51 / 652
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
of
new
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
be
polluted
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
wash
with 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
:
They
have
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.