87 xii. 19, 20. they were not able to endure the voice of words, nor yet to abide that which was commanded *, · infomuch as Mofes himself did fear and quake; and they did all of them fo fear and fright, fhake and fhiver, that their peacock feathers were now pulled down. This terrible fhew wherein God gave his law on mount Sinai, faith Luther ‡, did reprefent the use of the law: there was in the people of Ifrael that came out of Egypt a fingular holiness; they gloried, and faid, 'We are the people of God, we will do all that the 'Lord commandeth.' Moreover Mofes fanctified them, and bad them wash their garments, refrain from their wives, and prepare themselves against the third day; there was not one of them but he was full of holiness: the third day, Mofes bringeth the people out of their tents to the mountain in the fight of the Lord, that they might hear his voice. What followed then? why, when they beheld the horrible fight of the mount fmoking and burning, the black clouds, and the lightnings flashing up and down, in this horrible darkness, and heard the found of the trumpet blowing long and waxing louder and louder, they were afraid, and standing afar off, they faid not to Mofes as before, All that 'the Lord commandeth we will do; but talk thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God talk with us, left we die.' So that now they faw they were finners, and had offended God; and therefore ftood in need of a mediator to negociate peace, and intreat for reconciliation between God and them; and the Lord highly approved of their words, as you may fee, Deut. v. 28. where Mofes repeating what they had faid, adds further: The Lord heard the voice of your 'words, when ye fpake to me, and the Lord faid unto 'me, I have heard the voice of the words of this 'people, which they have spoken unto thee; they 'have well faid, all that they have spoken,' to wit, in defiring a mediator †. Where I pray you take no tice, F 4 On Galatians, page 154. *Babing, on Exod. xx. tice, that they were not commended for faying, All that the Lord commandeth we will do.' No (faith a godly writer), they were not praised for any other thing, than for defiring a mediator (w) ‡; whereupon the Lord promised Chrift unto them even as Mofes teftifieth, saying, 'The Lord thy God shall raise up unto thee, a Prophet like unto me, from among you, even of your brethren, unto him fhall you hearken, according to all that thou defireft of the Lord thy 'God in Horeb, in the day of the affembly, when thou 'faidft, Let me hear the voice of the Lord my God no more, nor fee this great fire any more, that I die not: and the Lord faid unto me, They have well spoken, 'I will raise them up a Prophet from among their ⚫ brethren like unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he fhall fpeak unto them all that I 'command him;' and to affure us that Chrift was the prophet here fpoken of, he himself faith unto the Jews, John v. 46. If ye had believed Mofes, ye would *The author of the benefit of Chrift's death. ‡ Ainf worth on Deut. xviii, 15, 16, 17, 18. (w) I fee no warrant for reftraining the fense of this text to their defiring of a mediator. The univerfal term, all that they have fpoken, includes alfo their engaging to receive the law at the mouth of the Mediator, which is joined with that their defire, ver. 27. "Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord ourGod fhall fay; and fpeak thou unto us all that the Lord ourGod fhall fpeakunto thee,andwe we will hear and do.' Ver. 28.---- And the Lord faid, ---They have well faid all that they have fpoken'. But there is a palpable difference between what they fpoke, Exod. xix. 8. and what they fpoke here, relative to their own practice. The former runs thus, All that the 'Lord hath spoken we will 'do;' the latter thus, And we will hear and do;' the original text bears no more The one relates to obedience only, the other to faith alfo, We will HEAR,'i. e. believe, Ifa. lv. 3. John ix, 27. Hence the objectof faith, that which is to be heard or believed, is called a report, properly a hearing, Ifa. liii. 1. Rom, x. 16. The former fpeaks much blind felf-confidence: the latter a fenfe of duty and a willing mind, but withal a fenfe of weaknefs, and fear of mifmanagement. would have believed me; for he wrote of me:' and that this was it which he wrote of him, the apoftle Peter witneffeth,, Acts iii. 22. And fo doth the martyr Stephen, Acts vii. 37. Thus you fee, when the Lord had, by means of the covenant of works made with Adam, humbled them, and made them figh for Chrift the promifed Seed, he renewed the promise with them, yea, and the covenant of grace made with Abraham (x). Ant. I pray, Sir, how doth it appear, that the Lord renewed that covenant with them? Evan. It doth plainly appear, that the Lord gave them by Mofes the Levitical laws, and ordained the tabernacle, the ark and the mercy-feat, which were all types of Chrift. Moreover, Lev. i. 1. The Lord 'called unto Mofes, and fpake unto him out of the 'tabernacle' (y), and commanded him to write the Levitical laws, and the tabernacle ordinances; telling him (y) From the mercy-feat, which was within the tabernacle. The tabernacle was an eminent type of Chrift, Heb. ix. 11. as the temple alfo was, John ii. 19, 21. So this reprefented God's speaking in a Mediator in Jefus Chrift. Here was a change agreeable to the people's defire at mount Sinai. God fpeaks,not from a burning mountain as before, but out of the tabernacle; not with terrible thundrings as at Sinai, but in a still fmall voice, intimated to us, and imitated by the extraordinary fmalnefs of one letter in the original word rendered called, as the Hebrew doctors do account for that irregularity of writing in that word. (x) Making a promife of Chrift to them, not only as the feed of the woman, but as the feed of Abraham; and yet more particularly, as the feed of Ifrael; The Lord thy God will raife up unto thee a Prophet, from the 'midft of THEE, of THY 'BRETHREN,' Deut.xvij. 15 And here it is to be obferved, that this renewing of the promife and covenant of grace with them was immediately upon the back of the giving of the law on mount Sinai, for at that time was their fpeech which the Lord commended as well fpoken: this appears from Exod.xx.18, 19. comp.with Deut. v. 23,--28. and upon that fpeech of theirs was that renewal made; which is clear from Deut.xviii.17.18. 2 him withal, Exod. xxxiv. 27. "That after the tenor of thefe words, he had made a covenant with him, and with Ifrael (z).' So Mofes wrote thofe laws, Exod. xxiv. 4. not in tables of ftone, but an authentical book (a), faith Ainfworth *, called the book of the covenant, which book Mofes read in the au dience of the people, Exod. xxiv. 7. and the people confented unto it. Then Mofes having before fent young men of the children of Ifrael, who were firstborn *Ainsworth on the text. understanding it of writing in a book, fince he was not commanded to write another way. So, in a like cafe, before he went up into the mount for the firft forty days he wrote Levitical laws in a book, called the book of the covenant, Exod. xxxiv. 4. And Mofes wrote all the (2) Mofes exceedingly feared and quaked (Heb. xii, ar.) while he ftood among the reft of the Ifraelites at mount Sinai during the giving of the law, Exod. xix, 25. with chap. xx. 21. But here he is reprefented as If rael's federal head in this covenant, he being the typical mediator; which plain-words of the Lord.' Verfe ly intimates the covenant of grace to have been made with Chrift, and in him with all the elect: I have made a covenant with thee, and with Ifrael,' faith the text. See the firft note on the preface, from the larger catechifm queft. 31. (a) Mofes was twice on the mount with God forty days. In the time of the fecond forty days he received the order to write mentioned Exod xxxiv. 27. as appears by comparing ver. 27. with 28. This comprehended his writing of the Levitical laws but not of the decalogue or ten commands: for thefe laft God himself wrote on tables of ftone, ver. 28. compared with ver. 1. This peremptory divine order Mofes, no doubt, did obey; 7. And he took the book of 'the covenant, and read.' Compare verfe 18. This writing alfo comprehended Levitical laws, but not the ten commands. For all the words of the Lord which Mofes wrote,ver. 4. were all the words of the Lord which Mofes told the people, ver. 3. And what thefe were appears from his commiffion received for that effect,chap. xx. 21, 22. ' And the peo. ple ftood afar off, and Mo 'fesdrew near unto the thick 'darkness where God was: and the Lord faid unto Mofes, Thus thou fhalt fay unto the children of Ifrael,' &c. So all the words were thefe which follow to the end of the 23d chap-, ter. born (b), and therefore priests until the time of the Levites (c), to offer facrifice of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings unto the Lord; He took the blood ⚫ and fprinkled it on the people, and faid, Behold the 'blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning these things:' whereby they were taught, that, by virtue of blood*, this covenant betwixt God and them was confirmed, and that Christ, by his blood shed, fhould fatisfy for their fins; for indeed the covenant of grace was, before the coming of Christ, sealed by his blood in types and figures † (4). 5. Ant. But, Sir, was this every way the fame covenant that was made with Abraham? "Evan. Surely I do believe, that reverend Bullinger + fpake very truly, when he said, that God gave unto thefe people no other religion, in nature fubftance, and matter itself, differing from the laws of their fathers; though, for fome refpects, he added there. unto many ceremonies and certain ordinances; the which he did to keep their minds in expectation of the coming of Chrift, whom he promised unto them; and to confirm them in looking for him, left they fhould wax faint. And as the Lord did thus by the cere monies, as it were, lead them by the hand to Chrift; fo did he make them a promife of the land of Canaan, and outward profperity in it, as a type of heaven and eternal happiness: fo that the Lord dealt with them as children in their infancy and under age, leading them on by the help of earthly things to heavenly |