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VII.

lxxxvii. 6.

Old Testament) from the power of the grave: that is, from ART. continuing in that state of death; for he shall receive me. This does very clearly set forth David's belief, both of future happiness, and of the resurrection of his body. To which might be added some other passages in the Psalms, Ps. Ixxxiv. Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, and Daniel: in all which it appears, 11. that the holy men in that dispensation did understand, that under those promises in the Books of Moses that xcvi. 13. seemed literally to belong to the land of Canaan, and Eccl. xi. 9. other temporal blessings, there was a spiritual meaning xii. 14. hid, which it seems was conveyed down by that succession xxvi. 19. of Prophets, that was among them, as the mystical sense Dan. xii. 2. of them.

xc. 17.

Isa. xxv. 8.

It is to this that our Saviour seems to appeal, when the Sadducees came to puzzle him with that question of the seven brethren, who had all married one wife he first tells them, they erred, not knowing the Scriptures; which Matt. xxii. plainly imports, that the doctrine, which they denied, 29. was contained in the Scriptures: and then he goes to prove it, not from those more express passages that are in the Prophets and holy writers, which as some think the Sadducees rejected; but from the Law, which being the source of their religion, it might seem a just prejudice against any doctrine, especially if it was of great consequence, that it was not contained in the Law. Therefore he cites these words that are so often repeated, and that were so much considered by the Jews, as containing in them the foundation of God's love to them; that God said upon many occasions, particularly at his first appearance to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, Ver. 31, 32. and the God of Jacob. Which words imported, not only Exod. iii. 6. that God had been their God, but still was their God: now when God is said to be a God to any, by that is meant, that he is their benefactor, or exceeding rich reward, as was promised to Abraham. And that therefore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived unto God, that is, were not dead; but were then in a happy state of life, in which God did reward them, and so was their God. Whether this argument rests here, our Saviour designing only to prove, against the main error of the Sadducees, that we have souls distinct from our bodies, that shall outlive their separation from them; or if it goes further to prove the rising of the body itself, I shall not determine. On the one hand our Saviour seems to apply himself particularly to prove the resurrection of the body; so we must see how to find here an argument for that, to answer the scope of the whole discourse: yet on the other hand it may be said,

ART. that he having proved the main point of the soul's subsistVII. ing after death, which is the foundation of all religion; the other point, which was chiefly denied, because that was thought false, would be more easily both acknowledged and believed.

As for the resurrection of the body, all that can be brought from hence as an argument to prove it is, that since God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and by consequence their benefactor and rewarder, and yet they were pilgrims on this earth, and suffered many tossings and troubles, that therefore they must be rewarded in another state; or because God promised that to them he would give the land of Canaan, as well as to their seed after them, and since they never had any portion of it in their own possession, that therefore they shall rise again, and with the other saints reign on earth, and have that promise fulfilled in themselves.

From all this the assertion of the Article is as to one main point made good, that the old fathers looked for more than transitory promises: it is also clear, that they looked for a further pardon of sin, than that which their law held forth to them in the expiation made by sacrifices. Sins of ignorance, or sins of a lower sort, were those only for which Sin or Trespass-Offerings were appointed. The Heb. x. 28. sins of a higher order were punished by death, by the hand of heaven, or by cutting off; so that such as sinned in that kind were to die without mercy: yet when David had fallen into the most heinous of those sins, he Psal. li. 1, prays to God for a pardon, according to God's loving2, 16, 17. kindness, and the multitude of his tender mercies: for he knew that they were beyond the expiation by sacrifice. The Prophets do often call the Jews to repent of their idolatry and other crying sins, such as oppression, injustice, and murder; with the promise of the pardon of them; Ita. i. 18. even though they were of the deepest dye, as crimson and scarlet. Since then for lesser sins an expiation was appointed by sacrifice, besides their confessing and repenting of it; and since it seems, by St. Paul's way of arguing, that they held it for a maxim, that without shedding of blood there was no remission of sins; this might naturally lead them to think that there was some other consideration that was interposed in order to the pardoning of those more heinous sins: for a greater degree of guilt seems by a natural proportion to demand a higher degree of sacrifice and expiation. But after all, whatsoever Isaiah, Daniel, or any other Prophet might have understood or meant by those sacrificatory phrases that they use in

I. liii.
Dan. ix.

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speaking of the Messiah, yet it cannot be said from the ART. Old Testament, that in that dispensation it was clearly revealed that the Messias was to die, and to become a sacrifice for sin the Messias was indeed promised under general terms; but there was not then a full and explicit revelation of his being to die for the redemption of mankind; yet since the most heinous sins were then pardoned, though not by virtue of the sacrifices of that covenant, nor by the other means prescribed in it, we have good reason to affirm, that, according to this Article, life was offered to mankind in the old dispensation by Christ, who was, with relation to obtaining the favour of God, and everlasting life, the Mediator of that as well as of the new dispensation. In the New Testament he is set in opposition to the old Adam, that as in the one all died, so in the other all were made alive: nor is it any way incongruous to say, that the merit of his death should by an anticipation have saved those who died before he was born: for that being in the view of God as certain before, as after it was done, it might be in the divine intention the sacrifice for the old, as well as it is expressly declared to be the sacrifice for the new dispensation. And this being so, God might have pardoned sins in consideration of it, even to those who had no distinct apprehensions concerning it. For as God applies the death of Christ, by the secret methods of his grace, to many persons whose circumstances do render them incapable of the express acts of laying hold on it, the want of those (for instance, in infants and ideots) being supplied by the goodness of God: so though the revelation that was made of the Messias to the fathers under the old dispensation, was only in general and prophetical terms, of which they could not have a clear and distinct knowledge; yet his death might be applied to them, and their sins pardoned through him, upon their performing such acts as were proportioned to that dispensation, and to the revelation that was then made: and so they were reconciled to God even after sins, for which no sacrifices were appointed by their dispensation, upon their repentance and obedience to the foederal acts and conditions then required, which supplied the want of more express acts with relation to the death of Christ, not then distinctly revealed to them. But though the old fathers had a conveyance of the hope of eternal life made to them, with a resurrection of their bodies, and a confidence in the mercy of God, for pardoning the most heinous sins; yet it cannot be denied, but that it was as a light that shined in a dark place, till the Day-star 2 Pet. i. 19.

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ART. did arise, and that Christ brought life and immortality to light by his Gospel; giving us fuller and clearer discoveries of it, both with relation to our souls and bodies; and that by him also God has declared his righteousness for the remission of sins, through the forbearance of God, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and through faith in his blood.

Rom. iii.

24, 25.

The third branch of this Article will not need much explanation, as it will bear no dispute, except with Jews, who do not acknowledge the New Testament. The ceremonial parts of the Mosaical Law, which comprehends all both the negative and the positive precepts, were enjoined the Jews either with relation to the worship of God and service at the Temple, or to their persons and

course of life.

That which is not moral of its own nature, or that had no relation to civil society, was commanded them, to separate them not only from the idolatrous and magical practices of other nations, but to distinguish them so entirely as to all their customs, even in the rules of eating and of cleanness, that they might have no familiar commerce with other nations, but live within and among themselves; since that was very likely to corrupt them, of which they had very large experience. Some of those rituals were perhaps given them as punishments for their frequent revolts, and were as a yoke upon them, who were so prone to idolatry. They were as rudiments and remembrances to them: they were as it were subdued by a great variety of precepts, which were matter both of much charge and great trouble to them: by these they were also amused; for it seems they did naturally love a pompous exterior in religion; they were also, by all that train of performances which were laid on them, kept in mind both of the great blessings of God to them, and of the obligations that lay on them towards God; and many those, particularly their sacrifices and washings, were typical. All this was proper and necessary to restrain and govern them, while they were the only people in the world that renounced idolatry, and worshipped the true God: and therefore so soon as that of which they had an emblem in the structure of their Temple (of a court of the Gentiles separated with a middle wall of partition, from the place in which the Israelites worshipped) was to be removed, and that the house of God was to become a house of prayer to all nations, then all those distinctions were to be laid aside, and all that service was to determine and come to an end. The Apostles did declare, that the Gentiles were not to be

of

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brought under that heavy yoke, which their fathers were ART. not able to bear; yet the Apostles themselves, as born Jews, and while they lived among the Jews, did continue in the observance of their rites, as long as God seemed to be waiting for the remnant of that nation that was to be saved, before his wrath came upon the rest to the uttermost. They went to the Temple, they purified themselves; and, in a word, to the Jews they became Jews; and in this compliance, the first converts of the Jewish nation continued till the destruction of Jerusalem; after which, it became impossible to observe the greatest part of their most important rituals, even all those that were tied to the Temple. But that nation losing its genealogies, and all the other characters that they formerly had of a nation under the favour and protection of God, could no more know after a few ages, whether they were the seed of Abraham or not, or whether there were any left among them of the tribe of Levi, or of the family of Aaron. So that now all those ceremonies are at an end; many of them are become impossible, and the rest useless; as the whole was abrogated by the authority of the Apostles, who being sent of God, and proving their mission by miracles, as well as Moses had done his, they might well have loosed and dissolved those precepts upon earth, upon which, according to our Saviour's words, they are to be esteemed as loosed in heaven.

The judiciary parts of the Law were those that related to them as they were a society of men, to whom God by a special command gave authority to drive out and destroy a wicked race of people, and to possess their land; which God appointed to be divided equally among them, and that every portion should be as a perpetuity to a family; so that though it might be mortgaged out for a number of years, yet it was afterwards to revert to the family. Upon this bottom they were at first set; and they were still to be preserved upon it; so that many laws were given them as they were a civil society, which cannot belong to any other society: and therefore their whole judiciary law, except when any parts of it are founded on moral equity, was a complicated thing, and can belong to no other nation, that is not in its first and essential constitution made and framed as they were. For instance; the prohibition of taking use for money, being a mean to preserve that equality which was among them, and to keep any of them from becoming excessively rich, or others from becoming miserably poor, this is by no means to be applied to other constitutions, where men are left to their industry,

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