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bim . In this Cafe God directs, in the following Words, that the Elders of the City next to the Slain, fhall bring down an Heifer into the Valley, and there strike off his Neck, and afterwards wash their Hands over him, and then use this folemn Form of Protestation and Deprecation. Our Hands have not fhed this Blood, neither have our Eyes feen it. Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy People of Ifrael, whom thou haft redeemed; and lay not innocent Blood unto thy People of Ifrael's Charge. And then 'tis said, The Blood fhall be forgiven them; which plainly fhews, that the Guilt of fuch Blood, tho' they were no Way acceffary to the shedding of it, would ftill lie upon them, and subject them to the divine Vifitation or to temporal Judgments, till they took this Method to clear themselves, and to pacify the Anger of the Almighty. And can any Thing be plainer or more express, or fuller to the Purpose, than this Injunction? But perhaps 'twill be faid, that this is only a Ceremonial Law, and no Way binding to us. But we should confider, that there is a great deal of Morality in fome of these Ceremonial Precepts, and 'tis the Duty of Chriftians to feparate one from the other. The only Ceremonial Part here (which is likewife very fignificant) is killing the Heifer in the Manner prefcribed, and washing the Hands over him: But praying that innocent Blood whenever it

+ Deut. xxi. 1.

is

is fhed, may not be laid to our Charge, or vifited upon us, is a moral and religious Duty, highly proper and expedient, if not indifpenfably neceffary, as any ferious Man would be apt to think, that duly confiders the Strictnefs and Peremptoriness of the Divine Purpose to make Inquifition for Blood, as delivered by God himself to Noah and his Sons juft after the Flood. Surely your Blood of your Lives will I require; at the Hand of every Beaft will I require it; and at the Hand of Man, at the Hand of every Man's Brother will I require the Life of Man. When God reproved Cain for this Sin, he told him, That the Voice of his Brother's Blood cried unto him from the Ground |. Here innocent Blood, when thed, is faid to have a Voice, and that Voice to be a crying one, and that Cry to reach from Earth to Heaven, and to call down Vengeance from thence. And therefore God commanded the Ifraelites to use the Method beforementioned, both for difcovering the Guilty, and to open a Way for him to fhew Mercy to the Innocent, who would otherwise have stood expofed to, and lain within, the Reach of his Judgments, when he came to vifit for that Sin. But by obferving this Method, they cleared themselves both from Guilt and Punishment. Now the Reason of the Thing is still the fame. Bloodguiltiness fubjects even the innocent Part of Mankind, Chriftians as well as Jews, to a Vifitation from God; and || Ibid. iv. 10.

+ Gen. ix. 5.

therefore

therefore fomething of the like Means will be neceffary for our Security as was for their's, or in order to avert the impending Stroke from our own Heads. And if we refuse Compliance with this, on Pretence of our own perfonal Innocence, (tho' with Respect to the Community upon which fuch Guilt is chargeable, there is none to be esteemed innocent, no, not one) we do thereby render ourselves really guilty, or justly obnoxious to the Vengeance of God, and do what in us lies to endanger the Safety of the whole Community, which is generally the fame in one Age, as in another. For Nations, States, and Kingdoms, while they continue in a Way of Succeffion, are no other than larger Families, and God confiders and deals with them accordingly; that is, he looks upon every Nation or Kingdom as ftill one and the fame, tho' in a continual Flux, or made up of a Succeffion of different Members, even as a River is always the fame, tho' the Waters thereof are continually changing. And therefore tho' we are removed at fo great a Distance from the bloody Fact of this Day, we are still the fame People in the Eyes of God, and liable to the fame Judgments that our Forefathers were, unless we take Care to prevent them, by obferving the Method which God has prescribed; that is, by joining in a publick and national Humiliation; which (whatever our Fathers may have fuffered on this Account thro' their own Neglect, or our Children may hereafter fuffer upon the fame) will be our best Fence,

and

A

and conftant Security against any Remainder of
Wrath that may ftill lie treasured up for the
complicated Guilt of this Day. And that we
may be incited to a ftricter and more religious
Obfervance of this fad Solemnity for the future,
let us confider again the Cafe of the Jews, and
see how much more equitable and forcible the
Precept enjoined unto them, will appear to be,
when applied to the prefent Cafe. If they then
were obliged to take fuch a Course to avoid the
Punishment due to other Men's Sins; (with re-
fpect to this World, I mean, not to the next) if
fo holy an Office, as is beforementioned, was
enjoined by God to be performed by the Elders
of Ifrael; if fuch folemn purging and clearing
of themselves was required of them, on account
of one fingle Perfon's being found flain by fome
unknown Hand: What publick Humiliations
and Prayers, what folemn and united Depreca-
tions must be neceffary, when innocent Blood
is fhed, not fecretly but openly, not the Blood
of a private obfcure Perfon, but of a righteous
and religious King, the publick Head ånd Re-
presentative of the whole Body of the People,
who was cut off at once, neither in the Field of
Battle, nor by foreign Enemies, but by the Hands
of Violence, by the Hands of his own Subjects,
in the Face of the Sun, before his own royal
Palace, in Defiance of all Laws, and in Con-
tempt of all that is facred? What Lamentations,
I fay, and Deprecations does fo complicated and
and aggravated a Guilt as this call for? And who
is there amongst us fo righteous, as to think
'himself

E

himself excufed from, or not included in, the general Obligation? 'Tis God's exprefs and pofitive Command, (and has been the Practice of Jews and Heathens) when any innocent Blood is fhed, for Men to humble themselves before him, and to implore his Mercy for the fame. For Blood defileth the Land +, and is one of those Abominations that are faid to fpue out the Inhabitants, and is not to be expiated but by the Blood of the Offender ||, or by folemn Prayer and Humiliation. We fee what a long Train of Evils has attended the fhedding of the Blood of Chrift, and that horrid Imprecation of the Jews upon themselves and their Pofterity, His Blood be on us and upon our Children. And fo it has been with a Vengeance. For this one Sin they have now lien under the Curse of God for near

Seventeen hundred Years together; and yet for all this his Anger is not turned away, but his Hand is fill ftretched out against them. And we have Reafon to fear that the Blood of our martyred Sovereign is not yet fully atoned for, nor ever will be, till we are more united and more earnest in deprecating the Vengeance of Heaven on that account. I wish those that are not a little concerned in this Matter, were now prefent to hear me; because 'tis not out of any İll-will, or with a Defign to upbraid or reproach them, but from a true Affection and Concern for them, that I fpeak this. Their joining with us in performing the folemn Office appointed

+ Numb. xxxv. 33. xix. 10, 13.

Lev. xviii. 28.

Deut.

for

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