Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews

them, not only in their own prophetical writings, but also by the divine writers of sundry books of the New Testament. But all this, we say, must come to pass when the veil shall be taken from their eyes, and when they shall look on him whom they have pierced; and when they joyfully receive him whom they have sinfully rejected for so many generations. Until this be done, they may wrestle as they can with their perplexities, and comfort themselves as well as they are able in their miseries; they may get money in their dispersions by all unlawful arts and ways imaginable; and may expose themselves to the delusions of impostors, false prophets, and pretended deliverers, which to their unspeakable misery and reproach they have now done ten times; yet deliverance, peace, tranquillity, acceptance with God and man, they shall not obtain. Here lies the crisis of their condition. When they shall receive, acknowledge, and believe in that Messiah who came to them so long time since, whom their fathers wickedly slew, and hanged on a tree, and whom they have since no less wickedly rejected; and when by his Spirit and grace they shall be turned from ungodliness, and shall have their eyes opened to see the mystery of the grace, wisdom, and love of God in the blood of his Son; then shall they obtain mercy from the God of their forefathers, and returning again to their own land, ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited again, even in Jerusalem.’

§ 1, 2. Ordinances and institutions of the Jewish church referred to and unfolded in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Principal heads of them mentioned therein. § 3. The call of Abraham, Heb. xi. 8, 9, Χο. The foundation of the church in his posterity. § 4. The name of Abram; signification of it. Changed into Abraham; its signification. ᾧὮ 5. The time of his birth and death. Whence called. § 6. Ur of the Chaldees, where. And Haran. Extent of Mesopotamia. Moses and Stephen reconciled. § 7. Abraham before his call infected with idolatry. § 7—9. Time of his call. § 10. Institution of circumcision. End and use of it. § 11. Time of the Israelites sojourning in Egypt, Gen. xi. 13; Exod. xi. 40, 41; Acts vii. 6; Gal. iii. 17, reconciled. The beginning and ending of the 430 years. § 12. The fatal period of changes in that church. § 13. Institution of the passover. § 14. The time of its celebration. The month. § 15. Time of the day. tmranyn 13 between the evenings, when. § 16. The oceasion and nature of this ordinance. The matter of it. The manner of its observance. Sundry things suited to its first celebration, not afterward observed. The number required at the eating of thelamb. By whom it was killed. Where. How dressed. Jewish traditions rejected. ᾧ 17. The feast of unleavened bread. Its rites. § 18, 19, Excision, to the neglect of what ordinances annexed. Jews acknowledge the figurative nature of this ordinance. § 20. Of frontlets and phylacteries, Exod. xxui. 9. Signs and memorials. The sections of the law written in the frontlets. § 21. The Jews’ manner of making their phylacteries: deceits therein. Their trust in them: reproved by our Saviour. Of their fringes, their appointment, making, and use. § 22. Dedication of the first-born males to God. Price of the redemption of children. §23. Close of God’s first dispensation towards that church. § 24. The solemn νομοθεσια. § 25, Preparations for it. Remote. Occasional temporary institutions between the Red Sea and Sinai. Of the waters of Marah. § 26. The giving of manna. Derivation and signification of the name. § 27, 28. Water brought out of the rock. That rock Christ. § 29. Immediate preparations for the receiving of the law. The time that the people came to Sinai. The day. § 30. The time of the day that the appearance of God’s glory began. ‘The same time that Christ rose from the dead, § 31. The place. Sinai the name of the mountain, Horeb of the wilderness. Of the monastery there. § 32. Moses’ first ascent.

The ground of it. § 53, 34. The people prepared by the remembrance of mercies and promises. § 35. Of their washing their clothes. Nota baptism of standing use. ᾧ 36. Bounds set unto the mount. § 37. In what sense it might be touched, Heb. xii. 21. § 38—40. How the offender was to be punished. 7°12 yan x5, opened. § 41—43. The station and order of the people in receiving of the law. § 44,45. The ministry of angels in the preparations for God’s glorious presence. How the people met God, and God them. § 46. When Moses used those words, “1 exceedingly fear and quake.’

§ 1. Iv the Epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle treats either directly or occasionally of the worship of God under the Old Testament; of the state of the church in those periods; and of the whole, or at least of the most important parts of the Mosaic economy. Indeed, there is nothing material, from the call of Abraham, to the utmost issue of God’s dispensations towards his posterity, that is omitted by him. And if we have not that previous acquaintance with these things, which he supposed in them to whom he wrote, much darkness and many mistakes must attend us in considering the subjects of which he treats, and the ends which he proposes to himself. Now it will not be expedient to insist upon these things, every time that they are mentioned or alluded to. I thought it meet, in the close of these Prolegomena, to present the reader with a brief scheme and delineation of the whole Mosaic economy, as also of those other previous concerns of the church, in the posterity of Abraham, to which the apostle in this Hpistle directs us. And they are these that follow:—

1. The call and obedience of Abraham, ch. xi. 8—17.

2. The institution and observance of the passover, ch. xi- 28.

ὃ. The building of the tabernacle in the wilderness, and afterwards of the temple in answer thereunto, ch. ii. 3, 4, ix. 1—5, x. 19—22, with its utensils.

It is evident, that under these heads are comprised all the principal concerns of the ancient church, with the worship and rule of God therein; and all of them are reflected on, and most of them explained and applied to the service of the gospel by our apostle. However, I shall not at present engage in the exposition of the particular places in the Epistle where they are treated of; this is to be done elsewhere; but I shall only represent them as they are described in their institution and use in the Old Testament, that we may understand them aright, as they are mentioned and made use of in the New Testament.

§ 2. Many of these things, I acknowledge, especially those concerning the fabric and worship of the temple, have been so largely discussed by others, that I should judge my endeavours in reviewing them altogether needless, if the nature of our present design would allow them to be omitted. For much has been formerly collected from the Scriptures, with excellent success, respecting the fabric of divine worship, and the ceremonies thereof, by Josephus, and more modern Jewish masters, by Abubensci, Arius Montanus, Villalpandus, Capellus, Ribera, Constantine Emperor, Broughton, Ainsworth, Weemse, Rivet, and by all learned expositors on the parts of holy writ where these things are recorded. And there are also some of late amongst ourselves, who have treated this subject with much diligence in large discourses. They are persons worthily skilled im suitable learning, and industrious in improving their knowledge of all that learning which is needful to the due and accurate handling of this subject. But notwithstanding their labours, I shall proceed in the way which I have mentioned above, because a discourse on these subjects 1s necessary to my present design; and because most of the things which I am now to consider are such as fell not under the consideration of those learned persons; and because I design not an exact examination of the particular concerns of all these things, with a discussion of the reasons and arguments wherewith various apprehensions of them are supported, but only to represent such a scheme of them, as may enable the reader to judge aright of the references of the apostle to them, and of the use he makes of them in this Epistle.

§ 3. First, then, The call of Abraham, which was the foundation on which all the following administrations of God towards his posterity, and his whole worship amongst them, were built, is excellently and fully described by our apostle, ch. xi. 5—19: ‘ By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went,’ Gen. xi. 4. ‘By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, Gen. xii. 13, 14. ‘Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised, Gen. xvii. 19, xxi.2. ‘Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable,.13, 16; Gen. xv. 5. ‘These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, Gen. xxii. 4, xlvii. 9; 1 Chron. xxix. 15. ‘For they that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country; and truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned, Gen. xxiv. 5, 7. ‘ But now they desire a better, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and (or even) he that received the promises, offered up his only begotten Son, of whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called,’ (so that he was his only begotten with respect unto the promise, Gen. xxi. 12, xxii. 9,) ‘accounting that God was able even to raise him up from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.’

The design of the apostle in this discourse, is to set forth and commend the faith of Abraham from its fruits, in the whole course of his obedience; but he builds it upon, and resolves it into his call: ‘ By faith Abraham.

being cattep. It is not my present purpose to open particularly the discourse of the apostle, which must be referred to its proper place; but as what we do now, is in a subserviency to the right understanding of the Epistle, I have cited the account here given of the call of Abraham, and of his faith and obedience, as the reason of our insisting on it, and as the ground on which this discourse rests. Neither shall I now at large declare the nature of this call of Abraham, with the several occurrences that accompanied it; partly because it is already touched on in a former exercitation, and partly because I have elsewhere handled it more largely, and cleared it from the corrupt traditions and opinions of the Jews concerning it. But as this was the root from which the Jewish church did grow, the stock into which all the Mosaic institutions of worship were grafted, it is necessary that we give a brief historical account concerning it.

§ 4. Abraham was called by his parents 073%, ‘ Abram,’ that is, ‘a high father; not without a signal presaging providence of God. For as of old they gave significant names to their children, so in this they had respect to their present condition, or to some prospect of future things given them by the Spirit of God, in which they or theirs should be concerned. Thus we have the reasons given us for the names of Cain, Gen. iv. 5; of Seth, ver. 28; of Noah, v. 29; of Peleg, x. 25; and of sundry others. And if we may not suppose that the parents of Abraham were directed to give him this name of a high father, by the spirit of prophecy, yet if we consider its suitableness to what God had designed him for, and its readiness to yield to that change which God made afterwards in it, unto a great strengthening of his faith and significancy in a way of instruction unto future generations, we must grant that it was done by the designing holy wise providence of God. For he was a high father indeed, as being the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the flesh. In process of time, upon the solemn establishment of the covenant with him God changed this name of DIAN into DNDN, Gen. xvi. 5, ‘ Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham. On a similar account, God also changed the names of some other persons, or superadded new names to those whereby they were called before. Thus Jacob was called Israel, Gen. xxxiii. 26, upon his prevalence with God as a prince; Solomon was called Jedidiah, 2 Sam. xii. 25, because the Lord loved him; and many doubtless had new names given them by themselves or others, or had some letter or syllable in their names changed, so altering their signification upon emergent occasions. Hence in the Old Testament, we find in several places the same person spoken of by divers names. Now this change in the name of Abraham, was not, as the Jews fancy, to honour him with the addition of a letter out of the Tetragrammaton, but for the addition of a new prophetical significancy to his name. God himself expressly declares this: *Thy name shall be J'nn2 ὉΔῚ ja AN 1D DTTAN, Abraham, for a father of a multitude of nations have I made thee.’ According as I said before, ver. 3, ‘ Thou shalt be a father of a multitude of nations, 077 in his name denoting yan, ‘a multitude, that is of nations, God himself expounding his own design. And in this there is a solemn prefiguration of the implanting of believers of all nations into the covenant and faith of Abraham; for this name he received upon the solemn establishment of the covenant with him, as the apostle explains the place, Rom. iv. 11, 17. All then who believe, are taken into the covenant of Abraham. And as to the privileges of it, and the inheritance to be obtained by it, they are no less his children and heirs, than those who proceeded from his loins according to the flesh, as hath been manifested in our Exercitation concerning the oneness of the church. And in this also God manifested what was his design in this call, and separation of Abraham to himself, even to make and constitute him and his posterity the means of bringing forth the promised seed, wherein all nations were to be blessed.

§ 5. Abraham being of the tenth generation from Noah, exclusive, was the son of Terah, of whom it is said, Gen. xi. 26, that Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; not doubtless in the same year, but then the eldest of them was born, whoever he was. If Abraham was the eldest, as he is first expressed, he was born 292 years after the flood, in the three hundred and ninety-second year of the life of Shem, who outlived him thirty-five years. He was the sixth from Heber, and was born in the two hundred and twenty-fifth year of his age, who continued the longest of all the postdiluvian patriarchs, outlived Abraham about sixty-four years. But there is a difficulty in this account. For if Abraham was born in the seventieth year of the age of Terah, Terah living in all two hundred and five years, Abraham at the death of Terah must needs be a hundred and thirty-five years of age. But the Scripture saith expressly, that at his departure out of Haran, upon the death of his father, he was no more than seventy-five years old. And if he was seventy-five years old at the death of his father, who lived two hundred and five years, he must, have been born in the one hundred and thirtieth of his father’s life, and not before; which brings forward his birth and death sixty years beyond the former account: so that he outlived Shem twenty-five years, and died only four years before Heber. Although therefore he be mentioned before Haran, Gen. xi. _ 26, yet indeed Haran was,the eldest son of Terah, and born sixty years be- - fore Abraham. And it appears from the story, that Lot and Sarah who were the children of Haran, (if Sarah was the Iscah mentioned, as most suppose she was, Gen. xi. 29,) were not much younger than Abraham himself. For when Abraham was a hundred years old, Sarah was ninety, Gen. xvii. 17, and Lot may well be supposed to be older than she; so that of necessity Haran must be many years older than Abraham, even no less than sixty, as we have declared..

δ 6. His nativity and education was in Ur of the Chaldees, Gen. x1. 28, 31. This place is said to be on the other side of the flood, 17127, or ‘the river, Josh. xxiv. 2, that is, from the land of Canaan, on the other side of the great river Euphrates eastward. It was also on the other side of the Tigris, on the east of Aram Naharaim, or Mesopotamia, properly so called; which is not insisted on, because Abraham came over Tigris to Haran with his father Terah. ‘He came out, saith Stephen, ‘from the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Canaan, Acts vii. 4. He says indeed that before he came unto Canaan, he dwelt in Mesopotamia, ver. 2, where the land of Haran lay. For the name of Mesopotamia was given of old to all the adjacent regions, even to the Persian Sea. Thus Pliny evidently uses the word, lib. vi. cap. 26, ‘Mesopotamia tota Assyriorum fuit vicatim dispersa, preeter Babylona, et Ninum.’ ‘ All Mesopotamia belonged unto the Assyrians, and consisted of scattered villages, unless it were Babylonia, and the country about Nineveh. And again, ‘ Reliqua pars Mesopotamiz Assyrizeque, Babylonia appellata est.’ So that he equals Mesopotamia with Assyria; and how great a tract of those regions it comprehended, is manifest from Ptolemy, Strabo, and others. Eupolemus in Eusebius, Preeparat. Evang. lib. 9, placeth Ουρια, Ura, in Babylonia; and there also Pliny mentions Ura upon the banks of the Euphrates, lib. cap. 24, ‘ Fertur Euphrates usque ad Uram.’ But this seems not to be the Ur where Abraham dwelt; nor was there any reason that in going to Canaan, he should remove from any part of Babylonia upon Euphrates to Charan. It is more likely to be the place mentioned by Ammianus, lib. 5, where he says that the Romans in six days came from Corduena in Armenia, ‘ad Ur nomine, Persicum castellum,’ ‘to Ur a Persian castle.’ And this he placeth between Nisibis and Tigris, not far from the place where it is supposed with probability that the ark rested after the flood. Thus it would seem, that the family of Heber kept their first seat, not accompanying the DINT 23, or ‘sons of men, Gen. xi, 2—4, those apostates who went from the east to find a place to fix the seat of their rebellion against God. Broughton contendeth, that Ur was in the vale of the Chaldeans, that is, in Babylonia, a very little way, or some few miles from Charan; averring, that Stephen cannot otherwise be defended. who affirms that he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charan. But this defence of Stephen is needless, seeing, as we have manifested, Stephen took Mesopotamia in a large sense, as others did also, giving the same extent to it as to Assyria, the denomination arising from the most eminent and fruitful of these regions. Moreover, the removal of a little way, or a few miles, answers not the description which the Holy Ghost gives us of this journey, Gen. xi. 31. ‘And Terah took Abraham his son, and Lot the son of Haran, and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan, and they came unto Haran and dwelt there.’ Their design was to go to Canaan. Now, as the Ura which was in Babylonia, was situated on this side of Euphrates, as Pliny testifies, Abraham could not go from thence to Canaan by Haran, without twice passing with all his family over Euphrates; besides the expression of their journeying to Haran, will not suit with any imaginary Ur within a few miles of it. Nor is it of any weight, that it is called Ur of the Chaldees, whose proper seat was in Babylonia, and not extended much farther eastward; seeing if the Chaldees, as is most probable, were called Chasdim, as they are constantly from 12 Chesed the son of Nachor, the brother of Abraham, there must of necessity be allowed an historical prolepsis in the words; thus that place is called Ur of the Chaldees, from whence the Chaldees were afterto have their original, who in time possessed Babylonia and the parts adjacent.

§ 7. Whilst Abraham lived with. his progenitors in Ur, he no doubt was infected, as they were, with much false worship and idolatry. For so Joshua affirms expressly, that they served DTN DTN, ch. xxiv. 2, even those whose worship God afterwards prohibited in the first precept of the law, 82 DMIMN DTN 2 mi, ‘There shall not be unto thee other gods;’ those or such as those, whom they served beyond the flood. By other gods, are meant all false gods. I have elsewhere considered and exploded the Jewish story about Abraham’s discovery of the true God; about his consequent renunciation of all idolatry, with the breaking of his father’s images, and his being cast for that cause by Nimrod into the fire, all about the fourty-fourth year of his age. All these figments, with that of Haran’s bemg consumed by fire in the sight of his father, they derive from the supposed signification of the name 8, which they would have to signify ‘fire, Gen. xi. 28. But as in the passages where it relates to the Chaldeans, (as Ur of the Chaldees) it is apparently the name of a place, atown or country; so it rather signifies a valley than fire. And those words, Isa. xxiv. 15, 717 1729 D™NA 15 ὃν which we translate in the text, ‘ Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires, may be better read as in the margin, ‘in the vallies, for this corresponds better with the following words, ‘and the name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea.” At what year of his age he left Ur with his father is not expressed. But it is apparent, that it was towards the latter end of the life of Terah, after the death of Haran his eldest son, and after Nahor and Abraham were married to Milcah and Iscah his daughters; and after Sarah had continued barren some remarkable space of time, Gen. xi. 28—32.

§ 8. From Ur, therefore, with his father and the rest of their family, he removed to Haran with the design of proceeding to Canaan, Gen. xi. 31.

Where this Haran was situated we before declared. Stephen calls it Χαρραν, Charran, and so do the Latin writers:

says Lucan, speaking of the overthrow of the army of Crassus near that place. And it may be pronounced either way in the original, from the ambiguous force of the Hebrew Cheth; but it seems to be best expressed by Charan. How long he stayed here is uncertain, as was said before. That it was not very long, appears from his having been married so long before he came thither, that the barrenness of Sarah had been observed. And yet that they abode there some years is no less evident from ch. xi. 5: ‘ Abraham took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls or servants that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan.’ It is not the work of afew days or months that is here described. This gathering of substance and the getting of souls was a business of some years, of how many it is uncertain. What was the design of Terah, in his attempt to go to the land of Canaan, is not absolutely certain. ‘The special call of Abraham to that country could not be the reason of it; for it is most probable, yea, indeed undeniable, that Abraham did not receive this call until after the death of Terah. This journey, then, they undertook, as led by motives which are not revealed. But in the providence of God, it was made subservient to the future call of Abraham, that he might be in more readiness to yield obedience to it, than he could have been in the land of Ur. Whether Terah did merely seek a new habitation in a country less peopled than that of his nativity, which doubtless was then the most populous part of the world, as being near the place where mankind first settled after the flood; or whether he might be instructed in the ancient promise, that the posterity of Canaan, the son of Ham, who then possessed the country called after his name, should be servants unto the seed of Shem, from whom Terah was.a principal descendant, I know not. But this journey could not be taken in answer to the call of Abraham, for he was called to leave his father’s house, ch. xii. 1, and not to bring his father, and his father’s household with him; and this call was given to Abraham in the seventy-fifth year of his age, when Terah was dead. But whatever was the occasion of it, the providence of God used it to serve its designs towards Abraham. And here in Haran, if I may be allowed to conjecture, it is probable that God taught him the evil of those superstitions in which he was educated, revealed himself to him as the only true God, and so prepared him for the tedious journeying and long peregrination to which he was afterwards called. ᾿

δ9, After the death of his father Terab, when Abraham was seventyfive years old, ch. xii. 14, God called him to himself, and entered into covenant with him in the promise of the land of Canaan, ver. 7. And this call of his was the great foundation on which God afterwards built the whole structure of his worship under the Old Testament. For herein he both appropriated to him the promise of the Messiah, engaging that from him he should proceed according to the flesh, and also set both him and his posterity apart, to be visibly subservient to the great design of his grace, in the accomplishment of the promise of a overs made unto our first parents, This we have elsewhere at large déclared, and shown how that, after his call, every thing was disposed so as to prefigure that which was to come, and was suited for continuing till that season, and no longer.

§ 10. When Abraham was ninety and nine years old, that is, after he had been twenty-four years in the land of Canaan, the Lord confirms his covenant with him and his seed, by the sign and token of circumcision, Gen. xvii. 8—12. This Paul calls the seal of the righteousness of faith, Rom. iy. 12, because God thereby confirmed and assured unto him an interest in the promised seed, who is the Lord our righteousness, Isa. xlv. 24, 25; Jer. xxiii. 6; and because he had accepted of the righteousness and salvation, which in and by him God had prepared for sinners, in believing the promise, Gen. xv. 6. And thus God manifested that he took his seed - together with him into the covenant, as those who, no less than himself, were to be made partakers of the righteousness exhibited therein, as also to be used for the line in which the holy seed was to be carried on; until the Word was to take it and to be made flesh, John i. 14; Mark i. 1; Rom. ix. 5. And by this ordinance of circumcision were his posterity separated from the rest of the world, and united among themselves. Ishmael, indeed, and Esau carried the outward sign of circumcision out of the limits of the church, and communicated it to the nations that sprang from them, who observe it to this day. It is also observed by the Turks and Persians, and by very many of the Indians, who, though descended from other families, yet have received the law of Mahomet, who was a descendant of persecuting Ishmael. But their observance of it was never under the law of God, nor accepted with him, but is rather accursed by him. But as it was continued in the posterity of Abraham according to the promise, it was the fundamental uniting principle of the church amongst them, though dispersed into innumerable particular families. For as there were as many churches before as there were families, ecclesiastical rule, and economical, or paternal rule, being the same; now the covenant being one, and the token of the covenant being one and the same, to all the families that sprang of Abraham, which in their several generations were as the sands of the sea shore, or as the stars for multitude, they were all incorporated into one body among themselves, and separated from the rest of the world. Not that this ordinance alone was sufficient to constitute the whole nation one ecclesiastical body or church, which was done by the following institutions of worship, but the foundation of this union was first laid herein. Neither without some such general initiation into union could it have been orderly accomplished. And as it was the glory of the people of old, whilst they walked in the steps of the faith of Abraham, so it was the carnal boast of their degenerate posterity. Hence the frequent mention of those who were ᾿ uncircumcised, in the way of reproach and contempt. And when they renewed the administration of it among themselves, upon their first entrance into the land of Canaan, after its omission in the wilderness, it is said that they rolled away the reproach of Egypt, Josh. v.9; because they were now no more as the Egyptians, uncircumcised. And it was their glory, both because God made it the token of his receiving them to be his peculiar people, out of all the nations of the earth, as also because it was the pledge of their obedience to God, which is the glory of any person or people. But their posterity being carnal, and departing from the faith and obedience of Abraham, have quite lost the grace betokened by it, which, as Moses often declares to them, was the circumcision of their hearts to hear and obey the voice of God. They, howevex, always boasted, and still do boast of it as a sign of their separation to God from other people; not considering that these things were mutual, answering one another, and that circumcision of the flesh is nothing, where the circumcision of the heart is not also

δ 11. These are the chief heads of what is noticed by our apostle in the eall of Abraham, which also we have been more brief in the explication of, because the consideration of it hath elsewhere occurred to us. Now from this call of Abraham, to the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, was, as Moses assures us, four hundred and thirty years, Exod, xii. 40, 41; and so saith our apostle, Gal. iii. 17. But because the Lord tells Abraham that his posterity should be afflicted in a strange land four hundred years, Gen. xi. 13, which words are repeated by Stephen in his sermon to the Jews, Acts vii. 6, the reason of this different account may be briefly inquired after. Here is a double limitation of time, 1st. Of four hundred and thirty years by Moses and Paul; 2nd. Of four hundred years, by God himself unto Abraham, repeated by Stephen. The words of Moses are recorded, Exod. xii. 40, 41: ‘ Now the sojournings of the children of Israel in Egypt were four hundred and thirty years; and it came to pass, at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even on the self-same day, it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt. It is evident that there is an ambiguity in the words of Moses, for if 312, the sojourning, or dwelling, in the beginning of the verse, do relate unto DYNA aw, dwelt in Egypt, it can design no longer space of time than they dwelt there after the descent of Jacob, which, by an evident computation of the times, does not exceed half the space of four hundred and thirty years. If it refer only to the children of Israel, then it takes in all the sojournings and peregrinations of that people who dwelt in Egypt, from the first day of their being the people of God. Now this ambiguity is perfectly removed by our apostle, Gal. iii. 16, 17: ‘Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made; and the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disannul. The law was given, as we shall see, immediately upon their coming out of Egypt; and saith he, the 430 years are to be reckoned from the call of Abraham, when God first entered into covenant with him, Gen. xii. 2, 3. From thence to the departure out of Egypt, and the giving of the law that ensued, are 430 years. It is evident, then, that by the sojourning of the children of Israel is not meant merely their abode in Egypt, (which, after their going down, Gen. xlvi., was only 215 years, or thereabouts,) but the whole course of the peregrinations of that people, after they were in Abraham called from their own country, and a certain habitation therein, until their leaving of Egypt, in order to take possession of the land of Canaan, as a perpetual inheritance. By perpetual inheritance we mean an inheritance commensurate with the duration of the special covenant made with them. It remains, then, that we consider the other space of time assigned by God in vision to Abraham, for the affliction of his seed under persecution, namely, four hundred years, Gen. xi. 13. Now here, either the round number of 400 is put for 430, or 30 years are to be abated out of the latter number, for some special cause and reason. ‘The former seems not probable, because Moses so emphatically observes that it was in the four hundred and thirtieth year, that very same day, or night, and therefore 30 years must be taken off, either from the beginning or from the end of the latter number. There is no reason for taking it from the end; indeed, the exact notation of that period by Moses will not allow us so todo. It must therefore be taken from the beginning. Now this prediction of God unto Abraham, about the affliction or persecution of his seed for 400 years, was given to him before the birth of Isaac, who, being of his seed according to the promise, was to have his share in this afilic- tion; yea, it was to begin with him. He was born, as was proved, 25 years after the promise; so that the 30 years, taken from the 430, fall out in the fifth year of his life; which was the time when the persecution began in the mocking of Ishmael, Gen. xxi. 9. This the apostle expressly calls persecution, and that on account of Isaac's being the heir of the promise, Gal. iv. 29. Then began the 400 years of their affliction, which ended with the 430 of their peregrination.

§ 12. The faith of Abraham appeared in his obedience to the call of God, in his resting on the promise of the blessing by Christ, and in the obseryance of this ordinance of circumcision. By following this faith and obedience, his children were separated to God, and united among themselves, and continued without the addition of any new ordinance of worship for the support of their faith, the enlargement of their light, or for the outward profession of their separation to God, till the expiration of 430 years. And this period of time proved afterwards fatal unto them, not exactly and absolutely, but in some kind of proportion. For from hence unto the building of the temple by Solomon was 480 years. ‘Lhe duration of that temple was 415 years. And that which was built in the room of this stood somewhat above 500 years. Some peculiar space being given them beyond their former trials, before their utter destruction.

§ 13. At the expiration of the period of time now under consideration, our apostle tells us, Heb. xi. 28, that ‘by faith Moses kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-born should touch them.’ This was the second ordinance which God instituted among them, to be of common use to the church, and appropriated unto them. The story of its institution, and the manner of its celebration, are narrated at large, Exod. xii.

§ 14. The time of its institution, and of the annual celebration of it, is exactly noted in the Scripture. It was the night before the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt, which is thence called OW bed, Exod. xii. 42, ‘a night of observances’ unto the Lord, that is, wherein the institutions of this ordinance were to be observed with great care and diligence. And this night followed directly upon the expiration of the 430 years before limited, ver. 40, 41. For the time of the year, it was in the month ΣΝ, Adib, as the Hebrews call the month of the spring, which in those eastern parts gave blades to the corn and other fruits of the earth, Exod. xiii. 4, xxiii. 15, xxxiv. 18; Deut. xvi. 1. This month was afterwards by a Chaldee name called Nisan, Neh. ii. 1; Esth. 11. 7; and it answered partly to our March, partly to April, beginning before or at the vernal equinox, according to the distance of any year from the embolismical year. And from hence this month was appointed to be ΠΤ Wy", the head, chief, or principal of the months, Exod. xii. 2; and so consequently the beginning of the year unto them. For before this their year began and ended in September, upon the gathering in of the fruits of the earth, Exod. xxiii. 16; being the time, as most of the present Jews suppose, when the world was created. Neither yet was this change absolute to all ends and purposes, but only as to ecclesiastical observances, and feasts, that depended on their distance from this of the passover. For their civil year, as to contracts, debts, and liberties, continued still to begin in September, with their jubilees, Lev. xxv. 8, 9,10. And from that beginning of the year, most probably, are the months to be reckoned that are mentioned in the continuance and ending of the flood, Gen. vii. 11. See Joseph. liber 1, ch. 4.

§ 15. The time of the day when the lamb was to be slain is declared to be DANY Pa, between the two evenings of the 14th day of the first month. Some of the Jews, as Kimchi, make these two evenings to be the first declining of the sun, which began the evening or afternoon, and the setting of the sun which closeth it, answering the ancient division of the day into morning and evening. So that by this rule the lamb might be slain in any time of the afternoon, though it always followed the evening sacrifice, at the ninth hour, or three of the clock. Others, as Aben Ezra, make the first evening to be the setting of the sun, the other the departure of all light. And the Jews have a distinction of the day, by which they call this space of it DANY PA between the two evenings, MwWnwMT p'2 between the two suns. So they express themselves in Talmud. Hieros. Berach. cap. 1: MOY IMT ΣΤ PA WT ΒΟΌΣ OY MT wan myn Dw yt b5 md ay pnand mart pyr «All the space of time wherein the face of the east is red, is called day; when it begins to wax pale, it is called between the suns, (the same with between the evenings,) and when it waxeth black, the upper firmament being like the lower, it is night.’

§ 16. The occasion of the institution of this ordinance, is so fully and plainly declared in Exodus. and Deuteronomy, that we shall not need to enlarge upon it. In brief, God being about to accomplish his great work of delivering the people out of Egypt, he thought meet to conjoin together his greatest mercy towards them, and his greatest plague upon their enemies. For this end he commands the destroying angel to pass through the land, and to slay all the first-born therein, from the first-born of him who sat upon the throne, to the meanest person belonging to the body of the nation. And although he might have preserved the Israelites from this destruction by the least intimation of his will to the instruments whom he used therein, yet having respect to the furtherance of their faith and obedience, as also designing their instruction in the way and, means of their eternal salvation, he chose to do it by this ordinance of the passover. The form of this ser- Vice is given us Exod. xii. 27, it is called MOD Pesach: and the reason of it is subjoined, for the Lord MDD Pasach passed over the houses of Israel. TDD is to pass on by leaping, making as it were a halt in any place, and then leaping over that which is next. Whence he that goes halting is called MDD Pisseach; one that as it were leaps on, from one leg unto the other. Some of the ancients call it Phase; Cheth being only not pronounced. The Greeks retain the name, but corrupt it into Πάσχα, and are followed by the Latins, who call it Pascha. Hence, after the apostle had applied this feast and sacrifice to the Lord Christ, 1 Cor. v. 7, and Christians began to celebrate the commemoration of the passion of Christ, at the time of the year when that was observed, many both of the Greeks and Latins began to think, that the word was derived from Macyw, Patior, to suffer, as both Augustin, and Gregory Nazianzen, Serm. de Pasch. do declare, who both of them refute that imagination. The general nature of it was 123 a sacrifice, Exod. xii. 27, and 2m a feast, ver. 14, a sacrifice from the slaying and offering of the lamb, which was done afterwards for the people by the Levites; and a feast from the joy and remission of labour wherewith the annexed solemnities were to be observed. The matter of it was TW Seh, ver. 3, that is, a young lamb or kid; for either might be used in this service, a male without blemish, ver. 5. The manner of the service was, Ist. In the preparation, the lamb or kid was to be taken into custody on the tenth day of the month, and kept up four days, ver. 6, which, as the Jews say, was partly that they might discern perfectly whether it had any blemish or no, partly that they might by the sight of the lamb be reminded of their duty, and the mercy of their deliverance. Indeed it was, that it might prefigure the imprisonment of the Lamb of God, Isa. li. 7, 8, who took away the sin of the world. This preparation, the Jews say, was temporary, and observed only at the first institution of the ordinance in Egypt, and that partly lest in their haste they should not otherwise have been able to prepare their lambs, So also was the sprinkling of the blood on the posts of the doors of their dwelling houses, ver. 7, with hyssop, which could not be afterwards observed, when by God's institution the whole congregation were to celebrate it in one place; and it had respect unto their present deliverance from the destroying angel, ver. 12, 13. In like manner was their eating it, with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staves in their hands, ver. 1], that they might be in readiness for their immediate departure, which was not afterwards observed by our Lord Jesus Christ, nor any of the church. For these signs ceased with the present occasions of them. 2d. This lamb was to be provided for each household, ver. 3, 4, which was the third distribution of that people, the first being into tribes, and the second into families, from the twelve patriarchs and their immediate sons, Josh. vii. 16—18. But because there was an allowance to make their company proportionable unto their provision of a lamb, joining or separating households, ver. 4, they ate it afterwards in societies or fraternities; as our Saviour had twelve with him at the eating of it. And the Jews require ten at Jeast in society for the celebration of it. Whence the Targum expressly on this place, Exod. xii. 4, ‘If the men of the house be fewer than the number of ten: for this was a sacred number with them. They circumcise not, marry not, divorce not, unless ten be present. Thence is their saying in Pirke Aboth, ‘where ten sit and learn the law, the divine presence resteth on them, as Ps. Ixxxii. |. 3d.The lamb being provided was to be killed, and it was directed that the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel should ΚΠ] it, ver. 6, that is, every one for himself and family. But after the giving of the law, and the erection of a priesthood in the church, this work, as it was a sacrifice, was left unto the priests, 2 Chron. xxxv. 1—5. 4th. The place where it was to be killed, was at first in their several houses, or wherever the assembly of the people was; but this was afterwards forbidden, and the sacrifice of the passover confined expressly to the place where the tabernacle and temple were to be, and not elsewhere, Deut. xvi. 6, 7. 5th. The preparation of the whole lamb for eating, was by roasting it, ver. 8, 9, and that was done with bread unleavened, and bitterness, or bitter herbs, ver. 9, and it was all to be eaten that night. What remained until the morning was to be burned in the fire, as a thing dedicated, and not to be polluted. The Jews have many traditions about the manner of eating and drinking at this supper, of the cups they drank and blessed, of the cakes they brake, of their washings, and the like. But as these have all been discussed by others at large, so I shall not engage in the consideration of them, being satisfied that the most, if not all of them, are inventions of the Rabbins since the destruction of the second temple, and that many of them are taken up from what they observed to be in use among Christians, to which they were perhaps led by such, as from the profession of Christianity apostatised unto them, and these were no small multitude.

§ 17. To the observance of the passover, was joined the feast of unleavened bread, which was to begin the next day after the eating of the lamb, that is, on the 15th day of the first month. For whereas the Paschal lamb was to be eaten with unleavened bread on the fourteenth day, this was a peculiar ceremony of that ordinance, and belonged not to the ensuing feast, ver. 15, 16. And in this feast these things are to be considered: Ist. The total exclusion of all leaven out of their houses. 2d. ‘Vhe time of its continuance, which was seven days. 3d. The double extraordinary Sabbath wherewith it was begun and ended: for on the first day, and last day of the seven, there was to be a solemn and holy convocation unto the Lord, to be observed in a cessation from all labour, and in holy duties. And here also it were lost labour to reckon up the cautions, rules, and instructions which the Jewish doctors give about the nature, kinds, and sorts of leaven, and about the search that was to be made for it, and the like, most of them being vain imaginations of superstitious minds ignorant of the truth

§ 18. This sacrifice, then, of the passover, with its attendant feast of unleavened bread, to be annually observed on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, unto the end of the twenty-second, was the second solemn ordinance of that people, as the people and church of God. And the Jews observe, that no other positive ordinances, but only circumcision and the passover, had that sanction of the N03, Excision, or extermination annexed unto them. Concerning circumcision, the words are plain, Gen. xvii. 14, ‘ The uncircumcised man-child whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, NT WHIT 77D, that soul shall be cut off from his people, he hath broken my covenant. And with reference to the passover, Exod. xii. 15, ‘ Whosoever eateth leavened ‘bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.’ Whereas they observe, as Aben Ezra tells us on this place, that it is annexed to above twenty negative precepts; intimating that there is a greater provocation and sin in doing any thing in the worship of God against his commandment, than in omitting what he had commanded, though both of them be evil. The observation 1 acknowledge in general is true, but the application of it to the passover is not so. For although we should suppose that the words of Exod. xii. 15, do relate to the passover also, although they seem to respect only the seven days of the feast of unleayened bread, yet they do not require the observance of the passover itself under that penalty; but upon a supposition of the observance of the passover, they were to eat the lamb with unleavened bread, which was a negative precept, namely, that they should have no leaven in their bread, and so was justly attended in its transgression with this cutting off. And this cutting off, the Jews generally interpret when it is spoken indefinitely, without a prescription of the manner how it should be done, or by whom, to respect Daw TH, the hand of heaven, or the vindictive justice of God, which in due time will find out the transgressor. But we know that God long bare with them, in the omission of this ordinance of the passover itself..

§ 19. What the observances of the modern Jews, in the imitation of their forefathers’ observance of this ordinance of God are, the reader may see in| Buxtorf’s Synagoga Judaica, and in part in the Annotations of Ainsworth; and they need not here be repeated. This only I shall observe, that all of them in their expositions of this institution, do make the application of its several parts unto other acts of God in dealing with them; such as indeed the text of Moses plainly leads them to. And this perfectly overthrows their pretensions, as to their other ceremonies and sacrifices; namely, that they were instituted for their own sakes, and not as signs of things to come; the figurative nature of this their greatest ordinance being manifest, and acknowledged by themselves.

§ 20. On occasion of this great solemn ordinance, there was given to the people two additional institutions; the first concerning the writing of the law on their foreheads and hands, the other of the dedication to God of all that opened the matrix. The first of these is prescribed, ch. xiii. 9, ς And it shall be for a sign upon thine hand, and as a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord’s law may be in thy mouth: ver. 16, and it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and as frontlets between thine eyes. To which may be added Deut. vi. 6—9, ‘ And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou lest down, and when thou risest up; and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine house, and on thy gates. In the observance of sundry things, supposed to relate to these precepts, consists the principal part of the superstition of the present Jews. or they have mixed the observance of this duty, whatever be intended by it, with many foolish and noisome imaginations. It doth not indeed appear to me, that any more is intended by these expressions, a sign upon thy hand, and a memorial or frontlet between thine eyes, but a continual remembrance, and careful practice of the institution itself, and their calling thus to mind the mercy and goodness of God in their deliverance; which they were to celebrate when they were settled in their own land; by writing some passages of the law upon the doors and posts of their houses. But they are otherwise minded. That which is prescribed unto them is called ver. 9, MN, a sign, as it was to be on their hand; and }1753, a memorial, as between their eyes; both which are very capable of our interpretation, but ver. 16, they are called nDwiw, as also Deut. vi. 8. From this word, the meaning of which they do not know, they draw out all the mysteries of their present observances. The Chaldee renders it j->°Dn Thephilin; which word seems to be taken from the Hebrew ΤΣ ΒΓ prayer or prayers, and to be so called from the prayers that they used in the consecration and wearing of those frontlets. But because they are rendered in the Greek φυλακτηρια, Philacteria, some would derive it from DN, to conjoin, keep, and bind, which hath some allusion at least to the sense of the Greek word. And for this origin and import of the word the learned Fuller contends, Miscelan. 1. 5. ¢. 7. The manner of their present observance hereof is to this purpose. They write four sections of the law on parchment. And why four? that they gather from the signification of the word ΠΡΟ, Totaphoth; Tot saith Rabbi Solomon, in Pontus, somewhere by the Caspian sea, signifies two, and Poth signifies two in Egypt; both which make four undoubtedly. Or as they say in the Talmud, Tat in Casphe signifies two, and Pat in Africa. So that four sections must be written. Scaliger supposeth the word to be Egyptian, which is not unlikely: but that it should signify an amudeé, or a charm, as Petitus supposes, is not so probable. For the reason assigned for this opinion, namely, that such amulets were in use among the heathen, with inscriptions either ridiculous or obscene, and that as God would not have his people to make use of these, that therefore he appoints them other things and inscriptions in their stead, this reason does indeed overthrow such an opinion. Jor it is abundantly evident, that God in his laws, doth directly on all occasions command the contrary to whatever was in practice of this sort among the nations. So that Maimonides well observes, that the reason of many of their institutions cannot be understood, without a due consideration of the superstition of the neighbouring nations.

These four sections must be these that follow. The first is, Deut. vi. 4—9. ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart; and so onward as before. The second is, Exod. xiii. 1—10. ‘And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn; whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast, it is mine. And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand, the Lord brought ye out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten, this day came ye out in the month of Abib. And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee; a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month: seven days shalt thou eat unleayened bread, and in the seventh day shall bea feast unto the Lord: unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days, and there shall be no leavened bread with thee; neither shall there be leaven seen within all thy quarters: and thou shalt show thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me, when I came forth out of Egypt; and it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord’s law may be in thy mouth; for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt: thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year. The third 5 from the tenth verse of that chapter to the end of the seventeenth: ‘And it shall be, when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee unto thy fathers, and shall give it thee, thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast, the male shall be the Lord’s: and every firstling of an ass, thou shalt redeem with a lamb, and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck, and all the first-born of man amongst thy children shalt thou redeem: and it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage. And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beast: therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix being males, but all the first-born of my children I redeem: and it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and as frontlets between thine eyes; for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth from out of Egypt.’ The last is, Deut. xi. 13—21. ‘ And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul; that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat, and be full. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye tur aside, and serve other gods, and worship them: and then the Lord’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven that there be no rain, and that the Jand yield not her fruit, and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you. Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart, and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that pede. be as

frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thine house, and upon thy gates; that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.’:

§ 21. Because in all these places there is mention made of these frontlets or memorials, therefore they select these passages for this use. And these are to be written on parchment made of the skin of a clean beast, on the side next the flesh, prepared with a pronunciation of a form of words, both in the killing of the beast, and in delivering the skin to the dresser, and to the writer. When they are written, they are wrapt up in small rolls, and so worn upon their foreheads and left arms, being so rolled and made up, that none of the writing might be seen. And so great art is required in the. making of these Tephilin, that few among them attain to it Hence Fagius tells us a story of a master among them in his days, who sold many thousands of these phylacteries to his countrymen, which had nothing in them but cards, which served their turn well enough. Their masters also are curious in describing to what part of the head they must be applied, namely, to the fore part from ear to ear; and the hand must be the left hand, by which, however, they will have the arm above the elbow to be understood; and when they must be worn, namely, by day, not by night, on the week days, not on the Sabbath, and the like worthy speculations. The benefit also they receive hereby is incredible; for by them are they defended from evil, as some by the sign of the cross, and others by the first words of the Gospel of John worn about them. By the use of these, they are sanctified in the law; and in a word the Targum on the Canticles, ch. viii. 3, tells us, that ‘God chose them above all people, because they wore their phylacteries.’ So just cause had our Lord Jesus Christ to reprove their hypocrisy, superstition, and self-justification in the use, abuse, and boasting of these things, Matt. xxii. 5. ‘All their works they do to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments.’ This about the borders of their garments was an after institution; yet because it is of the same nature with this, we may notice it also in this place. To this purpose God gives his command, Numb. xv.. 38—40. ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make their fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue; and it shall be unto you as a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart, and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a-whoring: that ye may remember and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God; which law is repeated again. Deut. xxii. 12. ‘ Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vestures wherewith thou coverest thyself.” These M33, ‘locks, or fringes,’ were made of thread fastened to the wings or skirts of their garments witha ribband, n7mMn, of a blue colour, the making of which the Jews confess that they do not now understand, but suppose that it was made with the blood of a fish called Chalazon, mixed with vermilion. The use of these fringes had efficacy from the institution of God, who alone is able to bless and sanctify things, in themselves indifferent, to sacred use, for the keeping of their hearts in a due reverence of himself, and their eyes from wandering after false worship and superstition; which being now removed and taken away, the things themselves are among the present Jews turned into the greatest superstition imaginable. Their principal vanities about these things haying been represented by others out of the treatise of Maimonides on that subject, need not hete be repeated.

§ 22. The last appointment of God occasioned by the mercy solemnly remembered in the passover, was the dedication of all the first born males to himself. The law of this dedication is recorded, Exod. xiii. 12, 13, and the manner of its performance is farther stated, Numb. xvi. 15, 16, 17. ‘ Every thing that openeth the matrix, in all flesh which they bring unto the Lord, whether it be of men or beast, shall be thine; nevertheless the first born of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem, and those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thine estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs. But the firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem, they are holy, thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savenr unto the Lord.’ The whole dedication of the first-born males is distributed into three parts. 1. Children, who were to be redeemed with five shekels, twenty gerahs to one shekel, that is about twelve shillings of our money. 2. Clean beasts, such as were appointed to be offered in sacrifice on other occasions, as the kine, the sheep, and the goats. These were to be offered to God, in a sacrifice of burnt-offering without redemption or commutation, after they had been kept a month with the dam. 3. Unclean beasts, whereof an instance is given inthe ass, which were either to be redeemed with money by an agreement with the priest, or to have their necks broken at the choice of the owner. And all of this to call to remembrance the mercy of God in sparing them, and theirs, when the first-born of man and beast, clean and unclean in Egpyt, were destroyed. For hence a peculiar right of special preservation arose unto God towards all their firstborn, and this also not without a prospect towards the redemption of the church of the first-born by Jesus Christ, Heb. xu. 23.

§ 23. And this concluded the first dispensation of God towards the church in the posterity of Abraham, for the space of 430 years. With the provision and furniture of these ordinances of worship, they left Egypt, and passing through the Red-sea, came into the wilderness of Sinai, where they received the law, and were made perfect in the beauty of typical holiness and worship.

§ 24. To these ordinances succeeded the solemn νομοθεσία, or giving of the law on mount Sinai, with the precepts and sanctions thereof, mentioned in several places by our apostle, as ch. 11. 2. ‘ For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward.’ Chap. x. 28. ‘He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Chap. xii. 18, 19, 20, 21, ‘For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire; nor unto blackness and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more; for they could not endure that which was commanded; and if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so > terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.’

Ver. 25, ‘ They escaped not who refused him that spake on earth.’ And in other places.

§ 25. Three things must be explained in reference to this great and solemn foundation of the Jewish church state, of which our apostle treateth in this whole epistle. First, the preparations for it. Secondly, the manner of the giving of it. Thirdly, the law itself. For the preparations for it, they are either more remote, or immediately preceding it. The former were those temporary, occasional, instructive ordinances which God gave them at their entrance into the wilderness, before they came to receive the law on Sinai.

The first mentioned of this nature is Exod. xv. 23, 24, 25, 26. ‘ And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is nght in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of those diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee.’ The whole course of God’s proceedings with his people, whereof we have here the first pledge in the wilderness, was by a constant series of temporal providential straits, sinful murmurings, and typical mercies.

The waters being bitter, that they could not drink them, God showed to Moses a tree; that is, say some of the Jewish doctors, he showed him the virtue of a tree to cure and make wholesome bitter waters. And they say it was a tree, whose flowers and fruit were bitter; for no other reason, but because Elisha afterwards cured salt waters, by casting into them a cruse of salt. The Targum of Jonathan, and that of Jerusalem say, God showed him “STINT 1 ἸῸΝ the bitter tree Ardiphne, which is nothing but Aagyy Daphne, the Laurel. And on this tree the author of that fabulous paraphrase would have the glorious name of God to be written, according to the incantations in use among them in his days. But that which is designed in the whole is, that God preparing them for the bitter consuming law that was to be given them, and discovering to them their inability to drink of the waters of it for their refreshment, gave them an intimation of the cure of that curse and bitterness by him, who bearing our sins in his body upon the tree, (1 Pet. ii. 24,) is the end of the law for righteousness unto them that do believe.

§ 26. Their second preparation for the receiving of the law, was the giving of manna unto them from heaven. In their progress between Elim and Sinai, they came to the wilderness of Sin, so called from a city in Egypt, to which it extended, in the midst of the second month after their departure from Egypt; the stores which they brought with them from thence being exhausted, the whole congregation murmured for food. For still their wants and murmurings lay at the bottom, and were the occasion of those reliefs, whereby the spiritual mercies of the church by Christ were typified. In this condition God sends them manna, Exod. xvi. 14, 1. ‘In the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost of the ground, and when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna; for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat, ver. 31. And the house of Israel called the name thereof manna, and it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it like wafers made with honey.’

When the children of Israel saw it, they said, 817 2. Man hu: and ver. 31, the children of Israel called the name of it ja Man. The reason of this name is very uncertain. The calling of it manna in the New Testament, gives countenance to the derivation of the word from 7273 Manah, to prepare and distribute. For what some have thought, that it should be an abbreviation of 72M a gift, and spoken by them in their precipitate haste, is destitute of all probability. If it be from ΤΣ Manah, it signifies a prepared meat, or portion. So upon the gight of it, they said one to another, here is a portion prepared. But the truth is, the following words, wherein there is a reason given why they said upon the sight of it 17 ja Man hu, inclines strongly to another signification, NYT Ta WT N2 %D, ‘For they knew not, Ma hu, what it was. They said one to another, Man hu, because they knew not Ma hu, that is, what it was. So that Man hu is as much as, What is it? dnd so the words are rendered by the LXX. τι ἐστι rovro, What is this? and by the vulgar Latin, Quid est hoc? But this difficulty remains, that }72 Man is not in the Hebrew tongue an interrogative of the thing, no nor yet of the person, nor doth signify what. Aben Ezra says it is an Arabic word. Chiskuni, an Egyptian; and it is evidently an interrogative of the person in the Chaldee, and sometimes of the thing, as Judg. xiii. 14. ‘Jaw yo, What is thy name? Yea, it seems to be used towards this sense in the Hebrew, Ps. lxi. 8. 82 12 NaN) TOM where though most take 12 Man, to be the imperative in Pihel from 127 Manah, which no where else occurs, yet the LX -X. took it to be an interrogation from the Chaldee, rendering the words τις e&ernoe, ‘Who shall find out? This being then the language of the common: people in their admiration of a thing new unto them, it is no wonder that they made use of a word that had obtained amongst them from some of the nations with whom they had been conversant, differing little in sound from a word of their own, of the same signification, and afterwards admitted into common use amongst them. From this occasional interrogation, did the food provided for them take its name of Man, called in the New Testament manna. This occasional imposition of names to persons and things has been at all times frequent and usual; as in the chapter foregoing, the place was called Marah, from the bitterness of the water, of which they complained upon their first tasting it. And in the next chapter the names of Massah and Meribah, are derived from their temptations and provocations. The only observation which we would make concerning this dispensation of God towards them is, that they had this eminent renewed pledge of the Lord Christ that bread οὗ life, and food of their souls given unto them, before they were entrusted with the law. But they making the law their only glory, and betaking themselves to it, without the healing tree and heavenly manna, the law thus used has become their snare and ruin. See John vi. 31, 32, 48, 49, 51. Rev. ii. 17.

§ 27. A third signal preparation for the law on,the like occasion, and to the same purpose with the former, is repeated, Exod. xvii. 1—7. ‘ And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim; and there was no water for the people to drink.

Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore doye tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to kill us with thirst? And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel, and thy rod wherewith thou smotest the river take in thine hand, and go: behold I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it that they may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord amongst us or not? Marching up farther’ into the wilderness, they came to Rephidim, their fourth station from the Red Sea. There they met with no waters to their satisfaction, and therefore they fell into a high murmuring against the Lord, and mutiny against Moses their leader. And this iniquity the Jewish doctors suppose was the more aggravated, because they were in no absolute necessity for water, the dew which fell from the manna running in some streams. Hereon God commands Moses to go to the rock of Horeb, which he had prepared for the place of giving the law, and promises to meet, him there; he commands him also to take his rod in his hand to smite the rock, and when this was done, waters flowed out for the relief of this smful murmuring people. The Holy Ghost hath put sundry remarks upon this dispensation of God towards them.

First. Because of the sin of the people, he gave a double name to the place where they sinned, for a memorial to all generations: he called it Massah and Meribah, which words our apostle renders by Πειρασμος and Παραπικρασμος, ehap. i. 9, temptation and provoking contention. And it is often mentioned both with respect to the people, either to reproach and burden them with their sin, as Deut. ix. 22, ‘And at Massah ye provoked the Lord to wrath; or to warn them of the like miscarriage, chap. vi 16, ‘ You shall not tempt the Lord your God, as you tempted him in Massah; as also Ps. xcv. 8. It is also mentioned with reference to Moses, as to the signal trial that God had there made of his faith and obedience, in that great difficulty with which he conflicted; as also of those of the tribe of Levi, who ina preparation to their ensuing dedication to God, clave to Moses in his straits, Deut. xxxii. 8, ‘And of Levi he said, Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one, whom thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah.’ -

The mercy, likewise, that ensued, in giving them water from the rock, is most frequently celebrated, Deut. viii. 15; Psal. Ixxviii. 15, 16; Psal. cy. 41; Neh. ix. 15. Now, all this was done to bring them to attend and inquire diligently into the kernel of this mercy, whose outward shell was so undeservedly free, and so deservedly precious. For by this rock of Horeb was typified a spiritual rock, as our apostle tells us, 1 Cor. x. 4, even Christ the Son of God, who, being smitten with the rod of Moses, or the stroke and curse of the law administered by him, gave out waters of life freely to all that thirst and come unto him.

§ 28. Thus did God prepare this people for the receiving of the law, by a triple intimation of him who is the Redeemer from the law, and by whom alone the Jaw that was to be given could be made useful and profitable to them. And all these intimations were still given them on their great and signal provocations, to declare, that neither did their goodness deserve them, nor could their sins hinder the progress of the counsel of God’s will, and the work of his grace. Hereby also did God revive unto them the grace of the promise, which being given, as our apostle observes, four hundred and thirty years before the giving of the law, could not be disannulled thereby.

And these I call the remote preparations of the people for the receiving of the law, consisting in three revelations of the grace of God in Christ, happening and granted unto them in the three months space which they spent between the Red Sea, and their coming unto the wilderness of Sinai, or to the mountain where they received the law.

§ 29. The immediate preparations for giving of the law are all of them expressed, Exod. xix., and these we shall briefly notice, the most of them being insisted on, or referred to by our apostle in the places before mentioned.

First. The time of the people’s coming to the place where they were to receive the law is related, ver. 1. It was »w*>wm wma, ‘ novilunio tertio,’ in the third month after their coming up out of Egypt; that is, on the first day of the month, the month Sivan, on the day of the new moon. And, therefore, it is added, 7177 OYA, ‘on the same day; on which Aben Ezra observes, Moses went up first into the mountain to receive the commands of God, and returning on that day to the people, he went up again on the third day, that is, the third day of the month, to give in their answer unto the Lord, ver. 11, 16. And this fell out, if not on the day, yet about the time of Pentecost, on which afterwards the Holy Ghost»descended on the apostles, enabling them to preach the gospel, and by it our deliverance from the curse of the law given at that time.

§ 30. For the special time of the day: when God began to give out the appearances of his glory, it is said, ver. 16, 7PAT m3, ‘whilst it was yet morning. And Jarchi observes, that all Moses’ ascents into the mountain were T722W173, ‘ early in the morning, which he proves from chap. xxxivy. 4, ‘And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai. And pa, ‘ Boker, properly signifies the ‘first appearance of the morning, the light that must be inquired and sought after before the rising of the sun. So David, Psal. cxxx. 6, compares the earnest expectation of his soul for mercy, to the diligent watching of men for the morning, that is the first appearance of light. And this was the season in which our blessed Saviour rose from the grave, and from under the curse of the law, bringing with him the tidings of peace with God, and deliverance. He rose between the first dawning of light, and the rising of the sun, Matt. xxviii. 1; Mark xvi. 2; to that latitude of time doth the Seripture assign it, and the first evidence of it. For, whereas John says, that. ‘Mary Magdalen came to the sepulchre very early while it was yet dark,’ chap. xx. 1. Matthew, ‘ when it began to dawn towards day,’ chap. xxviii. 1. Mark, ‘very early in the morning, at the ‘rising of the sun, chap. xvi. 2, who compriseth the utmost abode of the women at the sepulchre; Luke expresses it indefinitely, ορθρου βαθεως, ‘ profundo mane,’ that is, PA. ‘in the first appearance,’ and dawning of light, at which time the preparation for the promulgation of the law began.

§ 31. The place they came to is called the wilderness of Sinai, ver. 2, and so was the mountain also itself on which the glorious majesty of God appeared, ver. 20. It was also called Horeb, Exod. iii. 1. ‘ He came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb,’ where they were to serve God, ver. 12, and it was on this account afterwards called Horeb, the mount of God, 1 Kings xix. 8. And the whole wilderness was termed the wilderness of Horeb, Deut. i. It is, therefore, generally supposed that they were several names of the same places; the mountain and wilderness wherein it was, being both called Sinai and Horeb. And they were both occasional names, taken from the nature of the place, “3°D, ‘ Sinai,’ from 73D, ‘ Seneh,’ a bush, such as that in which the angel appeared unto Moses, Exod. iii. 2, of which a multitude were in that place; and Horeb, from its drought and barrenness, Which is the signification of the word. But the opinion of Moses Gerundensis is far more probable, that Horeb was the name of the wilderness, and Sinai of the mountain. That Simai was the name of the hill, is expressly affirmed, chap. xix. 18, 20, ‘And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the Mount,’ so Psal. Ixvili. 17. And, whereas mention is made of the wilderness of Sinai, it is no more than the wilderness in which Mount Sinai was. And for those places before referred to, where Horeb seems to be called the mount of God, the words in all of them will bear to be read, ‘to the mount of God in Horeb.’ Strabo calls this very mount, 2wvay, lib. 16, and Justin says of Moses, ‘ Montem Sinan occupat.’ The people, therefore, abode in Horeb, at the foot of the mountain, or about it, and the law was promulgated on the top of Sinai, in the most desert solitude of that wilderness. And in this place the superstition of some Christians in latter ages has built a monastery for the celebration of their devotion by an order of monks, whose Archimandrite was not many years since in England. But as the τ place, materially considered, is as evident an object of God’s displeasure against the lower part of the creation, upon the account of sin, as almost any place in the world, being a waste and howling wilderness, a place left to solitude and barrenness; so in its allusion or relation to the worship of God, it is cast by our apostle under bondage, and placed in opposition to the worship and church state of the gospel, Gal. iv. 24, 25.

§ 32. When they came to this place, it is said, ‘ Moses went up unto the mount unto God.’ It doth not appear that he had any new immediate express command todo so. Probably he both came to that place, and as soon as he came thither, went up into the mountain, in obedience to the command, and in faith of the promise of God which he received upon his first call, Exod. iii. 12. For at that time he was assured, asa token and pledge of their deliverance, that they should worship God, or receive the law in that mountain; which is also the judgment of Aben Ezra upon the place. And it is not unlikely but that God at that time fixed the cloud which went before them, as the token of his presence, on the top of Sinai, as a new direction to Moses for his going up thither.

§ 33. Having ascended, God calls to him (the word of the Lord saith Jonathan) and teacheth him to prepare the people for the receiving of the Jaw, ver. 4, 5. Two things he proposeth to their consideration: First, The benefits of which they had already been made partakers, signified to them by the mighty and wonderful works of his power. And, Secondly, new privileges to be granted unto them. In the first, he reminds them that he had borne them on eagles’ wings. This Jarchi interprets of their sudden gathering out of all the coasts of Goshen unto Ramesis, to go away together the same night, chap. xil. 97. But, although it may be allowed that this wonderful assembling of them was effected by some special assistance of Providence, besides the preparation which they had been making for sundry days before, yet this expression evidently extends to the whole dispensation of God towards them, from the first of their deliverance unto that day. Generally, they all of them explain this allegorical expression from the manner in which the eagles, as they say, carry their young, which is on their backs or wings, because they fear nothing above them, as soaring over all; whereas, other fowls carry their young between their feet, as fearing other birds of prey above them. But there is no need to force from the expression such uncertain niceties. There is no more intended but that God carried them speedily and safely, as an eagle is borne by its wings in her course.

To this remembrance of former mercies, God adds secondly a threefold promise. First, That they should be 72D, ‘Segullah,’ a word that hath none to declare it by. We render it here and elsewhere, ‘a peculiar treasure, Kccles. ii. 8. It is rendered by our apostle, Titus ii. 14, λαος περιουσιος,᾿ ‘a peculiar people; and by another, Aaog εἰς περιποιησιν, 1 Pet. il. 9, which we translate in like manner. Secondly, That they should be Dam. nod, ‘a kingdom of priests, that is, DYIw, ‘of princes, saith Jarchi, as David’s sons Who were princes, are said to be D379. And it is not denied but that the word is sometimes so used. But, whereas it here means the special separation and dedication of the people to God, after the manner of priests, thence the allusion is taken, the dignity of princes being included in that of a kingdom. And this Peter renders βασιλειον ἱερατευμα, ‘a kingly priesthood, And in the transference of this privilege unto believers under the gospel, it is said, that by Christ they are made ‘kings and priests unto God, Rev. i. 6, and it is added, that they should be ‘a holy nation, as expressly, 1 Pet. ii. 9.

§ 34 That which God on the other hand requires of them is, that they keep his covenant, ver. 5. Now, this covenant of God with them had a double expression. First, In the giving of it unto Abraham, and its confirmation by the sign of circumcision. It is not this, however, which is here especially intended, but it is the administration of the covenant, wherein the whole people became the peculiar treasure and inheritance of God upon a new account, which is respected. Now, this covenant was not yet made, nor was it ratified until the dedication of the altar, when it was sprinkled with the blood of the covenant, as Aben Ezra well observes, and as our apostle manifests at large, chap. ix. 19—21. Wherefore, the people taking upon themselves the performance of it, and of all its statutes and laws, while yet they knew not what they were, did give up themselves to the sovereignty and wisdom of God, which is the indispensable duty of all that will enter into covenant with him.

§ 35. For the farther preparation of the people, God appoints that they should be ‘sanctified, and wash their clothes, ver. 10, which was done accordingly, ver. 14. The first contained their moral, the latter their ceremonial significative preparation for converse with God. The former consisted in the due disposal of their minds to that godly fear and holy reverence, that becomes poor worms of the earth, to whom that glorious God makes such approaches as he did unto them. The latter denoted that purity and holiness which was required in their inward man. From this latter institution, which was temporary and occasional, and of this kind they had many granted to them whilst they were in the wilderness before the giving of the law, the rabbins have framed a baptism for those that enter into their synagogue, a fancy too greedily embraced by some Christian writers, who would have:the holy ordinance of the churches’ baptism to be derived from thence. But this washing of their clothes, not of their bodies, was temporary, never repeated, neither is there any thing of any such baptism or washing required in any proselytes, either men or women, where the laws of their admission are strictly set down. Nor are there the least footsteps of any such usage amongst the Jews, until after the days of John Baptist, in imitation of whom it was first taken up by some anti-mishnical rabbins.

§ 36. The next thing which Moses did by the command of God, after he returned from the Mount, was to set bounds to it, and to the people, that none of them might press to go up, until the trumpet had finished its long and last sounding, a sign of the departure of the presence of God, ver. 12,13. ‘And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves that you go not up into the Mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the Mount shall be surely put to death; there shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the Mount,’ The law, the sanction, and the duration of the obedience required, are here stated. The law expresseth an evil prohibited both in itself, and in the end of it. The evil itself was, going up into, or so much as touching by any means the mountain, or the border of it. The reason why this was prohibited was, that they might not gaze, ver. 21, ‘ Charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze.’ The sanction is death, enjomed from the hand of men in these verses, and threatened from the hand of heaven, ver. 21, 24. The continuance of the observance was until the the trumpet sounded long, or had done sounding, the sign of the departure of God’s special presence, which made the place holy only during its continuance.

§37. For the law it is said expressly that the Mount was not to be touched; it might not be touched by man or beast. Yet our apostle treating concerning it, calls it, ‘the Mount that might be touched, Heb. xu. 21. For, although de jure, whilst that temporary command continued in force, it might not be touched, which seemed to render it glorious, yet, saith the apostle it was but a carnal thing, that might de facto be touched by man or beast, had they not been severely prohibited; and so is no way to be compared with that heavenly Mount Sion to which we are called in the worship of God under the gospel.

§ 38. The contexture of the words in our translation seems to have some difficulty: ‘ Whosoever toucheth the Mount, ver. 12, 13. ‘There shall not an hand touch it” ‘> 12 yan ΝΘ, it should seem that by # 12, the Mount itself is intended, and that the law is reinforced in a particular caution, that so much as a hand should not touch the Mount. But it is far more probable that by ἐξ, touch it, the person, man or beast that touched the mountain, is intended. And the words declare the manner in which the offender should be destroyed. Being made anathema, devoted, accursed. by his presumptuous sin, no man was to touch him, or to lay hand on him to deliver him, lest he also should partake of his guilt. And this sense the ensuing words, with the series of them evinceth. Tam DNS TMP ΓΤ ἽΝ Spr dD TMT ND WN ON, that is, no hand shall touch it, either to save it, or to punish it, but stoning it shall be stoned, or thrusting through tt shall be thrust through, whether man or beast it shall not live. Let none think by laying hand on it, to deliver it. Whence Aquila renders 7“ ΓΤ by ῥοιζησει, he shall be slain or destroyed ‘cum impetu et horrore.’ with force and terror, all being to cast stones at him, or to shoot him through with arrows, or. thrust him through with darts. So Aben Ezra, po wend pin oD Nd ὈΝῸΤ DSTI WTI PT DN) ὈΩΝ 5 Dip ΝΠ sm>po*. The meaning is, ‘Men should not gather about him to take him, but those that see him, shall stone him from the place of their station. And if he be afar off, they shall shoot him through with arrows.’

§ 39. Touching the mountain, or the border, limit, or bound set unto it by God’s appointment, was the sin forbidden. And the end of it, as was said, was, that they should not break through, M879, to sce, to gaze say we properly, to look with curiosity on the appearances of God’s glory; for which cause he smote the men of Bethshemesh upon their looking into the ark, 1 Sam. vi. God intended by this prohibition to beget in the people an awe and reverence of his holy majesty as the great Law-giver; and by the terror thereof, to bring them and their posterity into that bondage in the frame of their spirit, that servile awe that was to abide upon them, until such time as he should come, who was to give liberty and boldness to his church, by dispensing to believers the spirit of adoption, and so enabling them to ery Abba, Father, and to enter with boldness into the holy place, even to the throne of grace.

§ 40. In case the punishment appointed were neglected by the people, God threatens to see the execution of it himself, ver. 21, ‘ Lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish; ver. 24, ‘And let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them.’ For to make them watchful in their duty, he lets them know that their miscarriage in this matter, by their neglect leaving to him the punishment of the transgressor, should be imputed by him to the whole people, so that he would in such a cause break forth upon them with his judgments, and many of them should be consumed to the terror and warning of the remnant.

The continuance of this prescription was from the day before the appearance of the glory of God on the Mount, until by the long sounding of the trumpet, they perceived the presence of God had left the place, ver. 13, ‘When the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the Mount,’ that is, they had liberty so to do.

§ 41. Things being thus prepared, the people were brought forth to their station to attend to the law, ver. 17, ‘And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp for to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the Mount.’ This station of the people in Mount Sinai, is amongst the Jews the most illustrious thing that ever befel them. And many disputes they have about their order therein; some few things we may observe from it.

§ 42. And they stood at the nether part of the Mount. Ver. 2, it is said, a7 322 Sw Dw y7™, ‘And Israel encamped there before the Mount,’ in the singular number, that is in such order, saith Jarchi, that they were all as one man. And, saith he, they were on the east side of the mountain, where also they kept their station at the giving of the law; for so he would have the word ΤῺ to denote, though he gives no instance to confirm his opinion. But Aben Ezra expressly rejects this fancy, and that by a notable instance, where it is said, ‘ the people pitched their tents before (723) the tabernacle of the congregation round about.’ So that although they were rownd about the tabernacle, they are said to be before it, because of the special regard which they had unto it. And at this station in the wilderness, command was given to set bounds to the Mount 2°20, round about, ver. 12. which there had been no need of, had not the people been gathered round about the mountain.

§ 43. Now they generally agree, that this was the order wherein they stood: First stood the priests, mentioned expressly, ver. 22, and said there to draw near unto the Lord; that is, nearer than the rest of the people, though they also are expressly forbidden to come so nigh as to touch the Mount, ver. 24. These priests were as yet the first born of all the families, before a commutation was made, and the tribe of Levi accepted in their room. Next to the priests, stood the princes or heads of the tribes, attended with the elders and officers of the people. The body of the people, or the men of Israel, as they speak, stood next to them; and behind them, the women and children. The remotest of all in this order being, as they suppose, the proselytes that adhered unto them. Thus Aben Ezra expressoe 28 own “pola Po monn. ‘a, ‘ First were the first born who drew nigh to God? D'NW2T BT DwWAW “WNT ὈΓΤ ΤΙΝῚ, Sand after them were the heads of the tribes, that is the princes. D°PiIT DMN, ‘after them the elders.’ DWI DT MNS, ‘after them the officers; ὯΝ 2D ὉΠ ΙΝῚ Sw, ‘after them all the men of Israel; }urmM ὈΣΤ ΠΝ, ‘after them the children,’ that is, males; D»w2TT DAMN, ‘after them the women; DM NN) pan, ‘after them the proselytes or strangers.’

§ 44, All things being thus disposed, in the morning of the third day, the appearances of God’s glorious presence began to be manifested, ver. 16, ‘ And it came to pass, on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders, and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the Mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.’ Ver. 18, ‘And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole Mount quaked greatly.’ That all these things were the effects of the ministry of angels preparing the place of God's glorious presence, and attending upon him in their work, the Scripture elsewhere testifies, and we have before manifested, so that there is no need here farther to insist upon it.

§ 45. Upon this preparation for the descent of the glory of God, upon the sight of his harbingers and evidence of his coming, Moses brought forth the people ont ΠΝ ΡΣ, ‘to meet with God.” He brought them out of the camp, which was at some farther distance, unto the bounds that by God’s prescription he had set unto Mount Sinai. And Rashi on the place observes, not unfitly, that this going of the people to meet with God, argues that the glory of God came also to meet with them, as the bridegroom goeth out to meet the bride; for it was a marriage covenant into which God then took the people, whence it is said that God came from Sinai, namely to meet the people.

§ 46. The utmost of the approach of the people was to the nether part of the Mount. From this expression, the Targum of Jerusalem hath a foolish imagination, which they have also in the Talmud; namely, that Mount Sinai was plucked up by the roots, and lifted up into the air, that the people stood under it, which Jarchi calls a Midrash, that is, though not in the signification of the word, yet in the usual application of it, an allegorical fable.

In this posture, the people trembled and were not able to keep their station, but removed from their place, ch. xx. 28. And the whole Mount quaked greatly, ver. 18, so terrible was the appearance of the majesty of God in giving out his fiery law.

In this general consternation of all, it is added, that ‘Moses himself spake,’ ver. 19, ‘and God answered him by a voice.’ What he spake is not declared, nor was there any occasion for his speaking, nor can any account be given why he should speak to God, when God was solemnly preparing to speak to him and the people; nor is it said, that he spake to God, but only that he spake. And it is signally added, that God answered him, pa, im, or by a voice. For my part, I doubt not but that in this general consternation that befel all the people, Moses himself being surprised with fear, spake the words recorded by our apostle, ch. xii. 21, ‘I exceedingly fear and quake,’ which condition he was relieved from by the comforting voice of God, and so confirmed for the remainder of his ministry. These brief remarks being given upon the preparation for, and the manner of the giving of the law, we shall,summarily consider the general nature of the law, and its sanction, in our next Exercitation.

§ 1. What meant by the law among the Jews. § 2. The common distribution of it into moral, ceremonial, and judicial, by them rejected.. The ground of that distribution. § 3. 613 Precepts collected by the Jews. § 4. Reasons of that number. Of these, 248 affirmative; 365 negative. §5. Twelve houses of each sort. ᾧ 6. First house of affirmatives, concerning God, and his worship, in twenty precepts. § 7. The second, concerning. the temple and priesthood, innumber 19. § 8. The third, concerning sacrifices, in 57 precepts. § 9. The fourth of cleanness and uncleanness, 18. § 10. The fifth of alms and tithes, in 32 precepts. § 11. The sixth about things to be eaten, in seven commands. § 12. The seventh, concerning the passover and festivals, 20. § 13. The eighth, of rule and judgment, in 13 precepts. § 14. The ninth, of doctrine and truth, whose commands are 25. ᾧ 15. The tenth, concerning women and matrimony, in 12 precepts. § 16. The eleventh of criminal judgments and punishments, in eight precepts. § 17. The twelfth, of civil judgments, in 17 precepts. § 18. Censure of this collection. § 19. Negative precepts, in 12 families. § 20. The first family. Of false worship, in 47 prohibitions. $21. Remarks. § 22. The second family. Of separation from the heathen. § 23. The third family. Of things sacred. § 24. The fourth family. Of sacrifices and priests. § 25. The fifth family. Of meats. § 26. The sixth family. Of fields and harvest. § 27. The seventh family. The house of doctrines. § 28. The eighth family. Of justice and judgment. § 29. The ninth family. Of feasts. § 30. The tenth family. Of chastity. § 31. Theeleventh family. Of marriages. 32. The twelfth family. Of the manner of the kingdom. § 33—35. Concluding remarks.