BERM. III.! THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 41 Jewish state. What a multitude of ceremonies were they encumbered with ! What a, numerous train of ac- tions and abstinences are required in the law of Moses ! What washings and sprinklings, what numerous purifica- tions by water and blood, what continual danger ofnew defilements at home and abroad, by night and by day, so that man, woman and child were forced to be upon a perpetual watch lest they should bepolluted in their food, in their raiment, in their habitation, or in the common actions of life ! And what innumerable ceremonies of worship belonged to the service of the tabernacle and temple! What frequent journies from one end of the land to the other, and multiplied forms of religion at the tabernacle ? Whereas in the christian state there are but two ceremonies appointed. viz. that of baptism and the Lord's supper. There is no danger that the spiritual part of it should be overwhelmed, buried and lost in the multitude of rites and carnal ordinances, which was of- ten the case under the Jewish state. Again, These ordinances of the New Testament are much more easy, and less- burthensome and expensive thap those of the former dispensations. To washwith water, to break a little to pour out a little wine, and to eat or drink in a. small quantity, are no such yokes of bondage as those who went before us in every age have sustained. As for the Mosaic rites, they were exceeding expensive and burthensome indeed, beyond all our pre- sent power of description ; and even the dispensations of Adam and Noah, with their continual sacrifices, and the rite of circumcision, which was added in Abraham's days, had something in them much more costly, bloody, and painful than these two easy ceremonies of the New Testament. And as the ceremonies of christianity are fewer and easier, so they are much clearer in their design and man- ner of representation, than most of the rites annexed to the former dispensations : Theyhave a more natural and direct tendency to explain and illustrate the covenant of grace, and to assist the observance of it, When the body is washed with water in baptism, it very clearly re- presents, that our souls must pass through the laver of regeneration, or that we must have the Spirit of God shed duwn upon us, to cleanse us from our. defilements.
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