ther, it would justify their extermination'; and in connexion with this same hatred and contempt of all except the commonwealth of Israel, it justified the doctrine of mental reservation in the case of oaths made to Christians, or agreements concluded between a Jew and a Christian 2.

It will be remembered that the great principle of the Reformation was the rejection of Tradition-not the rejection of the voice of antiquity. We hold that the Church of Christ has, by its founder's promise and power, been secured from fundamental error, and that we receive all as truth which we can shew the Church to have believed from the earliest days of Christianity, but we deny that there is any unwritten word of God which we are bound to accept, as equally binding with the words of Scripture. We see, at a single glance, how analagous the evils which tradition introduced into the Jewish Church are to those which have sprung from an undue reliance on tradition in the Christian. It is sufficient to suggest this general resemblance; but as controversial discussion with fellow Christians does not enter into the plan of these Lectures, I suggest it only.

1 See Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, Vol. II. p. 783, et seq. Chiarini, Théorie, Vol. 1. p. 295.

2 See Chiarini, Vol. 1. pp. 262, 265.

There are two considerations, however, of practical importance, which these views of the state of the Jewish world at the time of our Saviour bring before our minds. Human nature is the same now that it ever was equally liable to selfdeceiving thoughts, equally inclined to substitute formal performances for real conversion of the heart to God.

We are apt to rest in the belief that the knowledge of religion will avail us, though it brings not the heart-the moral affections and the will -nearer to God, and thus to indulge the selfsame spirit of delusion which led away the chosen nation of God; and it is for us therefore to watch over the inmost thoughts and motions of the heart, and never to be at rest unless we know and feel that we turn to God with more holy affections and more complete devotion of the will as we increase in knowledge, or the same curse which entailed upon the people of Israel that grossness of heart, so that seeing they should not see, and hearing they should not understand, will lie also upon us!

And as we would take warning by this their error, let us remember how dangerous to their peace also was that other delusion, by which they received the traditions of men in place of the one commandment of God; and as we would hope to live in pure faith and holy practice, let us con

stantly betake ourselves to that book in which alone no error mingles, no false views can be found. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith, and appeal only to the written word of God justly interpreted, being persuaded that the written word contains the only standard to which we may refer our faith, or by which we may guide our conduct1.

1 Two circumstances mentioned in this Lecture require a few words more in explanation of the view I have taken of them the decision of Simon, and the assertion that the Mishna is the unwritten word of God.

1. From the year B. C. 108, when Hyrcanus (in obedience to the suggestion of Jonathan the Sadducee) depressed the Pharisees by a decree abolishing their traditions, to the end of the reign of his son Alexander, B. C. 79, the Pharisees and tradition were less esteemed. (See Prideaux, Part II. Book v.) Simon, however, the brother-in-law of the king, the person mentioned in the Lecture, used his influence as president of the Sanhedrim to moderate the assaults of the Sadducees as much as possible, because he was favourable to the Pharisees. It appears probable, however, that he was obliged to fly to Alexandria, and wait there till the death of Alexander, A.D. 79, and was recalled by his sister Alexandra, (Jost, p. 15); but his history is involved in considerable obscurity. (See Jost, as above. There is a slight notice of the earlier state of tradition, under Simon the Just, &c., in Prideaux, at the beginning of Part 11.)

2. The assertion in the Lecture may mislead some who are not familiar with these books. When I say that the Mishna, according to the Jewish view of the matter, is the unwritten word of God delivered to Moses, they must understand that the Mishna itself was not written in a complete form till about A. D. 200, (the Jews say from A. D. 190—220,) and, indeed some place it, with Morinus, as late as the end of the

fifth

fifth century. It contains the decisions of the doctors after Moses, as well as those which they received from him; but the Midrashim attribute even their decisions to inspiration, and say that God conversed with Moses about the Bible, the Mishna, the Gemara, &c. In Chiarini, Preface to the Traduction du Talmud, p. 21, a passage will be found quoted from one of the Midrashim to this effect; and in p. 14 of the same preface he gives his reasons for adopting the earlier date rather than that of Morinus. The Mishnic doctors are supposed to have committed some of the Oral Law to writing for their own use, and some of these collections were probably used by the last collectors of the Mishna; but even their own decisions were supposed to be anticipated by the conversation between the Almighty and Moses. For a full account of this whole matter, I can refer to no book so complete as Chiarini's Prolégomenes' to his translation already referred to.

L

LECTURE VII.

HEBREWS VII. 19.

For the Law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did.

THE considerations which have hitherto been introduced into these Lectures on the subject of the Law of Moses, relate almost entirely to its secondary uses. I have abstained from any thing but a bare mention of some of the most remarkable of its primary purposes. The doctrine of its types has been left almost untouched; nor have I alluded, except most sparingly, to the religious thoughts which the Scriptures of the Old Testament, written under its influence, are calculated to excite, even amid the clearer light of the Christian scheme. The effects to which I have chiefly directed your attention are therefore assuredly external uses. In the first place we considered the banishment of idolatry from one nation of the world; and when that nation mixed with many others far and near, the establishment of various spots in which the knowledge of the one true God might be laid up,