made; for at the end of every seven years the people were gathered together, men and women, children and strangers, and in their hearing before all Israel the priests read the law, that such as had not known any thing might learn to fear the Lord, and to do all the words of his law. The Jews were therefore always considered as a people in covenant with God, and their crimes were always aggravated by a consideration peculiar to their œconomy, each sin was a violation of a contract ratified by blood.

With great reason we respect such an establishment as this. Every thing in it is respectable; and above all, the great principles of legislation and religion demand our reverence. The Legislator was omnipotent and supreme, yet he did not terrify the Jews into submission and obedience by arbitrary dictates of thunder, and lightning, and darkness, and storm. The people were struck with the ensigns of the glory and majesty of their King, yet they retained a sense of their own dignity and duty, and humbly requested that they might confer and deliberate with Moses in the absence of splendor, and in the coolness of retirement. Speak thou unto ús, said they to Moses, all that the Lord shall speak unto thee. The Lord replied, They have well said all that they have spoken. I will speak unto thee all my statutes, and thou shalt teach them. They are convinced that God doth talk with man. Let them retire to their tents again.

X

Many legislators have risen up in the papal church, and many ceremonies have been introduced into divine worship; but where is the Deity with his ensigns of glory? Where is Moses with tables written with the finger of God? Where is the universal conviction and consent of the people, whom Christ liberated by his blood? In the absence of these, human rites may intrude without the consent of some, and against the reasons and remonstrances of others: but the intrusion is imposition, not legislation; dominion, not proposal, deliberation, and consent.

III. We respect the ceremonies of the Jews, because they were fit and proper for the purposes for which they were appointed: and we reject the same ceremonies in the Christian church, because they are unfit and improper. It is impossible here to examine the whole Jewish ritual, to compare each part with the condition of the people, and to shew the propriety and fitness of all by such a comparison. Nothing would be easier: but we must now content ourselves with two examples.

Priests, under the Jewish œconomy, were commanded to officiate in linen garments: they performed divine service in linen coats, linen vests,linen girdles, and linen mitres. The reason of this institute is plain: priests offered sacrifices, and kept the whole place of worship fit for the reception and accommodation of the people, consequently they did a great deal (pardon the expression) they did a great deal of butchery and dirty work. It was necessary, therefore, they should wear gar

ments, which though soon soiled, might be soon washed and cleansed. The tabernacle in the Wilderness, and the temple at Jerusalem would have been intolerable places without the precaution of linen garments, and constant washings. Fires, lamps, sacrifices of oil and salt, meal and wine; the killing of pigeons, lambs, and bullocks; the separating, burning, or distributing of entrails: the anointing with oil, the sprinkling with blood, the cleansing of lepers, and leprous houses; with many other services of a like kind, absolutely required the utmost attention to cleanliness. Hence the command, Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord: and hence also this cutting reproof, Ye, priests, offer polluted bread upon my altar. The table of the Lord is polluted, his fruit and his meat are contemptible. Behold! I will spread the filth of your solemn feasts upon your faces, and one shall take you away with it.

What sacrifices like these, what services resembling these, have we in the Christian church? Do we come before the Lord with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? do we bow before the Most High God with burnt-offerings, or with calves of a year old? What doth the Lord require of us? His voice crieth in our religious assemblies, and this is his whole requisition,. do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God--Go your way, Christians, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared. The God you serve

will take no bullock out of your house, nor he-goat out of your fold. The beasts of the forest are his and the cattle upon a thousand hills; the world is his, and the fulness thereof. Offer unto him thanksgiving, and pay your vows unto the Most High.

Let us take a second example. The Jews were ordered to distinguish their persons, their habits, their diet, and their customs from those of all other nations, and to keep themselves a separate people. Ye shall not round the corners of your heads. Thou shalt not wear a garment of linen and woollen together. Thou shalt make fringes upon thy vesture. Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood. Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed.

By these means they were separated from all the people that were upon the face of the earth. The reason of this is clear: God intended to bless all nations by the mediation of a Jew: it was therefore necessary to keep this people apart, and to ascertain this individual, that his person, whenever he should appear, might be at once distinguished from that of every impostor. The whole world was interested in his advent. No other nation offered to shew such a person, and the Jews always knew in what family to look for him.

The first disciples of this illustrious person, having found their promised master, left off all party distinctions. They ate, and drank, and dressed like other men, they said, the love of Christ constrained them to know no man after the flesh,

yea though they had known Christ after the flesh, yet thenceforth they would know him no more. They accounted themselves new creatures in Christianity, and from them all old Jewish customs had past away. Let no man judge you, brethren, in meat, or in drink, or in respect of holidays, or new moons, or festivals; all these were shadows of things to come, Christianity is the body, the substance of all these rites, the sense of all Jewish signs.

IV. We respect the Mosaical ritual, because the Institutor provided for the expence of it: and we reject the same ritual among Christians, because no provision is made by God to support it. Difficult as it is at this distance of time to fix prices, and make calculations for the first ages of the world, we are certain the Jewish ceremonial was very expensive, and must have been ruinous to the nation, had not Supreme wisdom extraordinarily provided for it. The Lord did provide for the whole like himself, on principles of the strictest justice.

The Israelites had been deprived of their liberty in Egypt, and doomed to slavery by Pharoah. When they came out of that iron furnace, they took their wages at once by an innocent artifice: they borrowed of the Egyptians at once as much as, in the usual train of affairs, Pharoah would have exacted of his native subjects to expend in the employment of workmen. With these treasures they went into the wilderness. When Moses proposed to set up public divine worship, he ex