or to bear fome refemblance to him and his religion, and therefore the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews calls them "a "shadow of good things to come." Heb.

X. I.

On the other hand, it may be obferved, that the author of this epiftle perhaps only intended to draw a comparifon between the Hebrew ritual, and fuch particulars in the christian fyftem as moft nearly resemble it, only as other comparifons and figures are ufed, merely for illuftration, without fuppofing that there was originally, and in the divine mind, a reference from the one to the other. Thus when the apostle Paul fays, 1 Cor. x. 2. that the Ifraelites were "all baptized to Mofes in the cloud, and "in the fea," he can hardly be fuppofed to have meant, that the fprinkling of the water upon that people, or their being, as it were, plunged in it, by the water rifing over their heads, was a proper type of baptifm; but only, that by a common figure of speech, it might be fo termed; or that the rock which

fupplied

fupplied them with water was really Christ, as the fame apostle calls it, 1 Cor. x. 4. or a type of Chrift, but only that, in fome refpects, it might be compared to him, or he to it.

In fome cafes alfo, it is very poffible, that the apoftles and evangelifts might imagine there was a reference to Chrift, when no fuch thing was originally intended.

It is very remarkable, that when the facrifices under the law are fpoken of in the Old Teftament, as infufficient to render the offerer acceptable to God, there is never the most diftant allufion to any more perfect facrifice, to which they are commonly fuppofed to have referred, and of which they are faid to have been the types, but to good works only, which are always mentioned in oppofition to them. Thus David fays, Pf. li. 16. "Thou defireft not facri

fice, else would I give it: thou delightest "not in burnt-offering. The facrifices of "God are a broken fpirit: a broken and a

" contrite

"contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not

defpife." Now it can hardly be fuppofed but that, if facrifices had really been defigned for types, there would have been, in fome place or other, a reference, more or less plain, to the thing which they were intended to prefigure, and from their relation to which they derived all their efficacy.

Laftly, feveral of the Hebrew customs were intended to commemorate remarkable occurrences in their hiftory, especially fuch as led them to recollect and reflect upon the divine interpofitions in their favour. Thus, the paffover was inftituted in commemoration of the deftroying angel having paffed over the houses of the Ifraelites, when he killed the firft-born in every family of the Egyptians; the feaft of Pentecoft was a memorial of the giving of the law on mount Sinai; and the feaft of Tabernacles, of their

This particular paffage is differently rendered in the Seventy, and by this means probably the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. x. came to give a different turn to it. See, however, the following paffages, which exprefs the fame fentiment with this. If. i. 10.-lxvi. 2. &c. Jer. vi. 8. &c. Amos V. 21. &c. Micah vi. 6. &c.

refiding

refiding many years in the wilderness, when they lived in tents, and were fed with manna from heaven. Also the rite of circumcifion was inftituted as a token and pledge of the covenant which God made with Abraham, or of the promise that he would give him the land of Canaan.

It is not easy to fay how far, and in what refpects, the Jewish difpenfation was intended to be abrogated by christianity. Chrift himself gave no hint of any fuch defign, except it be implied in his faying, Matt. v. 18. that "one tittle fhall in no wife

pafs from the law, till all be fulfilled;" or in his difcourfe with the woman of Samaria, John iv. 21. "The hour cometh, "when ye fhall neither in this mountain,

nor yet at Jerufalem, worship the Father. "But the hour cometh, and now is, when "the true worshippers fhall worship the "Father in spirit and in truth.”

And though the apostle Paul, in his Epiftle to the Romans, ch. vii. argues, in a figurative manner, that the Jews were become "dead

"dead to the law by the body of Chrift, "that they might be married to another," yet it appears from the book of Acts, that he himself strictly conformed to the templeservice, as all other Jewish chriftians did, after the refurrection and afcenfion of Christ. Paul did not only himself "walk

orderly, and keep the law." Acts xxi. 24. but caufed Timothy to be circumcifed upon his converfion to chriftianity, because his mother was a Jewess, though his father was a Greek. Acts xvi. 1.

With refpect to meats, the divine being feems to have intimated to Peter, that the diftinction between clean and unclean was abolished. For by the vifion of the fheet let down from heaven, Acts x. 11. and the command, " Rife, Peter, kill and eat," it feems to have been intended to intimate, not only that no nation or people were unclean in the fight of God, but that thofe kinds of food which the Jews had been taught to confider as unclean, were now no longer fo. We also find that Peter himself, when he was among the Gentiles, at Antioch, VOL. II.

"lived