2. It was faid by the Prophet-I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice,-This is a known manner by which the Jews are wont to exprefs a Comparison. "I defire

"One more than the Other; I prefer the "One to the Other; I will have the "thing more or rather than that which was fignificative only" of it.

3. The Principal thing intended by Sacrifice, being a strict Obfervation of what is pleafing to God, when Sacrifice was not attended with Rectitude of Mind, it became hateful, defpicable, not to be valued · or esteemed, whatever Care or Coftliness might accompany it : it: nor was the mere Slaying of Animals the Thing that God commanded or required, how folicitous foever the Jews might be to bring those Gifts to the Altar.

4. When Jeremiah fays, that God Spake not unto their Fathers, nor commanded them in the day that he brought them out of Egypt, concerning Burnt Offerings or Sacrifices, but only commanded Obedience This is true. You are not fo to take this Expreffion as if God did not afterwards command them to offer Sacrifices,

Sacrifices; but that at first when they came out of Egypt, he gave no fuch command. When they first were redeemed from that Bondage which they had fo long laboured under, They had no Law given them but the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments ; —all of them Precepts of the Moral Law, and All of them fuch to which conftant uniform Obedience was expected: And upon This a Promife was given, that if They would obferve them, God would be Their God, and They fhould be his People. Immediately after this, the Political Laws, mentioned Exodus xxi, xxii, xxiii, were given. But as to the Rites and Ceremonies relative to Burnt Offerings and the Other Sacrifices, They were not commanded till after the Affair of the Golden Calf had fhewn, how prone that People was to Idolatry, and to the Religious practices of Egypt. And This will help us to understand that dark paffage of Ezekiel, Wherefore I gave them alfo Statutes that were not good, and Judgments whereby they should not live. And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to

pafs

pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them defolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord, c. xx. 25, 26. The Statutes that were not good, were what contained the ceremonial Law; Statutes, not of a Moral nature, fuch as are intrinfically good; but fuch only as would keep them a diftinct feparate People, and answer certain temporal Ends. And I polluted them in their own Gifts: The LXX. render it, Καὶ μιανῶ ἀυλοὺς ἐν τοῖς δόγμασιν αυτῶν. It should be, dopaow, Gifts, not Sóyμaow, which fignifies Notions. The meaning is, "I held them polluted in their Gifts: "I looked upon them and treated them as polluted notwithstanding all their Gifts, and I fhewed this manifeftly by paffing by all the First-born, and taking "the Levites in their place; that I might "make them wonder and be furprised, " and know that I am the Lord."

I do not, at present, defign to enter into any Confequences which may follow, or feem to follow, from what has been faid. The Subject certainly has its Difficulties; and if what is here said should

give the Reader any light; or should affisk him in the Understanding the Scriptures, (the Book, which of all Books, ought the moft to be ftudied without prejudice, and which is too often read with the strongest byafs in favour of pre-conceived Opinions;) If the Reader, I fay, receives any Affiftance from what has been faid towards understanding the Scriptures, let him use it to the Glory of God, and the Good of Mankind.

FINIS.

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