vance and compliance with ignorant idolaters, that they held the "truth in unrighteousness; and when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, but changed the glory of his incorruptible nature, into an image made like to corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." This was the state of the Pagan world till the Gospel appeared, and directed the natural religious inclination of mankind into its proper channel to the only true God.

It

2. The religion of the Jews is next to be considered. This the Christians acknowledge with them, was divine in its authority, doctrine, moral part, worship, and promises. God himself was the author, and confirmed it by many illustrious miracles. It is delivered in the most ancient, authentic, and venerable writings in the world. It instructs us concerning the nature of God, his works of creation and providence, and the judgment to come. commands the love of God, to serve him only, and the love of our neighbour as ourselves. The ceremonial part was a full conviction of the guilt of sin, a visible discovery of the rights of eternal justice, and a powerful means to humble men before the infinite and offended majesty of the Creator. It propounds temporal rewards, as the marks of God's favour suitable to the church then in its minority, but under that veil the most excellent and eternal rewards. This religion, in its ceremonial external part, was to continue till the coming of the Messiah, and then to be abolished. To make this evident, I shall thus proceed:

(1.) That the ceremonial part contained nothing

that was morally and unchangeably good, for then it had been obligatory to all nations from the beginning; whereas it was prescribed only to the Jews, and after a long space of time, wherein many holy men, though ignorant of that part of the law, yet received a divine testimony, that they pleased God.

(2.) It was of impossible performance to all other nations; as appears by the precepts concerning sacrifices that were to be offered only in Jerusalem, and by the Levitical priests, and their solemn festivals so many times in the year. Now the worship of God being an essential duty of the reasonable creature, it is absurd to imagine that it necessarily consists in such things that cannot be done by all men.

(3.) God himself often declared, that the rituals of the law were of no price with him, absolutely considered. Isa. i. Psal. 1.

(4.) They were enjoined the Jews for peculiar reasons; principally, that by those imperfect rudiments they might be prepared for the times of reformation. God had drawn, in the legal ministration, numberless images of the Messiah; their temple and high-priest, their ark and offerings, with all their ceremonial service, did signally point to him. And this is an infallible evidence, that a mind superior to Moses', designed all that work with a final respect to Christ, that the Jewish nation, having the idea of him always present, might not mistake him when he should appear. And that heavy yoke of ceremonies, with the spirit of servile fear that attended it, was to excite in them earnest longings after the Messiah, the Desire of all nations, that with unspeakable joy they might receive him at his coming.

Now, that the legal institution should expire for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, and a divine sacrifice be offered up, of infinite value and virtue, to reconcile us to God, and purify the consciences of men, was declared whilst the service of the temple was performed with the greatest pomp. Thus the Messiah spake by the mouth of David: "Sacrifice and offering thou dost not desire, my heart hast thou opened; burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required; then said I, Lo I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me; I delight to do thy will, O my God." And the same inspired prophet declared, when the Levitical priesthood was in the greatest splendour, that there was another order of the priesthood than that of Aaron, established in a more solemn manner, and of everlasting efficacy: "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." That this prophecy respected the Messiah, even the Pharisees could not deny, for when Jesus Christ asked them whose son Christ was to be? They answered, David's. And demanding again, why David called him Lord, in those words of the Psalmist, "The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, till I have made thine enemies thy footstool?" They could answer nothing. Their silence was a clear acknowledgment that the Messiah was the person there intended. The Apostle also, who wrote to the Jews, takes it for granted, by the universal consent of that nation, that that Psalm respected the Messiah, and proves it was accomplished in Jesus Christ. Besides, it was foretold by the prophet Jeremiah, that another covenant

should be made, wherein the real benefits of the pardon of sin, and true holiness, that were typified by the legal purifications and observances, should be conferred on God's people: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, different from that made with their fathers when they came out of the land of Egypt, I will put my law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall no more teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquities, and I will remember their sin no more." In short, there are abundant declarations in the prophets, that the carnal religion of the Jews should expire, and a religion all spirit and life should succeed in its place, and be diffused among all nations. This was to be introduced by the Messiah. Thus Moses foretold, "The Lord thy God shall raise up a prophet from among thy brethren like unto me, him ye shall hear." It was the singular prerogative of Moses above the rest of the prophets, that he was a lawgiver, and mediator of the covenant between God and Israel, and accordingly, the Messiah was to be a lawgiver and mediator of a new covenant. Now if the Mosaic institutions were to remain after his coming, the parallel would not hold between them in those principal respects. Besides, it was prophesied that the Messiah should be a king sitting on the throne of David, and commanding the kings of the earth. By which it is evident that his laws

must be of another nature than those of Moses, that were proper only to the church whilst confined to the Jewish pale, but not for the government of the world. And whereas the Jews object, that some of their rites were ordained to continue for ever; the answer is clear, that was only to distinguish them from some temporary injunctions, that were of force only while they were in the wilderness, or when they were inhabitants of Canaan, but were to be practised in all places, till, by a new signification of the divine will, they were forbidden. And it is observable, that in the Jewish law the term for ever, when applied either to a man's right, or to servitude, imports only a continuance to the jubilee: so that those rituals were to continue in their vigour during that entire period, and to be determined after the coming of the Messiah, the great jubilee of the world. And that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah is most evident, in that his coming was exactly as he was designed, and was to be expected; that he had the power of working miracles to authorise him to change the externals of their worship and service. Briefly, Judaism now is but the carcase of a dead religion, and the obstinate adherers to it, are become so sottishly blind, as to believe the most prodigious fables as divine revelatious.

Since the coming of Jesus Christ, Mahometanism has overspread a great part of the barbarous world. But this carries in it such apparent and certain marks of falsehood, that it can be no temptation to any person in whom there is but a spark of good sense. Whether we consider,