Imatges de pàgina
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tory to this; but this is the crown of all; this consciousness that we cannot come to God and that God will not come to us, but through CHRIST. This acquiescence in HIM as the divinely appointed Mediator; his acceptance of him as "the Way, the Truth, and the Life;" this sentiment, I say, God did, and will approve, wheresoever it may be found. The Lord grant that we may all embrace this sentiment as we ought; and that having tasted its sweetness and felt its efficacy, we may attain by means of it all the blessings which a due reception of it will insure!

The third thing to be noticed is, Their engagement to yield unqualified obedience to every thing that should be spoken to them by the Mediator. This, if viewed only as a general promise of obedience, was good, and highly acceptable to God; since the obedience of his creatures is the very end of all his dispensations towards them. It is to bring them to obedience, that he alarms them by the denunciations of his wrath, and encourages them by the promises of his gospel: when once they are brought to love his law, and obey his commandments, all the designs of his love and mercy are accomplished; and nothing remains but that they attain that measure of sanctification, that shall fit them for the glory which he has prepared for them.

But there is far more in this part of our subject than appears at first sight. We will endea. yor to enter into it somewhat more minutely

in order to explain what we conceive to be contained in it.

The moral law was never given with a view to men's obtaining salvation by their obedience to it; for it was not possible that they who had transgressed it in any one particular, should afterwards be justified by it. St. Paul says, "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law."* But the law could not give life to fallen man: and therefore that way of obtaining righteousness is forever closed. With what view then was the law given? I answer, to shew the existence of sin, and the lost state of man by reason of sin, and to shut him up to that way of obtaining mercy which God has revealed in his gospel. I need not multiply passages in proof of this; two will suffice to establish it beyond a doubt: "As many as are under the law, are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Again, "The law is our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith."† But when the law has answered this end, then it has a further use, namely, to make known to us the way in which we should walk. In the first instance we are to flee from it as a Covenant, and to seek for mercy through the Mediator: but when we have obtained mercy through the Mediator, then we are to receive the law at his hands as a rule of life, and to render & willing obedience to it. Now all this was shadowed forth in the history before us. God gave Israel his law immediately from his own mouth.: and, so given, it terrified them beyond measure, and caused them to desire a Mediator. At the same time they did not express any wish to be liberated from obedience to it; on the contrary they engaged, that, whatever God should speak to them by the Mediator they would listen to it readily, and obey it unreservedly. This was right; and God both approved of it in them, and will approve of it in every child of man, We are afraid of perplexing the subject if we dwell any longer on this branch of it; because it would divert your attention, from the main body of the Discourse. We will therefore content ourselves with citing one passage, wherein the whole is set forth in the precise point of view in which we have endeavoured to place it. We have shewn that the transactions at Mount Sinai, where intended to shadow forth the nature of the two dispensations, that of the law and that of the gospel, in a contrasted view; that the terrific nature of the one made the Israelites desirous to obtain an interest in the other; and that the appointment of Moses to be their Mediator, and to communicate to them the further knowledge of his will with a view to their future obedience, was altogether illustrative of the gospel, which, whilst it teaches us to flee to Christ from the curses of the broken law, requires us afterwards to obey

* Gal. iii. 21.

† Gal. iii. 10-24.

that law: in a word, we have shewn, that though as St. Paul expresses it, (we are "without law," considered as a Covenant) we are nevertheless "not without law to God, but under the law to Christ:"* And all this is set forth in the 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the following words: "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 voice 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 so terrible was the sight, that Moses-said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) but yeare come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerably company any of angels, to the general Assemble and Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Cov enant, and to the blood of sprinkling which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel."f

I would only observe, in order to prevent any misconception of my meaning, that I do not suppose the Israelites to have had a distinct view of these things, such as we have at present, but that they spake like Caiaphas the high-priest, when he said, "It was expedient for one man to die for the people, rather than

* 1 Cor. ix. 21. † Heb. xi. 18-24

that the whole nation should perish:"* they did not understand the full import of their own words; but God overruled their present feelings so that they spake what was proper to shadow forth the mysteries of his gospel; and he then interpreted their words according to the full and comprehensive sense in which he intended they should be understood.

We could gladly have added somewhat more in confirmation of the sentiments which have been set before you, and particularly as founded on the passage we are considering: but your time forbids it; and therefore we pass on to notice in the

2d place, The dispositions which God approves. These must be noticed with a direct reference to the sentiments already considered; for God having said, "They have well said all that they have spoken," adds, "O that there were such an heart in them!"

It is but too common for those desires which arise in the mind under some peculiarly alarming circumstances, to prove only transient, and to yield in a very little time to the rooted inclinations of the heart. This, it is feared, was the case with Israel at that time; and God himself intimated, that the seed which thus hastily sprang up, would soon perish for want of a sufficient root. But the information which we derive from hence is wholly independent of them: whether they cultivated these dispositions or not, we see what dispositions God

* John xi. 49-52,

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