For it is abundantly evident, that God in his laws, doth direct ly on all occasions command the contrary to whatever was in practice of this sort among the nations. So that Maimonides well observes, that the reason of many of their institutions cannot be understood, without a due consideration of the superstition of the neighbouring nations.

These four sections must be these that follow. The first is, Deut. vi. 4-9. “ Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart;" and so onward as before. The second is, Exod. xiii. 1-10. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all the first born; whatsoever openeth the womb among the chil dren of Israel, both of man and of beast, it is mine. And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand, the Lord brought ye out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten, this day came ye out in the month Abib. And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swarę unto thy fathers to give thee; a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month: seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast unto the Lord: unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days, and there shall be no leavened bread with thee; neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters: and thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me, when I came forth out of Egypt; and it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth; for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt: thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year." The third is from the tenth verse of that chapter to the end of the seventeenth: "And it shall be, when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee unto thy fathers, and shall give it thee, thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast, the male shall be the Lord's: and firstling of an ass, thou shalt redeem with a lamb, and if thou wit not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck, and all the first born of man amongst thy children shalt thou redeem: and it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage.

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And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the first born in the land of Egypt, both the first born of man, and the first born of beast: therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix being males, but all the first born of my children I redeem: and it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and as frontlets between thine eyes; for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth from out of Egypt." The last is, Deut. xi. 13-21. "And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul; that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat, and be full. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; and then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit, and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you. Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart, and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thine house, and upon thy gates; that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."

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§ 21. Because in all these places there is mention made of these frontlets or memorials, therefore they select these passages for this use. And these are to be written on parchment made of the skin of a clean beast, on the side next the flesh, prepared with a pronunciation of a form of words, both in the killing of the beast, and in delivering the skin to the dresser, and to the writer. When they are written, they are wrapt up in small rolls, and so worn upon their foreheads and left arms. being so rolled and made up, that none of the writing might be seen. And so great art is required in the making of these Tephilin, that few among them attain to it. Hence Fagius tells us a story of a master among them in his days, who sold many thousands of these phylacteries to his countrymen, which had nothing in them but cards, which served their turn well enough. Their masters also are curious in describing to what part of the head they must be applied, namely, to the fore part from ear to ear; and the hand must be the left hand, by which however

they will have the arm above the elbow to be understood; and when they must be worn, namely by day, not by night, on the week days, not on the Sabbath, and the like worthy specula tions. The benefit also they receive hereby is incredible; for by them are they defended from evil, as some by the sign of the cross, and others by the first words of the Gospel of John worn about them. By the use of these, they are sanctified in the law; and in a word the Targum on the Canticles, ch. viii. 3. tells us, that God chose them above all people, because they wore the phylacteries.' So just cause had our Lord Jesus Christ to reprove their hypocrisy, superstition and self-justification in the use, abuse, and boasting of these things, Matt. xxiii. 5. "All their works they do to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments." This about the borders of their garments was an af ter institution; yet because it is of the same nature with this, we may notice it also in this place. To this purpose God gives his command, Num. xv. 38-40. "Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue: and it shall be unto you as a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart, and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a-whoring: that ye may remember and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God;" which law is repeated again, Deut. xxii. 12. "Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vestures wherewith thou coverest thyself." These n, locks or fringes, were made of thread fastened to the wings or skirts of their garments with a ribband, nnn, of a blue colour, the making of which the Jews confess that they do not now understand, but suppose that it was made with the blood of a fish called Chalazon, mixed with vermilion. The use of these fringes had efficacy from the institution of God, who alone is able to bless and sanctify things, in themselves indifferent, to sacred use, for the keeping of their hearts in a due reverence to himself, and their eyes from wandering after false worship and superstition; which being now removed and taken away, the things themselves are among present Jews turned into the greatest superstition imaginable. Their principal vanities about these things having been represented by others out of the treatise of Maimonides on that subject, need not here be repeated.

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§ 22. The last appointment of God occasioned by the mercy solemnly remembered in the passover, was the dedication of all the first born males to himself. The law of this dedication is recorded, Exod. xiii. 12, 13. and the manner of its performance

is farther stated, Num. xviii. 15, 16, 17.." Every thing that openeth the matrix, in all flesh which they bring unto the Lord, whether it be of men or beast, shall be thine; nevertheless the first born of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem, and those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thine estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs. But the firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem, they are holy, thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savour unto the Lord.” The whole dedication of the first-born males is distributed into three parts. 1. Children, who were to be redeemed with five shekels, twenty gerahs to one shekel, that is about twelve shillings of our money. 2. Clean beasts, such as were appointed to be offered in sacrifice on other occasions, as the kine, the sheep and the goats. These were to be offered to God, in a sacrifice of burntoffering without redemption or commutation, after they had been kept a month with the dam. 3. Unclean beasts, whereof an instance is given in the ass, which were either to be redeemed with money by an agreement with the priest, or to have their necks broken at the choice of the owner. And all of this to call to remembrance the mercy of God in sparing them, and theirs, when the first-born of man and beast, clean and unclean in Egypt, were destroyed. For hence a peculiar right of special preservation arose unto God towards all their first-born, and this also not without a prospect towards the redemption of the church of the first-born by Jesus Christ, Heb. xii. 23.

§ 23. And this concluded the first dispensation of God towards the church in the posterity of Abraham, for the space of 430 years. With the provision and furniture of these ordinances of worship, they left Egypt, and passing through the red sea, came into the wilderness of Sinai, where they received the law, and were made perfect in the beauty of typical holiness and worship.

§ 24. To these ordinances succeeded the solemn voda, or giving of the law on mount Sinai, with the precepts and sanctions thereof, mentioned in several places by our apostle, as chap. ii. 2. "For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward." Chap. x. 28. "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses." Chap. xii. 18, 19, 20, 21. "For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire; nor unto blackness and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which they that heard intreated that

the word should not be spoken to them any more; for they could not endure that which was commanded; and if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake." ver. 25. "They escaped not who refused him that spake on earth." And in other places...

§ 25. Three things must be explained in reference to this great and solemn foundation of the Jewish church state, of which our apostle treateth in this whole epistle. First, the preparations for it. Secondly, the manner of the giving of it. Thirdly, the law itself. For the preparations for it, they are either more remote, or immediately preceding it. The former were those temporary, occasional, instructive ordinances which God gave them at their entrance into the wilderness, before they came to receive the law on Sinai.

The first mentioned of this nature is Exod. xv. 23, 24, 25, 26. "And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of those diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee." The whole course of God's proceedings with his people, whereof we have here the first pledge in the wilderness, was by a constant series of temporal providential straits, sinful murmurings, and typical mercies.

The waters being bitter, that they could not drink of them, God shewed to Moses a tree; that is, say some of the Jewish Doctors, he shewed him the virtue of a tree to cure and make wholesome bitter waters. And they say it was a tree, whose flowers and fruit were bitter; for no other reason, but because Elisha afterwards cured salt waters, by casting into them a cruise of salt. The Targum of Jonathan, and that of Jerusalem say, God shewed him 57787 77 1 the bitter tree Ardiphne, which is nothing but Aaon Daphne, the Laurel. And on this tree the author of that fabulous paraphrase would have the glorious name of God to be written, according to the incantations in use among them in his days. But that which is designed in the whole, is, that God preparing them for the bitter consuming law that was to be given them, and discovering to them