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alfo on the most inconfiderable herbs. God does not abfolutely reject the potentates of the earth;

principle, is just as defirable as an eye-fervant, and I would rather do my work myself than spend my time in watching him. Agrippa would not take his idea of S. Paul from Feftus, I would also, faid he, bear the man myself. With much less reafon fhould we take ours from Dr. Cave.

A party-Spirit puts many hireling-fervants of all work on offering violence to fcripture. Some puritan ministers In the beginning of the reign of James I. refused to fubfcribe the common-prayer book, and among other reafons urged, that they could not fubfcribe to the truth of propofitions, which they knew to be falfe." A great many paffages of fcripture, in the book, faid they, are falfely tranflated, and affirm

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fpeak against that, whereunto he hath formerly fubfcribed." Agreeably to this, the error muft be continued, juftified, and accredited by all poffible means, and thus they reason, "1. There is no great difference between coming and refting. 2. It should seem the tranflator followed fome copy. which had jabe for januach, reading beth for nun, and omitting the letter cheth. 3. Read it either way, the sense is agreeable to fcripture.-And therefore all this confidered the tranflation may be well endured." That is, in plain English, the fervice book muft be defended. Defence of the Minifters Reafons for refufal of Subfcription, &c. 1607. in answer to Mr. Hutton, Dr. Covel, and Dr. Spark, chap. 1. xiii.

The best plan in the world, for a difinterested lover of real christianity to follow, is that of the excellent profeffor Bud deus. His aim is to discover the doctrine, the manner of teaching, the difputes, the ordinances, the morals, &c. &c. of the apoftolic church, and to derive all his notions of each from their own writings. I fpeak of his Ecclefia Apoftolica. Jena, 1729.

On this principle another Lutheran writer of note traces

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when he pleases, he calls kings and princes to the obedience of faith; neither does he reject the poor. Jefus Chrift, who favourably heard the prayer of a Jairus, ruler of a fynagogue, and of a lord of the court, (8) who intreated him to heal their children, did not reject the prayer of the poor woman of Canaan, nor offer any repulfe to that blind and miferable beggar, who cried, Jefus, fon of David, have mercy upon me. (9)

the doctrines of christianity. Each article of faith he places as a thefis-divides it into diftin&t paragraphs-and endeavours to demonftrate each by fcripture alone. This is an excellent method, for befide a thousand other advantages, it must ever be remembered, fcripture-decifion is plain and final, and there lies in articles of pure revelation no appeal from it, fo that this is the fhorteft way. We have fomething of this kind in a treatise on the Sovereignty of God, by Elifba Cole. Calovii Apodixis. Art. fidei.

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Calvin ftruck out this method-Grotius contracted the defign of it by adhering too clofely to the letter and Cocceius enlarged it by turning almost all into allegory, fo that it is become almoft a proverbial faying, that in the books of the Old Teftament Cocceius finds Chrift every where, while Grotius meets him no where. The first part of this faying is certainly

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true; the latter much less
fo." Mosheim. Eccl. Hift. c.
xvii. f. 2.
P. 2.

(8) A certain nobleman. John iv. 46. TIS BATININOS. Regius quidam. fc. ex aulicis vel agnatis Herodis Tetrarche Galilææ.

(9) Jefus Chrift, who bealed the children of Jairus and a courtier, did not refufe relief to a blind beggar. Mr. Claude propofes thefe ufeful remarks, he fays, rather than any trite and unedifying obfervations, which might be made on paffages of this kind. I willendeavour to prove the wisdom of his conduct by contraft. Jefus Chrift gave fight to a blind man by means of clay made of earth and Spittle. (John ix. 6.) "This blind man received his fight, fays one, by the phyfical virtue of the fpittle of Jefus Chrift. Spittle has been often applied with great fuccefs to the eye; its aqueous, viscous, and balfamic particles abate and dif fipate the fharp humours, that attack the eye; its faline par

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2. Methinks, it feems as if God took more pleasure in bestowing his favours on the most abject than in diftributing them among perfons of elevated rank. I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast bid these things from the wife and prudent, and haft revealed them to babes, faid our Lord Jefus. And the apostle to the Corinthians adds, Ye fee your calling, that not many wife men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. Here is an example; for, while God fent the wife men of the Eaft to Herod, he sent an

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ticles cleanse and purify the purulent matter; and its fpitituous particles open the pores. Very learned indeed! but what is become of the other half, the earth? It was not spittle, it was clay, that the Lord applied. Where have you difpofed of the miracle? And what is the moral ufe of the whole? You are a phyfician, and we forgive you. But what if a divine fhould trifle fo! Confiderat. Phyfic. Med. Forenfis de Saliva humana. A Mart. Gurifch.

Pfal. lxviii. 25, &c. The fingers, the players on inftruments, the damfels playing on timbrels, little Benjamin, with their ruler, the princes of Judah, and their council, the princes of Zebulun, and the princes of Naphtali, were in the congregation, and went in proceffion, at the removal of the ark. Had Mr. Claude preached from this text, he

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would have avoided all learned futilities, and would have directed all the attention of his hearers to the subject itself, that is, the beauty of the public worship of Almighty God as it interests people of all ranks. would have taught his auditors-the nature-the necessi ty-the utility-the dignitythe beauty of the public worfhip of the christian church. But I have an author before me, who employs two and twenty large quarto pages in proving that little Benjamin in this text is S. Paul. The learned man fays, he firft difcovered this, fumma cum voluptate, in a piece written by James Alting. He did not know then, that any ancient writers had been of Alting's mind: but on fearching he found Theodoret, Jerom, and others expounding the verfe in the fanie manner. Under this patronage he acts, and from

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angel of heaven to the fhepherds, and conducted them to the cradle of the Saviour of the world. (1)

the whole he gathers that all the apoftles rule in chriftian churches, and that the moft excellent of all these rulers is S. Paul. Sunt inter nos apoftoli Chrifti, et inter illos eximius Paulus: Paulus præ cæteris ecclefiam fuis fcriptis ditavit et inftruxit. This is the Cocceian method of expounding fcripture, of which this excellent divine was too fond. Vitringa Obferv. Sacr. lib. iii. cap. 3. De Benjamine parvo.

(1) God takes moft pleasure in beflowing his favours on the moft abject. The common Father of all, infinitely fuperior to all human motives, ftrictly fpeaking, cannot be faid to take more pleasure in a poor than in a rich convert; all his works are infinitely wife in their plan, and good in their execution, and his felicity is neceffarily invariable: but our author means to inform us, that the Gospel, by conferring its highest favours on fuperior piety, and not on fuperior rank, has removed the feeming difgrace of poverty, and peculiarly difplays the goodness of God by invigorating the poor, whom all other fyftems of knowledge, and all expenfive religions deprefs.

"The primitive chriftians were poor in the bulk, 2 Cor.

3. In

viii. 1, 2.---the apostles were of the loweft rank, 1 Cor. ii. 26. born in an obfcure province, Acts ii. 7. John vii. 41. exercifing mean occupations, and keeping low company, Acts x. 6. xviii. 3.There were, indeed, fome exceptions, there was Nicodemus, Jofeph of Arimathea, the treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia, Cornelius, Apollos, Sergius Paulus the proconful, Dionyfius the Areopagite, a prophet, who had been brought up with Herod, and there were faints in Cæfar's houfhold.-All the apostles, except S. Paul, were illiterate, as well as poor: nor did their infpiration endow them with human erudition. In proof of this laft article, three things are to be observed. 1. The Lord, according to his promife, infpired them with the knowledge of all the truths, that were neceffary for the edification of his church, and the propagation of the gofpel

but this promise did not extend to the doctrines of hydrostatics, fluxions, philology, &c.-2. Their writings afford proof of the want of human erudition and eloquence, particularly thofe of Š. John, and their historian S. allows Peter and John to have been aypappalos after the day of Pentecoft, A&s iv. 13.

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3. In this meeting of the angels and fhepherds you fee a perpetual character of the economy of Jefus Chrift, wherein the highest and most fublime things are joined with the meaneft and loweft. In his perfon the eternal word is united to a creature, the divine nature to the human, infinity to infirmity, in one word, the Lord of Glory to mean flesh and blood. In his baptifm he is plunged in the water, and the Father speaks to him from heaven; he is under the hand of John the Baptift and the Holy Ghost defcends upon him. In his temptation he hungers, yet miraculously fupports a faft of forty days: the devil tempts him, and angels obey him. On his cross naked, crowned with thorns, and expofed to forrows, yet at the fame time shaking the earth and eclipfing the fun. Here in like manner angels are familiar with fhepherds angels to mark his majesty, fhepherds his humility angels because he is creator and mafter of all things, fhepherds because he made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a fervant.

4. This miffion of angels to fhepherds relates to the end, for which the fon of God came into the

All this does not imply that they were not good, true, fafe, clear authors, and fine natural orators.-3. The gift of tongues, which enabled them to render themselves intelligible to people of different nations, did not lead them into the erudition and oratory of each nation.-All this œconomy was moft excellently adapted to the general plan of redemption, the defign of which was to deftroy

the empire of the paffionsto elevate men to the study of heavenly things---to establish a kingdom not of this world. God in all is maximus in minimis." Moft of these are the remarks of a learned profeffor of divinity at Florence, and in many of them he agrees with our first apologists, Origen, Arnobius, Minucius Felix, &c. Joan. Lami de Eruditione Apoftolorum. cap. z. vi xv. xiv.

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