2 Cor. 4. 17. That "our light afflictions which are but for a moment, work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." To consider this life as the passage to another that is as durable as eternity, and as blessed as the enjoyment of God can make it; that the present miseries have a final respect to future happiness, will change our opinion about them, and render them not only tolerable, but so far amiable as they are instrumental and preparatory for it. If the bloody, as well as the milky way, leads to God's throne, a christian willingly walks in it. In short, a lively hope accompanies a christian to his last expiring breath, till it is consummated in celestial fruition. So that death itself, the universal terror of mankind, is made desirable as an entrance into immortality, and the first day of our triumph. Thus I have considered some particular precepts of Christ, which are of the greatest use for the government of our hearts and lives; and the reasons upon which they are grounded to make them effectual. Now to discover more fully the completeness of the evangelical rule, I will consider it with respect to the law of Moses, and the philosophy of the heathens.

CHAP. XVII.

The perfection of Christ's laws appears by comparing them with the precepts of Moses. The temple-service was managed with pomp suitable to the disposition of the Jews, and the dispensation of the law. The christian service is pure and spiritual. The levitical ceremonies and ornaments are excluded from it, not only as unnecessary, but inconsistent with its spirituality. The obligation to the rituals of Moses is abolished, to introduce real righteousness. The indulgence of polygamy and divorce is taken away by Christ, and marriage restored to its primitive purity. He cleared the law from the darkening glosses of the pharisees: and enforced it by new obligations. The law of Christ exceeds the rules which the highest masters of morality in the school of nature ever prescribed. Philosophy is defective as to piety, and in several things contrary to it. Philosophers delivered unworthy conceptions of God. Philosophy doth not enjoin the love of God, which is the first and great command of the natural law, Philosophers lay down the servile maxim, to comply with the common idolatry. They arrogated to themselves the praise of their virtue and happiness. Philosophy doth not propound the glory of God for the supreme end of all human actions. Philosophy is defective as to the duties respecting ourselves and others. It allows the first sinful motions of the lower appetites. The Stoics renounce the passions. Philosophy insufficient to form the soul to patience and content under afflictions; and to support in the hour of death. A reflection upon some immoral maxims of the several sects of philosophers.

THE perfections of the laws of Christ will further appear, by comparing them with the precepts of Moses, and with the rules which the highest masters of morality in the school of nature have prescribed for the directing of our lives.

I. The gospel exceeds the Mosaical institution.

1. In ordaining a service that is pure, spiritual, and divine, consisting in the contemplation, love and praises of God, such as holy angels perform above. The temple-service was managed with pomp and external magnificence, suitable to the disposition of that people and the dispensation of the law. The church was then "in its infant-sate, as St. Paul expresses it: and that age is more wrought on by sense than reason: for such is the subordination of our faculties, that the vegetative acts, then the sensitive, then the rational, as the organs appointed for its use acquire

perfection. The knowledge of the Jews was obscure and imperfect, and the external part of their religion was ordered in such a manner, that the senses were much affected. Their lights, perfumes, music and sacrifices were the proper entertainment of their external faculties. Besides, being encompassed with nations whose service to their idols was full of ceremonies, to render the temptation ineffectual, and take off from the efficacy of those allurements which might seduce them to the imitation of idolatry, God ordained his service to be performed with great splendour. Add further, the dispensation of the law was typical and mysterious, representing by visible material objects, and their power to ravish the senses, spiritual things, and their efficacy to work upon the soul. But our Redeemer hath rent the veil, and brought forth heavenly things into a full day, and the clearest evidence. Whereas Moses was very exact in describing the numerous ceremonies of the Jewish religion, the quality of their sacrifices, the place, the persons by whom they must be prepared and presented to the Lord: we are now commanded to draw near to God with "cleansed hands and purified hearts, and that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting." Every place is a temple, and every christian a priest, to offer up spiritual incense to God. The most of the levitical ceremonies and ornaments are excluded from the chrisian service, not only as unnecessary but inconsistent with its spiritualness: as paint, they corrupt the native beauty of religion. The apostle tells us, that human eloquence was not used in the first preaching of the gospel, lest it should render the truth of it uncertain, and rob the cross of Christ of its glory in converting the world: for there might be some pretence to imagine, that it was not the supernatural virtue of the doctrine, and the efficacy of its reasons, but the artifice of orators that overcame the spirits of men. So, if the service of the gospel were made so pompous, the worshippers would be inclined to believe, that the external part was the most principal, and to content themselves in that without the aims and affections of the soul, which are the life of all our services. Besides, upon another account outward pomp in religion is apter to quench than inflame devotion: for we are so compounded of flesh and spirit, that when the corporeal faculties are vehemently affected with their objects, it is very hard for the spiritual to act with equal vigour; there being such commerce be

tween the fancy and the outward senses, that they are never exercised in the reception of their objects, but the imagination is drawn that way, and cannot present to the mind distinctly and with the calmness that is requisite, those things on which our thoughts should be fixed. But when those diverting objects are removed, the soul directly ascends to God, and looks on him as the searcher and judge of the heart; and worships him proportionably to his perfections. That this was the design of Christ, appears particularly in the institution of the sacraments, which he ordained in a merciful condescension to our present state: for there is a natural desire in us to have pledges of things promised; therefore he was pleased to add to the declaration of his will in the gospel the sacraments, as confirming seals of his love; by which the application of his benefits is more special, and the representation more lively, than that which is merely by the word. But they are few in number, only baptism and the Lord's supper, simple in their nature, and easy in their signification, most fit to relieve our infirmities, and to raise our souls to heavenly things. Briefly, the service of the gospel is answerable to the excellent light of knowledge shed abroad in the hearts of christians.

2. Our Redeemer hath abolished all obligation to the other rituals of Moses, to introduce that real righteousness which was signified by them. The "carnal commandments" given to the Jews, are called "statutes that were not good," Ezek. 20. 25. either in respect of their matter, not being perfective of the human nature; or their effect, for they brought death to the disobedient, not life to the obedient: the most strict observation of them did not make the performers either better, or happy. But christians are "dead to these elements," Col. 2. that is, perfectly freed from subjection to them. "The kingdom of God consists not in meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; for he that in these things serves Christ, is acceptable to God, and approved of men." Rom. 14. 17, 18. We are commanded "to purge out the old leaven of malice and wickedness," that sours and swells the mind, and "to keep the feast" with the "unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We are obliged to preserve ourselves undefiled from the moral imperfections, the vices and passions, which were represented by the natural qualities of those creatures which were forbidden to the

Jews, and to purify the heart instead of the frequent washings under the law. But the gospel frees us from the intolerable yoke of the legal abstinences. Observations and disciplines, the amusements of low and servile spirits, wherewith they would compensate their defects in real holiness, and exchange the substance of religion for the shadow and colours of it. For this reason the apostle is severe against those, who would join the fringes of Moses to the robe of Christ.

3. The indulgence of polygamy and divorce that was granted to the Jews, is taken away by Christ, and marriage restored to the purity of its first institution. The permission of these was by a political law, and the effect was temporal impunity. For God is to be considered not only in the relation of a creator and universal governor, that gave laws to regulate conscience; but in a special relation to the Jews as their king by covenant. Besides his general right and dominion, he had a peculiar sovereignty over them. And as in a civil state a prudent governor permits a less evil for the prevention of a greater, without an approbation of it; so God was pleased in his wisdom to tolerate those things, in condescension to their carnal and perverse humours, Mal. 2. 14, 15. " for the hardness of their hearts," Mat. 19. 8. lest worse inconvenience should follow. But our Saviour reduces marriage to the sanctity of its original, when man was formed according to the image of God's holiness: Mat, 19. 4, 5, 6." He that made them at the beginning, made them male and female: for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." From the unity of the person, that one male was made and one female, it follows that the super-inducing of another into the marriage-bed is against the first institution. And the union that is between them not being only civil in a consent of wills, but natural by the joining of two bodies, something natural must intervene to dissolve it, viz. the adultery of one party. Excepting that case, our Saviour severely forbids the putting the wife away and marrying another, as a violation of conjugal ho

nour.

4. Our Redeemer hath improved the obligations of the moral law, by a clearer discovery of the purity and extent of its precepts, and by a peculiar and powerful enforcement. In his ser