The time meant was after giving the moral law as the foundation of the Sinai covenant, containing these statutes and judgments. The land was that of the devoted nations, which they were going over to possess. Those statutes and judgments were not to be administered in other lands. Through their own fault, even those nations were never all subdued or possessed. They never possessed the land of the Philistines, nor the Sidonians. Though David at last overcame the former, he did not dispossess them. Edam, Moab and Ammon, adjoining Arabia and the Red Sea, Syria of Zaba, and Damascus, extending from Palestine to the Euphrates, were subdued by David; and they, as well as Arabia on the south, yielded a willing obedience to Solomon, thereby fulfilling the promise to him, as a type of the Messiah, that his large and great dominion should extend from the Mediterranean, then called the Great Sea, to the great river Euphrates on the east, and to the Southern Ocean, from near which the queen of Sheba came, and beyond which there is no continent; emblematical of the kingdom of the Messiah, to extend over the whole world. This, however, was a dominion of peace. The people were not dispossessed, nor brought under the national law of Israel-it could not be administered there. This is the opinion, and agreeable to the practice of the Jews in Babylon, and in their dispersions, to this day. The schismatic Jews, who erected a temple in Babylon, and those who erected another at Samaria, did so in direct violation of the Sinai covenant.

Mr. Wylie, page 23, states, that "it is the magistrate's duty to execute such penalties of the divine law, (meaning the peculiar law of Israel) as are not repealed

or mitigated;" and several years ago, an intelligent and pious gentleman sent me a copy of a manuscript volume, of thirty one folio pages, very closely written, entitled "Observations concerning Toleration," in which he adopts and supports the same principles respecting divine laws, &c. that are advocated in the Sons of Oil. From it I will now insert the following quotation, p. 3. "I plead-the laws and examples of the Jewish nation, and that upon this ground, that all the laws and precepts contained in the Old Testament, that are not repealed in the New, either by express precept, approven example, or by necessary consequence, are still binding-a law being once given, until it is repealed by the same authority, is still binding."

The above is so much less exceptionable than the Sons of Oil, that it does not include the idea of mitigating divine laws. Where either of them got the idea of repealing or mitigating divine laws, they have not informed us; certainly, however, they did not get it in their bible. It is necessary that imperfect and shortsighted men should repeal or revise their laws. Revision is a repeal in part; but to apply the term mitigation to laws, whether human or divine, is a near approach to nonsense. In most governments, provision is made for mitigating the sentence of a court, arising from the law and the fact, or for remitting the sentence wholly. Thus, in England, the king frequently mitigates the sentence of death, by substituting transportation and servitude, or pardons, either with or without conditions; but neither repealing nor mitigating can be applied to any law of God, without an approach to Blasphemy.

That none of these can apply to the moral law of nature, it being unchangeable, has been already stated; nor can it be maintained, without, at the same time, maintaining, that God himself is changeable. They cannot be applied to positive or voluntary laws, without admitting that the Almighty was short-sighted, like fallen mortals; that he did not know the end from the beginning; that causes, or changes, had taken place, which he had not foreseen, when he made the law, which rendered the future repeal or revision necessary. These are the causes why human laws are repealed or revised. I never read of a law for the mitigation of a law, but in the Sons of Oil. Positive laws have frequently been passed for special and local purposes, that ceased when the purposes were accomplished for which the legislature intended them; several of these I have mentioned already. I will only add, that the laws regulating the march of Israel in the wilderness, the gathering of the manna, &c. the command to the disciples, by the Saviour, when he sent them out to preach the gospel and work miracles, not to go to the cities of the Gentiles or the Samaritans-ceased, when the object intended was accomplished; so did the whole additions to the moral law, contained in the Sinai covenant of peculiarity, when their object was accomplished, and the intention of the legislator fulfilled. They ceased, or were abrogated, but not repealed or mitigated.

Divines have very commonly, for the sake of illustration, spoken of the peculiar law of Israel, under two distinct views, viz. as ceremonial, enjoining and regulating religious rites, and as judicial, regulating the courts of justice, &c. This distinction is often made

without any injury to the subject; but having no foundation in the law itself, a precise line of distinction cannot be drawn. The learned Dr. Witsius has well stated, after an accurate examination, that all their polity was so connected with priests and Levites, that no such precise line could be drawn. The reverend author of the Sons of Oil, though he builds his system on this distinction, has not condescended to mark the line. The author of the manuscript has been more candid. He says, p. 9. "The ceremonial law was a system of positive precepts about the external worship of God, chiefly designed to typify Christ as then to come, and to lead to the way of salvation through him. The judicial law was that body of laws, given by God, for the government of the Jews, partly founded on the law of nature, and partly respected them as a nation distinct from all others. The first respected them as a church, the second respected them as a nation, distinct from all others. This distinction is so easy understood, that it will require a great deal more than what I have yet seen to overthrow it."

The author has been candid enough not to lay the support of this distinction on the scriptures, where, indeed, he could not find it, but gives it as "he finds it stated by authors." And it is as well defined as is desirable; for it is, as he says, easy understood, which is the excellence of a definition; its only loss is, that it is not supported by scripture, and is impracticable. It puts me in mind of the theories of the creation of the earth, published by Whiston, Burnet, Buffon, &c. They all tell a very pretty story of how they would have made the earth, and, therefore, how God should have done it. But they all differ in opinion from each

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other, how they would have made the world, but agree in objecting to the method in which it actually pleased God to create it. Just so it is with those, who idolize, and attempt to reduce to practice, among christians, the peculiar law of the Israelitish theocracy, which has been fulfilled and abolished by its divine author. They all claim the authority of that law to patronize their own opinion, or justify their tyranny; yet none of them pretend to revive and execute the whole of that law; but though they all have miserably perverted it in their application of it, yet they have never agreed on defining how far it is applicable to christians, and how far not. How then shall the weak christian know, which of its precepts he is obliged to obey, and which to refuse all of them being equally divine laws. The definition of the author of the manuscript, which I admit to be one of the best, he will himself, upon trial, find to be wholly impracticable, because it leaves it wholly to the private judgment of évery christian to decide, what precept respected Israel, as a church, and what respected it, as a nation, distinct from all others. If applying this rule to all particular precepts was too difficult a task for the author of the manuscript, or of the Sons of Oil, what must it be to weak but well meaning christians. The difficulty to them must be the greater, from the circumstance, that the New Testament, which contains the religion of christians, having declared that this law is wholly abolished, has given no directions for making a discrimination of its precepts.

Divine wisdom has so intimately connected those precepts together, that they could not be separated. They, as a system, being the symbol or type of the New Testa