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FARTHER APPEAL

TO MEN OF

REASON AND RELIGION.

PART II.

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy Voice like a Trumpet, and shew my People their Transgression, and the House of Jacob their Sins. Isaiah Iviii. 1.

1. 1. IT is not my present design to touch on any particular opinions, whether they are right or wrong: nor on any of those smaller points of practice, which are variously held by men of different persuasions: but first, to point out some things which on common principles are condemned by men of every denomination, and yet found in all: and, secondly, some wherein those of each denomination, are more particularly inconsistent with their own principles. And, first, it is my design, abstracting from opinions of every kind, as well as from disputable points of practice, to mention such of those things as occur to my mind, which are on common principles condemned, and notwithstanding found, more or less, among men of every denomination.

2. But before I enter on this unpleasing task, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, by whatever love you bear to God, to your country, to your own souls; do not consider who speaks, but what is spoken. If it be possible, for one hour, lay prejudice aside; give what is advanced a fair hearing. Consider simply on each head, is this true, or is it false? Is it reasonable, or is it not? If you ask, "But

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in whose judgment? I answer, In your own; I appeal to the light of your own mind. Is there not a faithful witness in your own breast? By this you must stand or fall. You cannot be judged by another man's conscience. Judge for yourself by the best light you have. And the merciful God teach me and thee whatsoever we know not!

Now, as I speak chiefly to those who believe the Scriptures, the method I propose is this: First, to observe what account is given therein of the Jews, the ancient church of God, inasmuch as all these things were written for our instruction, who say, we are now the visible church of the God of Israel. Secondly, To appeal to all who profess to be members thereof, to every one who is called a Christian, How far, in each instance, the parallel holds? And how much we are better than they?

3. First, I am to observe what account the Scriptures give of the Jews, the ancient church of God. I mean, with regard to their moral character; their tempers and outward behaviour.

No sooner were they brought out of Egypt, than we find them murmuring against God, (Exod. xiv. 12.) Again, when he had just brought them through the Red Sea with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm, (c. xv. 24.) And yet again, quickly after, in the wilderness of Zin, "your murmurings (saith Moses) are not against us, but against the Lord," (c. xvi. 8.) Nay, even while he was giving them bread from heaven, they were still murmuring and tempting God, (c. xviii. 2, 3.) and their amazing language at that season was, Is the Lord among us, or not? (c. xvii. 4.) The same spirit they shewed, during the whole forty years that he bore their manners in the wilderness: a solemn testimony whereof, Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel, when God was about to take him away from their head: "They have corrupted themselves, (saith he,) their spot was not of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. The Lord led Jacob about; he instructed him; he kept him as the apple of his eye," (Deut. xxxii, 5, 10.) " He made him ride on the high places of the

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earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields: then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation,” (c. v. 11, 13, 15.) In like manner God complains long after this," Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people do not consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters, they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel," (Isa. i. 2, 3, 4.) "Can a maid forget her ornaments, and a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number," (Jer. ii. 32.)

4. And as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, so they had small regard to the ordinances of God. "Even from the days of your fathers, (said God by his prophets,) ye are gone away from my ordinances, and have not kept them," (Mal. iii. 7.) "Ye have said, It is in vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?" (v. 14.) "Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob, but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel: thou hast not brought me my burnt-offerings, neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices," (Isa. xliv. 22, 23.) And so the prophet himself confesses, "Thou meetest those that remember Thee in thy ways-But there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee," (Isa. lxiv. 5, 7.)

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6. But they called upon his name by vain oaths, by perjury and blasphemy. So Jeremiah, " Because of swearing the land mourneth," (c. xxiii. 10.) "And though they say, The Lord liveth, surely they swear falsely," (c. v. 2.) So Hosea, They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant." So Ezekiel, "They say the Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth." So Isaiah, “Their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory," (c. iii. 8.) They say, "Let him make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it,

and let the counsel of the Holy One draw nigh and come, that we may know it," (c. v. 19.) And so Malachi, "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words; ye say, every one that doeth evil, is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; and, where is the God of judgment?" c. ii. 17.

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6. And as they despised his holy things, so they profaned his sabbaths, (Ezek. xxii. 8.) Yea, when God sent unto them, saying, "Take heed unto yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers :— yet they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction,” (Jer. xvii. 21, 22, 23.) Neither did they honour their parents, or those whom God, from time to time, appointed to be rulers over them. "In thee (in Jerusalem, said the prophet) they have set light by father and mother," (Ezek. xxii. 7.) And from the very day when God brought them up out of the land of Egypt, their murmurings, chiding, rebellion, and disobedience, against those whom he had chosen to go before them, make the most considerable part of their history. So that had not Moses stood in the gap, he had even destroyed them from the face of the earth.

7. How much more did they afterwards provoke God, by drunkenness, sloth, and luxury! "They have erred thro' wine, (saith the prophet Isaiah,) and through strong drink they are gone out of the way;" (c. xxviii. 7.) which occasioned those vehement and repeated warnings, against that reigning sin; "Woe to the drunkards of Ephraim, them that are overcome with wine," (ver. 1.) "The drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under foot," (v. 3.) "Woe unto them that rise up early that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them.-But they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands," (c. v. 11, 12.) "Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink, (v. 22.) "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their

couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and their calves out of the midst of the stall, that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music,-that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph," (Amos vi. 1, 4, 5, 6.) "Behold, this (saith Ezekiel to Jerusalem) was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: fulness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters," c. xvi. 49.

8. From sloth and fulness of bread, lewdness naturally followed. It was even while Moses was with them, that the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab: yea, of the daughters of Zion, Isaiah complains, "they walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes," (c. iii. 16.) And of his people in general God complains by Jeremiah," When I had fed them to the full, they assembled themselves by troops in the harlot's house. They were as fed horses in the morning, every one neighed after his neighbour's wife," (c. v. 7, 8.) "They be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men," (c. ix. 2.) "The land is full of adulterers," (c. xxiii. 10.) Yea, and some of them were given up to unnatural lusts. Thus we read, Judges xix. 22, "The men of Gibeah beset the house, wherein the stranger was, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, saying, bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him." And there were also long after, Sodomites in the land, in the days of Rehoboam and of the following kings: "The very shew of whose countenance witnessed against them, and they declared their sin as Sodom, they hid it not," Isa. iii. 9.

9. This was accompanied with injustice in all its forms. Thus all the prophets testify against them, "The Lord looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry," (Isa. v. 7.) "Thou hast taken usury and increase; thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbour by extortion.-Behold, I have smitten my hand, at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made," (Ezek. xxii. 12, 13.) "The balances of deceit are in Jacob's hand; he loveth

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