Of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

21. The next book is Leviticus, which contains little besides the laws for the peculiar ritual observance of the Jews, and therefore affords no great instruction to us now; you may pass it over entirely; and for the same reason you may omit the first eight chapters of Numbers. The rest of Numbers is chiefly a continuation of the history, with some ritual laws.

22. In Deuteronomy, Moses makes a recapitulation of the foregoing history, with zealous exhortations to the people, faithfully to worship and obey that God who had worked such amazing wonders for them: he promises them the noblest temporal blessings, if they prove obedient, and adds the most awful and striking denunciations against them, if they rebel, or forsake the true God.

23. I have before observed, that the sanctions of the Mosaic law, were temporal rewards and punishments; those of the New Testament are eternal. These last, as they are so infinitely more forcible than the first, were reserved for the last, best gift to mankind—and were revealed by the Messiah, in the fullest and clearest manner. Moses, in this book, directs the method in which the Israelites were to deal with the seven nations, whom they were appointed to punish for their profligacy and idolatry; and whose land they were to possess, when they had driven out the old inhabitants. He gives them excellent laws, civil as well as religious, which were after the standing municipal laws of that people. This book concludes with Moses' song and death.