This event, or, more probably, the vengeance denounced in verse 16., Moses is commanded to record as a memorial in a book; and also to rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, by whom it was to be executed. Perhaps this memorial recorded in a book, is referred to in such passages as the following, Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud on their beds, (their places of rest). Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in "their hands, &c. to execute upon them the judgment written ; This honour have all his saints,' Psalm cxlix. 5-9.

Here then, as on all such occasions, the hand of the Lord and his holy arm hath gotten him the victory. The altar built on the occasion records the great deliverer in its name, Jehovah-nissi, the Lord, my banner. It is by the altar that Israel are more than conquerors through him that loved them, by shedding his blood for them on the altar. The 16th verse already referred to, has been variously rendered. Some read the passage thus, Because the hand of Amalek is against the throne of the Lord, he will have war,' &c.; and thus a cause given for God's recorded vengeance against Amalek. Others, and seemingly with more propriety, certainly more correctly, The hand, Jehovah, upon the throne,' &c. Those who wish to see the passage more thoroughly examined, we refer to Hallit's Notes, page 173-179, and Glas's Works.

CHAP. XVIII. This chapter records the visit paid to Moses by Jethro his father-in-law, accompanied by Zipporah his wife, and Gershon and Eliezer his two sons. Several circumstances mentioned are connected with very important information. A priest of Midian is deeply interested in the concerns of Israel. Moses and the leaders of Israel join in sacrifice and worship with this Midianite, and, what is still more remarkable, this Midianite advises Moses to adopt a regulation in judgment, which was then adopted and continued to be practised. We have no doubt that a priest of Midian being made use of for such an important purpose, was a circumstance of an important typical value. As this scene immediately precedes the typical penticost, are we to consider it as foreshewing the consequen ces of that great event? And that from the fellowship of the Gentiles, a new system of judgment and discipline should in due time be introduced into the church of Christ? We shall not urge this subject upon our readers; and only detain them to remark, that Jethro's character of a judge in Israel, is well entitled to the attention of God's true Israel. • Men fearing God, and hating covetousness," should alone be employed to rule in his house. As the constitution of the Old-Testament church will be a subject of necessary investigation hereafter, we shall not enter into the particulars of Jethro's advice in this place.

CHAP. XIX. This chapter sets out with announcing the fulfilment of God's word to Moses. Israel were now come to that very mountain, where the God of their fathers had appeared to Moses in the flame in the bush; Sinai, which evidently derives its name (a

bush) from that circumstance, denoting, as we have already seen, his future manifestation, as a root out of a dry ground. They came here in the third month; and it may be proper here to mention, that the Lord descended on Sinai, exactly on the fiftieth day from the Exodus from Egypt: and this chapter opens on the forty-seventh day; three days were employed in preparations for this celestial visitation. And here, let us remark, what we shall have frequent occasion to enforce, that times and periods are not kept on record by the Holy Ghost without design. Why did God appoint the seventh day, as a day of fellowship with God after the works of creation? Why was the church of Israel called into the presence of their God, exactly after seven times seven days had elapsed from their going out of Egypt? Why did the land of Canaan rest every seventh year ? Why was the great jubilee trumpet sounded, after seven times seven years were completed? Why did the Holy Ghost descend, in powerful majesty, when seven times seven days were completed from that on which Christ our passover, who had been sanctified for us, was raised from the dead? These things are not the consequence of blind chance? He who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, has a determined purpose in them all.

Sinai is the scene of this awful display of divine majesty. It is the highest eminence of a vast ridge of mountains, which run from east to west through Arabia Petræa. The next adjoining eminence is Horeb, at the bottom of which, the water issued from the rock. From their propinquity, and their forming part of the same continued chain of mountains, they are often put the one for the other; and the adjacent country is indifferently termed, the wilderness of Sinai, or the wilderness of Horeb.'

We are now to enter upon a subject, on which we are free to con fess our views are very different from the generality of commentators. We trust we shall adduce authority from the word of God for what we advance; and if so, we shall not be very anxious to court the support of human authority, or evidence. There has been the most unaccountable darkness and mist thrown upon the Sinai covenant, by adhering to a certain system of doctrine, and forcing the text to speak in a consistency with this system. We shall therefore request our reader's patient attention to a few preliminary remarks, before proceeding with the scriptural narration.

Wherefore then serveth the larv? is a question which has seldom met with that sober reply which it deserves. We have said that à system of doctrine has been adopted on this head; and we will not hesitate to assert, that it is a system which involves the whole scriptures of Moses and the prophets in inconsistency and error. Were ever light and darkness more strongly contrasted, than the law of Moses and the gos pel? In place of finding Moses in fellowship with our Lord on the holy mount, human teachers would lead us to consider them as direct opponents. And, which is still more profane, this system of doc trine leads us to think of the God of Israel, delivering from the corporeal bondage of Egypt, to bring them under a spiritual bondage, ten thousand times more awful than any which the taskmasters of

Egypt could impose; a yoke of bondage which neither we nor our ⚫ fathers were able to bear.' Men have been taught to believe, that God descended on Sinai to promulgate his law, as a ground of acceptance before God; and to impose obedience to that law, as a covenant of works, from which the gospel was afterwards preached by Jesus Christ to deliver them. The self-contradictory tendency of this system, has plunged teachers into a complete vortex of absurdity and inconsistency. A leading writer of our day (see Scott's bible, On the giving of the law) gravely tells us, that the old covenant was ⚫ not altogether a covenant of works, por altogether a covenant of grace, but partook of both.' Ingenious device! Yet he is only speaking plainly out, what the general doctrine on this subject ob viously leads to. Thus, then, we find grace and works were not in the days of Moses those diametrically opposite principles which they were in the days of Paul; but the Holy One of Israel, when he Israel that law in which they boasted, gave them a law partly of grace, and partly of works! But it is not our province to enter into the field of controversy, and perplex our readers, with combating huinan opinions: we shall briefly state a few general outlines, and examine the scriptures as we proceed, in order to determine how far these outlines are correct and well supported.

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We have formerly stated, that the Abrahamic covenant was evidently twofold. Its first and great object was, the everlasting covenant or promise of the better country, that is, the heavenly; and, 2dly, as a pledge or earnest, as well as a figure of this, the temporal or earthly covenant was connected with it. Let this point be well established in the mind, because it is of great importance. When God took Israel by the hand, and brought them out of the house of bondage, he began to fulfil the temporal covenant, which was the figure of the spiritual; and that law, which was given them connected with the temporal promise, was the figure of the gospel, the introducer of the better hope. Thus then Canaan was a pledge and figure of heaven; the law, a shadow of the gospel. The great source of error on this point, is a mistake in answering the question, of what law does the apostle speak, Heb. viii. 1. when he says, Now the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things? It was not the law of the ten words given at Sinai, which we are now to enter upon the consideration of; we repeat, the voice of words commanded by the Lord himself from Sinai, formed no part of that law which was a shadow of good things: there was nothing figurative, or corresponding with the idea of a shadowin these words. Thou shalt not steal, kill, or commit adultery, are plain words, which admit of no figurative explanation. We can still less think of these words, as corresponding with what Paul says of the law of the old covenant, that it waxed old, and was ready to vanish away.' No, the law of the ten words is eternal and immutable! It applies to every nation, tribe and tongue : it binds the conscience of all the human race, and will do till the course of time is finished. But there was a law, which was a shadow, which was capable of change, and which vanished away. The one Lawgiver who is able to save

and to destroy, who said, Thou shalt not kill, said also, Thou shalt bring thy trespass-offering unto the Lord, Lev. vi. 6. Let any person consi

der the distinct nature of these two laws with attention; and the dif ference, the essential distinction between them will be obvious. The one is eternal, unchangeable, and universal, peculiar to no age or nation; the other was temporary, mùtable, and binding on the Jews on. ly. The penalty attached to it was, death without mercy;' yet it waxed old, and the observation of it became criminal. It was typical: it shadowed forth the good things of the gospel : yet when it was fulfilled, by the death of Christ, it became a weak and beggarly ele'ment.' Such laws Paul calls the law of commandments contain⚫ed in ordinances.'

These two laws are carefully distinguished, wherever they are spoken of, either in the Old Testament or New. The one is the LAW OF GOD; the law which worketh wrath. The other is, the LAW OF MOSES, viz. the lively oracles which Moses received for Israel in the mount; that law which was ordained by angels in his hand as mediator. We are aware, that when the law of Moses is spoken of, it is understood to include these ten words; but this is incorrect, and we request the attention of the reader to what we have now to state to him on this subject. In Deut. v. we have a recapitulation of what took place at Sinai: the ten commandments are repeated; and at ver. 22. it is said, These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire of the cloud, and of the thick • darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more,' &c. Here we find these ten words are expressly said to have been spoken by the Lord himself, and he added no more. But downwards at verse 31. of the same chapter, the Lord says to Moses, But as for thee, stand thou here by me, and I will speak unto thee all the commandments, statutes and judgments,' &c. Now here is the law of Moses it is his law, not only as spoken to him, but he was faithful in delivering this law to all the people. When the ten words were spoken, Moses stood trembling among the rest of the congregation; for we are told, that even Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake;' but when the law of commandments contained in ordinances was given, it was given by the mediation of Moses, and hence is called the law of Moses. We mean not to anticipate the objections which may perhaps be brought against this view of the subject, as they will fall to be considered in their course.

When Moses had brought Israel, and encamped them before the mount, he, by divine direction, ascends the mount to meet Jehovah. DIVINELY GRACIOUS indeed are the first communications of the Lord to Moses on this occasion! They are expressive of a very different purpose from that of bringing them under the yoke of an unfulfilled law, as men talk; nay, a law, as far beyond the possibility of fulfilment by man, as the heavens are beyond the earth. Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians,' in punishing them for op. pressing you, and providing for your complete deliverance; and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you to myself.' Nature does not furnish a more striking and impressive metaphor than this

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of the eagle and her brood. The sagacity and vigilance of the eagle, in protecting her young ones; her strength and fierceness in defending them; her tender sympathy with their weakness, (for though the king of the feathered tribes for some weeks, they are the most helpless); her manner of delivering them, by transporting them on her wings to a place of safety, are all images of the most interesting kind. Thinking of Israel as under this heavenly guardian, and rather considering his church in every age, as under his unassailable protection, we may anticipate the words of the 144th psalm, and say, Happy is the people that is in such a case; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord.'

Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people; for all the earth is mine.' Here we have one of the passages on which that baseless structure, a covenant of works at Sinai, is raised. Here we have the first foundation-stone of that dangerous doctrine, which, if admitted, saps the very foundation of the Christian hope, viz. that Israel's enjoyment of Canaan, was the reward of obedience to the letter of God's moral law. A more daring attack on the character of Him, with whom we have to do, was never devised in the human heart! What, did ever God connect any of his blessings, temporal or eternal, with outward obedience, as it is called, with the letter of a law; or, to use the Lawgiver's own words, with the outside of the cup or the platter? The thought is impious, indeed! Let us ask, upon what ground must we annex the idea of obedience to a law, as the ground or title to blessings, to expressions used under the old covenant, which, when used under the new, we would consider as heterodoxy indeed, were any such idea connected with them? He who here says, • If ye will obey my voice,' said before Pontius Pilate, Every one that is of the truth, heareth (that is, obeyeth) my voice. Nor should the IF startle us, as a term of contract, it can be used in no other sense, than in the epistles to the seven churches in Asia: 6 IF, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come upon thee,' &c. Rev. iii. 3. God's voice, in the ten words, they had not yet heard, but they had heard his voice in his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they had seen him working salvation for them, in fulfilment of that covenant. All the obedience here, and in similar passages, is what, in the New Testament, would be called the obedience of faith; just as the apostles were commanded, when they went abroad to preach the gospel to every creature, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,' &c. The gospel ever was, and will be connected with obedience; but the important question is, What is the nature of that obedience? Is it obedience to the letter of a law, the spirit of which they are incapable of obeying? Surely not. How would we treat any man who would say, that when John the Baptist came preaching the baptism of repentance and remission of sins, and saying, Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance,' that he meant obedience to the shell of the moral law? Or, that when Peter says, through sanctification of the spirit unto obedience,' he means, our

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