CHAPTER I. 371 lie himself consented to go through the rites of a purification as a Nazarite, after the Jewish manner ; Acts xxi. 23, 24, 26. So graciously has God, the ruler of the world, condescended to the weakness of men, by indulging these indifferent things for a season in several parts of his transactions with them, and in divers ages, because human naturecan hardly be led all at once into so great a change of principles and practices. XVII. There might also be another reason for St. Paul and other Jewish converts, to comply with some of these cere- monies for a season, because the ceremonial and political laws among the Jews, were so intermingled, that it was sometimes very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the one from the other : And while the Jewishpolity lasted, several of thesecere- monial laws might be complied with by Jewish christians, tinder the civil government of the Jews, considered as parts of that polity or government, though they might know their own real freedom and release, which Christ had given them fro all Jewish ceremonies, considered as matters of religions`. XVIII. But after the destruction of Jerusalem an e temple, and the dissolution of the Jewish state, their political as well as ceremonial laws were utterly abolished ; and by this time, not only the remaining apostles, but all the Jewish christians, were let more clearly into the knowledge of their own liberty in Christ Jesus, and their freedom from every thing written in the laws of Moses, which was not moral. Then the differences be- tween the Jewishand gentile,converts were taken away, and by degrees they came more perfectly to unite themselves together in all ordinances of christian communion, in 'their several churches through the world, according to the frequent directions and ex- hortations that St. Paul had given them in the xiv. chapter to the Romans, and several other parts of his writings.'' See on this subject an excellent dissertation of Mr. Benson, at the end of his late paraphrase andnotes on 'Titus. Thus much shall suffice concerning the five dispensations of the covenant of grace. Yet, perhaps, it may be north enquiring, whether those ceremonies, which were plainly and .purely religious, might not be appointed, partly for the public and visible honour of God, when he resided in a bright cloud in the tabernacle . and the,temple, ás the visible Head of a visible church oñ earth t And though he neverdid reside visibly in the second temple, yet when he rent the veil of the temple at the death of Christ, and when the Holy of Holies, which was his pre -. sence chamber, was thrown open and common, then God ceased to have any ap- pearance ofa residence there, and their church-state was in a great measure dis- solved, they having, if I may so express it, driven God .from among them, by slaying his Son. And from that time their religious ceremonies might be so far abolished, as to become needless; yet they were indulged for a season, as indif- ferent things to the Jewish christians, who had been usedto practise them, till the . holy city and the temple, or God's visible palace, were uttterly destroyed,and those remains of a visible church, were scattered through the earth. A a 2
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