PROP. XI.

THE UNITY OF DESIGN WHICH APPEARS IN THE DISPENSATIONS RECORDED IN THE SCRIPTURES, IS AN ARGUMENT NOT ONLY OF THEIR TRUTH AND GENUINENESS, BUT ALSO OF THEIR DIVINE AUTHORITY,

FOR this unity is not only fo great as to exclude forgery and fiction in the fame way as the mutual agreements mentioned in the laft propofition, but also greater than the best and ableft men could have preferved, in the circumftance of thefe writers, without the divine affiftance. In order to fee this, let us inquire what this defign is, and how it is pursued by the feries of events, and divine interpofitions, recorded in the Scriptures.

The defign is that of bringing all mankind to an exalted, pure, and fpiritual happiness, by teaching, enforcing, and begetting in them love and obedience to God. This appears This appears from many paffages in the Old Teftament, and from almoft every part of the New. Now we are not here to inquire in what manner an Almighty Being could foonest and most effectually accomplish this. But the question is, Whether, laying down the fate of things as it has been, is, and probably will be, for our foundation, there be not a remarkable fitness in the difpenfations afcribed to God in the Scriptures, to produce this glorious effect; and whether the perfons who adminiftered thefe difpenfations did not here concur with a furprising uniformity, though none of them faw God's ultimate defign completely, and fome but very imperfectly; juft as brutes by their inftincts, and children by the workings of their natural faculties, contribute to their own prefervation, improvement, and happiness, without at all forefeeing that they do this. If we alter any of the circumftances of the microcofm, or macrocofm, of the frame of our own natures, or of the external world that furrounds us, we fhall have queftion rife up after queftion in an endless feries, and fhall never be fatisfied, unlefs God fhould be pleafed to produce happiness inftantaneously, i. e. without any means, or fecondary inftrumental caufes at all; and, even then, we fhould only be where we were at our first fetting out, if things be confidered in the true ultimate light. We are therefore to lay down the real ftate of things as our foundation; i. e. we are to fuppofe man to be in a ftate of good mixed with evil, born with appetites, and expofed to temptations, to which if he yields, fuffering muft follow; which fuffering, however, tends to eradicate the difpofition from whence it flowed, and to implant a better. We are to fuppofe him to be endued with voluntary powers, which enable him to model his affections and actions according to a rule; and that the love of God, his ultimate happinefs, can never be genuine, but by his first learning to fear God, by his being mortified to pleasure, honour, and profit, and the moft refined selfish defires, and by his loving his neighbour as himself; i. e. we must fuppofe all that which practical writers mean by a state of trial, temptation, moral exercise and improvement,

provement, and of practical free-will. Let us fee, therefore, how the feveral difpenfations mentioned in the Scriptures, their being recorded there, and the fubordinate parts which the prophets and apoftles acted, confpired to bring about this ultimate end of man, both in each individual, and in the whole aggregate, confidered as one great individual, as making up the myftical body of Chrift, according to the language of St. Paul; and inquire, whether, if all other reafons were fet afide, the mere harmony and concurrence of fo many parts, and fo many perfons removed from each other by long intervals of time, in this one great defign, will not compel us to acknowledge the genuineness, truth, and divine authority of the Scrip

tures.

The first thing which prefents itfelf to us in the Scriptures, is the hiftory of the Creation and Fall. These are not to be accounted for, as was faid above, being the foundation upon which we go. However, the recording them by Mofes, as tradition began to grow weak and uncertain, has been of great ufe to all thofe who have had them communicated by this means, perfectly or imperfectly, i. e. to a great part of the world. This hiftory impreffes an awful and amiable fenfe of the Divine Being, our Creator and Judge; fhews the heinousness of fin; and mortifies us to this world, by declaring that our paffage through it must be attended with labour and forrow. We find ourselves in this ftate: Revealed Religion did not bring us into it nor is this ftate an objection to Revealed Religion, more than to Natural however, Revealed Religion goes a step higher than Natural, and fhews the immediate fecondary cause, viz. the fin and wilful disobedience of our first parents. And when the account of paradife, of man's expulfion thence, and of the curfe paffed upon him in Genefis, are compared with the removal of this curfe, of forrow, crying, pain, and death, with the renovation of all things, and with man's restoration to the tree of life and paradife, and his admiffion into the new Jerufalem in the laft chapters of the Revelation, hope and fear quicken each other; and both confpire to purify the mind, and to advance the great defign confidered under this propofi

tion.

How far the deluge was neceflary, cæteris manentibus, for the purification of those who were deftroyed by it, i. e. for accomplishing

great end in them, we cannot prefume to fay. It is fufficient that there is no contrary prefumption, that no methods confiftent with the state of things in the ancient world were neglected, as far as we know, and that we are not in the least able to propofe a better scheme. We leave these rebellious, unhappy people, now tranflated into another ftate, to the fame kind Providence which attended them in this, and all whofe punishments on this fide the grave are for melioration. However the evident footsteps of this in the world, and the clear tradition of it, which would continue for several ages, alfo the hiftory of it delivered by Mofes, have an unqueftionable good tendency. Sinners, who reflect at all, cannot but be alarmed at so dreadful an inftance of divine severity. Far

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ther, if this hiftory fhould open to us a new relation, viz. that which we bear to the comets, this, compared with other parts of the Scriptures, may give us hereafter fuch intimations concerning the kind, degree, and duration of future punishment, as will make the most obdurate tremble, and work in them that fear which is the beginning of wisdom, and of the perfect love which cafteth out fear. At the fame time we may obferve, that the covenant which God made, not only with Noah and his pofterity, but with all living creatures after the flood, has a direct and immediate tendency to beget love.

The

The confufion of languages, the confequent difperfion of mankind, and the shortening of the lives of the poftdiluvians, all concurred to check the exorbitant growth and infection of wickednefs. And we may judge how neceffary thefe checks were, cæteris manentibus, from the great idolatry and corruption which appeared in the world within lefs than a thousand years after the flood. patriarchal revelations mentioned and intimated by Mofes, had the fame good effects, and were the foundations of thofe Pagan religions, and in great meafure of that moral fenfe, which, corrupt and imperfect as they were, could not but be far preferable to an entire want of thefe. If it be objected, that, according to this, greater checks, and more divine communications, were wanted; I anfwer, that a greater difperfion, or fhortening of human life, might have prevented the defined increafe of mankind, or the growth of knowledge, civil and religious, &c. and that more or more evident divine interpofitions might have reftrained the voluntary powers too much, or have precluded that faith which is neceffary to our ultimate perfection. Thefe are conjectures indeed; but they are upon the level with the objection, which is conjectural

alfo.

The next remarkable particular that occurs, is the calling of Abraham, the father of the faithful. Now in this part of the Scripture hiftory, as it is explained by the New Teftament, we have. the ftrongest evidence of God's great defign to purify and perfect mankind. He is called to forfake his relations, friends, and country, left he fhould be corrupted by idolatry; he receives the promile of the land of Canaan, without feeing any probable means of obtaining it, befides this promife, in order to wean him from the dependence on external means; he waits for a fon till all natural expectations ceafed, for the fame purpofe; by obtaining him, he learns to truft in God, notwithstanding apparent impoffibilities; and the command to facrifice" his fon, his only fon Ifaac, whom he

loved," affords him a noble opportunity of exercising this truft, and of fhewing that his principle of obedience to God was already fuperior to the pureft of earthly affections. Laftly, when God promifes him, as a reward for all his faith and obedience, as the highest bleffing, that in him and his feed all the nations of the earth fhould be bleffed," we muft conceive this to be a declaration, first, that God himfelf is infinitely benevolent; and, fecondly,

that

that the happiness of Abraham, his feed, and of all mankind who were to be bleffed in his feed, must arife from their imitation of God in his benevolence. This whole univerfe is therefore a fyftem of be nevolence, or, as St. Paul expreffes it, a body, which, being "fitly "framed and compacted together, increafeth itself in love."

As to the objection which is fometimes made to the facrifice of Ifaac, we may obferve, that Abraham had himself received fo many divine communications, and had been acquainted with fo many made to his ancestors, that he had no doubt about the commands coming from God, and did not even afk himself the question. It is probable that in that early age there had as yet been few or no falfe pretences or illufions. Abraham could as little doubt of God's right to Ifaac's life, or of his care of him in another ftate. These things were parts of the patriarchal religion. And yet great faith was required in Abraham, before he could overcome his natural affection and tenderness for Isaac out of a principle of obedience to God, and truft God for the accomplishment of his promife, though he commanded him to deftroy the only apparent means of accomplishing it. Unless Abraham had been highly advanced in faith and obedience, he could not have ftood fo fevere a trial; but this trial would greatly confirm thefe. And thus this hiftory is fo far from being liable to objection, that it is peculiarly conformable to thofe methods, which mere reafon and experience dictate as the proper ones, for advancing and perfecting true religion in the foul. When the typical nature of it is alfo confidered, one cannot furely doubt of its divine authority. And, in the previous fteps through which Abraham paffed in order to obtain this bleffing, we have an adumbration and example of that faith, patience, and gradual progrefs in the fpiritual life, which are neceffary to all those who hope to be bleffed with faithful Abra"ham."

Let us next pafs on to Mofes, and the Ifraelites under his conduct. Here we enter upon the confideration of that people who are the type of mankind in general, and of each individual in par◄ ticular; who were the keepers of the oracles of God, and who, under God, agreeable to his promise to Abraham, have been, and will hereafter be, a bleffing to all nations, and the means of reftoring man to his paradifiacal ftate. And firft they are oppreffed with a cruel flavery in Egypt, left, being delighted with its fertility, and the prefent pleasures of fenfe which it afforded, they fhould forget their true earthly country," the land of promife." They then fee the most amazing judgements inflicted upon their enemies the Egyptians by God, whilft they themselves were protected and delivered, that fo they might learn confidence in his power and favour, and be thus prepared for their inftitution in religion, and their trial and purification in the wilderness. And here the awful delivery of the law, their being fed from day to day by miracles, their being kept from commerce with all other nations, and from all cares of this world in building, planting, &c. till their old habits, and Egyptian customs and idolatries, were quite effaced; and the practice

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practice of the new law eftablished, their having the hiftory of the world, and particularly of their ancestors, laid before them in one view, their tabernacles, their numerous rites and ceremonies, additional to those of the patriarchal religion, and oppofite to the growing idolatries of their neighbours the Egyptians and Canaanites, and which, befides their ufes as types, were memorials of their relation to God, and of his conftant prefence and protection; and, laftly, the total extinction of that murmuring generation who longed for the flesh-pots of Egypt; cannot but appear to be intended for the purification of this chofen people, as being remarkably analogous to the methods of purification, which every good man experiences in himself, and fees in others, i. e. cannot but appear highly conducive to the great defign confidered under this propofition. At laft, the education and inftruction of this people being finished, they are admitted to inherit the earthly promife made to their forefathers, and take poffeffion of the land of Canaan under Joshua. And thus we come to a remarkable period in God's difpenfations to them.

Now therefore they are in fome measure left to themselves, for the fake of moral improvement, the divine interpofitions being far less frequent and folemn than at the firft erection of the Theocracy under Mofes's adminiftration. However, there were many fupernatural interpofitions appointments, favours, corrections, &c. from Joshua to Malachi, on account of their yet infant ftate in respect of internal purity, whofe tendency to improve the body politic of the nation, and each individual, is fufficiently evident. After they were entirely left to themselves, their canon being completed, they were then only to hear and digeft what Mofes and the prophets had delivered unta them, and by this means to prepare themselves for the laft and completeft difpenfation.

But, before we enter upon this, let us briefly confider the ftate of the Gentile world, in the interval between Abraham and Chrift, and what intimation the Old Teftament gives us of their being alfo under the care of Providence, and in a ftate of moral difcipline. They had then, according to this, firft, the tradition of patriarchal revelations. Secondly, all the nations in the neighbourhood of Canaan had frequent opportunities and motives to inform themselves of the true religion. Thirdly, all thofe who conquered them at any time, could not but learn fomething both fom their fubjection, and their deliverance afterwards. Fourthly, the captivities by Salmanefer and Nebuchadnezzar, carried the knowledge of the true God to many diftant nations. Lastly, the deftruction of the Jewish ftate during the contemporary empires of Syria and Egypt, the rife of the Samaritan religion, and the tranflation of the Old Teftament into Greek, conduced eminently to the fame purpofe. And as it is neceffary in the prefent ftate of things, for the exercise of various affections, and our moral improvement, that there fhould be degrees and fubordinations in common things, fo it feems equally neceffary, that it fhould be fo in religious matters: and thus the Gen