as well as by the natural bent of the human heart, how came he to say, "Resist not evil;" and to teach others to say, overcome evil with good?" Accustomed to the ceremonious observance of the Sabbath, how came he to seize that truth, so agreeable to our enlightened reason, but so contradictory to the prevailing usage of his country," It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day?"

The authority which Jesus exercised over the law, he equally claimed over the interpreters of the law. We learn from various incidental notices, how highly the Scribes and Pharisees were esteemed among all those over whom religion possessed any hold. They "sat in Moses's seat,* and partook of the reverence paid to the memory of the original lawgiver. The subtle question, "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?" evidently shows, that if he could have obtained their countenance, or even have escaped their hostility, he would have gained no slight accession to his cause. But it is strange, that neither the habits of his country and of his education impressed him with veneration for these teachers, nor did his interest lead him to pretend it. He alone, of all his countrymen, saw through the veil of sanctity which they spread over their corruptions. He alone dared openly to rend it off, and expose their hypocrisy. "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin,

* Matt. xxiii.

and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which, indeed, appear beautiful outwardly, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity?

In this manner a way was prepared for the total abrogation of the ritual law, and the substitution of a new mode of propitiating and worshipping God. This is openly declared by Paul to the Jews: "Be it known unto you, men and brethren, that through this man (Jesus) is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." Who had taught this "Hebrew of the Hebrews," in contradiction to all that he had learnt and professed from his youth, that any thing could be wanting to the completeness of the law of Moses? So he argued afterwards in his epistle to the Romans, "What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law

Matt. xxiii. 23, &c. Whoever would see the argument in its just light, must read this whole chapter.

† Acts, xiii.

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of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law."*

One epistle of this writer is almost wholly occupied in reproving the Galatians for having relapsed into a dependence on that very law, in which he himself had been taught from his youth to trust exclusively. The course of his argument leads him to insist particularly upon the original intent of the law, as tending, in the providence of God, to that dispensation which had now succeeded it; and about to merge, as it had now merged, in that mission of Jesus, by which the prophetic types of the law were fulfilled, and the divine will, in instituting them, more clearly displayed. And here he utters sentiments which astonish us not a little, as coming from a Jewish pen. That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, is evident. A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. Wherefore the law was our school-master to bring us unto Christ.t

Thus does he annul the practice, and contradict the belief, of fifteen hundred years: the belief of his own country, that country proverbial for zealous attachment to their law; his own belief: for he had been once eager beyond others to maintain the ritual, which

* Rom. ix. 30.

† Gal. ii. 16; iii. 10. 24.

he now declares to be set aside. Is it easy to explain this inconsistency?

It appears too throughout the history of the early Christian church, that the national feeling upon this point was one of the strongest obstacles to the reception of the Gospel. The accusation against the Apostles was, that they persuaded men to worship God contrary to the law.* Even the converts obstinately adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and de-, sired to impose them on the heathen.t Against this feeling a few men, themselves of the same country, having learnt nothing from foreign intercourse, imbued from their infancy with the same prejudices, stand up alone; take upon themselves the character of oracles; reprove the national attachment, and spiritualize the literal law. To say nothing of the success which attended this attempt, how shall we account, on any common principles, for the spirit which excited it?

III. Inquiring further into the agreement of the doctrines of Jesus, with the temper of the people to whom they were proposed, we find the following declaration. "I say unto you, that many shall come from the East and West, and shall sit down with (the ancestors you so highly venerate) Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnash

*Acts, xviii. 3.

† Acts, xv. 5—31. The deliberations, there recorded, will illastrate the whole of this argument.

ing of teeth." "Think not to say, among yourselves, we have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." "I say unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”*

These sentences contain evident allusions to a popular opinion. And looking into the Jewish character, we find that the purpose here announced assails a very distinguishing feature of their belief.

That people conceived, that their law had been prescribed to them by the Creator of the world, for the express purpose of separating them from other nations. Certainly it had produced that effect. Without entering upon the origin of that law; without going back to the primary causes of that peculiarity which distinguished the Jews from all the rest of the world;-we cannot deny that the peculiarity existed; because the Jews are spoken of by such heathen writers as allude to them at all, as being no less singular and exclusive in their speculative creed than in their national worship.

In consequence of this marked difference from the nations by which they were surrounded; in consequence of their belief of the creation and the unity of God, and their freedom from the polytheism, and idolatry, which prevailed in all other parts of the world; the Jews, to a man, plumed themselves on their

* See Matt. viii. 11. Luke, iii. 8. Matt. xxi. 43.

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