CRAFTER V. 401 which could be taken away by any of those outward ceremonies of purification ? A. The mere outward performanceof any of these ceremonies did purify the persons defiled no further than to set them right in their political state, as subjects under God as their king ; and to cleanse them as members of the Jewish visible church from ceremonial defilements ; Heb. ix. 13. The blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctilieth no further than to the purifying of theflesh. But Ileb. x. 4. It -is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins ; that is, as they are committed against God, as the Lord of their souls and consciences. 7. Q. How then were the sins of the Jews cleansed or par- doned, I mean their real immoralities and impieties against God as the Lord of conscience ? A. 'They obtained pardon of God according to the discovery of graceand forgivenes scattered up and down through all the five books of Moses, and especially ac- cording to the promises made and the encouragements given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in general to all those who sin- cerely repent of sin, and trust in the mercy of God so far as it was then revealed, and tobe further revealed in time to come; Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. Dent. iv. 29, 30, 31. Is. lv. 7 -9. But this forgiveness is owing to the effectual atonement of Christ, which was to be made in due time, and which took away sins past as well as to come ; Rom. iii. 21, 24, 25, 26. 8. Q. Did these outward rites of purification then do no- thing towards the removal of their moral defilements of sins ? A. As their outward or ceremonial defilements were appointed to be emblems and figures of the spiritual or moral defilement of the soul by sin, so many of these ceremonies of purification, and par- ticularly those by water and blood, were pledges and tokens to assure them that God, would forgive sin ; and they were also figures and emblems of the removal of moral defilement or sin from the souls of men by the atoning blood of Christ, and by the sanctifying Spirit of God, which is represented under the ligure of clean water ; See Heb. ix. and x. Note, The following question perhaps might come in pro- perly after the account of sacrifices : but having here enquired whether the ceremonies of purification did any thing toward the removal of the moral defilement of sin, 1 thought it as proper to introduce it here, as a kind of objection against the foregoing answers. 9. Q. But were there not some Jewish sacrifices and methods of purification and atonement appointed for some real immorali- ties and wickedness, as, when a man had committed a trespass against the Lord, by lying to his neighbour, by cheating or rob- bing him, or by swearing falselywhen he had found any thing that was lost, and withheld it from the owner ? . Lev. vi. 1 -7. Is it not said, heshall bring his trespass-ofering to the Lord, and
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