Thus we see the noble prophecy, concerning the transfer of the kingdom of GOD to CHRIST, contains a matter of much greater dignity in itself, and of much greater moment for the support of CHRISTIANITY, than could arise from the perplexed question about the reign of the Asmonean princes, or the continuance of the power of life and death amongst a tributary people. For in predicting the abolition of the law, it supplies us with a new and excellent argument for the conversion of the Jewish people, fatally persuaded of its eternal obligation.

The reasons of my being so particular concerning the duration of the THEOCRACY are various, and will be seen as occasion offers. Only the reader may here take notice, that it was necessary for the present purpose, to show its continuance throughout the whole duration of the republic, in order to vindicate the justice of those laws all along in force, for the punishment of idolatrous worship.

SECT. IV.

Let

THUS far as to the nature and duration of the Mosaic republic. us now see what PECULIAR CONSEQUENCES necessarily attended the administration of a THEOCRATIC form of government.

One necessary consequence was an EXTRAORDINARY PROVIDENCE. For the affairs of a people under a theocracy, being administered by God as King; and his peculiar and immediate administration of human affairs being what we call an extraordinary providence; it follows that an extraordinary providence must needs be exercised over such a people. My meaning is, that if the Jews were indeed under a theocracy, they were indeed under an extraordinary providence: and if a theocracy was only pretended, yet an extraordinary providence must necessarily be pretended likewise. In a word, they must be either both true or both false, but still inseparable, in reality or idea. Nor does this at all contradict (as was suggested by Doctor SYKES even after he had seen his suggestion confuted) what I observe concerning the gradual decay and total extinction of the extraordinary providence, while the theocracy yet existed. For when I say an extraordinary providence was one necessary consequence of a theocracy, I can only mean that it was so in its original constitution, and in the order and nature of things: not that in this, which was matter of compact, the contravening acts of one party might not make a separation. For, as this extraordinary providence was (besides its being a mode of administration arising out of a theocracy) a reward for obedience, it became liable to forfeiture by disobedience, though subjection to the government still continued. I beg leave to illustrate this position both by a foreign and a domestic instance. The ærarii in the Roman state were such who, for their crimes, were deprived of the right of citizens: yet these delinquents were obliged to pay the public taxes. At home, a voice in the supreme council of the kingdom

is the necessary consequence of an English barony; yet they may be separated by a judicial sentence; and actually have been so separated; as we may see in the two famous cases of Lord Verulam and the Earl of Middlesex, in the reign of James the first; who were both deprived of their seats in the house of Lords, and yet held their baronies, with all the other rights pertaining to them. Thus a punishment of this kind was inflicted on the rebellious Israelites: they were deprived of the extraordinary providence: and were yet held subject to the theocracy, as appears from the sentence pronounced upon them, by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel: "Ye polluted yourselves with your idols even unto this day: and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you. And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say; We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone. As I live, saith the Lord, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you. And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the BOND OF THE COVENANT." -Chap. xx. ver. 31-37. It is here we see denounced, that the extraordinary providence should be withdrawn; or in scripture phrase, that God would not be inquired of by them; that they should remain in this condition, which their fathers had occasionally felt in the wilderness, when the extraordinary providence, for their signal disobedience, was, from time to time, suspended: and yet, that, though they strove to disperse themselves amongst the people round about, and projected in their minds to be as the heathen, and the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone, they should still be under the government of a THEOCRACY; which, when administered without an extraordinary providence, the blessing, naturally attendant on it, was, and was justly called THE ROD AND BOND

OF THE COVENANT.

But now if you will believe a professor of divinity and a no less eminent dealer in laws, the case grows worse and worse, and, from a contradiction in my system, it becomes a contradiction in God's. For thus Dr RUTHERFORTH descants upon the matter; "As the law was gradually deprived of its sanction, the obligation of it grew continually weaker, till at last, after the people were returned from the captivity, it must have ceased to oblige them at all. For whatever may be the case of God's MORAL LAW, yet most certainly, as he withdraws the sanctions of his POSITIVE ones, he takes off something from their obligation; and when he has wholly withdrawn the promise of reward and the threatening of punishment, THOSE LAWS OBLIGE NO LONGER." - P. 329. To this determination of the learned professor, concerning OBLIGATION, I have nothing to oppose but the determination of God himself: who, by the mouth of one of his prophets, declares, that the laws shall still oblige, though the sanction be withdrawn. "Ye pollute yourselves with your idols," &c., as the reader may find it transcribed just above. Here God declares he would withdraw that extraordinary providence which naturally attended a THEOCRACY.-I will not be inquired of by you. "Yet do not," says he, "deceive yourselves in an expectation that, because for your crimes I withdraw this sanction of my law, the law will oblige no longer and that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say we will be as the heathen: for, in order to the bringing about my own great purposes, I will still continue you a select and sequestered people-I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out from the countries wherein you are scattered. And will still rule over you by my law; now in my wrath, as before in my mercy. With fury poured out I will rule over you, and bring you into the bond of the covenant."

I suppose the thing that led our Doctor into this rash judgment, that when the sanctions of a positive law are withdrawn, the obligation to the law ceases, was his totally misunderstanding the principles of the best writers on the law of nature; not by their fault, I dare assure the reader. The law of nature is written in the heart; but by whom, is the question. And a question of much importance; for if not written by a competent obliger it is no law, to bind us. The inquirers therefore into this matter had no other way of coming to the author of the law, but by considering the effects which the observance or inobservance of it would have on mankind. And they found that the observance tended to the benefit of all, the inobservance to their destruction. They concluded therefore that it must needs have been given by God, as a law to mankind; and these effects of its observance or inobservance they called the sanction. Hence it appears that the knowledge of our obligation to the law of nature arises from the knowledge of the sanction. And, this sanction away, we had not been obliged, because we could never have discovered any real ground of obligation.

But the positive law of the Jews was written in stone by the finger of God, in a visible manner; in which the senses of the people were appealed to, for the truth of the transaction. Here the knowledge of their obligation did not arise from their knowledge of the sanction, but fròm quite another thing, namely, the immediate knowledge they had by their senses, that God, their sovereign Lord and Master, gave them the law. To enforce which, a sanction indeed was added; but a sanction that added nothing to the obligation, nor consequently that took from it, when it was withdrawn.

This is a plain and clear state of the case. Yet so miserably has our professor mistaken it, that for want of seeing on what principle it was which the writers on the law of nature proceeded, when they supposed obligation to depend on the sanction, he hath, of a particular case, made a general maxim: and in applying that maxim, he hath turned every thing topsy-turvy, and given us just the reverse of the medal. He supposes the taking the sanction from the moral law might not destroy the obligation, which it certainly would, whatsoever, says he, might be the cause of God's moral laws, and that taking away the sanction from his positive law would destroy the obligation, which it certainly would not. What might further mislead our professor, for the more such men read, the less they understand, is the attribute the Roman lawyers give to such civil laws as are made without a penal sanction. These they are wont to call, leges imperfecte: and our great civilian might believe that this assigned imperfection, had a reference to the obligation they imposed, whereas it refers to the efficacy they were able to work. He should have known at least this first principle of law, that it is the AUTHORITY of the lawgiver, not the SANCTION he annexes to his law, which makes it, I will not say, OPERATE properly, for this is nothing to the purpose, but makes it OBLIGE really, which is only to the purpose. In a word, I know of nobody but HOBBES, besides this Doctor, who pretended to teach that the obligation to laws depended upon their sanction: and this he did, because he derived all right and wrong from the civil magistrate: which, for ought I know, our learned professor may do likewise, as only mistaking right and wrong, by a blunder like to the foregoing, for good and evil. Yet hath this grave man written most enormously both on Laws and MORALS: and is indeed a great writer, just as the mighty giant, Leon Gawer, was a great builder; of whom the monk of Chester so sweetly sings:

"The founder of this city, as saith Polychronicon,
Was Leon Gawer, a mighty strong giant,
Which builded caves and dungeons many a one:
No goodly building, ne proper, ne pleasant."

But our business at present is not with the actual administration of an extraordinary providence, but with the scripture representation of such an administration. And this the sacred history of the Jews attests in one uniform unvaried manner; as well by recording many instances of it in particular, as by constantly referring to it in general.

I. The first is in the history of MIRACLES. For an equal providence being, by the nature of man's situation and affairs, necessarily administered partly by ordinary and partly by extraordinary means, these latter produce what we call miracles, the subject of the sacred writers their more peculiar regard. But I apprehend it would be thought presuming too much on the reader's patience, to expect his attention, while I set myself formally to prove that many miracles are related in the sacred history of the Israelites.

The simpler sort of deists fairly confess that the Bible records the working of many miracles, as appears even from the free names they give to those accounts. But there are refiners in infidelity, such as SPINOZA

and his mimie TOLAND; who acknowledge many of the facts recorded, but deny them to have been miraculous. These are to our purpose, and an appeal to the common sense of mankind is a sufficient answer to them all. And surely I should have done no more, had they not attempted to draw in to their party much honester men than themselves. For such, therefore, even charity requires us to attempt some kind of defence.

The infamous Spinoza would persuade us that JOSEPHUS himself was as backward in the belief of miracles as any modern pagan whatsoever. The handle, for his calumny, is* that writer's relation of the passage of the Red Sea; which he compares to Alexander's through the Pamphylian, and which concludes with saying that every man may believe of it as he pleases. No unusual way with this historian, of introducing or ending a miraculous adventure. This hath indeed so libertine an air, that it hath betrayed some believers into the same false judgment concerning Josephus; as if he afforded only a political or philosophical belief to these things; and gave a latitude to those of his own religion, to think as they should see cause.

But here lies the difficulty; the historian is every now and then putting on a very different aspect, and talking like a most determined believer. Many are the places where he expresses the fullest and firmest assent to the divinity of the Mosaic religion, and to the truth of the sacred volumes. To mention only one or two, from a book so known, and in a point so notorious. The following words of his Introduction (where he cannot possibly be considered as a translator, or relater only of what he found in the sacred books, from which he composed his history) these, I say, show in how different a light he regarded Moses from all other lawgivers: "And now I earnestly entreat all who take these volumes in hand, to apply themselves with their whole faculties to the contemplation of the divine nature, and then turn to our LAWGIVER, and see whether he has not made a representation of that nature entirely worthy of it; always assigning such actions to God, as become his excellence, and preserving the high subject clear from any impure mixture of FABLE. Though if we consider the distance and antiquity of the time he wrote in, we cannot but understand he was at full liberty to invent and falsify at pleasure. For he lived full two thousand years ago. A distance of time