DISC. nation to him; and, in a word, that he

VIII.

would not eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats. Now, if we take the law and it's rites to have been the things really and ultimately defigned, as in themfelves excellent and efficacious, they would have been always pleafing to God, like duties intrinfically good and virtuous, of which we never hear the Almighty speaking, as he doth of these facrifices and oblations. But if the legal rites were figurative; if they were fymbolical of internal dispositions and actions; then would they neceffarily become pleasing and difpleafing to God, in different refpects: pleafing, when accompanied by fuch internal difpofitions and actions; when disjoined from them, and rested in as meritorious, to the laft degree difpleafing, hateful, and abominable. They are faid to have been both the one and the other; and, therefore, were most indubitably figurative. To any confidering perfon the thing speaks itself.

But the Scriptures of the Old Testa

ment

VIII.

ment did not leave a truth of such impor- DISC. tance to be inferred. They have expressly declared it.

To inftance in that rite, which was the difcriminating and characteristic mark of the feed of Abraham, circumcifion. Mofes himself hath affirmed, that a spiritual or mental circumcifion was intended; and that the end of that commandment was the love of God, out of a pure heart, and faith unfeigned. "Circumcife (fays he) "the forefkin of your hearts, and be no "more stiff-necked "." And again, "The "Lord thy God fhall circumcise thy heart, "and the heart of thy feed, to love the "Lord thy God with all thy heart, and "with all thy foul, that thou mayest "live"." When a Jew, reading this, ftill continues to think, that the legal rites were inftituted for their own fake, and that their value lies in the opus operatum, is the veil on Mofes' face, or on his heart? For hath

Deut. x. 16.

• Deut. xxx. 6.

not

VIII.

DISC. not Mofes told him, in terms as plain as those in which St. Paul hath told us, that "He is not a Jew, who is one outwardly, "nor is that circumcifion, which is out"ward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, who "is one inwardly; and circumcifion is that "of the heart, in the fpirit, and not in "the letter; whose praise is not of men, " but of God P."

:

Thus, with regard to the many ablutions enjoined and practifed under the law -"Wash ye, make ye clean," faith God to his people, by the prophet Isaiah. So far the terms are legal, and may be deemed ambiguous but by what immediately follows, their meaning is explained and fixed: "Put away the evil of your doings "from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, "learn to do well." As if he had faid, what avails the outward and visible fign, without the thing fignified by it? When we read in the 51ft Pfalm, " Purge me

"with hyffop, and I shall be clean; wash DISC. me, and I fhall be whiter than fnow";"

we may

think we hear the voice of a Jew.

But let us hear him again" Wash me

thoroughly from mine "cleanse me from my fin.

iniquity, and Hide thy face "from my fins, and blot out all mine ini"quities. Create in me a clean heart, O

"me.

God; and renew a right fpirit within 66 me. Caft me not away from thy pre"sence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from Reftore unto me the joy of thy “salvation, and uphold me with thy free Spirit." What can a Chriftian-what can the devoutest and beft informed Chriftian, in the like unhappy circumstances, fay more, than thus to pray, that God would by his mercy pardon the guilt, and efface the ftain of fin, and renew the heart and foul again to righteousness, by the grace and power of his Holy Spirit? And whoever peruses with attention the writings of the prophets, will find, that it is always

VIII.

: Pf. li. 7.

• Ver. 2, 9, et seq.

one

VIII.

DISC. one part of their employment, to recall the Ifraelites from the dead letter to the living fpirit of their law; to press upon them the neceffity of fuing for the divine favour by that true repentance, and that ftedfaft faith in God's promises, in the exercife of which it was the defign of their ritual to train them. The office of a Chriftian minifter, mutatis mutandis, is, in this particular, the fame; and it may be executed, with the utmost propriety, in the very fame language. The noble and affecting exhortation in our Commination office affords a ftriking proof of this; where the prophetical and the evangelical expreffions are finely interwoven, and, like the colours in a good picture, most harmoniously melt into each other.

To fpeak a word more, touching the perpetuity of the law of Mofes. The Jew argues for it, from the immutability of God. But it is no more a reflection. upon the divine immutability, that the law, having anfwered it's end, fhould be abolished,

than