CHAPTER Xl. 369 prohibition,viz. because the lifeor bloodof the animal wasclaimed by God, and given to God, to make atonementfor the soul, which is very expressly asserted ; Lev. xvii. 10-14. And by thepour- ing the blood out before God on the ground, the flesh was, as it were, sanctified to the use of food for the eater. And no doubt this was the chief reason whyeating blood was prohibited to Noah and his sons, and it was derived down to the patriarchs, together with the doctrine of sacrifices. And so long as blood had any manner of appearance of making atonement in sacrifice, that is, till the dissolution of the Jewish state ; so long was blood forbidden to the Jews, and to those gentile christians, especially who dwelt near them, or conversed with them. But when the Jewish state was dissolved, and all such brutal sacrifices were utterly abolished, then Judaism vanished, and gospel liberty was more established ; and there could be very few or noneto take offence at the eating of blood. And then perhaps St. Paul's advice to other gentile churchesbecame universal, and set them all free as, "Let no man judge you in meat or in drink ;" Col. ii. 16. " Whatsoever is sold in the shambles eat, asking noques- tion for conscience-sake ;" that is, not enquiring whether it were offered to idols, or whether it were killed in theJewish manner, by letting out all theblood, and 1 Cor. x. 25.for to thepure all things are pure ; Tit. i. 15. " I know and I ampersuaded by the LordJe- sus, there is nothing unclean of itself, but let no man put a stum- bling-block in hisbrother's way" Rom. xiv. 13, 14. " Meat com- mendeth us not to God ; neither if ive eat are we the better, nor if we eat not are we the worse ;" 1 Cor. viii. 8. "Every crea- ture of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received withthanksgiving, for it is sanctified," not by pouring out the blood, but by the word of God and prayer; 1 Tim. iv. 3, 4, 5. XIV. But the gradual change from Judaism to christianity will be more fully understood, if we attend tothis which follows. In the Jewish dispensation there were three sorts of laws, viz. moral, ceremonial, and political : 1. Themoral laws were everlasting, and belonged, to all the dispensations of God, which relate to the children of men in all ages, whether patrarchal, Jewish or christian, and were never aholished.=2. The political laws of the Jews were the civil laws of that nation, which God, as their supreme king or political head, gave them by Moses, to be observed in their country, so long as their state or polity subsisted. The gentiles were never under these laws; and therefore when they turned Christians, their conversion could by no means bring them into a subjection thereto; for christianity makes no alteration in the civil governments of this world. The Jews or subjects of the government of Judea, especially while they resided in the land of Judea, were the proper subjects of theso Vox.. in. A a
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