120 Q. Can thefe Things be faid therefore to be fulfilled or accomplished in Chrift, fince the Meaning of all these Ceremonies or Types is not yet known even to Chriftians themselves?

A. The New Teftament has revealed to us, and taught us to underftand the chief and moft confiderable both of the Types and Prophecies; but neither one nor the other are underftood fully: And yet we make no Doubt but the Prophecies are, or fhall be accomplished in Chrift; and why not the Types alfo? Probably it is referved as one Part of the Glory of that happy Day, when the Jews fhall be converted, that the reft of their Prophecies, as well as the Rites and Ceremonies of their ancient Worship, together with their Accomplishment in Chrift and the Gospel, fhall be more completely understood.

Of the Political or Judicial Law of
the Jews.

1QWE have had a particular Relation of

the Moral and Ceremonial Laws of the Jews: Say now what was their Judicial or Political Law?

A. That which related to their civil Government as a Nation.

2 Q. Who was their Governor ?

A. God himself condefcended to take upon him the Title of their KING, and he appointed various Kinds of Governors under him, as he thought fit, Judges viii. 23. 1 Sam. xii. 12, 13. Isa, xxxiii. 22.

Note,

Chap. VI. Note, Since the fame Person was both their GoD and their KING, the Tabernacle and the Temple may be confidered not only as the Refidence of their God, but as the Palace of their King alf. The Court of the Tabernacle was the Court of the Palace; the Holy of Holies was the Prefence chamber; the Mercy feat was his Throne; the Cherubs represented his Attendants as God, and the Priests were his Minifters of State as King; the High Priest his Prime Minifter; the Levites were his Officers, difperfed through all the Kingdom; the Table of Shewbread, together with fome Part of the Sacrifices which were given to the Priest, did reprefent the Provifion for his Houfhold, &c.

Whatfoever other Governors were made from Time to Time, either Captains, Judges, or Kings, they were but Deputies to God, who put them in, and turned them out at Pleasure.

3Q What did the Political or Civil Laws, or Commands oblige the People to?

A. To many particular Practices, relating, (1.) To War and Peace. (2.) To Husbands and Wives. (3) Parents and Children. (4.) Mafters and Servants. (5.) Food and Raiment. (6.) Houfes and Lands. (7.) Corn and Hufbandry. (8.) Money and Cattle. (9) The Birds and Beafts. (10) The Firft-born of all Things. (11.) The Maintenance of the Levites and Priests. (12.) The Care of the Bodies and Lives of Men.

4 Q. What were fome of the more peculiar Laws about War and Peace?

A. That they fhould make no Peace with the feven Nations of Canaan, but that they fhould deftroy them utterly; and that when they went to War, every Soldier who was afraid might go home, Deut. vii. 1, 2, 3. and chap xx. 8.

5 Q. What were fome of their peculiar Laws about Hufbands and Wives ?

I

A. That

A. That a Man should marry his Brother's Widow, if his Brother died childlefs: and that Men were permitted to put away their Wives by a Writing of Divorce, Deut. xxv. 5. xxiv. 1. And that Adultery was to be punished with Death, Lev xx. 10.

6 Q. What were fome of their special Laws about Parents and Children?

A. The firft-born Son was to have a double Portion: And that any Child who smote or cursed his Father or his Mother, or was obftinately rebellious and incorrigible, was to be put to Death, Deut xxi. 17, 18-21. Exod. xxi. 15, 17.

7 Q. What are fome of their special Laws about Mafters and Servants?

A. Any Servant might go free, if his Mafter had maimed him: And an Ifraelitifh Servant, though he were bought with Money, fhall go out free for nothing in the feventh Year; and if he will not go out free, his Mafter shall bore his Ear through on the Door-poft with an Awl, and he fhall ferve him for ever, Exod. xxi. 2-6. and ver. 26, 27. Note, This Word, for ever, fignifies till the Year of Jubilee; for all Servants or Slaves who were Hebrews, were then to have their Freedom, and return to their own Lands and Poffeffions in their own Tribe. See Lev. xxv. 29–42. And this is the best way of reconciling Exod. xxi. with Lev. xxv. where one Text faith, The Servant fhall go out free in the feventh Year, and another in the Year of Jubilee, and the third faith, he fhall ferve for ever.

8Q. What fpecial Laws had they relating to their Food?

A. That they should eat no Blood, nor the Fat of the Kidneys, nor any Thing that died of itself, or was torn of wild Beafts, nor any of the Beasts

ог

or Birds, or Fishes, which were pronounced to be unclean, Lev. xi, and xvii. Deut. xiv. 21. And therefore they would not eat with Heathens, left they should tafte unclean Food.

9 Q. What were some of their Laws relating to their Clothing?

A. A Man must not wear the Raiment of Women, nor a Woman the Raiment of Men: They muft wear no mixed Garment made of Woolen and Linen; and they were required to make Fringes in the Borders of their Garments, and put upon the Fringe of the Borders a Ribbon of blue, that they might look upon it, and remember to do the Commandments of the Lord, Numb. xv. 38, 39. Deut. xxii. 5, 11, 12.

"Note, In our Saviour's Time they wrote Sentences of the Law on Parchment, and put them on their Foreheads and their Garments: Thefe were called. Phylacteries, Matt. xxiii. 5.

10 Q. What are fome of their fpecial Laws about Houfes and Lands?

A. That every eventh Year the Land should reft from ploughing and sowing; and God promised to give them Food enough in the fixth for the three Years. And every fiftieth Year, which is the Year of Jubilee, all Houses and Lands that were fold, fhould return to their former Poffeffors, except Houses in walled Towns, Lev. xxv. 2-17 20, 21, 30, c.

Note, Every feventh Year, in which the Fields were not to be tilled, was called a Sabbath, or Sabbatical Year: and after feven Sabbatical Years, that is, forty-nine Years, was the Year of Jubilee in the fiftieth. Though fome have fuppofed the Jubilee to be the forty-ninth Year itself, that fo two Sabbatical Years might not come together: For in the Ju

bilee,

bilee, it is plain, there was to be no Ploughing, nor Sowing, nor Reaping, nor Vintage, Lev. xxv. 11. IIQ. What were fome fpecial Jewish Laws about Corn and Husbandry?

A. They were forbid to plough with an Ox and an Afs together; to fow their Fields with Seeds of different Kinds; or to make clean Riddance of their Harvests, either of the Field or of the Trees, for the Gleanings were to be left for the Poor, Deut. xxii. 9-11. Lev. xix. 9, 10, 19. And any Travellers might eat their Fill of Grapes or Corn in a Field or Vineyard, but might carry none away, Deut. xxiii. 24, 25.

12 Q. What were fome of their peculiar Laws about Money, Goods, and Cattle ?

A. They might lend Money upon Ufury to a Stranger, but not to an Ifraelite. That a Thief Thould reftore double for whatsoever Thing he had ftolen; but if he ftole Cattle, and killed or fold them, he must pay five Oxen for an Ox, and four Sheep for a Sheep, Exod. xxii. 22. Deut. xxiii. 19, 20. Exod. xxii. 1-9. But if he had nothing to pay, the Thief fhould be fold for his Theft, ver. 3.

13Q. What fpecial Laws related to Beafts and Birds?

A. They were forbid to muzzle the Mouth of the Ox that trod out the Corn, that fo he might eat some while he was treading it: Nor when they took a Bird's-neft in the Field with Eggs or young ones, were they permitted to take the Dam with them, Deut. xxv. 4. and xxii. 6, 7.

14 Q. What Laws were given them about the Firft-born?

A. The Firft-born of Man and Beafts were devoted or given to God, as well as the First-fruits of the Trees and of the Field, Exod. xxii. 29, 30. Numb, xviii. 12, 13.