covenant; a dispossession thereof, or affliction in it, was the punishment threatened, if they should presume to disobey and violate those engagements; Ye shall walk in all the laws, which the Lord your God hath commanded you; that ye may live, and that it may be well with you;' and' that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye possess. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.' Such were the promises exciting to obedience; and the threatenings deterring from disobedience were answerable, as every where in their law and story is visible.

I may also hereto add, that as the laws and rights of this religion were designed only for this people, as they did only agree to their circumstances; so they were only suited to their inclinations and their capacities; their inclinations, which were very stubborn and perverse; their capacities, which were very low and gross, as their own prophets do on many occasions affirm and complain; being dissentaneous and repugnant to the common humor and genius of mankind so experience discovered them to be, when they became more apparent and observable; Judæorum mos absurdus, sordidusque; (The Jewish way of life is uncouth and sordid,' was Tacitus his censure; Hist. v. 5.) and, They run counter to all men, was St. Paul's imputation on that people; 1 Thess. ii. 15. to which the general conceit of men concerning them did agree; so little plausible or probable was their way, so liable to dislike and contempt : which argues it unfit to be commended by the God of wisdom to the generality of mankind.

By which and many other like considerations obvious enough may appear that this dispensation was not (either according to its nature or in its design) general, or such as respected the main body of mankind, but rather very particular and restrained; designedly restrained to the obligation and use of one place or people, if compared to the world of men, inconsiderably narrow and small; (the fewest of all people God himself says they were.) That, in fine, this constitution had only the nature of a municipal law, imposing burdens and indulging privileges on

one city or territory; not of a common civil sanction, established for the obligation, use, and benefit of the whole commonwealth, or empire subject to the Almighty King.

6

It is not therefore in reason to be taken for such a revelation as we argued needful for us, and to be expected from him, who, as the psalmist, as reason, as experience tells us, ' is good to all, and whose tender mercies are over all his works;' from him who is the common Father of all, and, as St. Paul expresseth it, hath made of one blood πᾶν ἔθνος ἀνθρώπων, the whole nation and commonwealth of mankind;' from him who cannot be in affection anywise fond or partial, a respecter of persons or of nations, as St. Paul in the second to the Romans, and St. Peter in the Acts also implies. From him who is not only the Maker, but, as our Apostle also styles him, the Saviour of all men;' and, as even the Hebrew wise man asserts, careth for all alike;' being desirous that all men should be saved, and come to the knowlege of the truth; not willing that any should perish, but that all men should come to repentance.' From him who is not only φιλεβραῖος, or φιλέλλην, (a lover of Jews, or of Greeks ;) but φιλάνθρωπος, ‘a lover of men ; and ψιλόψυχος, a lover of souls ;' who, lastly, is not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also,' as St. Paul urges this argument; and as also the reason of the thing and the voice of nature doth declare: from this God, I say, so disposed, so related toward us all, so equally concerned in regard to us; so impartial in his affection, so unconfined in his bounty; we should have reason to expect rather no revelation at all, than one so scant, and pinched in such narrow bounds; so ill proportioned to the glory due to himself, to the need and benefit of mankind. We can

not reasonably imagine that he should contract the effects of his goodness, or the manifestations of his glory, to so slender a parcel of mankind, (no better qualified, no more deserving such special regard than the rest; as himself, to repress their fond conceits, and probably in way of anticipation, to intimate his design of farther extending that favor in due season to others, who might pretend thereto with as much right and reason as themselves, doth sometime declare;) that he who hath freely: dispensed the influences of sun and stars to all alike, should cause the light of his heavenly truth to shine, as it were, but

into one small closet of his spacious house; leaving all the rest, so many stately rooms thereof, encompassed with shades of ignorance and error; that he should pour down the showers of his blessings spiritual (otherwise than he hath done those natural) on one only scarce discernible spot of ground; letting all the world beside (like a desert of sand) lie parched with drought, overspread with desolation aud barrenness.

This revelation therefore was not in this respect sufficient; wanting in its nature and design that due condition of generality and amplitude.

But

2. Farther; as this revelation was particular, so was it also partial; as God did not by it speak his mind to all, so did he not therein speak out all his mind. Our Apostle to the Hebrews chargeth it with blameableness : (εἰ πρώτη ἦν ἄμεμπτος, if the first covenant had been blameless;') with imperfection, with weakness, with improfitableness, (ἀθέτησις μὲν γὰρ γίνεται προαγούσης ἐντολῆς διὰ τὸ αὐτῆς ἀσθενές· καὶ ἀνωφελές· οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐτελείωσεν ὁ νόμος" • There is made an abolition of the precedent commandment for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof for the law made nothing perfect ;') he means all this in degree, and in comparison to what was possible, and in some respects needful. Which charge may be easily made good, (ɑ priori,) considering both the parts thereof which direct, and those which excite to practice; together with the means and aids enabling and facilitating obedience to the laws or rules enjoined; also, (a posteriori,) if we regard the fruits and effects thereof. Surveying first, I say, the directive part, we may observe both a redundancy in things circumstantial or exterior, and a defectiveness in things substantial and interior: there be ritual institutions in vast number very nicely described and strongly pressed; the observation of times and places, the distinction of meats and of habits, (touch not, taste not, handle not,') corporeal cleansings and purgations; modalities of exterior performance in sacrifices and oblations, those dikaiwμara σapkòs, (justifications of the mere flesh, that only concerned the body or outward man, and could not perfect the observer's conscience; could neither satisfy nor edify his mind and inward man,) we see with extreme punctuality prescribed and enjoined, some of them under very heavy penalties, (of utter extermina

tion and excision.) While moral duties (duties of justice and charity, yea of temperance and sobriety itself) and spiritual devotions (so exceedingly more agreeable to rational nature, and which could not but be much more pleasing to God) were more sparingly delivered in precept, less clearly explained, not so fully urged with rational inducements, nor in a due proportion guarded with rewards. Many things were plainly permitted, or tacitly connived at, (as polygamy and divorce, some kinds of retaliation, cursing, revenge; some degrees of uncharitableness,) which even natural reason dislikes or condemns. So faulty was that dispensation, as to the part thereof directive of life; and it was no less in that part which promotes and secures good practice, by applying fit excitements to obedience, and fit restraints from disobedience; rightly managing those great instruments and springs of human activity, natural courage, hope, and fear. Nothing so damps men's alacrity in endeavor, as desperation or diffidence of good success; nothing so quickens it as a confidence or strong presumption thereof; and how then could they be very earnest in endeavors to please God, who were not assured of (yea, had so much reason to diffide in) God's placability and readiness, on repentance, to forgive sins wilfully and presumptuously committed, such as no man surely lives altogether free from? The not opening a door of mercy. seems discouraging and apt to slacken performance of duty; what was then the shutting it up close, the bolting it with that iron bar Cursed is he that abides not in all things written in this law to do them;' which at least will exclude assurance, will quash the hopes of mercy; will consequently enervate the sinews of care and industry in serving God. Neither were the rewards of either kind (those that spurred to obedience, those that stopped from disobedience) in measure or in kind such as the reason of things doth afford and require. They were only temporal, and chiefly corporeal or sensible; such as belonged to the outward state of this transitory life, which neither can deserve much regard, nor are apt to have great efficacy; for who will in effect, why should any man in reason, highly value the accommodations of this short and uncertain life? who will, who should be greatly terrified with the inconveniences thereof? whom, probably, would such considerations sufficiently animate

:

to encounter and sustain the perils, the difficulties, the troubles, and the disgraces, to which often the practice of virtue is exposed? whom would they guard from the enchantments of pleasure, profit, and honor, alluring men to sin? the pleasures of sense, how improper an encouragement, how unworthy a recompense are they for the labors and achievements of virtue! incomparably better surely, more worthy of regard, and more effectual on man's reason, more apt to produce and to promote real virtue and hearty piety, are the rewards concerning the future state of our immortal soul; which yet it is a question whether the law doth ever mention; it is plain it doth not clearly propound and apply them. Indeed as to evident discovery concerning the immortality of man's soul, or the future state, so material a point of religion, of so grand moment and influence on practice, even the Gentile theology, assisted by ancient common tradition, seems to have outgone the Jewish, grounding on their revealed law; the Pagan priests more expressly taught, more frequently inculcated arguments drawn from thence, than the Hebrew prophets; a plain instance and argument of the imperfection of this religion.

I subjoin, God's not thereby (in an ordinary certain way, according to any pact or promise) affording or exhibiting such interior influences of grace on the minds of men, as, considering the natural frailty, blindness, and impotency of men, appears necessary to render them obedient to the rules of duty, to guide them in the ways of truth and goodness, to free them from error and sin, to shield and animate them against temptation; is a main defect in that religion; apt to breed fear in the onset on duty, to nourish doubt in the performance thereof, to settle despair on a fall or defeat. It presented to men's eyes the obligation to duty, the difficulty thereof, the danger of transgressing it, but did not openly represent the means requisite to perform it. And what can be more discouraging or discomforting than to see oneself, on great peril and penalty, obliged to that, which is apparently very hard, or, considering his strength, impossible, no help or support being visible? especially joining the consideration before touched, that no evasion by pardon, no rise by repentance doth appear. Whence we may well infer that indeed, in effect, this dispensation was