18.

gelical epistles. Take another instance of it. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self," says the Jewish Lawgiver, Lev. xix. "Love one another," says the Christian Apostle, "for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law, for &c. love is the fulfilling of the law," Rom. xiii. 8, 10. And that he spoke this of the moral law of Sinai, as adopted by Christ, is evident from his quoting in the 9th verse, the very words of that law, "Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet, and-any other commandment," &c.

5. St. James forms a three-fold cord, with Moses and St. Paul, to draw us out of the ditch of antinomianism, into which pious divines have inadvertently led us. "If ye fulfil the royal law, says he, ye do well, but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, &c. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty," James ii. 8, 9, 12. "True, says Zelotes; but that law of liberty, is the free gospel preached by Dr. Crisp." Not so: for St. James immediately produces part of that very law of liberty, by which fallen believers, that have shewed no mercy, will have judgment without mercy; and he does it in the very words of St Paul, "Do not commit adultery, Do not kill," James ii. 11. Any one who can set aside the testimony which those apostles bear in favour of the moral law of Moses, may, by the same art, press the most glaring truths of the bible into the service of all new fangled dotages.

6. Because the Mosaic dispensation, considered with respect to its superannuated types and ceremonies, is an old covenant with regard to the christian dispensation: Zelotes rashly concludes, that Moses's moral law is the covenant of unsprinkled works, and of perfect innocence, which God made with Adam in paradise. Hence he constantly opposes the ten commandments of God to the gospel of Christ, although he has no more ground for doing it, than for constantly opposing Rom. ii. to Rom. viii; Gal. vi. to Gal. ii; and Mat. xxv. to John x. Setting therefore aside the ceremonial and civil laws of Moses, the difference between him and St. Paul consists principally in two particulars: 1. The books of Moses are chiefly historical; and the Epistles of St. Paul, chiefly doctrinal: 2. The great prophet chiefly insists upon obe dience the fruit of faith, and the great apostle chiefly insists upon a faith, the root of obedience. Hence it appears, that those eminent servants of God cannot be opposed to each other with any more propriety than Mr. Berridge has opposed a jewish if to a christian if.

7. The Sinai-covenant does not then differ from the christian dispensation essentially, as darkness and light, but only in degree, as the morning light and the blaze of noon. Judaism deals in types and veiled truths; chris

I

tianity in anti-types and naked truths. Judaism sets forth the second gospel-axiom, without observing the first; and Christianity holds out the first, without obscuring the second. The Jews waited for the first coming of Christ, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself: And the Christians look for his appearing a second time without sin, i. e. without that humiliation and those sufferings, which constituted him a sacrifice for sin. see therefore no more reason to believe that Mount Sinai flames only with divine wrath, than to think that Mount Sion flames only with divine love: for if a beast was to be thrust through with a dart, for rushing upon Mount Sinai; I find that Ananias and Sapphira were thrust through with a word, for rushing upon Mount Sion. And if I read that Moses himself trembled exceedingly at the divine severity displayed in Arabia, I read also, that great fear came upon all the church, on account of the judgment inflicted upon the first backsliders in the good land of Canaan. In a word, as Christ is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, as well as the lamb of God; so Moses is the meekest man upon earth, as well as the severest of all the prophets.

8. To prove that the decalogue is a gospellaw of liberty, and not the Adamic law of innocence, one would think it is enough to observe, that the law of innocence was given without a mediator, whereas the law of Sinai was given by one. For St. Paul informs us, that "it was ordained by angels in the hand of a MEDIATOR," Moses, a mighty intercessor and a most illustrious type of Christ, to whom he pointed the Israelites. This makes the Apostle propose a question, which contains the knot of the difficulty raised by the antinomians; "Is the law then against the promises of God?" Is the Sinai-covenant against the gospel of Christ? And he answers it by crying out, God forbid. Nay, as a schoolmaster it brings us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith as sinners; and afterwards it makes us keep close to him for power to obey it, that we may be justified by works as believers; "For says he in another place, The DOERS of the LAW, [and none but they] shall be justified, &c. in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to MY GOSPEL.:" A plain proof this, that the moral LAW, with all its sanctions and precepts, is a capital part of the Christian,as well as of the Jewish dispensation. 9. Again, the Adamic moral law was given without a sacrificing priest; but not so the Mosaic moral law: For, while Moses was ready to act his part as an interceding prophet; Aaron was ready to second him, by offering up typical incense and propitiatory sacrifices; and God graciously invested him with power to give a sacerdotal blessing to penitent transgressors: appointing him the representative of Christ, whom St. Paul calls "The High Priest of OUR dispensation."

Once more: The preface of the decalogue is altogether evangelical; and the second commandment speaks of punishing only unto the third generation, while it mentions, shewing mercy unto a thousand generations which, if I mistake not, intimates that the decalogue breathes mercy as well as justice; and therefore that it is an edition of Christ's evangelical, and not of Adam's anti-evangelical law.

These observations make me wonder that pious divines should set aside the moral part of Moses's law, as being the impracticable Jaw of innocence: But, when I reflect that Aaron himself helped to set up the golden calf, and that Moses, in a fit of intemperate zeal for God, dashed the material tables of his own law to pieces; I no more wonder that pious solifidians should help the practical antinomians to set up their great Diana; and that warm men should break the Almighty's laws to the diminutive, insignificant pieces, which they are pleased to call "rules of life."

And let nobody say that these arguments are only "novel chimeras ;" for the most judicious Calvinists have been of this sentiment. Flavel, after mentioning several, such as Bolton, Charnock, and Burgess, adds, "Mr. Greenhill on Ez. xvi. gives us demonstration from that context. That since it [the Mosaic law] was a marriage cove. nant, as it appears to be, verse 8, it cannot possibly be a distinct covenant from the covenant of grace. The incomparable Turretine [one of Calvin's most famous successors at Geneva] learnedly and judiciously states this controversy, and both positively asserts, and by many arguments fully proves, that the Sinai-law cannot be a pure covenant of works, or a covenant specifically distinct from the covenant of grace." See Flavel's Works, Folio Edit. p. 423.

The same candid Author helps me to some of the following, supernumerary arguments. 1. Nothing can be more unreasonable than to suppose that God brought his chosen people out of Egyptian bondage, to put them under the more intolerable bondage of the law of innocence.-2. If God had done this, instead of bettering their condition, he would have made it worse: Nay, he would have brought them from the blessing to the curse: For, in Egypt they were nationally under the covenant inade with Abraham a gracious covenant this, into which they were all admitted by the sacrament of circumcision Nor could they be put under the Ada.ic covenant of Works, without being first cut off from the covenant of Grace made with Adam after the Fall, renewed with all mankind in Noah, and peculiarly confirmed to the Jews in their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; it being evident that no man can be at the same time under two covenants

absolutely different.-Nay, 3. If the law given to the Israelites upon Mount Sinai, was not an evangelical law; if it was the law of paradisaical innocence; God treated his peculiar people with greater severity than he did the Egyptians, who were all under the gracious dispensation which St. Peter describes in these words, "In EVERY NATION he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him."-4. If, because St. Paul decries the absolute ceremonies of Moses's law, it follows that the moral law delivered to Moses was not a gospel-law; it will also follow, that the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, was not a gospel-covenant: For the apostle expressly decries circumcision, the great, external work of that covenant. But as Abraham's covenant was undoubtedly a gospelcovenant, although circumcision is now abolished; so was Moses's law a gospel-law; although the ceremonial part of it is now abrogated.-Lastly: St. Paul, Rom. ix. 4, places the giving of the law" among the greatest privileges of the Jews; but if by the law he meant the Adamic covenant, he should have called it the greatest curse, which can be entailed upon a fallen creature: For what can be more terrible, than for a whole nation of sinners to be put under a law, that absolutely curses its violaters, and admits of neither repentance nor pardon?

Flavel, in the page which I have already quoted, makes the following just observation: "The law is considered two ways in scripture. 1. Largely, for the whole * Mosaical oeconomy, comprehensive of the cere monial as well as moral precepts, and that law is of faith, as the learned Turretine has proved by four scripture arguments, 1. Be cause it contained Christ the object of faith. 2. Because it impelled men to seek Christ by faith: 3. Because it required that God be worshipped, which cannot rightly be without faith: And, 4. Because Paul describes the righteousness of faith in those very words, whereby Moses had declared the precepts of the law.-Again, The Law, in scripture, is taken strictly for the moral law only, considered abstractedly from the promises of grace, as the legal justiciaries understood it. These are two different senses and acceptations of the law :"

Apply this excellent distinction to the refinements, with which the doctrine of the law has been perplexed, and you will easily answer the objections of those, who, availing

Thus when St. John says, "The law came by Moses, but gracé and truth came by Jesus Christ; he does not mean, that the law of Moses is a graceless and lying law: He only declares, that, Whereas the Jewish dispensation which is frequently called THE LAW, came by Moses, with all its shadowy types; the Curistiau dispensation, which is frequently called GRACK, care by Jesus Christ, in whom the shadows of the ceremonial law have their truth and reality.

themselves of St. Paul's laconic style, lay their own farrago at his door: For instance, when he says, "As many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is every one, that continueth not in all things, &c. he means [to use Flavel's words] the law "considered abstractedly from the promises of grace" for, in that case, the law immediately becomes the Adamic covenant of works, which knows nothing of justification by faith in a merciful God, through "an atoning Mediator: and, in this point of view, the apostle says with great truth, "The law is not of faith, but the man that doth these things shall live in them," without being under any obligation to a 'Saviour. From the curse of this Adamic, merciless law, as well as from the curse of the ceremonial burdensome law of Moses, Christ has delivered us : But he never intended to deliver us from the curse of his own royal law, without our personal, sincere, penitential, and faithful obedience to it for he says himself, "Why call ye me Lord and do not the things which I say?"-Those mine enemies, who put honour upon my cross, while they pour contempt upon my crown. "Those mine enemies, who would not that I should REIGN Over them, bring hither and slay them before me."

From the preceding arguments I conclude, that what St. James calls the royal law, and the law of liberty, and what St. Paul calls the law of Christ, is nothing but the moral law of Moses, which Christ adopted, and explained in his sermon upon the mount; a law this, which is held forth to public view, duly connected with the apostle's creed, in our church, to indicate, that solifidianism is the abomination of desolation, and that the commandments ought no more to be separated from the articles of our faith, in our pulpits and hearts, than they are in our chancels and bibles.

And that we shall stand or fall by the moral part of the decalogue in the great day, is evident, not only from the tenor of the New Testament, but even from St. Paul's express declarations to those very Galatians to whom he says, "Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law :" For he charges them to "fulfil the law of Christ;" adding, "God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap: For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap destruction."-I have told you, that they, who do such things [adultery, fornication, uncleanness, murders, drunkenness, and such like] shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, &c. goodness, temperance: AGAINST Such [as bear this fruit] there is no law: Or rather, "The law is not against them: For, as the apostle observes to the Corinthians, We are

not Antinomians,-"We are not without LAW to God, but under the LAW to Christ." Among the many objections, which Zelotes will raise against this doctrine, two deserve a particular answer.

I. "If the Mosaic dispensation is an edition of the everlasting gospel, why does St. Paul decry it when he writes to the Galatians and Corinthians? And why does he say to the Hebrews, "Now hath Christ obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises, &c. Heb. viii. 6, &c. for of these two dispensations the apostle evidently speaks in that chapter, under the name of an old and a new covenant."

(1) Although Christ is the one Procurer of grace under all the gospel-dispensations, yet his own peculiar dispensation has the advantage of the superannuated dispensation of Moses, on many accounts, chiefly these, Christ is the Son, and Moses was the servant of God;-Christ is a sinless, eternal priest, after the royal order of Melchisedec; and Aaron was a sinful, transitory, levitical highpriest: Christ is a living, spiritual temple; and Moses' tabernacle was a lifeless,material building: Christ writes the decalogue internally, upon the tables of the believer's heart: and Moses brings it written externally, upon tables of stone: Christ "by one offering for ever perfected them that are sanctified;" but the Mosaic sacrifices were daily renewed; Christ shed his own precious blood, the blood of the Lamb of God; but Aaron shed only the vile blood of bulls and common lambs :Christ's dispensation remaineth; but that of Moses is done away, 2 Cor. iii. 11:-Christ's dispensation is the ministration of the Spirit; but that of Moses is the ministration of the letter, of condemnation, of death, not only because it eventually killed the carnal Jews, who absurdly opposed the letter of their dispensation to the spirit of it: but also because Moses condemned to instant death blasphemers, adulterers, and rebels; destroying them with volleys of stones, earthquakes, fire from heaven, waters of jealousy, &c. All these strange executions were acts of severity, which our mild Redeemer not only never did himself, but never permitted his apostles to do while he was upon earth; kindly delaying the execution of his woes and chiefly delighting to proclaim peace to penitent rebels. Hence it is, that St. Paul says, If the Mosaic ministration, [which, in the preceding respect, was comparatively a ministration of righteous condemnation] be glory, much more does the ministration of Christ [which, in the sense above-mentioned, is comparatively a ministration of righteous mercy] exceed in glory! 2 Cor. iii. 9.

(2) With regard to the BETTER PROMISES,

on which the Apostle founds his doctrine of the superior excellence of the Christian over the Jewish dispensation, they are chiefly these: (1) "The Lord whom ye seek, even the messenger of the [better] covenant, shali suddenly come to his temple.-(2) To you, that fear my name, shall the sun of righteousness arise, with healing in his wings.(3) I will be merciful to your unrighteousness, and your sins I will remember no more: -giving you the KNOWLEDGE of salvation by the remission of sins;" a privilege this, which is enjoyed by all christian believers. (4) “ All shall know me from the least to the greatest: They shall all be taught of God: [for] I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and my servants and my handmaids shall prophesy," ie, speak the wonderful works of God. This blessing, which under the Jewish dispensation was the prerogative of prophets and prophetesses only, is common to all true christians. The four evangelists, and St. Peter, our Lord, and his forerunner, agree to name it the baptism of the Holy Ghost: St. Peter calls it the Spirit of promise: Christ terms it also Power from on high and the Promise of the Father: The fulfilment of this great promise is the peculiar glory of Christianity in its state of perfection, as appears from John vii. 39, and 1 Peter i. 12; and it is chiefly on accouut of it, that the christian dispensation is said to be founded on better promises: but to infer from it that the Jewish dispensation was founded on a curse, is a palpable mistake.

3. Therefore all that you can make of Heb. viii. 2 Cor. iii. and Gal iv. is, 1. That the Jewish dispensation puts an heavy yoke of ceremonies upon those who are under it, and by that means gender eth to bondage: whereas the gospel of Christ begets glorious liberty; not only by breaking the yoke of Mosaic rites, but also by revealing more clearly, and sealing more powerfully, the glorious promise of the Spirit.-And 2. That the gospel of Moses, if I may use that expression after St. Paul, Heb. iv. 2. was good in its time and place, and was founded upon good promises: but that the gospel of Christ is better, and is established upon better promises, the latter dispensation illustrating, improving, and ripening the former; and altogether forming the various steps, by which the mystery of God hastens to its glorious accomplishment.

II. "If the Mosaic dispensation is so nearly allied to the gospel of Christ, why does the apostle Heb. xii. 18, 21, give us so dreadful a description of Mount Sinai?" And why does he add, "So terrible was the sight [of that Mount burning with fire] that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake?"

ANS. The Apostle, in that chapter, exalts with great reason, Mount Sion above Mount Sinai: or the Christian above the Jewish

dispensation; and herein we endeavour to tread in his steps. But the argument taken from the dreadful burning of Mount Sinai, &c. does by no means prove, that the Sinai covenant was essentially different from the covenant of grace. Weigh with impartiality the following observations, and they will, I hope, remove your prejudices as they have done mine.*

1. If the dispensation of Moses is famous from the past terrors of Mount Sinai: so is that of Christ for the future terrors of the day of judgment. "His voice, says the apostle, then shook the earth : But now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven : "We too look for the shout of the archangel, and the blast of the trump of God; and are persuaded, that the flames which ascended from Mount Sinai to the midst of heaven, were only typical of those flames, that shall crown the Christian dispensation, when our Lord shall be revealed in flaming fire to take a more dreadful vengeance of them that obey not the gospel, than ever Moses did of those who disobeyed his dispensation. "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation; looking for and hastening unto the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." How inconsiderable do the Mosaic terrors of a burning bush and a flaming hill appear, when they are compared with the Christian terrors of melting elements, and of a world, whose inveterate curse is pursued from the circumference to the centre, by a pervading fire, and devoured by rapidly-spreading flames!

2. How erroneous must the preaching of Zelotes appear to those who believe all the Scriptures? "I do not preach to you duties and sincere obedience, like Mr. Legality on Mount Sinai; but privileges and faith, like St. Paul on Mount Sion." How unscriptural, I had almost said, how deceitful is this modish effeminate divinity! Does not the very apostle, who is supposed to patronize it most, speak directly against it, where he says, "We labour that we may be accepted of Him, [the Lord :] for we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, &c. knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord [in that great day of retribution,] we persuade men?"

Nay, does he not conclude his dreadful description of Mount Sinai and its terrors, by threatening christian believers, who are come to Mount Zion, with more dreadful displays of divine justice than Arabia ever beheld, if they do not obey him that speaks from heaven? Heb. xii. 25. And does he not sum

I have bordered myself upon the mistake of Zelotes, in one or two solitidian expressions, in the Address which concludes my Appeal. That place shall be guarded in the next edition.

up his doctrine, with respect to Mount Sinai and Mount Sion, in these awful words, "Wherefore we receiving[by faith] a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear; For our God is [not the God of the Autinomians,] but a consuming fire;" i. e. The God, who delivered the moral law upon Mount Sinai in the midst of devouring flames, and gave a fuller edition of it in his Sermon upon the Mount, solemnly adopted that law into his own peculiar dispensation as the law of liberty, or his own evangelical law :This very God is a consuming fire. He will come in the great day "revealed in flaming fire to consume the man of sin by the breath of his mouth; and to take vengeance on all who obey not the gospel," whether they despise its gracious offers or trample under foot its righteous precepts. If Zelotes would attentively read Heb. xii. 14-29, and compare that awful passage with Heb. ii. 2, 3, he would see, that this is the apostle's antisoliidian doctrine: but alas! while the great pharisaic whore forbids some papists, to read the bible, will the great antinomian Diana permit some protestants to mind it?

Should not the preceding observations have the desired effect upon the reader, I appeal to witnesses. Moses is the first. He comes down from Mount Sinai with an angelic appearance. Beams of glory dart from his seraphic face. His looks bespeak the man that had conversed forty days with the God of glory, and is saturated with divine mercy and love! but I forget that christianized jews will see no glory in Moses, and have a veil of prejudice ready to cast over his radient face, I therefore point at a more illustrious witness. It is the Lord Jesus. Behold! He cometh, with ten thousand of his saints, says St. Jude, to execute judgment upon all;" and particuarly

BLESSINGS of the Mosaic Covenant,

Being the words of Moses.

1. Moses said, consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, &c, that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day, Ex. xxxii. 29.-Behold I set before you this day a blessing, &c. if they obey the commandments of the Lord. And it shall come to pass, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, &c. Deut. xi. 13,29.-And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently, &c. that the Lord thy God will bless the -All these blessings shall overtake thee, &c, Blessed shalt thou be in the city and blessed in the field, &c. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed when thou goest out, &c. The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee, &c. The Lord shall establish thee an holy people to himself, if thou shalt walk in his ways. And, &c. he shall

upon those that "sin wilfully after they have received the knowledge of the truth," There remaireth no more sacrifice for [their] sins, (says my third witness) but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses's law, died without mercy: of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy, who hath [despised the Christian dispensation, and] done despite to the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me;-The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," Heb. x 26.-31.

Thus speaks the champion of free-grace: such is the account, which he gives us of Christ's severity towards those who despise his dispensation; a severity this, which will display itself by the infliction of a punishment much sorer than that of the rebels destroyed by Moses. And are we not come to the height of inattention, if we can read such terrible declarations as these and maintain, that nothing but vinegar and gall flows from Mount Sinai, and nothing but milk and honey from Mount Sion? How long shall we have eyes that do not see, and hearts that do not understand? Lord, rend the veil of our prejudices Let us see the truth as it is in Moses, that we may more clearly see the truth as it is in Jesus.

The balance of the preceding arguments, shews, that the Mosaic and the Christian covenant only set before us Blessing and Cursing; and that according to both those dispensations, the obedience of faith shall be crowned with gracious rewards; whilst disobedience, the sure fruit of unbelief shall be punished with the threatened curse. I throw this conclusion into my Scales, and weigh it before my reader, thus:

CURSES of the Christian dispensation,

Being the words of Christ.

2. Jesus began to upbraid the cities, wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee Chorazin :-Woe unto the Bethsaida :-I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, at the day of judgment than for you. And thou Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to Hell, &c. I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee. Matt. xi. 20, 21. -I tell you, Nay: but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.-Cut it down [the barren figtree:] Why cumbereth it the ground?-Let it alone this year also ;-if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that, thou shalt cut it down; Luke xiii. 5, 9.