Here is a _plain Instance_ of taking _Scripture_ in a literal Sense, when it can by no Means be so understood. According to this, a Man, that only _steals_, may be said to commit Murder, and be _punished_ as a Murderer as well as a Thief; though we know he has not committed it. In the main, we may conscientiously observe and keep God's Laws, and yet in Time of _Temptation_ and _Weakness_ fall into some Evil, will, God therefore _consider_ and _punish_ us as those who live in the daily Breach and Contempt of all his Laws? No! For, on the contrary, God ever waits to be gracious to all such, as through Inadvertence fall into Sin, and are willing to forsake it. The View and Intent of our Apostle, in these Words, seems to be of very _easy_ and _plain_ Signification: There was in those early Times, as appears from our Saviour's frequently reproving the Hypocrisy of that Generation, a Sort of People, who appeared zealous in the Externals of Religion, while at the same Time they neglected Things of far _greater Moment:_ _Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, ye pay Tithe of Mint and Cummin; and have omitted the weightier Matters of the Law:_ Mat. xxiii. _ver_. 23. They daringly violated God's Laws in some of the most material and important Instances, and complied with others in a mere formal ostentatious Way; and were therefore guilty, in the Divine View, of the Breach of the _whole Law;_ for _mere Obedience_ upon improper Motives to a _Part_ of the Law, while at the same Time they allow'd themselves in the _known_ and _deliberate_ Violation of _more weighty_ Commands, was no true or proper Obedience at all: and, in this Sense, the _Jewish_ Sacrifices of the Law, though commanded by the highest Authority, were always esteemed an Abomination; and the Christian Religion as well as the Law, is certainly liable to Abuses of the same Kind, from Men of hypocritical and corrupt Minds, whom therefore this Doctrine of the Apostle _effectually_ and _peculiarly_ regards and reproves: and I appeal to all, if this Construction of the Sacred Text be not more agreeable to Reason and Common Sense, than that which the Doctor has thought fit and convenient to bestow thereon. I beseech the Doctor to consider how, according to his Principles, this Covenant could be proposed to _Adam_, out of a kind and beneficent intention in the Creator, when God knew, in the first Place, that _Adam_ would not keep it, and determined, in the second Place, upon the Breach of it, to leave the Bulk of Mankind to perish everlastingly, without Mercy, without sufficient or suitable Means of Redemption; and what a _cruel Joke_, upon the _Calvinistical Scheme_, of God's willing the _Fall_, was here put upon _Adam_, and all his Posterity!