gotten the great and sole use of sacrifices," (which is to exaggerate the doctrine of their typical importance)" when the custom had been continued with small interruption from the time of their first institution, in a land where every thing, and especially religion, was under the immediate inspection of divine providence 50"

30

It may further be demanded how, under this providence, the prophecies became to several a sealed book? why they looked for a triumphant prince, a stranger to the miseries of our nature, to the difficulties of virtue, and to that philanthropy which might have been expected in the image of God?

Least of all should the abuses of typical illustration, whether by the ancients or the moderns, lead us to reject the principle and the examples of it, when attested so strikingly and admitted so generally as those which in the course of this enquiry have been adduced.

The ancients invented many similitudes which have not been admitted into the Scriptural interpretation of the Gospel by the law; as the offering of fine flour, a type of the Eucharist; the bells of the high priest's garments, types of the Apostles; the scarlet thread suspended from the window by Rahab, a type of Christ's blood31 and many others. Some of these may appear just, and others only fanciful. Spurious miracles do not, however, lead us

to reject all;

30 Evanson's Remarks on the Doctrine of the Atonement. 31 Justin Martyr's Dial. cum Tryph.

neither should strained metaphors, unmeaning allegories, or fanciful types, lead us to reject all metaphors, allegories, and types; nor should Moses, for instance, as a type of Christ, be considered equally doubtful with the type of the twelve Apostles in the bells of the high priest's garments.

Such were the means by which the law intended by the Apostle Paul in Gal. iii. 24. brought men to Christ. These means as evidences of the truth of our religion, do their part in confirming those who have embraced Christianity, or convincing those who are impartially examining its evidences prior to receiving it. So far it may be said to bring us to Christ. More than this has been advanced by several divines both in their commentaries and sermons. Their opinions and the reasons of them, could not have been considered independently of the proof of those other opinions, which have been advanced in the course of this Essay. The opinions are incompatible with each other. To affirm that they are not, would be to affirm that Christians are and are not under the obligation of the Law of Moses, or the law of perfect obedience, called also, and in a stricter sense, the Covenant of Works, and Moral Law. "Ye are not under the law, but under grace."

APPENDIX.

CHRISTIANS NOT UNDER THE LAW

BUT UNDER CHRIST.

I. THE term Law is in Scripture applied to three states in which mankind, or a portion of mankind, have been, or are placed by the divine appointment; and these three states are the Adamic dispensation, the Mosaic, and the Christian: or it is applied to the laws in which the subjects of these three states or dispensations are held, the Moral law, the Mosaic, and the Christian.

The Moral law, the law of works, or the covenant of works, is "that empire and dominion which God exercised over man, using his utmost right, and obliging man to the rigorous observation of all that law he should impose upon him. And in this sense, it was a law of death not of life, for no man could keep it, and they that did not, might not live. This was imposed on Adam only1.”

"God was not unjust

1 Bp. Taylor's Unum Necessarium, c. 1. sect. 4. for beginning his intercouse with mankind by the covenant of works, for these reasons. I. Because man had strength enough to do it, until he lessened his own abilities. II. The covenant of works was, at first, instanced in a small commandment: in abstaining from the fruit of one tree, when he had by him very many others for his use and pleasure. III. It was necessary that the covenant of works should begin for the covenant of faith and repentance could not be at first: there was no need of it, no opportunity for it; it must suppose a defailance, or an infirmity, as physic supposes sickness and mortality. IV. God never exacted the obedience of man by strict measures, by the severity of the first covenant after Adam's fall but men were saved then as now; they were admitted to repentance, and justified by faith and the works of faith." Bp. Taylor's Necessity of Repentance, Vol. VII. p. 263,

The law of Moses has been divided into moral, ceremonial, and political, but the moral and ceremonial are only parts of the political; whence it follows that the law was a political and not strictly a religious and eternal institution. It places all the external actions of religion as well as moral duties, under the sanction of temporal rewards and punishments. For by these, the law being itself part of a theocracy, was vindicated and enforced.

Men could not expect justification from either of these laws.

Yet the Jews are said to have expected justification by the latter, because they imagined that obedience to the ceremonial as well as moral part of it was requisite in order to salvation; and this notion they founded on a prejudice and misconception with respect to the law, supposing it to be by the doctrine of their Scriptures eternal, and as an ordinance of God, unchangeable.

The Epistle to the Galatians is directed to the confutation of these errors.

The law of Christ is that rule of life to which every one must conform, who will be accepted of God as righteous. This is not a dispensation of law or justification by law, because upon obedience to this law men are accepted as righteous, but not in the same manner as if they were absolutely and not comparatively righteous.

For it has been shewn that the forgiveness of sin is included in the act of justification, as that act is administered in conformity with the law of Christ. But the forgiveness of sin is an act of grace, and this law which is therefore a gracious law, is given under a dispensation of grace, and not under a dispensation of law.

It is further a dispensation of grace, because we are placed in it by the unmerited goodness of God; and that not for our own deservings, but only through the obedience

and mediation of Jesus Christ, who by his death procured the gift of repentance for the whole world2.

To such a method of salvation being consistent with a dispensation of grace, there are two sorts of objectors; the one maintain that by such a system as that which has been described, the grace of God is purchased by Jesus Christ; the other, that according to this system it is purchased by men.

The first class of objectors rest their opinion upon nothing but an arbitrary limitation of the language of the Old Testament to a sense which is at variance with the plainest narratives, institutions and precepts contained in it.

Adam was not re-admitted into Paradise by repentance. No such hope was extended to him. A promised deliverer was to be the medium through which the effects of our first father's disobedience were to be removed. Whence it appears that he was not promised an entrance into another and more glorious paradise merely upon the condition of his repentance3.

Sacrifices were to his posterity if not to him the symbols of faith and the pledges of the divine favor. Those of Noah and Job were intercessory and mediatorial, and for their sakes men were blessed. Moses prayed for the Israelites, and they prevailed over the Amalekites. Aaron with his censer stood between the judge and the offending multitude*. God willing to forgive sin and release his creatures from its consequences, did not in these instances proceed to pardon upon their individual faith and penitence, but honoured the righteousness of good men by making them the instruments of his mercy. Analogous to these examples was the mediation of Jesus Christ, the voluntary obedience

2 Clem. Rom. Ep. ad Corinth.

3 See Dr. Turner's Boyle Lectures.

4 Exod. xvii. 11. Numb. xvi. 46-50. Psal. cvi. 23. Ezek. xiv. 14.