must be profitable to God; but such they are not; they must be due to God, but this is not the case, Luke xvii. 10. They must be done by men in their own strength; whereas without the grace and strength of Christ, man can do nothing; and there must be a proportion between the works of men, and the mercy and favour of God; between which, and the best works of men, there is no manner of proportion. III. The subjects of them: Such only are capable of doing good works who are made good men; Make the tree good, and its fruit will be good. They must be purified and sancti fied; That he might purify unto himself a peculiar people, zeal. ous of good works, Tit. ii. 14. they must have the Spirit of Christ, and be strengthened by him. IV. The necessary uses for which good works are to be performed. 1. Not to procure salvation, in whole or in part; for by the deeds of the law, no flesh living can be justified, Rom. iii. 20. 28. Yet, 11. There are uses for which they are necessary, As, 1. With respect to God, John xv. 8. 2. With respect to ourselves, 1 Tim. ii. 9, 10. Tit. ii. 10. 3. With respect to others, Tit. iii. 8. A COMPENDIUM OR SUMMARY OF THE THE Commandments of the law are reduced by Christ to two capital ones; Love to God, and love to our neighbour, Matt. xxii. 36-40. The preface to the decalogue, contains arguments or mo tives unto obedience to the commandments in it, As, 1. That it is the Lord Jehovah who enjoins it. 2. He that enjoins these precepts is the Lord thy God. 3. He brought thee out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. The decalogue itself follows. I. The First command is, Thou shalt have no other gods be fore me. The things required in this precept are, that we should own God, and none else, Mark xii. 29. that should we worship him, and exercise faith in him, hope in him, and love him. The things forbidden in it are, Atheism, Polytheism, whatever is trusted in, and loved as God, as wealth and riches, or fleshly lusts, or self righteousness. The phrase before me, may point at the omniscience of God, in whose sight such idolatry must be very displeasing. II. The Second command is, Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, &c. which respects the mode of worship, and requires, that it should be spiritual; It forbids all superstition, images, pictures, paintings, and sculptures. The motives inducing to obey this command, are taken from God's being a jealous God, and from his severe punishment of the breakers of it, and of their posterity. III. The Third command is, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Which requires an holy and reve. rend use of the name of God; and it forbids a vain use of it. The argument is taken from the guilt incurred by it, and the punishment inflicted for it; The Lord will not hold such guiltless, Zech. v. 4. Mal. iii. 5. IV. The Fourth command respects the time of worship; the keeping a day holy to the Lord; and requires that it should be after six days labour, that it should be observed in religious exercises; and as a rest from bodily toil, excepting works of necessity and mercy. V. The Fifth command requires honour, reverence, &c. which has been treated of in some former chapters. VI. The Sixth command is, Thou shalt not kill. Which requires all due care in the preservation of our lives. It forbids the taking away of life, or murder of every sort; as parricide, fratricide, homicide, and suicide; and all in temperance, as immoderate eating and drinking. VII. The Seventh command is, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Which requires chastity; it forbids all the species of uncleanness, and all unchaste thoughts and desires. VIII. The Eighth command is, Thou shalt not steal. Which requires that we should seek to get, preserve, and increase our own wealth, and that of others in a lawful way; it requires justice, truth and faithfulness in all our dealings with men; and it forbids all unjust ways of increasing our own, and hurting our neighbour's substance. IX. The Ninth command is, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Which requires to be careful of our own good name, and it forbids all lying, X. The Tenth command is, Thou shalt not covet, &c. Which requires contentment in every state and condition of life: it forbids all uneasiness and discontent. It mentions the particular objects not to be coveted; not a neighbour's house, nor a neighbour's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's; of which sin the apostle declares himself free, Acts xx. 33. It strikes at the root of all sin, James i. 13, 14. From this view of the law, in all its precepts, it appears how largeand extensive it is; that David might well say, Thy commandment is exceeding broad! Psalm cxix. 96. It requires a perfect righteousness; and happy for man it is, that there is such a righteousness revealed in the gospel. END OF THE BODY OF DIVINITY. BAPTISM OF JEWISH PROSELYTES. MR. LOWE, one of the contributors to Chambers's Cyclopædia, in a letter to Dr. Gill, respecting his discourse on singing, says, there is "no dealing with you, as with the generality of writers; the piece is all quintessence."' This observation applies to none of the Doctors works, with more propriety than to the dissertation with which his Divinity closes. It were folly to attempt to abridge it. Should any doubt the truth of the subsequent positions, they are referred for ample proof of their correctness to the original work. Among the Jews there were three sorts of Proselytes-a proselyte of the gate a mercenary one, and a proselyte of righ teousness. To this latter class, the question of Proselyte baptism refers. Some learned men, but, without any just foundation, have asserted, that Proselyte baptism was used by the Jews before the times of John and Christ; and that they, from Jewish habits, derived the practice. Of these the most distinguished are, Broughton, Ainsworth, Seldin, Hammond, and Lightfoot. Sir Richard Elly's knows "not of any stronger argument in proof of infant baptism than this." But...... Of this species of baptism there is no mention made in the Old Testament, or the Apocrypha; none in the New Testament; none in the writings of Philo, or of Josephus; neither the writings of the Targums or Chaldee paraphrases, nor Misnah or traditional writings, know any thing of the ceremony. None of the Christian fathers of the first three centuries once mention it. The proof of the custom depends only on Talmuds and Talmudical writers. The following inferences fairly result from the investigation: That the Talmuds are of too late a date to prove the early existence of the custom, since they were written some centuries after the times of John and Christ;-that this custom among the Jews looks rather like a civil than a religious affair; that to suppose John took baptism as he found it among the 608 OF THE BAPTISM OF JEWISH PROSELYTES. Jews, disagrees notoriously with the New Testament statement of the mission of John:-that the Jews will not allow any proof can be produced of baptism out of the Old Testament, or even out of the Talmuds :-that to say, as Dr. Light foot does, that Christ took baptism into his hands as he found it, is derogatory from the authority of the Son of God, and the honour of the ordinance; and that several inconveniences must result to the practice of those who admit it, if their creed and conduct are in harmony: such as admitting se-baptizing, or a persons' baptizing himself, for such was the custom of Proselytes; performing the rite before three of eminence; the practice of anabaptism, and regarding of a child as baptized, provided the rite be administered du ring pregnancy, to the mother. Finally, If this custom is to be used as a rule of christian baptism, then sprinkling ought not to be employed in it; for the baptism of Jewish Proselytes was performed exclusively by immersion. persons THE END. |