Telves and this fyftem; when one recollects that we know nothing at all of the nature of our own foul, and are incapable of framing any idea of it, or of any other fpirit; and when one reflects how infinitely above our comprehenfion the Deity muft be; it is impoffible not to be astonished at the presumptuous folly of thofe men who would fet up their knowledge for the ftandard, and teft, of every thing, divine and human; who by it would define the nature, and manner of exiftence of the incomprehenfible Deity; who by it, would determine and regulate His views, His defigns, His actions; and who, by it, take upon them to judge of the wisdom and justice of His defigns and actions, contrary to what He has declared about them; tho' it is demonftratively certain, that they cannot be sure they know the causes of, or motives to those defigns or actions.

Ridiculous as this fond conceit of the fufficiency of REASON and human KNOWLEDGE is, INFIDELITY finds in it one of its chief supports. Many facts are related, many things are revealed, that do not quadrate with the notions men have framed to themselves, which they call knowledge. Each of these creates an objection, which the Obje&tor, taking to be unanswerable, does not give himself the trouble.to look for an answer to; and the fame weight is laid upon the Point's being inconfiftent with his notions, or not accountable for by his knowledge, as if it was a manifeft contradiction to right reason: tho' every one must fee the difference between a contradiction in terms, an abfolute inconfiftency in the thing itself, and an inconfiftency between a thing, and the notions a man has framed on that Subject, or even the incapacity of framing a distinct notion of the thing it felf.

Vanity, selfishness, an affectation of gaining more knowledge than the Creator thought fit to allow, was the cause of the ruin of our firft parents; and a falfe, prefumptuous opinion, of the fufficiency and extent of the knowledge their defcendants are poffefled of, is the cause of their continuing in mifery to this day: Preferring knowledge, in expectation, to the favour of God, undid the first rational creatures; fetting up the OPINION of knowledge against the revealed WILL of God, faftens the calamity upon their unhappy children.

It is however furprizing, that men, who are fo fond of, and lay fo much stress on knowledge, are not more careful to lay up a fuf ficient stock of it. A late noted writer against Christianity, gave him. felf the trouble to pick up fo much Hebrew learning, as was, in his opinion, fufficient to call in queftion the application of a few particular paffages of the Old Testament to the MESSIAH, and feemed to think that his labours had overthrown the whole evidence that arifes from the Old Teftament to fupport the New; without knowing what a little more learning and unbyaffed attention, would have fhew'd him; that the evidence does not depend on a few Texts, that the whole fyftem of the Jewish inftitution, every rite, ceremony, and fa

crifice,

crifice, was predictive; and that the chief scope of all the hymns, and prophecies, was to explain and apply thofe predictions.

To frame a true notion of any thing, one muft confider it altogether, and examine all the parts of it; a juft idea can never be got of any object by viewing only fcraps of it, and confidering it by halves.

So fares it with revelation, and the evidence of it. No man who has confidered the whole with due care, and has thereby framed a true idea of it, ever did, or ever will reject it; whereas he who will frame an opinion from a partial confideration only, can hardly fail

to make a mistake.

It has been taken notice, as an objection of vaft confequence, against the evidence drawn from the Old Teftament to support the New, that all the promises and threats, to enforce obedience to the LAW, are every one temporal, relating to the goods and evils of this life, to the enjoyment, or forfeiture of the land of Canaan ; to profperity or adverfity in this world, without the least mixture of an confideration that relates to the life to come; and thence is has been concluded, that the Jews, had no expectation given them of future. happiness; that the Sadducees, who denied the refurrection, found nothing to contradict them in their facred Books; and that a religion fo framed, could not be intended to introduce or lead to the CHRISTIAN.

The obfervation which gives rife to the objection, is undoubtedly true: the end of the whole of the Jewish inftitution, facred and civil, was, fufficiently to reveal, and preferve to future generations fufficient evidence of that REVELATION. The way chofen by the Deity to preferve the evidence, was to felect a particular people; to make them all witneffes of the miracles that demonftrate the certainty of the revelation; to establish among them fuch obfervances, throughout all their generations, as should commemorate and predict; to reduce his Will into writing, for the greater certainty; to give them the keeping of that writing; to lay before them the ftrongest motives, that, as a people or nation, they were capable of; to keep up unviolated thefe obiervances; and to preferve untouched his written will; to promise to give, and to keep them in poffeffion of the land of Canaan, a land Bowing with milk and honey; to engage to refide amongst them, and to direct and protect them from all harm, and to favour them with all national bleffings; and to threaten them with all national ills if they failed in keeping his Law, that is, preferving the evidence of his RE

VELATION.

And, to make thofe motives the ftronger, we fee that the Deity was pleafed to enter into a formal covenant with the whole people, as a PEOPLE, which bound him to the performance of all thele articles; upon condition, however, that the people performed, on their part; and bound the people, abfolutely, to the keeping and obfervance of

his LAW, with a formal fubmiffion to the threatnings and denunciati ons of ruin and deftruction, if they failed in the performance of their part, to which they explicitly confented, by pronouncing the curfes against themselves if they disobeyed.

And, in fact, we obferve that God performed, literally, his part of this agreement; with mighty power he introduced, and maintained, this people in poffeffion of the promised land; he refided in the midft of them; he cherished them when they kept his LAW; and chaftifed them when they were remifs in his fervice: when their rulers, their princes, and nobles, fought after other gods, and flighted his fervice, the NATION, as fuch, was delivered to flavery; when they returned in their hearts to their duty, they were reftored to their land, and became again a NATION; but when they nationally corrupted themfelves, forgot the end of the LAW, framed to themselves unworthy notions about their God, his REVELATION, and SALVATION, which by the whole law was predicted, and carried their perverfe imaginations fo high, as to put to death, as a malefactor, the DELIVERER of mankind; then God executed the threats, to which the 'people by cove nant had agreed; he difperfed, and blinded them; and, by preferving them ftill under that DISPERSION and BLINDNESS, preferves the evidence of the REVELATION as ftrongly and clearly, as it was preserved by them whilft a NATION, in poffeffion of the promised land.

The COVENANT, then, with the people, was literal; all the promises annexed to the performance, on their part, were literal, and literally performed; the end the Deity had in making that COVENANT is obvious, and has manifeftly been attained: but will it from thence follow, that the LAW itself, with all the emblematical rites, ceremonies, and inftitutions, had no higher meaning, did not speak a language very intelligible to every individual Jew, who had a foul to be faved, and who, from those divine inftitutions, was to discover the will of God, and conceive hopes of mercy and forgiveness; or that the obferving and meditating on this I.AW, fo often recommended to every individual, was not neceffarily to lead them to the knowledge of God, and to the expectation of his favour, in a future ftate?

To fatisfy one's felf about this, no more is neceflary than to look into the hiftory, and the other facred writings of the Jews, where the religious fentiments of infpired men, the declarations of the Deity, the profeffions, prayers, and confeffions of the church, fufficiently fhew what each individual was to fee and believe, and what the wife and the devout did believe: Comparing the law with these things, one has a KEY to decypher the typical inftitutions, and a certain explication of all that it behoves us to know of the Mosaick institution; and it will evidently appear, that the Mofaick inftitution, which is no more than a REPUBLICATION of the REVELATION and institutions, originally given to Adam, together with the accounts he gives of things, Contain a full discovery of all that MAN was to know, and to believe,

con:

concerning God, and himself, that was not discoverable by the light of nature, fo much prized, and idolized, of late.

If one, from the Reflections already made, is fatisfied that the LAW of Mofes is from God, and that the Jewish SCRIPTURES contain the REVELATION of the Will of the Deity, recorded and preferved with fuch induftry and evidence, not for thie fake of the Jews, but for the fake of all mankind, he must look upon them as an ineftimable treafure, stored with important truth; and cannot think aný pains, beftowed in perufing and understanding them, loft; or any thing from them difcovered, to be trivial or doubtful.

A CYPHER is, in itfelf, obfcure; make ufe of the KEY, it becomes intelligible; and, if by fo doing it becomes clear and intellgible, you are certain you have the right KET.

The feriptural rites, inftitutions, and ceremonies, afe emblematical, and therefore, in fome degree, obfcure; find out but a KEY to explain the meaning of thofe EMBLEMS, that shall make all fenfe, and truth, and you are fure your KEY is a true one.

The ancients recorded their fentimetits, their actions, hieroglyphi tally, that is, emblematically, by figures of things animate or inanimate, expreffive of their meaning; the KEY to, or DicCTIONARY, if one may fo term it, of thofe EMBLEMS is now loft; and, if it could be recovered, would certainly explain thofe Egyptian antiquities ftill preferved. To us that fort of writing is obfcure, but it was not fo to the Egyptians who made ufe of it: and it can with as little reason be imagined, that the emblematical religious fervice, inftituted by God, was obscure, or not perfectly understood by thofe who were com manded to observe it, and for whofe comfort and instruction it was established; on the contrary, it could not answer the end, if it was hot plain and intelligible.

It has been already obferved, that all men are not alike fagacious, and confequently not alike qualified for difcovering, and knowing, their misfortune, their duty, their felicity; and that the REVELATION of the will of God, to be perfect, must be fuch as fhould accommo daté itself to all, and tend to lead all to their duty; a confequence whereof it is, that MEMORIALS fhould be eftablifhed, even of things. difcoverable by the light of Nature, by the penetrating, for the ufe of the lefs clear fighted, if reflection on those things was to be of univerfal use.

The SCRIPTURES are the moft ancient of all writings extant; the language in which they are wrote, is now no more, and has not for 2000 years been in common üle; and there is not a fine of that language, now in being, but what is contained in the facred Books.

Without the affiftance of the Greek tranflation, and some other paraphrafes, and helps from later languages, the Hebrew Scriptures, though in our hands, would be altogether ufelefs to us.

And therefore we must reverence the divine providence, that made

G

the

the Babylonish Captivity, and the Difperfion that followed upon it, which drove multitudes of the Jews into foreign countries, where they forgot their own, and learned the prevailing, the Greek language, the inftrument or occafion of procuring that tranflation, by which we can certainly decypher the Hebrew, and come at the perfect knowledge of almost all the SCRIPTURE, at least of so much of it as is neceffary for the great END God had in view, the evidence of the truth of the REVELATION of his will to mankind.

As no other book comes near to the SCRIPTURE, in point of antiquity, it is a difadvantage to us that we do not precifely know, further than we can collect from the facred Books, the customs, the manners, the fentiments, and common notions, that prevailed amongst men, at the date of the feveral tranfactions related; and are therefore at a lofs to conceive, and diftinctly to account for, the reafon and meaning of feveral phrafes, directions, and obfervances, whilft the ancients, to whom thofe things were faid or delivered, well knew what they meant, and for what end they were recorded. But though we do not know exactly why the thing was fo phrased, or cannot tell, precisely, the immediate origin of the particular inftitution, yet by comparing of texts, we can fee evidently the general fenfe of the phrafe, and collect the end of the INSTITUTION, fo far as the knowledge of the one or the other is neceffary to the great defign of God; and therefore ought rather, with thankfulnefs, to acknowledge the goodness of God, who through the midst of so many difficulties, has preferved to us all neceflary knowledge, than repine at the lofs of that which would tend chiefly to gratify curiofity.

The highest act of religious fervice in the Jewish church, and amongst all mankind, was SACRIFICE, which, tho' in observance as early as Adam, was nevertheless re-cftablished by Moses, with many particular pofitive injunctions, and many negative precepts; correcting abuses that had crept into that INSTITUTION, from the falfe notions of men.

It was common to all forts of SACRIFICE, that the BLOOD of the animal was fpilt, and deemed of very high efficacy; and the whole body, or fome part of it, that which was the most inflameable, the fat, and the inwards, was burnt with fire on the altar.

This Blood is directed, carefully and very early, to be abftained from; it is laid to be the life of the animal; it is reprefented as what by the touch polluteth, and at the fame time it is represented the most fovereign Purifier by it the altar, the ark, the Sanctum fanétorum, the tabernacle, the prieft, were fanctified, were cleanfed, were hallowed.

The BURNT-OFFERING is properly term'd Afcenfion, from the parts of it afcending in fmoke by fire; the BLOOD is faid to atone, and the SMOKE to be of a sweet favour, or a favour of reft to the Lord.

The