Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Not de

Yet as much as the Mosaical ritual may signed for be recommended for its wisdom and usea perfect state of fulness, its divine original and authority, religion, we are to observe, it was not intended to be a perfect state of religion: in particular,

νες

· καὶ

Φελες.

[ocr errors]

Heb. ix.

1. 10.

with respect to the state of religion under the Messias, the Hebrew ritual was imperHeb. vii. fect; so that the Apostle observes the weak18. adness and unprofitableness of it, and that the law made nothing perfect, but the bringand 19. ing in of a better hope did. So the Apostle styles these rites, though ordinances of divine service, yet a worldly sanctuary, and carnal ordinances imposed on them, until the time of reformation. So that the Hebrew ceremonial, however wise and useful in answering many good ends of that state, or economy of religion, ought not to be considered as perfect, especially in comparison of a more perfect state promised, and looked for, when the Messias should Ezek. xx. come. Thus we shall understand the Prophet, when he says in God's name, WhereDID fore I gave them statutes also that were not good. Not that they answered no good ends, for they did answer many wise and useful ends; but that they were not in themselves proper virtue, or the proper moral perfection and happiness of the

25.

חקים לא

[ocr errors]

contineant vel doctrinas de actionibus vel civilibus et politicis, vel de rebus credendis, vel de moribus, ac proinde sufficiant nobis hæc tria capita, in reddendis præ ceptorum causis. Maimon. Mor. Neboc. Part III. c. xxxi.

spirit, which is more strictly goodness in itself. They were only good, as intermediate means to attain this good.

It seems necessary to premise this, to prevent mistakes: there is an imperfection, as well as a wisdom, to be observed in this constitution; and the imperfection itself, we shall hereafter see, is a wise and useful part of the constitution. It is with great injustice men take the liberty to treat the whole ritual with contempt, because it is a carnal commandment; and it is observed, in some sense, to be weak and unprofitable, when yet it was worthy the wisdom and the goodness of God, to appoint it the worship of the church for many hundred years, as preparatory to a better and more perfect worship of the church at the coming of the Messias.

It is also a great mistake some have fallen into, as to the true goodness and use of such a ritual, as if no constitutions of religious worship can come from God, but what are on all accounts the best, and most perfect. But men often argue very weakly from such general maxims, that whatever is the work of God must be most perfect; as if God was a necessary agent, and must in all possible cases act of necessity, to the utmost of infinite power and goodness, without a freedom of choice to act according to wisdom, in works of various kinds, and therefore of different degrees

of perfection. It is most evident there is an error in such a way of reasoning somewhere, though we should not be able to point it out in particular; forasmuch as what is contrary to constant experience and indisputable facts, cannot be true: no metaphysical reasonings, however plausible, can prove, that what has been, and certainly now is, cannot possibly be. Now, the very same experience that shows the wisdom of God in acts of various kinds, that he manifests his goodness in very different manners, and different degrees of perfection and happiness, in the infinitely different orders of beings, must show it is no ways inconsistent with the divine perfections of almighty power and infinite goodness, to do in his works of grace what he constantly does in his works of providence. The history and experience of all ages confirms the truth of this observation, and the real constitution of the Hebrew state and church is a most evident instance of it.

We ought, then, to be satisfied with such perfection as sufficiently answers the design and intention of such a ritual. We are not ourselves to form designs from our own imagination, and then quarrel with a constitution, as not becoming the wisdom or goodness of God, because it does not answer our imagination; though it does fully answer the designs the wisdom and

καὶ πολυ

τρόπως.

goodness of God had in choosing and appointing it. If ever we hope to attain a knowledge of the true reasons of things, it must be by considering things as they are, not as they are not, in what manner soever we may imagine they ought to have been. Let a man first satisfy himself in the reasons why the infinite goodness of God permits so much moral and natural evil in the world, so long corruption of true religion natural and revealed, and he will, I believe, easily satisfy himself of the wisdom and goodness wherewith God spake unto the world, at sundry times, Heb. i. 1, and in divers manners. A revelation in πωλυμερώς different parts and forms could not be one and the same, nor therefore have just the same degrees of perfection; nor did the wisdom of God make it either necessary or fit it should be so; or is there any reason a revelation to different persons at different times, for different reasons, to Adam suppose, or Noah, to Abraham or Moses, must necessarily be one and the same? The true case is, the wisdom of God directs the revelation of such truths, or the giving of such laws, as are best suited to answer the particular designs of his goodness, whatever they may be. These, in reason and in fact, appear in general to be, a design of some good to the world, suited to its circumstances, and the state of religion in it. Take the revelation to

State of

and of

law was

Noah, see the state of the world, and you perceive the true reason of the revelation: to warn the world of an approaching punishment, to preserve Noah and his family to repeople the world after that evil generation was destroyed in the flood, God sent Noah, a preacher of righteousness, directing him to build an ark for his preservation. This was a wise intention, and a revelation that fully answered that intention, though it was not, as it never was designed to be, a full and perfect revelation of all truths of religion, or a complete direction for every part of religious worship.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

To perceive, then, the true and wise. reasons of the Hebrew revelation, we must carefully consider what ends were designed to be answered by it. What these were, we shall best learn by considering the true state of the world, and of the Hebrew nation, when the law was given by Moses.

Not to divert from the subject, I shall theworld, not here inquire into the antiquity of idoreligion, latrous rites, or the original of idolatrous when this principles. The Hebrew history sufficiently shows, that at the time the law was given by Moses, idolatry and idolatrous rites had almost corrupted the whole earth, in particular the Egyptians, Canaanites, Midianites, Moabites, and all the nations neighbours to the Land of Promise; so

given to the He

brews.

« AnteriorContinuar »