Christianity to Judaism, that thereby they might render Christianity agreeable to them. And as the apoftle did this, as it were,in complaifance to the Jews; fo, upon the figurative language they used, some of their followers have built doctrines that are plainly repugnant to truth and reafon. For example: Upon the figurative language of the apostles this doctrine has been grounded, viz. that God was made placable or merciful to mankind by the sufferings and death of Jefus Chrift; which doctrine cannot poffibly be true, because God's difpofition to shew mercy to the proper objects of mercy, arifes wholly from his own innate goodness or mercifulness, and not from any thing external to him, whether it be the fufferings and death of Jefus Chrift, or otherwise.

To this I may add, that as the apostles were bred Jews; fo they were liable to be prejudiced in favour of those Jewish principles they had been educated in, which principles their writings feem to be tinctured with, notwithstanding fometimes they reafoned from other and better principles, that is, principles which were more worthy of the Deity, and more fuitable to his true character. Thus, for example; the Jews con

fidered

fidered God as an abfolute fovereign, who makes mere capricious humour and arbitrary will the rule and measure of his actions, in his dealings with mankind. And, in consequence of this principle, the Jews confidered themselves to have been fingled out from the rest of the world to be God's favourite people; and that they should continue to be fuch through all pofterity; that God had taken them into his special and immediate care and protection (though he might fometimes for a season hide his face from them) whilft he took no regard for the reft of the world, any otherwise than as they were sharers of the divine kindness in the course of God's general providence. Now, though the Jewish principle referred to reflects great dishonour upon the Deity, and though it is falfe, feeing God is fo far from making capricious humour, at any time, or in any inftance, the rule of his conduct, that, on the contrary, he makes the eternal rule of right and wrong the measure of his actions, and in confequence of this rectitude of the divine conduct, in every nation under heaven, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him; I fay, notwithstanding this, the wri· VOL. II. tings

Y

tings of the apoftles feem to be tinctured with this Jewish principle. St. Paul, in his epiftle to the Romans, Chap. ix. after he had expreffed his great concern for his countrymen the Jews (for whofe fakes he could even have wished himself accurfed * from Chrift, if thereby thofe who had rejected Chrift's gofpel could have been interested in it) he obferved that this was not the cafe of all, but only of thofe Jews who were not the children of the promife, the ground of which promife was not the fubfequent good behaviour of those who were included in it, but the abfolute will and fovereign pleasure of the Deity. Thus at verfe 6th, and fo on. Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Ifrael, which are of Ifrael; neither because they are

the

St. Paul's charity, in this inftance, is fomewhat like the intemperate piety of fome Calvinifts, or, perhaps, Antinomians, who have pretended they could be content to be eternally damned, that God might be glorified thereby; as if a needlefs introduction of mifery could add to the glory of God, when in truth it would terminate in his difhonour. This was eafily faid when pain and mifery were at a distance, and were only talked of and not felt; but were these men to fuffer the most intense pain, for one year, that a violent fit of the gout or ftone could introduce, then, I imagine, God's glory would be lefs efficacious upon their minds; and that the first petition in their litany would be, from this torment good Lord deliver us.

the feed of Abraham are they all children; but in Ifaac fhall thy feed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh thefe are not the children of God; but the children of the promife are counted for the feed. For this is the word of promise, at this time will I come, and Sarah fhall have a fon. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Ifaac (for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil,that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth) it was faid unto her, the elder fhall ferve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, and Efau bave I hated. Here the apostle gives an instance in which God is reprefented as preferring Jacob to Efau, when they were both in the womb of their mother, and had done neither good nor evil to be the ground of that preference; on purpose to shew that men's being interested in the favour or dif pleasure of God, does not originally and primarily arise from, nor depend upon their behaviour, but upon the abfolute pleasure and fore-appointment of their maker; works, or an antecedent fitness, being by the apostle exY 2

prefly

1

prefly excluded out of the cafe. And admitting that this inftance regards temporals only (which fuppofes that the Jews reaped only temporal advantages by being within the promise that was made to Abraham, Ifaac and Jacob, and from their having Mofes's law;) yet St. Paul, in the application of his argument, as at verfes 22, 23. makes the fame fovereign pleasure to be the ground of God's greater future favour and difpleafure alfo. The apoftle feems to argue from the less to the greater, and it is the fame as if he had faid: If God, who has an abfoluté fovereignty over all his works, and in whose band his creatures are even as clay is in the hand of the potter, did from mere will chuse the pofterity of Jacob to partake of his temporal bleffings, and did exclude the pofterity of Efau from fharing therein; then he may with equal reafon make meer will the ground of his difpenfing his greater future favour and difpleafure alfo; feeing his power and wrath in one, and his goodness in the other, will be more amply fhewn forth in the latter, than in the former cafe. But then, the apostle feems to have been aware that an objection might lay against what he had said, viz. that such a conduct favoured of inju