fpifed as they deferve, philofophical morality is fet up in the place of gospel-holinefs, and mens own righteoufnefs in place of the righteousness of God, and the grace of God, on which only true and undefi-. led religion can fubfift. As it was then, fo it has continued ever fince, the most zealous contenders for these are most remifs in the weightier matters of the law.

So the Apostle fays it was then. The enormous zeal for the law of Mofes was no more but a fair fhew, to recommend themfelves to those who had the power in their hands, and could fcreen them from the perfecution which the honeft profeffors of Christianity were expofed to on account of the cross of Chrift. And that it was no more, he proves by an unquestionable evidence. Had they been fincere in their profeffion, their regard to the law would have engaged them to a thorough conformity to it in their practice: But that was not the cafe. They did not keep the law; but while they exerted fuch a flaming zeal for the external and circumftantial parts, they neglected the weightier and most fubftantial matters of the law, judgement, mercy, and faith, Matt, xxiii. 23.

What

What they aimed at was, to magnify their own importance, by the number of profelytes they had made; which the Apostle very justly calls boafting, or glorying in their flesh.

What the Apoftle fays of the cross of Chrift being the great object of the Jewish malice against Christianity, and the reafon of their perfecuting the profeffors of it, which yet he makes the fole fubject of his own boasting and glorying, vers. 14. needs to be carefully confidered; as by comparing these two different lights, we may be able to make out fome juft notion of the true meaning of that term the cross, among those who beft understood the genius and conftitution of the Chriftian religion in thofe early and pureft times, before the fimplicity and beauty of it was defaced by the inventions of men.

And here we may be very fure, that by the cross of Chrift, they did not mean the material cross upon which Chrift fuffered. It was certainly greatly below the Apoftle's good fenfe, to fay no more of him, to glory or boast in a piece of timber; nay, it was even below the Jews, however ftupid they may be thought, to

point their refentment against it, fo that one may justly wonder how it fhould ever have become an object of religious veneration. It was Chrift crucified, and dying upon a crofs, which was a ftumbling-block to The Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks; but which was indeed the power of God, and the wisdom of God, 1 Cor. i. 23. 24.

The malice and rage of the Jewish leaders seems to have been mainly, if not folely, founded in their unhappy mistake concerning the nature of the Meffiah's kingdom, promised and prophefied of by the prophets. As fpiritual things cannot be brought under human conception, but by images and analogous representations, taken from the state of things in this fenfible world; the pompous defcriptions of the fpiritual glory of that kingdom under thefe images, very naturally led them to promise themselves a worldly kingdom more extenfive, and of course more glorious, than all that had been before it, extending unto the very utmost ends of the earth. And the profpect would be the more agreeable, that they were then held under the opprefiive yoke of the Romans, VOL. III. from

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from which they expected their Meffiah fhould fave and deliver them, and give them the pleasure, (the greatest that worldly men can have), to bring their oppressors under the fame bondage to them.

When therefore Jefus came as he did, with fuch a mean outward appearance, he was by no means a Meffiah to their taste: and notwithstanding the astonishing miracles by which he attefted his divine miffion, they looked upon him as a deceiver of the people, and condemned him as a blafphemer, for faying what their expected Meffiah must have faid, whenever he came into the world. A fuffering Meffiah they had no notion of; and though he could not have been the Chrift, if, according to Mofes and the prophets, he had not fuffered, before he entered into his glory, they ignorantly concluded, that when they had brought him to the cross, that there must be an end of his pretenfions; and the more fo, that, according to their notions of the law, he was a very 'notorious finner, by tranfgreffing those traditions which they held to be of equal authority with the laws given by Moses. But as he profeffed to be the King of the

Jews,

Jews, and plainly declared, that the defign of his coming was to fet up a kingdom that fhould never be moved, they thought there was a neceffity of putting him to death, left the Romans fhould be provoked to come and cut off the whole nation, as he who profeffed to be their king was, according to their notions of him, utterly incapable of defending them.

Thus the cross of Chrift became a ftumbling-block to the Jews; but more fo, when he was declared to be the Son of God with power, by his refurrection from the dead, and the glory that followed. When this fame Jefus who fubmitted to be crucified afcended up into heaven, had all power and authority in heaven and in earth lodged in his hand, and instructed it by the highest exertion of power, even by fending the Holy Spirit, according to his promife, on his difciples and followers, and that in fuch a palpable manner, as left no room for doubt or difpute: And when they themfelves were charged home by his apoftles with the horrible crime of being the betrayers and murderers of the Son of God, it was no wonder that they were filled with the utmost anguith.

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