The Ceremonial Law might justly be abrogated because though it were given by God himself yet God always put a vast difference between an exactness in that and an exact obedience to the Moral and perpetually obliging Law now the Difference between them must lye as in their different Relation the last to the Soul the former to the Body so in that that One was of its own Nature mutable the other was not so It was indispensibly necessary that all those who hoped to live in God's Holy Hill should walk uprightly Psal 15. per totum and work righteousness and speak the Truth in their hearts that they should no way injure their neighbours that they should be faithful merciful kind c. but it was not indispensibly necessary that they should be circumcised for Adam Seth Noah Enoch were not circumcised yet Enoch in particular is observed to have walked with God and to have been translated by God and Noah was the onely Man found righteous by God in the whole Antediluvian World It was not necessary that they should All eat of the Paschal Lamb for Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph and the rest of the Jewish Patriarchs were wholly strangers to that Solemnity but it was absolutely necessary all Men should live in exact Obedience to the Law of Vncorrupted Nature and should be ready to submit themselves to whatsoever should be reveal'd by Almighty God as his will and it was absolutely necessary that all Men under a clear sense of their own Inability to do their own Duties should have respect to some Powerful Mediator between themselves and God and some effectual Satisfaction to be made the Laws of God on account of that deficiency of theirs that consquently there should be some Sacrifice offer'd to Almighty God of a Real and Intrinsic Worth which might have power to atone in earnest for Sin and this necessity the generality of Mankind might learn as well from those many bloody Sacrifices they were wont to offer as propitiatory to Heaven as the Jews could from their Paschal Lamb. It was a Duty not to be intermitted that Men should be very careful of and very charitable to the Poor that they should make a Provision for them proportionable to their Necessities the Rich so proving themselves careful Stewards of that Good which God had bestow'd upon them and ready to distribute it among their Fellow-Creatures yet all were not tyed just to Jewish Rules Lev. 19.9.23.22 to leave the corners of their fields unmown to leave a considerable gleaning on their vines and olives and fig-trees to leave the forgotten handfuls in the field c. So it was an universal Task to follow Judgment Mercy and Faith which by our Saviour are call'd the weightier things not of the Ceremonial Law but of the Moral Law though all were not bound to pay their particular Tyths of Mint Anise and Cummin or of every little Plant which grew upon their ground though paying the Tenths of Mens general Increase for the Sustenance of their Priests has been sufficiently prov'd by Learned Men to have been an acknowledged Duty in most if not in all Nations long before the Mosaic Institution but it 's needless to run out into any more Instances of this kind But meer Reason it self will teach us how light and inconsiderable Ceremonies are when they stand in competition with the Essentials of Religion how convenient or useful soever they may otherwise be for besides that as Religious Services Publick and Solemn cannot be performed without some Ceremonies let Men aim at what Simplicity they please so there may be Variety of them invented and used yet very proper to express one and the same thing as the Turks express their respects to Divine Services among them by pulling off their Shoes where we mean the same Reverence by uncovering our Heads but there can be but one Course and Method of true Practical Piety concerning all Men and at all times the doing all the good and avoiding all the evil possible being that general Course or Method So it 's farther to be consider'd that if Ceremony stood on any equal ground with inward Holiness the best bred and the richest Men must needs if they pleas'd be the greatest Saints for good â—reeding and Gentile Education will enable a Man to make his Addresses to Heaven in the most taking and humble ways a Man so accomplisht knows best how to express an outward Reverence and Humility how to speak in the most proper Words and to accompany those Words with the most decent Gestures and the most melting Accents He knows how in common Transactions with Men to set off a little Good with a great deal of Gaiety and Lustre and to manage those Interests with a few soft and obliging but meer empty Words which others less debonair know not how to advance with a plain unadorned Charity and Liberality at this rate if Goodness must not be accounted for by inward Sincerity the gayest Show must unquestionably make the best Man Again if outward Ceremony and Circumstance were available the Man of mighty Wealth would be able to purchase the Friendship of Heaven since he could load the Altars with such multitudes of Sacrifices as Men of meaner Fortunes must never pretend to the Gentiles often had their Hecatombs their Sacrifices of an hundred Oxen offer'd to their Gods at once and it was observ'd by the more sagacious Pagans That the worst of Tyrants and of Men were always the most profuse in their Offerings to their Gods Hence Ammianus Marcellinus though no Enemy to his Religion observes of Julian the Apostate that before his fatal Expedition against the Persians Hostiarum sanguine plurimo Aras crebritate nimia perfundebat tauros aliquando immolando centenos innumeros varii pecoris greges avésque candidas terrâ quaesitas mari He washed the Altars with the blood of too many Sacrifices offering sometimes an hundred Bulls at once and innumerable Flocks of several sorts of Cattel and white Birds brought from every quarter both by Sea and Land insomuch that the same Authour one of his own Souldiers adds that his Army was meerly debauch'd by their constant participation of such numerous Victims and withal Quod augebantur Caeremoniarum ritus immodicè Ammian Marc. Hist l. 22. c. 12. p. 327. 8. Edit Valesian cum impensarum amplitudine adhuc inusitatâ ac gravi That the Ceremonial Rites of their Religion were encreas'd without Measure with such an extraordinary Expence as was very burdensome and to that time unusual And it 's observed elsewhere by that same Author That had he returned safe from that Persian Expedition and continued his Sacrifices at the same rate he would scarce have left oxen enough to have supplied the necessities of the Roman Empire But we can scarce allow that wretched Apostate to be the better Man for that immoderate Profusion Offering Sacrifices to God was the plea which Saul make for himself to Samuel
by the commands of God i.e. by Worshipping him according to his prescriptions and we cannot come to know the commands of God but by Prophecy or Revelation Or we may rest in the Apostles definition that true Religion is the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness in hopes of eternal life Tit. 1.1 2. But if we respect Religion in general as taken up by all Nations we may describe it as The method of worshipping God by all men suitably to those notions they had of him and of their own duties As for the Jewish Nation they were once the sole professors of true Religion and for the hardness of their hearts were loaded with abundance of Ceremonial institutions but yet in the law of Moses and in the Prophets we find sincere and hearty obedience to the moral Law very much urged and insisted upon as the best evidence of true and unfeigned piety and where God expostulates sharply with his people for their rebellion and disobedience He tells them plainly Ps 50.8 9 13 16 17 23. I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices or thy burnt offerings to have been continually before me I will take no bullock out of thy house nor he-goat out of thy fold Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats No these things God could pardon But unto the wicked God says what hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my covenant into thy mouth the reason of the expostulation follows thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee by which words the great folly of those is exprest who pretend themselves the servants of God and instruments of his glory and yet live disagreeably to their profession wherefore it 's added Who so offereth praise glorifieth me and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God Thus again God by the Prophet Samuel argues with Saul 1 Sam. 15.22 Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams So the Prophet Isaiah Isa 1.11 13 16 17 18. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats Bring no more vain oblations incense is an abomination to me it follows wash ye make ye clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge the fatherless plead for the widows Well what should be the effect of all this reformation as much as a wretched sinner could hope for from the most benign Being Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord tho' your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow tho' they be red like crimson they shall be as wool So the Prophet Micah Micah 6.6 7 8. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings with calves of a year old will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oyl shall I give my first-born for my transgression or the fruit of my Body for the sin of my soul No God requires not these things at our hands but He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Nay Solomon himself who was so personally profuse in his offerings that a man would have suspected he had fixt the whole substance of Religion in such exterior services when he comes to draw up what was incumbent upon Man in a few words passes sacrificing by as inconsiderable in respect of this sincere obedience Eccl. 12.13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of man Thus far the writings of the Old Testament receiv'd by the ancient Jews shew us the ends of Religion viz. That where it really had a place it necessarily produc'd purity and sincerity of mind without which no sacrifice tho' never so costly could be accepted with God David teaches us the lesson plainly Ps 51.6 7 10 19. Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom purge me with hysop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me and much more to the same purpose then he concludes all Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness with burnt offering and whole burnt-offering then shall they offer bullocks upon thine Altar But since the Jews are for the most part hardned against their own greatest interest and so may be thought to have now changed their minds being known for such bigotted ceremonialists I shall add the confessions of one or two modern Jews So Rabbi Isaac Sangar in the book Cosri before cited Cosri pars 3. p. 157. for thus he tells the King he converses with A holy and pious man is not the rigid man for every ceremonial punctilio but he who where he dwells with a prudent and impartial hand gives every one their right who loves justice oppresses none defrauds none nor bribes any to be his slaves or tools upon occasion Again Because the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth therefore the holy man neither does nor speaks nor thinks any thing but he believes the all-seeing eye of God to be upon him ready not only to reward for what 's well but for what 's ill done too and to visit for every perverse and wicked word or action p. 168. c. To him I shall add Rabbi Moises ben Maimon who in his More Nevochim More Nevoehim pars 3. c. 28. p. 419. or explainer of difficulties teaches us that every precept of God whether it be affirmative or negative aims at these things first that it may take away all violence from among men and beget good manners necessary for the conservation of political Societies and secondly that it may instil true principles of faith such as are in their own nature necessary to be known for the expelling of wickedness and encouraging honesty and virtue Now if these sober and necessary virtues which are of no value if not sincere be the ultimate intention of all God's Laws it follows that those virtues are more accounted of with God which are inward and affect the Soul than all outward performances how pompous soever as much as the end of a thing is more excellent than the means conducing to it The Son of Sirach agrees admirably with this truth He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten Eccl. 34.18 19.
own Disciples and Followers how much more was required at their hands than what the strictest Zealots among the Jews thought themselves obliged to to convince them that it not onely reach'd the outward Man and so might be slighted by evasive subtilties but it was to engage all the inward affections of the Soul and so must necessarily exclude all collusion and Hypocrisy this method our Lord follow'd in that admirable Sermon upon the Mount wherein He cancell'd no part of that Law given to the Jews of old but commented upon it And so the Apostle St. Paul acted with relation to the Gentiles and therefore when he was at Athens though his Spirit was stirr'd up in him mov'd equally with grief and anger to see that populous City so wholly given to Idolatry yet He fell not immediately to the reproaching of their Religion nor to the taking it away both root and branch but he took an happy occasion from that Inscription upon one of their Altars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the unknown God to assure them that he preach'd no other God to them but him whom they ignorantly worship'd He being that God who made the World and all things therein Acts 17.23 24. and therefore could not be confin'd to Temples made with hands Thus from the beginning of the World Religion as to its Essence has been immutable what was fixt in Man by nature so long as Nature is must be the same too God planted in man his own fear and whatsoever tended to the promotion of that and an earnest desire of self-preservation with respect to this and to a future life whatsoever byasses men now to a wretched slavish fear onely of Divine displeasure and makes them therefore rather avoid evil than do good And whatsoever engages men in unlawful ways of securing themselves from any apparent danger all that arises from those corruptions nature at present is embarrassed with these things are to be mended but God is still to be fear'd and Men shall still get a good name by doing real good unto themselves Obedience was the great first end of every Law and a Law was given our first Parent to put him upon a tryal of original prudence which could never put him upon any thing but what was excellent when prudence seem'd drowsie sin crept upon him and ruin'd him and his prosperity but because Man sinned God did not therefore change the nature of his commands but he explain'd and improv'd them by adding particulars coincident with them he supply'd the defects of reason impair'd and reveal'd those things at which it might have stumbled beyond recovery Noah and his Sons had not a new Law but the same again illustrated farther and more clear'd up by additional revelation to supply the greater decays of humane abilities Nor did God change his mind when he chose the Seed of Abraham from the rest of Mankind or give Israel any new Laws essential to Religion for Circumcision and the Paschal Feast were not of the essence of it at all since Man might have kept all the moral Law without ever participating in either The rest of the ceremonial and political injunctions were necessary to the Jews necessitate praecepti as they were commanded by a God infinitely powerful and wise and who could enjoyn them nothing that was unfit or unjust but the moral Law which was the Law of nature and obliged all Mankind as well as the Nation of the Jews was necessary necessitate Medii as an absolute and indispensible means of salvation or as containing such duties and forbidding such sins as without an exact care in each of which it was impossible for any man living to be saved and whereas the circumstantial Laws of the Jews were such as had no intimate connexion with or dependance upon one another all the parts of the Moral and perpetually obliging Law are of so close an alliance and in their execution so inseparable one from another that as S. James says James 2.10 Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all for the whole sum of the Law being comprehended in those few words Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thy self If therefore any man bow to an Idol or worship more Gods than one or profane the name of the true God or be guilty of perjury or refuse to devote one day in seven to the worship and service of God by any of these sins he proves he does not love the true God so entirely as he ought And again He that dishonours or rebels against his parents natural spiritual or civil or that commits murder with his hand or in his heart or that submits to the enticements of lust or that defrauds and purloins from another or that by falshood endeavours to prejudice the life or estate or reputation of others or who indulges himself in covetousness or gives way to the first motions of the heart that encline to envy Whosoever sins in any one of these particulars tho' at the sametime he be a rigid observer of all the rest cannot be said to love his neighbour as himself since he would not be willing either that by himself or by any other any injury of what kind soever should be done to him and how much more essential to the body of Religion the Jews thought these perpetual Laws than their own Ceremonial Institutions is plain from their practice since they as much as possible hinder'd all meer Heathens from co-habiting with them and yet admitted those whom they called Proselytes of the gate upon their renouncing a plurality of Gods and submitting to the seven precepts of the sons of Noah to the priviledge of performing their Devotions in the exterior Court of the Temple and kindly suppos'd them too capable of a portion in the world to come As God made no alteration in the natural Law by what he gave Israel by the hand of Moses so neither did he innovate any thing when he sent his only begotten Son into the world for it's Salvation the Law of Christ was the Law of Moses which was the Law of Noah which was the Law of Adam which was the Law of pure original Nature which was the Law of God as Moses was the Law-giver of the Jews so was the blessed Jesus the Law-giver of the Christians but if we look on them both as meer Men their legislative power was not original but as Stephen tells the Jews Acts 7.53 Numb 21.18 the Law was given them by the disposition of Angels Moses yet is called a Law-giver in the Song of the Israelites but it 's in the same sence as a Judge on the Bench who has no power to make any thing a Law of his own contrivance or by his own Authority God himself on whose services myriads of glorious Angels always attend
is a Law-giver as a King on his Throne who has no superiour and therefore what he there decrees has the force and sanction of a Law the Lord is our Judge Isa 33.22 says the Prophet the Lord is our Law-giver the Lord is our King he will save us As our Saviour was Man he too tho' superiour to Moses and peculiarly faithful in all the house of God had no authority to make alterations in that original Moral Law and as he was one with his Father and so conscious of every determination of his it was impossible he should vary from himself i. e. from his blessed Father or should openly in the world act as if it were possible any thing imperfect should come out of the hand of God Hence we rationally believe that if salvation be a thing really attainable it must be attained by the same means by all persons whether Jews or Gentiles Of the Patriarchs several have that testimony given of them in Scripture that they pleas'd God now there being no variableness nor shadow of turning with God but he the same yesterday to day and for ever whatsoever pleas'd God in those the same and nothing else can please him now And whereas our blessed Saviour in the days of his flesh made it his business to please his Almighty Father and did so by performing every punctilio of the Mosaic Law so we who are to follow his example must perform the same but whereas the very circumstantial appendages of a Law tho' nothing essential to it but the meer evidences of the Sovereignty of the Lawgiver are not yet to be cancell'd but by a power equal to that which gave them their first obliging authority therefore it was necessary that Jesus Christ in and by whom the ceremonial sanctions of Moses's Law were vacated should be God and so have the same original Divine Authority in himself and his fulfilling and re-confirming all the substantial parts of that Law made it yet the more publickly authentick and taught his followers to have their due respect to him which was due to both an Almighty Lawgiver and an infallible Interpreter And whereas that insupportable burden of Ceremonies is taken off from the necks of Christians it being laid upon the Jews partly for the hardness of their hearts and partly for to shadow out to them their expectations of a Messiah who being himself come in the flesh has now no need of types and shadows to prefigure him so the old Natural Law is urged upon them with the greatest strength and reason in the world and the force and intent of it is more clearly shew'd them from whence the Apostle S. John who tells those he writes to that he gave them no new commandment but the old which they had heard from the beginning yet in the very next verse subjoins 1 John 2.7 8. Again a new commandment I write unto you the substance of which is that you love one another this was an old commandment in that Nature injoyn'd it and it was co-incident with that Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self it was a new Commandment in that it was re-inforced and inculcated so very often by our Saviour in that He gave so many powerful reasons why his followers should practise it and yet the result of all amounts only to this that the design of Religion being to restore Nature to its first happiness and that being rationally concluded to be the best and purest Religion which has the greatest effects in that design if those who were his Disciples would but take care to evidence their Discipleship by that mutual love and endearing charity they would at the same time convince the world that the Lord whom they follow'd was truly authoriz'd by Heaven that the Doctrine which He preach'd was really agreeable to the Will of God and that Love being the first intention of pure and uncorrupted Nature That which raised and encouraged men most powerfully to it must needs be the most suitable to that original purity of Nature And hence it is that we observe many are prejudiced against Christianity by those cursed feuds and animosities to be found among Christians they having an eye generally to the restauration of Nature but quarrels and contentions being wholly barbarous brutish and unnatural hence it appears farther too that whereas the Apostle seems to distinguish between the Gospel and the Mosaic dispensation as if the first were the Law of Faith the last the Law of Works and that such a Law as by which Salvation could never be obtain'd The works the Apostle reflects on are not the duties of the moral Law but the Ceremonial punctilio's of the Levitical Law which as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews agreeably to what I asserted before assures us were not able to make any man perfect but for the Moral Law he 's so far from invalidating it that where ever he dehorts from any vices such as he calls the works of the flesh Gal. 5.19 24. which are these adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness idolatry witchcraft hatred variance emulations strife wrath seditions heresie envyings murders drunkenness revellings and such like of which he tells us that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God Again wheresoever he exhorts to any virtue such as Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance against which there is no Law Wheresoever he does thus He enforces the Moral Law with expressions as strong and reasons as weighty as the Holy Ghost could inspire him with and where the same Apostle assures us that in Jesus Christ neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision Gal. 5.6 he shews what works are excluded from any efficacy in our Salvation for Circumcision is put for the whole Ceremonial Law and where he adds that Faith working by Love is available he shews the inefficacy of all pretences to Faith without good works agreeing with S. James that Faith without works is dead James 2.26 and with his own severe reflection elsewhere upon those who profess they knew God while in their works they deny him Tit. 1.16 being abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate Since then it was the great end and design of the Gospel to confirm the Moral and eternal Law of God and so by just degrees to reduce fallen Man again to the rules of perfect reason to make him sensible of the noble nature and spiritual inclinations of the Heaven-born Soul that so he might the more fully apprehend how much below himself he falls in yielding himself a slave to Sin and how much he retrenches his own true liberty by that unbridled exorbitancy he aims at the Gospel being intended to set Man's natural misery in a true light and withal to shew the sole remedy for that misery in the undertakings of a Saviour It remains an inquiry still whether Man could in the state he is in at present arrive
worlds happiness which all the Witts in it could never have pitched upon There was not among the Jews the least garment belonging to those who officiated in holy services which had not something mysterious in it I own these Mysteries were not like those wherein our Faith is so deeply concern'd but they were Mysteries still tho' of a lower fourm and such Mysteries as the generality of the Jewish people were very far from diving into yet Reason would have gone a considerable way in teaching the Jews what God insinuated to them by such prescriptions All the circumstantials of Jewish worship were render'd the more considerable by those never-failing Oracles issued out from between the Cherubims and by Prophets raised up among them by God himself frequently till such time as they lost the glory of their Nation by Captivity and Slavery to prevailing strangers Those Revelations which such Prophets had extending particularly to future events of things were such as really entangled the Jews strangely and they who among Mysteries reveal'd had unhappily pitched upon a wrong interpretation of things were uncapable at last of applying events to Prophecies and so ruin'd It 's true the Priests themselves at first understood the meaning of things well enough but time corrupted them and introduced ignorance among them as well as among the vulgar but whatsoever the Priests understood at first or how much soever of the true meaning of things they understood at last they were yet not to cast pearles before swine nor holy things to dogs they were not to prostiture Mystical matters to every common enquirer tho' at the same time ready to teach Gods statutes and judgments to every one that humbly sought for information but as to the manner of God's delivering their Law to Moses in Horeb and his writing the Ten Commandments with the finger of God on the stone-Tables his guarding and directing them by a Cloud all day and by a pillar of Fire all night his Glory shining at particular times and on particular occasions in the Tabernacle of the Congregation his delivering his Will from the Mercy-Seat and being said to dwell peculiarly between the Cherubims his oracular resolution 〈◊〉 difficulties by Vrim and Thummim c. These were matters of so profound and inextricable a Nature that neither Priests nor people were ever able to give any considerable account of them If among the divine Institutions of the Jews there were so many matters of a mystical Nature it 's not to be wondred that Their Worship who had no assistance by divine Revelation should be more than ordinarily encumbred with them the Notions which the Gentile world had of a Deity tho' positive and uncontroulable enough were according to the means they had for acquiring divine Knowledge much more obscure than those of the Jews if yet they would have a shew of any Religion they were under a necessity of suiting it with some circumstantial rites which when they had try'd their utmost skill had a meaning but that meaning was very obscure We may believe that many of their Priests endeavour'd to make as deep impressions as they could of Religion upon the minds of those men they were concerned with but the greatest satisfaction they had in their own inventions was but this that the notorious obscurity of their publick Rites was very exactly representative of that God whom they acknowledged a Being infinite and incomprehensible and those things which were mysterious even in the sence of their first Inventors were much more so when they fell into the hands of their Successors who being blind Leaders of the blind all sence of true natural Divinity was quickly lost both among Priests and People thus we have reason to think the Hieroglyphical Theology of the Aegyptians was in a great measure rais'd from those hints they had taken of Man's duty to the World's Creator from their converse with the Jewish Patriarchs that the first contrivers of it were capable of making it considerably useful and instructive to the World and from thence those seeds of Moral Virtues which bore some fruit in ancient Heathens had their originals but when sloth and negligence took place among their degenerate posterity and the cruelty of Cambyses King of Persia destroy'd all the Priests of that Nation without distinction the whole body of their Divinity was lost some of its characters may be still remaining among old pillars or obelisks and other ruines of their ancient magnificence but as unintelligible to us as the Chinese writing is to a common labourer or the squaring of a Circle to one that never heard of Mathematicks All Men from the world's beginning acknowledged God's Vniversal Sovereignty by offering Sacrifices That Men offer'd Sacrifices and of living creatures too very early is apparent by the History of Cain and Abel Gen 3.1 2 3 4. where we are told that in process of time i.e. as soon as they were in a capacity of doing so Cain who was a tiller of the ground brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord and Abel who was a keeper of sheep brought of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof But that these were the first Sacrifices offer'd we have no reason to conclude since Adam had the same sence of things and the same motives to offer Sacrifices which They had and doubtless set them an example of so doing Eusebius of Caesarea tho' observed to be singular in the case gives much the best and most rational account of this Sacrifice I take says he the ground of this action not to have been meer chance or a device meerly humane but to have risen from a divine thought for whereas good Men who were illuminated with the divine spirit and lived in a near familiarity with God plainly saw there was a necessity of some extraordinary means for the expiation of damning sin they concluded it necessary to offer to God the giver of the Life and Soul something by way of a ransome or redemption price to procure their own Salvation and since they had nothing which they could offer to God better or more valuable than their Souls instead of them they Sacrificed beasts De Demonstr Evang l. 1. c. 10. so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 offering the Souls of others in lieu of their own and this was certainly the best Sacrifice and most significant of their apprehensions Where that reason given by Eusebius and made use of by Justin Martyr and the author of the Answer to the Orthodox printed among Justin's works and by St. Chrysostome and other ancient Christians and by Rabbi Moses ben Maimon and his followers among the Jews why Cain and Abel should pitch on offering Sacrifices and Abel particularly of living creatures viz. their wisdom and near converse with heaven suits yet more exactly with Adam himself who had converst with God in a state of perfection as well as imperfection And tho' we know the ruines of reason to