thods of reasoning with a ploughman or a thrasher, as with a man of education and learning; or with a school-boy of ten years of age, as with a man whose mind is ripened by years, and his judgment improved by a knowledge of mankind, and experience of the world?

What then were the circumstances of the Hebrew nation? what the times wherein the Mosaical law was given as a ritual and ceremonial law, instead of a bare revelation of doctrines and precepts, of a more rational and spiritual worship? Consider then the temper and genius of the people, their customs, their manners, and their deep-rooted opinions: consider the great advantage of rites and ceremonies, to answer every intention of this institution, to promote the fear of God, to prevent idolatry, and, which was of great importance in this design, to keep up the memory of the promises, and an expectation of a better state of religion, when the desire of all nations should come, and appear the full glory of his people Israel.

1. Then, it may appear a ritual law was best suited to the genius of the Hebrew nation, and most likely to influence their minds. The Israelites were just come out of Egypt, where they had been long in bondage, used very hardly, and grievously oppressed. The preface to their law put the Israelites in mind of their deliverance:

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Exod.xx. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Yet their masters the Egyptians, however severe masters, were the most famed people on the earth for learning and wisdom, in particular for their ceremonies of religion, which they had invented with entertaining pomp and show, attended with many festivals, celebrated with great luxury, as well as plenty. Probably, the greatest ease the Israelites might find in their state of bondage, was in the holydays of their masters, and the feasts which attended them; they not being so scrupulous, very likely, while in Egypt, as to refuse a portion of their masters' feasts, because they had offered some part of it a sacrifice to idols.

You see, then, the Israelites come out of a state of bondage, of low understandings and weak judgments, as persons oppressed, and kept to hard labour, usually are. Moses, by a particular providence, learned the wisdom of the Egyptians in the king's court; but the general body of the people had neither leisure, nor opportunities, nor abilities for acquirements of learning, or great improvements of reason. I know not why some persons have taken the liberty to reflect upon the Hebrews, as not having as good a natural capacity as other people, or the Egyptians themselves; but can easily see reasons to believe that a

low education, and great oppression, must make them ignorant and unskilled in any sort of reasonings above their common affairs and business in life.

Besides, it appears, the method of instruction with which they were best acquainted, and best understood, was a figurative instruction by symbols. If the Israelites had any methods of instruction at all, it seems to have been by hieroglyphics. This was a sort of language they were used to, and would understand it much easier than high disquisitions of moral truths, and long rational proof of the obligations of moral duties. They were so full of esteem for rites and ceremonies, that, if it had been left to their choice, they would certainly have instituted them for themselves, nor would they have been satisfied without them. How soon did they oblige Aaron to make them a golden calf, that they might have a visible symbol of the presence of Jehovah, as their God among them? how soon did they appoint a feast on that occasion, sat down to eat and Exodus, drink, and rose up to play? Whether you xxxii. 6. understand that expression, with some, in a more innocent, or, with others, in a more criminal sense, it is plain the Israelites were prone to appoint such rites for their own use, as well as to join with their neighbours in their use of them, and so be drawn aside to the worship of Baal-Peor. It was

therefore proper, and necessary, to appoint a ritual for this people, or they would have made one for themselves; likely they would have taken up with some idolatrous rites, of more common use, or which would have been soon corrupted into idolatry.

It was then very fit, that the Hebrews, in these circumstances, should have a ritual, which they were to reverence as of divine authority, and which should remain unchangeable by any future superstitious customs or idolatrous rites, what fondness soever they might have for them on any account.

A ritual, it seems, they could not do without, but it was fit they should have a ritual free from what a weak judgment, superstitious temper, or proneness to idolatry, would have made it. They were not to be left to themselves, either first to make a ritual, or afterwards to mend it, as they might call it, but which, in truth, would have been to corrupt it, with alterations or additions. Therefore the wisdom of God directed a ritual of his own appointment, which they had reason to reverence on account of his wisdom and authority, and which it was not lawful for them, on any pretence, to alter. So the law expressly: Deut iv. Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to do them.-Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you,

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neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandment of the Lord your God, which I command you. So proper was a ritual of worship for the genius and circumstances of the Hebrew nation, when their law was given them by Moses.

2. Another consideration, that shows the fitness of a ritual of worship for the Hebrews, is, that it was as a necessary hedge or fence to preserve, by principles of religion, a pure worship of God, by cutting off every pretence to a compliance with idolatrous ceremonies. If the Israelites had been without a ritual of their own, they might, and likely would, have been uneasy, looking upon the worship of their neighbours as made more venerable by their rites and ceremonies; at least, they might have concluded, as they had no rites in their own worship, they were things indifferent in religion; that, if the use of them was of no advantage, neither would it do them any harm. How easily might persons, thus reasoning in themselves, join with their neighbours in their feasts of Baal-Peor, if they found any pleasure in them, or had any ends to serve by such civilities. It became, then, the wisdom of a law, which was designed as a wall of partition to keep this holy nation from the corruptions of an idolatrous world, to appoint the use of such rites as should make