Now it is most evident, that the Sinai law required inward piety. For thus its fundamental precepts run. Deuteronomy vi. 4, and on. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the the Lord thy God, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." 13th verse. "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name." Ib. x. 16. "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart,and be no more stiff necked." 12th verse." And now, O Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God, with all thy heart,and with all thy soul ?”. Jb. xii. 12. “And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God." Ib. xi. 13. "And it shall come to pass, if ye 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 &c." Here all the laws of the Sinai covenant are explained, as comprised in lov ing God as a portion, and serving him with all the heart, and with all the soul. Surely then, piety, and nothing else, was obedience to these laws. According to this view of the law, the people were told, that hatred of God would bring on them his severest displeasure. Deuteronomy vii. 9, and 10. "Know, therefore, that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God; which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him, and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them; he will not be slack to him that hateth him; he will repay him to his face." In conformity to this view of the law, they are also told, Ib. iv. 19."But if from thence, (a state of captivity) thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him; if show

şeek him with all thy heart, and with all thy soul.”, These passages prove, that love was required, as the principle of obedience, to every part of the law. He who hated God, was, let him do externally what he might, in the eye of the law, an object of wrath. He was so altogether, and was to be exterminated without mercy, accordingly. This is exactly agreeable to the account which the apostle Paul gives us of the real Jew. Romans ii. 28, 29. "For he is not a Jew, who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit; not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." The Jew is one who is morally con formed to the law.

The people of Israel, therefore, when they agreed to keep the law, saying, "All that the Lord hath said will we do and be obedient," made a strictly religious profession, and engaged to comply with every precept of the law piously. It was upon this principle; it could have been on no other, that God said, he had avouched them to be his people; and called them "a holy nation, a kingdom of priests.”* Farther argu

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ments to prove that the Sinai Covenant, and the Socie

*The astonishing propensity of many divines, (it seems to prevail most among those who are of the greatest literary eminence) to reduce the Mosaic system to an accordance with worldly establishments, may be seen in the following quotation from the fourth Vol. of Warburton's Divine Legation, page 14. will be necessary then to observe, that God, in his infinite wisdom, was pleased to stand in two arbitrary relations towards the Jewish people, besides that natural one, in which he stood towards them and the rest of mankind in common. The first was that of a tutelary Deity, gentilitial and local; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who was to bring their posterity into the land of Canaan, and to protect them there as his peculiar people. The fecond was that of supreme magiftrate and lawgiver. And in both these relations he was pleased to refer it to the people's choice, whether or no they would receive him for their God and King. For a tutelary Deity was fupposed by the ancients to be as much a matter of election as the civil magistrate." Thus it is necessary to go abroad, not only to the civil establishments of the world; but to the extravagances of its idolatry, to explain an insitution of Jehovah, designed expressly to form a kingdom which is not of this world; but in its origin, principle, and end, entirely the opposite of every civil and idolatrous association. This expedient, to reconcile philofophy and christianity, is a covered kind of Deism; which, while it professes to defend the authority of the Holy Scriptures, spreads over them obscurity and doubt. When will the Church be compleatly rescued out of the hands of pretended friends, who are enemies in disguise, and stand forth, in that simplicity of holiness, which is her characteristic beauty!

ty it contemplated to form, were purely religious; as much so, as the Church under the Christian Dispensation, which I do not think it necessary largely to il lustrate; but deem it proper, as corroborative of proof already adduced, briefly to mention, are these.

1. The Hebrew Community is expressly and repeatedly styled in the scriptures, a Church. Acts vii. 38. "This is he that was with the Church in the wilderness." Sometimes it is true, the term (Exnλnoia} Church, signifies a mere convocation of people, without respect to their character. But, as it is used in the scripture, in reference to the kingdom of God, it invariably signifies, a religious society; a society called, by a moral dispensation, out of the world.

2. Jesus Christ was the head, the glorious, and eternal king of the Hebrew Community. He was such as Mediator, and Savior. Psalm lxviii. 17, 18. "The Lord is among them as in Sinai. Thou hast ascend

But

ed on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men, yea for the rebellious also; that the Lord God might dwell among them." This passage, the Apostle Paul, Eph. iv, expressly applies to Christ. Another passage proving that Christ was the head and king of Israel, is found in I Cor. x. 9. "Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents." whom did the rebellious part of Israel tempt? Certainly their Jehovah; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and king of Israel; that almighty being, whom only they knew, as their deliverer, guide, guard, lawgiver, and object of worship. This is conclusively determined by the writer to the Hebrews, iv. chapter. "Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness; when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works, forty years." It is the God of Israel, undoubtedly, who speaks here. And the passage from the I. Corinthians, lets us know, that Christ was this adorable person, who was thus tempted in the wilderness. That Christ was the king of Israel, is evident, also from

Zachariah, ix. 7. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy king cometh unto thee; he is just, and having salvation, lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. This prophecy is applied, Matthew xxi. 5, to Christ, as fulfilled in him. But Christ is not a temporal king. "My kingdom is not of this world. Man, who made me a divider, and a judge over you?" is his language. Christ as Mediator, is king of the Church only. Ephesians iii. 25, 26, 27. "As Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify, and cleanse it, with the washing of water, by the word; that he might present it to himself, a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish." He is made head over all things unte the Church. Ephesians i. 22.

3. The apostle Paul says, Galatians, iii. 24, that the law was a schoolmaster, to bring those to whom it was addressed, unto Christ, that they might be justified by faith. This teaches us, that the Sinai covenant was published with ultimate respect to Christ, as the seed, to whom, especially, the promises of the Abrahamic covenant were made. But this could not have been its character, if it had been a mere civil institution.There is no manner of connexion between a civil institution, or the drudgery of a servant, who works merely for pay, and faith in Christ.

4. The object of the separation of the people of Israel, is said by God himself, to have been, that they might be holy. Deuteronomy xxvi. 28, 29. "And the Lord hath avouched thee this day, a peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments, and to make thee high, above all nations, in name, and in praise, and in honor; and that thou mayest be an holy people, unto the Lord thy God, as he hath promised thee." But if God united himself to this people as a mere temporal sovereign, and hired them to serve him, by the motive of wages, he contravened his own purpose.

5. By the prophet Jeremiah, the divine Majesty says; Jer. ii. 21. "Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed." If this declaration refers to character, it was certainly a character formed according to the nature of the Sinai Covenant. If it refers to the covenant itfelf, then it asserts its perfect moral excellence. But if the institutions of the Sinai Covenant were not purely religious, in their nature and end; if a contract was made, which stipulated rewards for mere external allegiance, having no foundation in real piety, this is an assertion to which facts do not agree.

6. The declaration of Joshua, Josh. xxvi. 19. "Ye cannot serve the Lord; for he is an holy God," is unfounded, upon the supposition, that mere external civil allegiance was required, and accepted; or external services of any kind, not founded in true piety of heart. For mere citizens can serve their sovereign, let his character be what it may; and as well if they hate, as if they love him.

7. Unbelief was the sin especially, which prevented the obnoxious part of Israel from entering the promi sed land. Heb. iii. 19. "So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief." But unbelief is an offence which is opposed to evangelical faith, and not to any civil duty.

8. The impleaded theory is directly opposed to the solemn and explicit manner in which hypocrisy is condemned, both in the Old Testament, and in the New! A passage very expressly to this purpose, is found in Isaiah, i. chap. from the 10th to the 15th verse, inclusively. "Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hands, to tread my courts ? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me, the new moons and sabbaths; the call