So that our Saviour makes the obfervation of moral duties to be the principal defign of the Jewish law, and as it were the foundation of it, and therefore he calls moral duties τὰ βαρύτερα το νόμο, the weightier matters of the law, Matth. xxiii. 23. But ye (fays he to the Scribes and Pharifees) have neglected the weightier things of the law, judgment, and mercy, and fidelity. The Scribes and Pharifees bufied themselves chiefly about ritual obfervances; but our Saviour tells them, that thofe other were the most confiderable and important duties of the law, and lay at the bottom of the Jewish religion. And much the fame enumeration the Prophet makes, where he compares facrifices and thefe moral duties together, Mic. vi. 6, 7, 8. Wherewith fhall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleafed with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my tranfgreffion, the fruit of my body for the fin of my foul? He hath fhewed 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? He had required facrifices, but had no regard to them in comparison with thefe.

II. No inftituted fervice of God, no pofitive part of religion whatfoever, was ever acceptable to God, when moral duties were neglected; nay, so far from being acceptable to him, that he rejects them with difdain and abhorrence. To this purpose there are almoft innumerable paffages in the prophets, Ifa. i. 11, &c. To what purpose is the multitude of your facrifices unto me, when ye come to appear before me? who hath required this at your hands, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incenfe is an abomination to me; the new moons and fabbaths, the calling of affemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the folemn meeting; and when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: When you make many prayers, I will not hear. What is the reafon of all this? because they were defective

in the moral duties of religion; fo it follows, your bands are full of blood; wash ye, make ye clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; ceafe to do evil, learn to do well; feek judgment, relieve the oppreffed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow; come now and let us reason together, faith the Lord; implying that till they had refpect to moral duties, all their external worship and facrifices fignified nothing. And fo likewife Ifa. lxvi. 3. he tells them that nothing could be more abominable than their facrifices, fo long as they allowed themselves in wicked practices, He that killeth an ox is as if he few a man; he that facrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered wines blood; and he that burneth incenfe, as if he bleffed an idol; yea, they have chofen their own ways, and their foul delighteth in their abominations. And to mention but one text more out of the Old Teftament, Jer. vii. 4, 5. Trust ye not in lying words, faying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are thefe. Throughly amend your ways and your doings, throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; opprefs not the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, and fhed not innocent blood. If they did not practife thefe duties, and forbear thofe fins, all the reverence for the temple, and the worship of God fignifies nothing. You fee in the Jewish religion what it was that was acceptable to God for itself and its own fake, viz. the practice of moral duties; and that all inftituted religion, that did not promote and further thefe, or was deftitute of them, was abominable to God. And under the Gofpel our Saviour prefers a moral duty before any gift we can offer to God, and will have it to take place, Matth. v. 23, 24. If thou bring thy gift unto the altar, and there remembereft that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

But it should feem by this, and what hath been faid before, that God prefers goodnefs and righteoufnefs to men, before his own worship: And obedience

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to the precepts of the fecond table, before obedience to thofe of the firft.

But this does but feem fo; all that can be collected from this paffage of our Saviour, or any thing that hath been already faid, are only thefe two things:

1. That God prefers the practice of the moral duties of the fecond table, before any inftituted worship, fuch as facrifice was; and before obedience to the laws of religion, which are merely pofitive, though they do immediately concern the worship of God.

2. That if we neglect the duties of the fecond table, of goodness and righteoufnefs towards men, God will not accept of our obedience to the precepts of the first, nor of any act of religious worship that we can perform. This our Saviour means when he fays, leave there thy gift before the altar, first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift; intimating, that fo long as we bear a revengeful mind towards our brethren, God will not accept of any gift or facrifice that we can offer to him; or indeed of any act of religious worship that we can perform.

Thirdly, The great defign of the Chriftian religion is to restore and reinforce the practice of the natural law, or, which is all one, of moral duties; and therefore our Saviour begins his firft fermon, by promifing bleffednefs to the practice of thefe duties; of purity, and meeknefs, and righteoufnefs and peaceablenefs, and mercifulness, and patience, and fubmiffion to the will of God under perfecutions and fufferings for righteoufnefs fake; and tells us (as I fhewed before) that he came not to release men from the practice of thefe duties, but to oblige them thereto more effectually; and that as thefe were the law and the Prophets, that is, the main duties and the foundation of the Jewish religion, fo were they much more to be fo of the Chriftian. This the fcriptures of the New Teftament do every where declare to be the great defign of the gofpel, and the Chriftian religion, to inftruct us in thefe duties, and to engage us effectually to the practice of them. In that known and excellent text, Tit. ii. 11, 12. The grace of God (which is in and by the doctrine of the gofpel) hath VOL. V.

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appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodlinefs and worldly lufts, we should live foberly, righteously, and godly in this prefent world. And herein St. James tells us, the true nature, and the force and virtue of the Chriftian religion doth confift, James i. 27. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to vifit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. And chap. iii. 17. The wisdom which is from above (that is, that heavenly and divine knowledge revealed to us by the Gofpel) hath thefe properties, and is apt to produce thefe effects, it is firft pure, and then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy, and of good fruits.

And the planting of thefe difpofitions in us is that which the fcripture calls the new creature, and the image of God, Eph. iv. 20, c. The Apoftle fpeaking there of the vices and lufts wherein the Gentiles lived, tells Chriftians that they were otherwise instructed by the gofpel; But you have not fo learned Chrift, if fo be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jefus, that ye put off concerning the former converfation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lufts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true bolinefs, or (as the words perhaps may be better rendered) in the holiness of truth; for it immediately follows, Wherefore, putting away lying, Speak every man truth with his neighbour.

And this is that which the Apostle elsewhere makes to be all in all in the Chriftian religion. In Chrift Jefus, neither circumcifion availeth any thing, nor uncircumcifion, but a new creature, Gal. vi. 15. Which the Apostle in the chapter before expreffeth thus, In Christ Jefus neither circumcifion availeth any thing, nor uncircumcifion, but faith which worketh (or is infpired) by charity. And yet more exprefly, 1 Cor. vii. 19. Circumcifion is nothing, and uncircumcifion is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. By the comparing of which texts, it appears, that the main thing in Chriftianity is the practice of moral

duties, and this is the new creature: and this is the proper effect of the Chriftian faith to produce these virtues in us. And indeed the great defign of the Christian religion, and every thing in it, of the love of God in giving his Son to die for us, of the pardon of our fins, and juftification in his blood, of all the promises and threatenings of the gofpel, and of the affiftance therein promifed, is to engage and encourage, and enable to the practice of moral duties.

And thus I have done with the first thing I propofed to fpeak to, namely, that natural religion is the foundation of inftituted and revealed religion; and all revealed religion does fuppofe it, and builds upon it. I proceed to the

Second, namely, That no revealed and inftituted religion was ever defigned to take away the obligation of natural duties, but was intended to confirm and establish them. And this alfo will be evident, if we confider these three things:

1. That all revealed religion calls men to the pra&tice of natural duties. This the Jewish religion did. The first laws which God gave them, and which he diftinguished from the reft, by writing them in tables of ftone with his own finger, were the precepts of the moral law. And the great bufinefs of the Prophets whom God raised up among them from time to time, was to reprove not fo much their defects in their facrifices, and in the duties of instituted wor fhip, as the breach of the natural law by their vices and immoralities; and to threaten them with the judgments of God, if they did not reform and amend their faults.

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And now under the gofpel, the preceptive part it is almoft wholly made up of moral duties, namely, thofe which are comprehended under thofe two great commandments, of the love of God, and our neighbour. In the Chriftian religion there is very little that is merely pofitive and inftituted, befides the two facraments, and praying to God in the name and mediation of Jefus Chrift.

2. The most perfect revelation that ever God made to mankind (I mean that of the Chriftian religion)

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