of man, and revealed to him, makes it both the duty and interest of civil government to enact laws agreeable to the moral law, and enforce obedience to it. This is necessary, for the peace of society, that the people may lead quiet and peaceable lives, in all godliness and honesty. But it is not their duty to interfere with God's authority over the reason and judgment of man, in those things, for which he holds them solely accountable to himself. No human penalties can punish pride, hypocrisy, or want of love to God and our neighbour.

In p. 5. he quotes 1 Tim. i. 9, 16, to prove the binding obligation of the law of Moses, shewing that the law is made to punish transgressors; and the apostle enumerates certain offences that ought to be restrained by penal laws; but because the catalogue is not full, he adds, if there be any thing else contrary to sound doctrine, viz. the doctrine of the moral law, not the doctrine of the peculiar law of Israel; for God did not see meet, in that state of society, to authorise sinful judges to punish their fellow sinners, to the extent which the moral law requires. Whoremongers, the first in the catalogue, are much more restrained under our laws than under the judicial law; but they had the same moral law for the rule of their conduct towards God and their fellow men, that we have. But it prescribed no penalties for man to execute on man. The Sinai covenant restrained Israel for wise purposes, from changing or extending the penalties of it. Christians have power, from the law of their nature, to extend or change the penalties, agreeable to the moral law, according to circumstances. The moral reasons of punishment were restricted to the laws; they are not so to christians.

The learned Scott, on this text, says, "The moral law was holy, just, and good, resulting from the nature of God and man, and man's relation to him and each other. Even the ceremonial law had a relative goodness for the time, as typical of Christ's gospel, and the entire Mosaic dispensation was good, as separating Israel from other nations, affording them the means of grace, and introducing the christian economy; but to enforce the Mosaic law on christians, or to teach. them to depend on their own obedience, for any part of their justification, was contrary to the real meaning of the law itself, and intention of the lawgiver."

The author admits that the typical part of the law of Moses vanished at the appearance of the substances. The apostle tells us of the whole law being a shadow of good things to come, and of a whole change of the old for the new covenant; that this happy change was not by their covenant, viz. the Sinai covenant.

What is the law of commandments which Christ abolished in his flesh? certainly not the moral law of the ten commandments; that can never be abolished. It certainly must be that law of commandments, which, like a middle wall of partition, kept Jew and Gentile separate, not only in their worship, but in their municipal laws, their eating, their clothing, and other common concerns of life; and this could be no other than the peculiar law of Israel, or old covenant, which the same apostle saith, elsewhere, was ready to vanish away. Having perfect confidence in the prophets and apostles, I do not suspect them of deceit-of saying a thing is vanished away, while it is only separated into two parts that instead of the Sinai covenant being abolished, it is divided into two Sinai covenants, the

one of which is abolished, and the other remains in full force. If this had been the case, the prophets and apostles, being honest and inspired men, would have told us what was taken away, and what remained. I agree with the apostle Paul, that the whole of the Sinai covenant is abolished, and with Dr. Witsius, that the whole of it was a shadow of good things to come, viz. typical, and, as such, ceremonial. If it is not so, it is proper that these authors should distinctly tell us what remains. It is certain, that none of its penalties of death remain, because there are no courts to execute them. The priests and Levites, the sons of Aaron and Levi, were essential constituent judges of the court for life and death, and it was indispensable that those courts should sit where Jehovah gave his oracles in the sanctuary. There are now no priests and Levites, nor any local divine sanctuary; therefore, no such case can be decided and executed under that law. It will not do to say, that other judges may supply their place; for doing so, would be expressly contrary to that law, of which the priests and Levites only possessed the legal authority and records; and whoever usurp ed their station was liable to the penalty of death, Maintaining this is to give up the law. Has the Saviour and his apostles provided for this dilemma? They have not, in any other way than by abrogating the whole system, and turning the attention of men to the moral law, as explained and enforced by the prophets and apostles, divinely inspired. It is upon these the christian church is built.

But to return to the author's definition of the judicial law, viz. "That it was that body of laws given for the government of the Jews," &c.. Now there was

no law so closely connected with the civil government of the Jews, as the institution of the sabbatical years and grand jubilee. This was at the foundation of that republican institution, and secured republican equality, as originally instituted by Jehovah. It restored every man to his liberty, to his possession, and to his family. With this it does not appear that the priests and Levites had so much concern, as in the courts of justice, &c. yet it was the grand regulator of the liberty and property of the nation. It did not, however, belong to the external worship of God; it was a civil regulation, and, as such, belonged to the civil code. As far as appears, it might have been continued and put in execution without priests, Levites, or sacrifices. It was a law so important in the estimation of Jehovah, its author, that for the breach of it, he says, (Jer. xxxiv. 17.) "Behold I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth."

That nation had been devoted to desolation and captivity long before, for the sins of Manasseh, by long continued breaches of the whole law, moral as well as peculiar. He made the streets of Jerusalem run with innocent blood; he did worse than the heathens or the Amorites, &c. Yet, on repentance, they got a respite; but for this one sin, in breaking through the fundamental regulations of the jubilee, they had no respite of the threatened execution of the sentence.

Why do not these authors charge our government with a total neglect of this institution, which lay at the foundation of the civil economy of the Jews? There were some other statutes, perhaps not so important in

their own nature, yet equally important from the authority of the divine legislator, such as the commands, not to sow their fields with divers seeds-not to plough with an ox and an ass together not to reap clean out, the corners of their fields, nor to return for sheaves they had left-not to glean or take all the fruit from off their vineyard not to wear a garment of linen and woollen, and to wear fringes on their garments-and several other commands of this nature, with which it appears that the priests had nothing to do, in their official character; therefore, they did not belong to the worship of God, which the priests superintended. The jubilee was a civil institution, of a high rank; the others were agricultural and domestic institutions; but all of them statutes of the Sinai covenant, and enjoined by Jehovah. Why are these forgotten or overlooked by both the authors? It could not be because they were ordained by inferior authority. They were certainly divine laws. Is it really the case that they have no regard for the Sinai covenant, further than they, in their own opinion, can apply it in favour of burning, stoning, hanging, fining and imprisoning. They give up the ceremonial part, and all the judicial, except the penalties. It is indeed not probable they will have this actually in their power, but it may console them, to believe, that they have a right to do it. It is their part to examine whether this disposition is agreeable to the spirit of the gospel, or the practice of the apostles and primîtive christians. It is certain, that such as have had the power, and have gone into the exercise of it in the gospel day, have discovered a want of that spirit in numerous instances; but they have been more consistent than the authors. The Pope revived the grand N