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PART II.

OF JUDAISM-PAGANISM-MOHAMMEDISM.

THIS division of my work will exhibit a cursory view of the different established forms which religion has actually assumed, and under which, with the exception of Christianity, it has existed, and exists at present, in the world. These are Judaism, Paganism, and Mohammedism. This view will discover that, while moral obligation and a regard for human duty constituted the chief objects of the Jewish economy, they have never been entirely renounced or subverted by the most corrupt species of belief and worship. The reader will thus be prepared for the right apprehension of the Christian scheme, and led to perceive that it uniformly aims at the reformation of the human heart and character, and has alone prescribed the most effectual means of attaining this beatific and glorious result.

CHAP. I.

OF JUDAISM.

It has been objected to the Mosaic dispensation, that it is a rude, servile, and carnal economy, overwhelmed with a multiplicity of burdensome rites, employed in external purifications and ablutions, in distinctions of things legally clean and unclean, in numberless sacrifices and burnt offerings; in a word, consists in an onerous and severe ritual, which the apostle Peter justly denominates a "yoke which neither the Jews of his time nor their fathers were able to bear." The apostle Paul also terms this dispensation "the law of a carnal commandment," and asserts "that it stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation; that it could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." He calls the Levitical institutions "weak and beggarly elements,' ," and speaks with contempt even of circumcision, the grand seal of the Mosaical covenant. Similar expressions of disregard of the Jewish ceremonies are interspersed in different

d

a Acts xv. 10. b Heb. vii. 16.

C Gal. iv. 9. d Phil. iii. 2.

parts of his epistles. It is evident, however, that he employs these terms, not in an absolute but in a relative sense; partly in respect to the inferiority of the Jewish to the Christian dispensation, and partly in contempt of those who entertained gross and groveling conceptions of the Mosaical rites, and neglected the grand and primary scope and tendency of the dispensation which enjoined them.

In order to form a rational judgment of the Mosaical economy, several considerations deserve accurate attention. It is, first, to be observed that it rests on the same general foundations with every other salutary and just institution of religion; namely, on the law of nature, on the inherent and immutable principles of the human mind, and on the duties which man owes to his Creator, to those of his own species, and to his own rational nature. This vital substance of primitive religion is briefly and clearly contained in the decalogue. To this Moses subjoined all the ritual parts of his religion, and all his secondary institutions. Besides, he intended not to establish a perfect system, but one best adapted to times and circumstances, and to the people for whom he legislated. Neither had he in view a religion which was to extend to all nations of the earth, or to be of perpetual duration, but one suited to his own nation, and designed to continue only till the advent of the Messiah.

If these points are duly considered, instead of deeming any defence or exculpation necessary, in regard to this subject, we shall see great cause to admire this man truly great, this wise legislator, this illustrious prophet, invested by the Deity with such splendour of miraculous powers. He it was whom Egypt, the seat of learning, saw, with astonishment, triumphing over her magicians and hierophants. All nations have celebrated his name. He was, together with Elias, called down from heaven to witness the glorious transfiguration of the Son of God. Such is the praise justly due, such the honour appropriated to this distinguished lawgiver. His divine mission is clearly established; and to doubt, therefore, of the positive and relative excellence of his institutions, though the hand of time has shaded some of their more minute particulars, must be the effect either of ignorance or of presumption.

I have already observed that God intended not, by the ministration of Moses, to deliver a scheme of religion, either perfect in itself, or of universal obligation, or of perpetual continuance. He designed, by this intermediate economy, to prepare, for that last and perfect dispensation to be promulgated and established by the Messiah, the Jewish people, removed and separated from

a Matth. xyii. 2, 3.

heathen contamination; and, through them, the other nations of the world. Moses, directed and inspired by the all-wise and omnipotent Deity, saw idolatry, the bane of true piety and of all sound morals, spread nearly over the whole earth. His first object, therefore, was to eradicate and utterly destroy this prolific stem of all moral corruption.

Hence, that there is only one God, the Creator of heaven and of earth, is the fundamental principle of the Mosaical law. It was next injoined that this one true God, as being incorporeal and invisible, could be represented by no external form or similitude; and to worship him under such representation, was a crime strictly prohibited. In order to fence and guard this prohibition, and to secure against all enticement to violate it, Mosesa forbade the Jews the use of images and statues, not only in their religious services, but in the ordinary intercourse of life." He enacted many laws in regard to things indifferent in themselves, in the use or rejection of which no morality could naturally consist. In this his main object seems to have been to erect a wall of separation between his countrymen and the idolatrous nations that surrounded them, in order to guard them from the corruptions of

a Deut. xvi. 22; viii. 10; xxiii. 14.

b Vid. Selden de Jure Nat. et Gent. juxta disciplinam Hebræor. 1. ii. c. 6, p. 184.