preserved from famine, peftilence, and the other plagues and difeafes, that God had inflicted on Egypt; that God would multiply them as the fands of the fea, and as the ftars of heaven; that he would give them victory over their enemies; and place among them the external fymbols of his prefence. The paffages of Scripture to this purpose, are so many and long, that it would too much fwell thefe fheets to transcribe them. The few referred to below (t), ought to be carefully confulted. It is evident, that these paffages are intended to enumerate the advantages of the Sinai covenant and yet, that all the bleffings mentioned in them are merely external, and have no neceffary connection with the fpecial favour of God and eternal life. Nor is this all. Scripture exprefly afferts, that God, by beftowing fuch temporal bleffings, fulfils his engagements in the Sinai covenant, Deut. vii. 12,-15. "Wherefore, it fhall come to pass, if ye hear"ken to thefe judgments, and keep, and do them that the Lord thy God fhall keep unto "thee the covenant, and mercy, which he fwore "to thy fathers." Would you know, how it hall appear, that God hath kept his covenant? What follows, will inform you. "And he will "love thee, and blefs thee, and multiply thee; he will alfo blefs the fruit of thy womb, and "the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and "the flocks of thy fheep, in the land which he "fwore unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou "fhalt be bleffed above all people. There fhall (t) Exod. xv. 25, 26. xxiii. 25,-28. Lev. xxvi. 3, 14. Deut. vii. 12,-24. viii. 7.-9. xi. 13,—17. XXVIII. 3,13. -I C ❝ not "not be male or female barren among you or among your cattle. And the Lord will take EC away from thee all fick nefs, and will put none "of the evil difeafes of Egypt, which thou "knoweft, upon thee; but will lay them upon "all them that hate thee." See alfo Lev. xxvi. 9, 10. The punishments threatned against idolatry and other grofs breaches of the Sinai covenant, were alfo temporal, fuch as difeafes, unfuccefsful war, famine, peftilence, cafting out of the land of Canaan, fmiting that land with a preternatural barrennefs, and scattering its old inhabitants among the heathen. The Scriptures cited below, are a fufficient proof of this (u). There are however who plead, that the virtue of individuals was fecured under the Old Teftamant, precifely as it is under the New, by promifes of fpiritual and eternal, not of temporal bleffings: that the fanctions of the Sinai covenant only regarded Ifrael as a nation: and even, in that refpect, had little in them peculiar to that people, because nations fubfift only in this life, and therefore the juftice of God requires, that in this life they fhould be rewarded or punished. That the justice of God in fuch an immediate manner rewards and punishes nations, can neither be proved by reafon nor Scripture. Men have been led to fancy this neceffary, by a train of thin-spun metaphyfical abftractions, though every day's experience might have convinced them of their mistake. Virtue indeed tends to promote the profperity of nations, and vice to occafion their mifery and deftruction. But acci(u) Lev. xxvi. 14,39. Deut. iv. 25,-27. xi. 17. xxviii. 15,68. xxix. 22,-28. dental dental circumstances may greatly retard the effect of that tendency, fo that it is feldom kingdoms flourish or decay in exact proportion to their moral character. Mean time the honour of divine juftice is abundantly fecured, if the individuals, who compofe a nation, are finally rewarded or punished according to their respective merit. It was therefore peculiar to the Jews, that their prosperity or misery, as a nation, wholly depended on their obfervance or neglect of the Mofaic law. Yet there was another peculiarity in the Jewish difpenfation, equally furprizing. The temporal happiness, even of individuals, depended in like manner, on their obedience or difobedience to the laws of God. God exprefsly threatened, that "he would fet his face against that man, cut "him off, and deftroy him from among his peo"ple, that eat any manner of blood; that gave 66 any of his feed to Moloch, or connived at one "guilty of that crime; that turned after familiar "fpirits and wizards; or that did any work on "the day of atonement," Lev. xvii. 1o. xx. 2, -6. xxiii. 30. Thefe expreffions plainly imply, that the immediate vengeance of God would inAlict death on fuch tranfgreffors, when their crimes were unknown to earthly judges, or connived at by them. We are told, Exod. xx. 7. that "the Lord will not hold him guiltlefs,' i. e. will certainly and feverely punish him, " that "taketh his name in vain." And Exod. xxxii. 32, 33. that "the Lord faid unto Mofes, who foever hath finned against me," i. e. fo as to violate the condition of the Sinai covenant, "him " will I blot out of my book." I will blot out of the register of the living, or cut him off from C 2 their their number. Hence in many paffages of the Pfalms, wicked men are threatned with a fudden, violent, untimely death, or with other dreadful calamities, which fhould bear an evident fignature of being inflicted by the immediate hand of God. See Pfal. xi. 5, 6. xxxiv. 16, 21. xxxvii. 1, 2, 9, 10, 20, 35, 36, 38. Iv. 23. xciv. 23. On the other hand, the Old Teftament abounds with promifes of long life and temporal profperity to virtuous individuals. See Pfal. i. 1,—3. xxxiii. 18, 19. xci. 1,—16. cxii. 1,-3. cxxviii. I,-4. Prov. iii. 1, 2, 16. ix. 11. x. 27. Ifa. xxxiii. 15, 16. There are in it particular temporal promifes to good kings, Deut. xvii. 20. to upright judges, Deut. xvi. 20. to dutiful children, Exod. xx. 12. Deut. v. 16. to the meek, Pf. xxxvii. II. to the bountiful and compaffionate, Deut. xv. 10, 18. and to other virtuous characters. Several of the bleffings promifed in these Scriptures, e. g. a numerous and flourishing offspring, Pfal. exxviii. 1-4. and prefervation in time of war, famine and peftilence, Pfal. xxxiii. 18, 19. Pfal. xci. Ifa. xxxiii. 15, 16. could proceed only from the fpecial interpofition of providence. All these promifes may be confidered as fo many enlargements, or rather explications of that general one, Lev. xviii. 5. "The man that doeth these things "fhall live in them." He fhall not be cut off by an untimely death, but enjoy a long and profperous life in the land of Canaan. Thus promifes of temporal bleffings and threatnings of the oppofite evils are almost every where to be found in the Scripture accounts of the Sinai covenant, whilft there is a remarkable filence as to fpiritual and heavenly bleffings. And yet, if promises of these laft were any how contained in that that covenant, they were undoubtedly the most precious promises in it. Surely, a happy eternity is better than temporal prosperity and the favour of God, communion with him, and conformity to his bleffed image, are infinitely more valuable, than the pleasures, riches, and honours of this perishing world. Why then does Mofes, when urging the Jews to a faithful discharge of covenant engagements, infift almost wholly on promifes of temporal bleffings, and feldom or never mention, promises unfpeakably fuperior to thefe in excellence? Will a good writer, when he means to praise, forget to infift on that which appears to him the chief beauty and glory of an object? Or is it natural for a man of common fenfe, when pleading a cause in which he is deeply interested, to overlook that motive, which he himself thinks, and which every one who believes. it must think of the greateft force? A multitude of festivals were appointed to keep up the remembrance of temporal and outward bleffings, which either paved the way for the Sinai covenant, or were fecured by it. If the chief bleffings of that covenant were spiritual and heavenly, why was not equal pains taken to keep them in remembrance? Were the Jews, think you, in lefs danger of forgetting fpiritual bleffings, than of forgetting temporal? § 3. Perhaps it may be alledged to invali date my argument, that the land of Canaan was a type of the heavenly inheritance: that the temporal bleffings of the Sinai covenant, were reprefentations, earnests, and pledges of fpiritual and eternal bleffings: that the meaning of thefe types and figures was explained to thofe to whom they were first delivered, and by oral tradition tranf C 3 mitted |