded in the sight of God,' p. 34. And that this was along understood and insisted on during the legal economy as necessary to a state of true religion and virtue, as might be proved by innumerable testimonies out of the law and the prophets. And that even in our Saviour's time, the Jews, from the highest to the lowest, owned the obligation of it, and could not stifle their convictions of it, how much soever they had lost or neglected the practice. Their most learned men, and Christ's greatest enemies, allowed, that to love God above all, and our neighbour as ourselves, was the sum and substance, the end and design of the whole law,' p. 34. And how this is consistent with his asserting that the Jews made no distinction between morals and rituals, and between the laws of nature, and the perfect reverse of them; and that they had no such thing among them as a notion of what is right or wrong in morality,' is hard to conceive.

It is with equal justice and consistency that he represents the old stories they had among them of their miraculous deliverances and successes at the first institution of their covenant,' as having been the chief occasion of their natural blindness, obduracy, and impenitency in all their succeeding generations, and of their depending on continual miracles,' which he calls the most dangerous presumption,' and the strongest hold of ignorance and error,' pp. 263, 264. At other times he is pleased to ascribe this to what he calls the incurable Egyptian temper of that people,' which they at first contracted in Egypt, and could never afterwards shake off; but here he directly charges their impenitency and obstinacy in all succeeding generations on the miraculous things that were done for them to deliver them out of Egypt; so that as he there expresseth it, they had no great reason to boast of their deliverance.' But how those old stories,' as he calls them, should have an influence to render them ever afterwards obdurate and impenitent, is hard to conceive. The natural tendency of them, when firmly believed, was to fill them with adoring thoughts of the divine power and majesty, and with a thankful sense of their obligations to his goodness, and to engage them to a more diligent and careful obedience to those laws which came to them confirmed with such illustrious attestations. And it is for such purposes as these that they are frequently mentioned by good men of old in their admirable psalms and hymns of praise. But there is nothing in them to encourage

them to expect any extraordinary interpositions in their favour, whilst they continued an impenitent and disobedient people. On the contrary, those old stories' of the miracles wrought at the first establishment of their law were also accompanied with an account of God's righteous severity against their ancestors, and the signal punishments he inflicted upon them for their obduracy and impenitency. There was nothing in their whole law that gave them ground to hope for prosperity and happiness, or any marks of the divine favour towards them, but in a way of righteousness and obedience. And on the other hand, it taught them to expect to be distinguished from other nations, with the most remarkable judgments and tokens of the divine displeasure, in case of their persisting in an obstinate course of wickedness and disobedience. Nor was there any thing in their belief of the extraordinary things that were done at their deliverance out of Egypt, that could reasonably induce them, in ordinary cases, to neglect natural human means, which God has ordained and established in the course of his providence;' and to depend on all occasions upon miracles, immediate interposition, and uninstrumental divine agency; which is another charge he advances against them. One would think, by his representation, that the whole nation of the Jews in all ages lived in a continual expectation of nothing else but miracles, that they thought not of using any rational human means at all, but expected at all times to have plenty of food though they never ploughed or sowed, and to be victorious over their enemies without taking arms or fighting. But it does not appear from the history of their nation in the Old Testament, that this was all along their temper and expectation. They are often blamed for making flesh their arm, and placing too much of their dependence on the aids of human power, or the methods of a worldly policy, even to the neglect and disobedience of God's commands and law. In their prosperity, when they were in a state of wealth and power, they were too apt to be over confident and secure; and in their adversity, when they did not see probable human means for their deliverance, they were apt to despond, such is the weakness of our nature, and it was a difficult thing to get their minds raised to a steady confidence in the divine power and goodness for restoring and delivering them. And if at any time they were brought by any gracious promise or assurance that was given them in the name of God, to hope that he would deliver them, they did not generally expect it in a way of uninstrumental divine agency,' as this writer phraseth it; it did not make their great men and heroes sit still and neglect rational human means, but rather animated and encouraged them to use the best means they could for their own deliverance, in hope that God would bless and give success to their endeavours; as is evident to any one that is at all acquainted with the history of the Old Testament.

We are now got into the author's invectives against the Jews, in which he seems to take an ill-natured satisfaction. It appears from the passages already produced, that he makes a very disad

vantageous representation of them, as having no notion of right or wrong in morality, and making no distinction between the laws of nature, and the perfect reverse of them. He frequently talks of 'their constitutional natural blindness which they had contracted in Egypt among their fellow-slaves: that this blindness, bigotry, and enthusiasm was the incurable distemper of this wretched people; and that they continued throughout all their generations under the same Egyptian darkness and mental vassalage, and still retained the gross ignorance, strong prejudices, and constitutional character of that priestly enslaved nation. He represents them as having lost all inward sincerity and integrity of heart, and all true notions of God, of his natural and moral attributes and perfections, and of his providential government of the world. That they could not distinguish between the effective and permissive will of God, but ascribed every thing equally to God, as ordering, directing, and appointing the greatest moral as well as natural evils. That their superstition was such, that neither the law of nature, nor the common methods of God's providential government could at all affect them. That it is certain that after their going out of Egypt, notwithstanding their extraordinary deliverance, they could scarcely be paralleled by any other nation upon earth, for their gross ignorance, superstition, and moral wickedness, which ran through all their successive generations, till their final dissolution and destruction.' He often talks of their national blindness, obduracy, and impenitency; and finally pronounces that the people of Israel at first, and their remains afterwards called Jews, were a most untoward, grossly ignorant, amazing, superstitious, and desperately wicked generation of men;' see pp. 248, 256, &c., 263, 271.

This is some part of the reproach which he pours forth upon that unhappy nation, and which may give us a specimen of the spirit and rhetoric of this writer. Whatever censures have been at any time passed upon the worst of the Jews in their most degenerate times, he applies without distinction to the whole nation at all times from first to last. The sacred writers often reprove the Jews for their faults, and if other nations were to be dealt with as freely and impartially, they would not appear so fair as they now do in the writings of partial and flattering historians. But though this writer, and others, take advantage of the censures passed upon the Jews in Scripture, I do not see how they can consistently blame that people for those faults for which they are there principally reproved. If this author be in the right, their unbelief ought to be condemned as a noble instance of free-thinking; and their frequent revoltings from their law were glorious efforts to shake off an intolerable yoke of tyranny and vassalage that was imposed upon them, and to resume their natural liberties. He is pleased highly to commend their idolatrous princes, as acting upon principles of toleration and liberty of conscience, and seems to approve their joining with the neighbouring nations in their idolatrous rites and usages. So that it is not the Jews as idolatrous, and imitating the heathens, that he really designs to find fault with, but the