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LECT. behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him.

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As the author of our faith, Chrift is our mafter or teacher; and that in fo ftrict a fenfe, that we are to call no other by that name in comparison of him; much less are we to receive any other form of doctrine, from thofe who affume a right of teaching on the authority of any other perfon, or by any other rule, which the fashion of the times or the prejudices of education may have established amongst us.

This relation betwixt the mafter and the

fcholar muft fuggeft to every christian the indifpenfible duty of knowing the fcriptures, and following the precepts of the gofpel, For, let us afk ourselves: are we the scholars of Jefus Chrift, and are we ignorant of his doctrine? Do we pay no regard to his difcipline, and the rules he has given for the conduct of life? And fhall we not in fuch a cafe be difowned and expelled from his fociety? If we know nothing of him, he will know no

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thing of us, and will fignify the fame to LECT. us upon an awful occafion-Depart from me, I know you not.

Having thus far fhewn how the nature, ftate, works, offices, and relations of mankind are applied, and how the scripture reafons from them, as from fo many parallel cafes; I fhall now confider what use is made of the inferior part of the animal creation. And here you are to recollect, that beafts differ from one another as men do, the fober from the fottish, the gentle from the ravenous, the trufty from the thievish, the peaceable and obedient from the blood-thirsty and rebellious: and as the fcripture expreffes all things by fimilitudes, the properties and qualities of beasts are examples of virtues and vices amongst men. This moral difference was the ground of the diftinction of beasts under the law of Mofes into clean and unclean. The people of God were to eat of no unclean creature; they were to converfe with no unclean man; and fo the firft effect of this law was of a civil nature,

to

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LECT. to keep the Jews feparate from the converfation of other nations, that they might not learn their works. They could not eat with them, and confequently could not keep company with them; and this law has the fame effect to this day with the modern Jews. The fecond intention of it was of a moral or spiritual kind; to fuggest a figurative leffon of purity, obedience, and patience, from the various inftincts of animals.

Read the 11th chapter of Leviticus, and you will fee how the creatures are diftinguished. The gentle, tame, and profita ble kinds are allowed for food; and all creatures of wild, fierce, or filthy manners, are forbidden. Thus the Ifraelites were reminded daily by what they ate, what manner of perfons they ought to be in all holy converfation and godlinefs; by what was forbidden, they were taught to abhor the vices of the heathen. So faith the law itself: Ye shall not walk in the manners of the nations which I caft out before you-I am the Lord your God, which

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bave Separated you from other people; ye LECT. Shall therefore put a difference between clean beafts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean-and ye shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord am boly, and have severed you from other people that ye Should be mine*. This paffage puts the moral intention of the distinction of meats out of difpute, and is indeed a direct affirmation of it: the people of God were to avoid uuclean meats, as a fign that he had separated them from unclean Gentiles to be holy unto himself.

But in the fulness of time, when the Gentiles were to be admitted to Chriftian baptifm, and taken into the church with the Jews, this act of grace in the divine œconomy was fignified to St. Peter, by a new licence to feed upon unclean beafts. The cafe was this: Peter was about to be invited to preach the gofpel to Cornelius a Roman, into whofe house he could not come; because the law which he had always obferved commanded the Jews to keep themselves feparate from heathens

* Lev. xx. 23, &c.

in

LECT. in their converfation; as, in their diet,

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they abftained from unclean beafts.

While this matter was depending, Peter fell into a trance, and faw a vifion. A great sheet, knit at the four corners, was let down to the earth, containing all those living creatures which were forbidden food by the Levitical law, and he was commanded to kill and eat: to which, when he objected, as being contrary to the law, a voice faid, what God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. The meffage from Cornelius which immediately followed, fhewed the defign of this vifion; that it fignified the reception and cleanfing of the Gentile world, and that the Jews were no longer to count them unclean. So Peter himself thus explained it when he vifited Cornelius: Te know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Few to keep company or come unto one of another nation; but God hath fhewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore thofe living creatures of all kinds, which had been presented to

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