accepts them only who worship him in fpirit and in truth. In the Mofaic covenant it was otherwife. There he appeared chiefly as a temporal prince, and therefore gave laws intended rather to direct the outward conduct, than to regulate the actings of the heart. Hence every thing in that difpenfation was adapted to ftrike his fubjects with awe and reverence. The magnificence of his palace, and all its utenfils; his numerous train of attendants; the fplendid robes of the high priest, who, though his prime minifter, was not allowed to enter the holy of holies, fave once a year, and, in all his miniftrations; was obliged to discover the most humble veneration for lfrael's king; the folemn rites, with which the priefts were confecrated; the ftrictnefs with which all impurities and indecencies were forbidden, as things, which, though tolerable in others (b), were unbecoming the dignity of the people of God (c), efpecially when approaching to him: all these tended to promote and fecure the respect due to their glorious fovereign. On the fame account, a diftinction was preserved between the table of the prince and of the fubjects. The fubjects were not allowed to eat the fat and the blood (d), thefe being proper to God's altar, and leaven and honey, the common food of the Ifraelites, though confecrated to God, were not to be burnt on the altar, but eaten by the priests.

The fabbath, the feasts of paffover, pentecoft and tabernacles, the preferving the pot of manna, and Aaron's rod that bloffomed, and the confecration of the first-born to God, were all commemorations of outward benefits, received from (c) Levit. xi. 43, 44. Deut. (d) Lev. iii. 17.

(b) Deut. xiv. 21. xiv. 1-3. xxiii. 10,-14.

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the exercise of God's kingly power. The tithes were properly tribute paid him. Their thankofferings of beafts, wheat, barley, wine, oil, &c. were acknowledgments that they owed thefe bleffings to his bounty. To conclude this argument, the fidelity and allegiance of the Jews was fecured, not by bestowing the influences of the spirit neceffary to produce faith and love, (a) but barely by external displays of majesty and greatness, calculated to promote a flavish subjection, rather than a chearful filial obedience.

For this reafon it is foretold, Hof. ii. 16. that in gospel times men fhould not call God Baali, i. e. my master, but Ifhi, i. e. my hufband. Indeed God was a husband to the Jewish church, (b) and he is to the Chriftian church a Master and Lord (c). But the paffage imports at least thus much, that God, who in the Jewifh difpenfation had chiefly difplayed the grandeur, distance, and severity of a Mafter, would, in the Christian difpenfation, chiefly difplay the affection and familiarity of a husband and friend.

§ 3. The party, with whom God made this covenant, was the Jewish nation, not excluding these unregenerate, and inwardly difaffected to God and goodness. In the original records of the Sinai covenant (d), all the people are expressly faid to enter into it, and yet the greater part of that people, were ftrangers to the enlightening and converting influences of the fpirit, and to a principle of inward love to God and holiness (e). The leaft acquaintance with the hiftory of the Jews, and even of that genera

(a) Deut. xxix. 3, 4. (b) Jer. xxxi. 32. (c) Mat. xxiii. 8. (d) Exod. xix. 8. xxiv. 3. Deut. v. 1,—3. (e) Deut. xxix. 3. V. 29.

tion, which came out of Egypt, and with whom the Sinai covenant was first established (a), may fatisfy us, how rare a thing true religion was among them. Indeed, had they been bleffed with deliverance from the dominion of fin, and with conformity to the image of God, it would be abfolutely unaccountable, that when urged to obedience, this more excellent bleffing fhould be wholly overlooked; and their deliverance from Egypt reprefented as the chief thing, whereby God had become their God, and laid them under obligations to walk in his statutes (¿).

On account of the perverfe obftinate difpofition of God's antient covenant people, Hofeah is commanded, to take unto him a wife of whoredoms, i. e. one, who, though then a virgin, was of a lafcivious difpofition, and would break her marriage vow and to love a woman, beloved of her friend, yet an adulterefs, i. e. one who would repay her husband's fondness and affection with adulterous treachery (c). For the fame reason, the Sinai covenant is compared to a prifon (d), in which fubjects difaffected to their prince, are fhut up to prevent their rebelling, and to a school-mafter (e), by whofe authority children are restrained from fins and follies, to which their natural difpofition would otherwife carry them. And those under the Sinai covenant, are represented as groaning under a yoke (ƒ).

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Further, the Sinai covenant was made, not only with those who came out of Egypt, but with all fucceeding generations that were fpring from them (a). Defcent from Ifrael gave any one a title to the benefits of this covenant, for which reafon the children even of unregenerate Ifraelites, were circumcifed the eighth day, and were faid to be born unto God (b). It was this that led the Jews, in our Lord's days, to boast so much of their descent from Abraham (c). And probably it was to allay this pride in Nicodemus, that our Lord tells him he must be born again; as he fpeaks of the water of life to the Samaritan woman who boafted of Jacob's well; and to the rich young' of treasures in heaxman ven. Hence Paul tells us, that he had, whereof he might trust in the flesh, i. e. efteemed himself entitled to the carnal benefits of the Sinai covenant, feeing he was of the flock of Ifrael, and an Hebrew of the Hebrews (d). Now this plainly fuppofes, that all of the ftock of Ifrael were interested in that covenant. Nay, thefe adopted by a Jew, born in his houfe, or bought with his money, were circumcifed, as a token that they were entitled to the fame benefits (e). Profelytes too, in virtue of their own deed, had the fame claim and the children of profelytes, though circumcifed at an age, when incapable of knowing what was done to them, had a like claim through the deed and will of their parents. Sons of God under that typical difpenfation were born of blood, i. e. lawful wedlock; or of the will of the flesh, i. e. of uncleannefs, as Pharez from the

(c) Mat.

(a) Deut. xxix. 14, 15. (b) Ezek.xvi. 20. iii. 9. John viii. 33. (d) Phil. iii. 4, 5.. (e) Gen. xvii. 12, 13. Selden de Jur. Nat. & Gent. 1. 5. C. 12.

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inceft of Judah and Thamar; or from the will of men, i. e. became fons of God, by their own deed, or by the deed of their parents, mafters or adopters. The difference of the Chriftian difpenfation from the Sinai covenant, in these refpects, is hinted, John i. 13. and 1 Peter i. 23. and in that celebrated expreffion of Tertullian, Chriftiani fiunt, non nafcuntur. It needs no proof, that men might be interested in the bleffings of the Sinai covenant, in any of the ways mentioned above, and yet notwithstanding be slaves of Satan, and dead in trefpaffes and fins.

When God promifed the land of Canaan to Abraham and his feed, circumcifion was inftituted for this among other purposes, to fhew that descent from Abraham was the foundation of his pofterities right to these bleffings. But, in gofpel times, when not the children of the flesh, but the children of the promise are counted for a feed, Rom. ix. 8. in confequence of this the circumcifion of the flesh is of no more avail, and the circumcifion made without hands, in putting off the body of the fins of the flesh by the circumcifion of Chrift becomes neceffary, Col. ii. 11. Rom. ii. 28. The promife of long life, in the land of Canaan, was therefore annexed with pe culiar propriety to the precept of honouring father and mother, to remind the Jews that they owed the poffeffion of that land to the piety of their more diftant forefathers, gratitude to whom? would be beft teftified by a dutiful behaviour to their immediate parents who now reprefented them.

Had not God known, that the greater part of thefe, with whom he entered into covenant at Sinai, were an obftinate, stiff-necked, and hard

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