hypothesis; and without attempting to impugn the accuracy of his representation, of the dissensions and disputes which occasioned the injunction, and gave scope to the exercise of primitive forbearance.

4. Though that inquiry might be well spared, without injury to our argument, yet his account of these ancient controversies is so egregiously partial, so palpably designed to serve an hypothesis, that truth forbids me to suffer it to pass without animadversion. In a long and perplexed dissertation, he endeavours to establish a distinction between indulging a needless scrupulosity in doing what is not commanded, and disobeying an express precept; contending that the errors which St. Paul tolerated were of the former sort, and that, as they merely respected certain observances and customs, neither forbidden nor enjoined, they were to be considered as adiapoqa, things indifferent, about which the christian religion is silent. He compares them to disputes about the planetary system, where it is free for every person to form his own judgement, and either to believe, with the vulgar, that the sun literally moves round the earth every four and twenty hours, or the earth round the sun, agreeable to the principles of modern astronomy.

"The case is very similar," he says, "to the following:-At no great distance of time back, the popular opinion was, that the earth was a fixed body, and that the sun and stars made not an

In order to elucidate the question before us, it will be proper briefly to state the different modes of proceeding adopted by the Jewish converts respecting the Mosaic ceremonies, at the earliest period of Christianity. That they were universally practised by believers of Jewish extraction, is manifest from various parts of scripture; and, with respect to the church at Jerusalem, is expressly affirmed by St. James. "Thou seest, brother," said he, addressing Paul, "how many thousand Jews there are who believe, and they are all zealous for the law."The apostle of the Gentiles, with all his zeal in the assertion of their liberties, conformed to them himself; partly from apparent, but an actual, revolution round the earth. The contrary appeared so unlikely, so contrary to daily observation, that numbers knew not how to admit it. Some reasoned; others took a shorter way, and laughed at what they thought was absurd; another party appealed to the Bible as settling the point, by asserting that the sun did rise, and did set, and on one distinguished day was commanded to stand still. Good men were to be found on both sides of the question. Suppose now that some serious characters in the christian church, tenacious believers that the earth stood still, and that it was the sun that moved, had occasioned a little unpleasant controversy, with some of their brethren that were better informed; and the latter, provoked at their remarks, were for excommunicating them, for want of sense, if not for want of religion, how fitly would the apostle's reasoning apply! It might be said exactly on these principles, these good men are not chargeable with breaking any divine law: their whole crime is that they are bad astronomers, and talk nonsense; but God hath received them;' do you therefore receive them in the spirit of meekness and love."-Baptism a Term of Communion, pp. 49, 50,

respect to the Jewish people, whom he was most anxious, by every lawful compliance, to conciliate, and partly from a tender consideration of the infirmities of his weaker brethren, not yet sufficiently confirmed in the freedom of the gospel. "To the Jews he became a Jew, that he might win the Jews." But while he displayed this amiable and condescending spirit, he never disguised his conviction, that the obligation attached to the Mosaic rites was dissolved, and that the gospel was alone a perfect rule of faith and practice.

Thus far an attention to the law was justifiable, and founded on the most enlightened principles. Many, however, probably the great majority, proceeded a step further, and observed the legal ceremonies, not as the dictate of prudence, or for the purpose of conciliation, but as matter of conscience, conceiving them to be still in force. These composed that class of believers who are denominated weak, whose infirmities the strong, christians of a more enlightened order, were commanded to bear with. The error which these persons maintained was of serious magnitude; for, in the very face of an inspired apostle, who affirmed the law of Moses to be abrogated and annulled by the advent of Christ, they still pertinaciously adhered to it, as a matter of personal and indispensable obligation; and, though they attempted to revive and perpetuate an antiquated system, an economy which the gospel had completely superseded, and which

went, by no circuitous route, to impeach the sufficiency and perfection of the latter, their complete toleration was solemnly and repeatedly enjoined on their more enlightened brethren.

I

This error is compared, by Mr. Kinghorn, to an erroneous system of astronomy, and is, consequently, considered as totally indifferent. But how he could possibly believe this himself, or hope to obtrude it on the credulity of his readers, is astonishing. To attach the sanction of religion to a system which the Supreme Legislator had repealed to scruple various kinds of meat, at the very moment that St. Paul was testifying the Lord Jesus had shewn him that nothing was unclean of itself; and after Peter had proclaimed the vision by which he was instructed that the distinction of clean and unclean, was abolished, betrayed a degree of superstitious weakness and pertinacity, most foreign from a mistake on a merely scientific subject. Were a converted Jew at present to determine to adhere to the Mosaic ritual, I would ask Mr. Kinghorn whether he would consider his conduct as entitled to the same indulgence as though he scrupled to adopt the Newtonian system of the universe?

Still he will reply, that his error is of a different kind from that of the pædobaptists; he is guilty of no omission of a revealed duty, while they set aside a positive institute of christianity. It is by this distinction, and by this alone, that he attempts

to evade the conclusion to which this example conducts us. There is nothing, however, in reason or in scripture, from which we can infer, that to omit a branch of duty, not understood, is less an object of forbearance, than to maintain the obligation of abrogated rites. Let him assign, if he is able, a single reason why it is less criminal to add to, than to take away from, the law of Christ; to revive an obsolete economy, than to mistake the meaning of a New Testament institute. How will he demonstrate will-worship to be less offensive to God than the involuntary neglect of a revealed precept? It is so much more difficult to prove, than to assert, that we commend his discretion in choosing the easier task.

The above distinction is not only unfounded in the nature of things; it is at direct variance with the reasoning of Paul on the subject. He enjoins the practice of forbearance, on the ground of the conscientiousness of the parties concerned, on the assumption, not only of their general sincerity, but of their being equally actuated, in the very particulars in which they differed, by an unfeigned respect to the authority of Christ; and as he urges the same consideration as the ground on which the toleration of both parties rested, it must have included a something which was binding on the conscience of each, whatever was his private judgement of the points in debate. The Jew was as much bound to tolerate the Gentile, as the Gentile