cheating them out of their money, and their substance.' p. 128. The sting of this sneer lies here. That before the blood was sprinkled the law was satisfied, and the person supposed to be guilty of no fault, and therefore it was an imposition to pretend that the sprinkling of the blood made an atonement for him. But this is misrepresented for the law was not satisfied, nor was the offering properly made or completed, till the blood was sprinkled. Till that was done the person was still supposed to lie under his guilt, and was not clear in the eye of the law. And as the sacrifice could not be of any avail without confession and restitution, which was supposed to be a necessary qualification for forgiveness, so in cases where sacrifices were prescribed, though a man had made restitution, he was not regarded as free from his guilt till the sacrifice was offered, and the atonement made by the blood. Restitution did indeed repair the injury offered to his neighbour, but still there was a guilt cleaving to him on account of the transgression he had been guilty of against God. Expiation therefore was to be made for the offence committed against the divine majesty. And in order to this, the blood of the sacrifice was required to be offered unto God. And the reason that is given why the blood was supposed to make atonement for the soul, is this, that the life of the flesh is in the blood, Lev. xvii. 2. So that the atonement consisted in this, that the life of the victim was given for the offender; and the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar was an offering or rendering the blood or life of the victim unto God. This was to put them in mind, that in strictness they had deserved death at the hand of God, if he should deal with them in a way of rigorous justice; since every transgression and disobedience exposed them to the curse that was denounced in the law against every one that continued not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them:' but yet that he would graciously pardon them, and accept an atonement for them; and accordingly when this was offered, the person that had offended was legally clean and free from the guilt and curse he had contracted and not before.

As to the general reasons of this constitution, it was a visible pledge of God's pardoning mercy to penitent sinners, and at the same time it tended to preserve in their mind a lively sense of his justice and purity, and of the evil of sin, and to make them sensible what it deserved if God should enter into strict judgment with them since besides repentance and amendment the shedding of the blood of the sacrifice for them was required in order to the expiation of their guilt. And sacrifices were insisted on even with regard to sins of ignorance and inadvertency, that they might be afraid of all sin when they found that the least sin was not to be passed by without some marks of God's displeasure against it, and might be rendered cautious and vigilant over themselves and their own conduct, since even ignorance and inadvertency or rashness, which is the cause of many faults, should not totally excuse for a violation of the law: but when once it came to be known, they were to confess it before God, to humble themselves on the account of it,

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 wis dom 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 immutable, and temporary and mutable obligations, or between the laws 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.

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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