sacrifice from the former, as more immediately unlawful; from the latter, the sacrificial meats sold in the shambles, as giving offence to weak and undiscerning Christians. For though in itself an idol was nothing in the world,' and consequently no honour could be done it by eating what was offered to it; yet was it more prudent and reasonable to abstain, partly because flesh-meats have no peculiar excellency in them to commend us to God; partly because all men not being alike instructed in the knowledge of their liberty, their minds might be easily puzzled, their consciences entangled, the Gentiles by this means hardened in their idolatrous practices, and weak brethren offended; besides, though these things were in their own nature indifferent, and in a man's own power to do or to let alone, yet was it not convenient to make our liberty a snare to others, and to venture upon what was lawful, when it was plainly unedifying and inexpedient. From blood:' this God forbad of old, and that some time before the giving of the law by Moses, that they should not eat the flesh with the blood, which was the life thereof.'' The mystery of which prohibition was to instruct men in the duties of mercy and tenderness even to brute beasts; but (as appears from what follows after) primarily designed by God as a solemn fence and bar against murder, and the effusion of human blood: a law afterwards renewed upon the Jews, and inserted into the body of the Mosaic precepts. From things strangled; that is, that they should abstain from eating of those beasts that died without letting blood, where the blood was not 1 Gen. ix. 4. thoroughly drained from them; a prohibition grounded upon the reason of the former, and respecting a thing greatly abominable to the Jews, being so expressly forbidden in their law.' But it was not more offensive to the Jews than acceptable to the Gentiles, who were wont, with great art and care, to strangle living creatures, that they might stew or dress them with their blood in them, as a point of curious and exquisite delicacy. This and the foregoing prohibition, abstinence from blood, died not with the apostles, nor were buried with other Jewish rites, but were inviolably observed for several ages in the Christian church, as we have elsewhere observed from the writers of those times. Lastly, 'From fornication:' this was a thing commonly practised in the heathen world, which generally beheld simple fornication as no sin, and that it was lawful for persons, not engaged in wedlock, to make use of women that exposed themselves; a custom justly offensive to the Jews, and therefore to cure two evils at once, the apostles here solemnly declare against it. Not that they thought it a thing indifferent, as the rest of the prohibited rites were; for it is forbidden 1 Lev. xvii. 10, 11, 12, &c. 2 Athen. Deipnos. lib. ii. c. xxiv. p. 65, ubi vid. Casaub. in loc. 3 Prim. Christ. Part iii. c. 1, p. 230. 4 Vid. Cicer. pro Coelio Orat. 34, p. 503, tom. ii. Terent. Adelph. Act. i. Sc. 2, p. 166. Σὺ δ ̓ εἰς ἅπαντας εὗρες ἀνθρώπες, Σόλων. were by the apostles intended only for a temporary compliance with the Jewish converts, till they could, by degrees, be brought off from their stiffness and obstinacy; and then the reason of the thing ceasing, the obligation to it must needs cease and fail. Nay, we may observe that even while the apostolical decree lasted in its greatest force and power, in those places where there were few or no Jewish converts, the apostles did not stick to give leave, that except in case of scandal, any kind of meats, even the portions of the idol-sacrifices might be indifferently bought and taken by Christians as well as heathens. These were all which in order to the satisfaction of the Jews, and for the present peace of the church, the apostles thought necessary to require of the converted Gentiles; but that for all the rest they were perfectly free from legal observances, obliged only to the commands of Christianity. So that the apostolical decision that was made of this matter was this:-"That (besides the temporary observation of those few indifferent rites before mentioned) the belief and practice of the Christian religion was perfectly sufficient to salvation, without circumcision and the observation of the Mosaic law." This synodical determination allayed the controversy for a while, being joyfully received by the Gentile-Christians. But, alas, the Jewish zeal began again to ferment and spread itself; they could not with any patience endure to see their beloved Moses deserted, and those venerable institutions trodden down, and therefore laboured to keep up their credit, and still to assert them as necessary to salvation. Than which nothing created St. Paul greater trouble at every turn, as he was thereby forced to contend against these Judaizing teachers almost in every church where he came; as appears by that great part that they bear in all his epistles, especially that to the Romans and Galatians, where this leaven had most diffused itself, whom the better to undeceive, he discourses at large of the nature and institution, the end and design, the antiquating and abolishing of that Mosaic covenant, which these men laid so much stress and weight upon. 7. Hence then we pass to the third thing considerable for the clearing of this matter, which is to show, that the main passages in St. Paul's epistles, concerning justification and salvation, have an immediate reference to this controversy. But before we enter upon that, something must necessarily be premised for the explicating some terms and phrases frequently used by our apostle in this question; these two especially-what he means by law, and what by faith. By law, then, it is plain he usually understands the Jewish law, which was a complex body of laws, containing moral, ceremonial, and judicial precepts, each of which had its use and office as a great instrument of duty; the judicial laws being peculiar statutes accommodated to the state of the Jews' commonwealth, as all civil constitutions, restrained men from the external acts of sin; the ceremonial laws came somewhat nearer, and besides their typical relation to the evangelical state, by external and symbolical representments, signified and exhibited that spiritual impurity, from which men were to abstain: the moral laws, founded in the natural notions of men's minds concerning good and evil, directly urged men to duty, and prohibited their prevarications. These three made up the entire code and pandects of the Jewish statutes; all which our apostle comprehends under VOL. I. D the general notion of the law,' and not the moral law singly and separately considered, in which sense it never appears that the Jews expected justification and salvation by it; nay, rather that they looked for it merely from the observance of the ritual and ceremonial law; so that the moral law is no further considered by him in this question, than as it made up a part of the Mosaical constitution, of that national and political covenant which God made with the Jews at mount Sinai. Hence, the apostle all along in his discourses constantly opposes the law and the gospel, and the observation of the one to the belief and practice of the other; which surely he would not have done, had he simply intended the moral law, it being more expressly incorporated into the gospel than ever it was into the law of Moses. And that the apostle does thus oppose the law and gospel, might be made evident from the continued series of his discourses; but a few places shall suffice. By what law (says the apostle) is boasting excluded? by the law of works?' i. e. by the Mosaic law, in whose peculiar privileges and prerogatives the Jews did strangely flatter and pride themselves? Nay, but by the law of faith,' i. e. by the gospel, or the evangelical way of God's dealing with us. And elsewhere giving an account of this very controversy between the Jewish and Gentile converts, he first opposes their persons, 'Jews by nature,' and 'sinners of the Gentiles'; and then infers, that a man is not justified by the works of the law,' by those legal observances whereby the Jews expected to be justified, but by the faith of Christ,' by a hearty belief of, and compliance with that way which Christ 1 Rom. iii. 27. 2 Gal. ii. 15, 16. 2 |