which becomes man's circumstances as a sinner, and which in these will be acceptable to his merciful and pardoning Sovereign. It is also deficient in regard to the peculiar nature of that pure and spiritual worship which is both worthy of the Deity, and most conducive to the moral regeneration of the worshipper himself. It leaves a future state on the uncertain basis of probability alone, and even though it should be firmly believed, brings no certainty of its becoming, to any of the human race, degenerate and offending as they all are, a state of consummate and endless felicity. It prescribes and declares a law, which none are, or ever have been, since the fall of the first human pair, completely able to obey. It promises to innocence all the happiness of which human nature in its uncorrupted state is susceptible, and denounces the unavoidable condemnation of failure. It condemns, but it cannot save. It will be seen that false religions have attempted to supply this defect by various means of expiation. But all human inventions for this purpose, instead of being effectual, have only tended to aggravate man's guilt and misery. Divine revelation alone could make this grand discovery. Judaism opened its dawn; Christianity poured forth its meridian day.

It is thus that natural religion leads duly to appreciate the infinite blessings of the gospel, and to understand, and to contemplate with the

most profound admiration and enlightened gratitude, the vast and beneficent plan of the divine economy for the present comfort and eternal salvation of man. To this his moral regeneration was indispensably necessary, because without it he must ever remain unsusceptible of that felicity for which his nature is formed; and to this it will be found that all the different parts of the Christian dispensation ultimately conspire.

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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

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 circunstances, and to the people for whom he legislated. Neither had he in view a religion which was to extend to all nàtions 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.