Section 6.
SECTION 6.
The Moral Law Of Christ Weighed Against The Moral Law Of Moses. Our translation makes St. Paul speak unguardedly, where it says that “the law is not made for a righteous man” — The absurdity of making believers afraid of the decalogue — The moral law of Christ, and the moral law of Moses are one and the same — The moral law is rescued from under the feet of the Antinomians — Christians are not less under the moral law to Christ as a rule of judgment, than the Jews were under it to Moses — The Sinai covenant is proved to be an edition of the covenant of grace — The most judicious Calvinists maintain this doctrine — Wherein consists the difference between the Jewish and the Christian dispensation. As the latter is most glorious in its promises, so it is most terrible in its threatenings — Two capital objections are answered.
WHEN justice has used her scales, she is sometimes obliged to wield her sword. In imitation of her, I lay by my Scales to rescue a capital scripture, which, I fear, our translators have inadvertently delivered into the hands of the Antinomians.
1 Timothy 1:8, 9, the apostle is represented as saying, “We know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law is not made for a RIGHTEOUS MAN.” “Now,” say some Antinomians, “all believers, being complete in Christ’s imputed righteousness, are and shall for ever be perfectly righteous in him; therefore ‘the law is not made for them:’ they can no more be condemned for breaking the moral, than for transgressing the ceremonial law.” A horrible inference this, which, I fear, is countenanced by these words of our translation: “The law is not made for the righteous.” Is this strictly true? Were not angels and our first parents righteous, when God “made for them” the (then) easy yoke of the law of innocence? And is not the law “made for” the absolution of “the righteous,” as well as for the condemnation of the wicked? Happily St. Paul does not speak the unguarded words, which we impute to him; for he says, dikaiw nomov ou keitai, literally, “The law lieth not at, or is not levelled against a righteous man, but against the lawless and disobedient,” that is, against those who break it. This literal sense perfectly agrees with the apostle’s doctrine, where he says,” Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have [absolution and] praise of the same.” This mistake of our translators seems to be countenanced by Galatians 5:23. “Against such [the righteous] there is no law.” Just as if the apostle had said esti nomov oudeiv, whereas his words are kata twn toiautwn ouk esti nomov, literally, “The law is not against such!” Whence it appears (1.) That believers are under the law of Christ, not only as a rule of life, but also as a rule of judgment.
(2.) That when they “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil that law,” it is “not against them,” it does not condemn them.
(3.) That as there is no medium between the condemnation and the absolution of the law; the moment the law does not condemn a believer, it acquits him. And (4.) That consequently every penitent, obedient believer is actually justified by the law of Christ, agreeably to Romans 2:12, and Matthew 12:37: for, says the apostle, “the law is not AGAINST such,” plainly intimating that it is FOR them.
It had been well for us if some of our divines had been satisfied with insinuating, that we need not keep the commandments to obtain eternal salvation through Jesus Christ: but some of them even endeavour to make us as much afraid of the decalogue, as of a battery of cannon. With such design it is that pious J. Bunyan says, in one of his unguarded moments, “Have a care of these great guns, the ten commandments;” just as if it were as desperate an attempt to look into the law of God, in order to one’s salvation, as to look into the mouths of ten loaded pieces of cannon, in order to one’s preservation. What liberty is here taken with the Gospel! Christ says, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments;” the obedience of faith being “the narrow way,” that through him “leads to life.” “No,” say some of our Gospel ministers, “sincere obedience is a jack o’lantern: and what you recommend as a way to life, is a tenfold way to death.” O ye that fear God, do not so rashly contradict our Lord. Who among you regard yet his sayings? Who stand to their baptismal vow? Who will not only “believe all the articles of the Christian faith,” but also “keep God’s holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of their life?” Let no Solifidian make you afraid of the commandments. Methinks I see the bleeding “Captain of our salvation” lifting up the standard of the cross, and giving thus the word of command’ “Dread not my precepts. ‘If you love me, keep my commandments. Blessed are they,’ who ‘keep God’s commandments, that they may enter into the city by the gate,’ and ‘lay hold on eternal life.’“ If this is the language of inspiration, far from dreading “the ten great guns,” love them next to the wounds of Jesus. Stand behind the cross; ply there the heavenly ordnance, and you shall be invincible: yea, one of you shall chase a thousand. It is the command broken in unbelief, and not the command kept in faith, that slays: for that very ordnance which is loaded with a fearful curse, levelled “unto the third or fourth generation of them that hate God,” is loaded with mere “mercy to a thousand generations of them that love him and keep his commandments.”
Zelotes probably wonders at the legality of the preceding lines, and is ready to exclaim against my “blindness,” for not seeing that Moses’ moral law, delivered on Mount Sinai, is a mere covenant of works, diametrically opposed to the covenant of grace. As his opinion is one of the strongest ramparts of Antinomianism, I beg leave to erect a battery against it. If I am so happy as to demolish it, I shall not only be able to recover the decalogue — the “ten great guns,” but a considerable part of the Old Testament, such as most of the lessons which our Church has selected out of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, and which the Solifidians consider as Jewish trumpery, akin to the Arminian heresy; merely because they contain powerful incentives to sincere, evangelical obedience, according to the doctrine of the second Gospel axiom.
I humbly conceive then:
(1.) That the moral law delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai was a particular edition of that gracious and holy law which St. James calls “the law of liberty,” St. Paul “the law of Christ.”
(2.) That our Lord solemnly adopted the moral part of the decalogue, in his sermon upon the mount, where he rescued the moral precepts from the false glosses of the scribes; representing those precepts as the evangelical law, according to which we must live, if ever “our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees;” and by which we must be “justified in the day of judgment,” (agreeable to his own doctrine, Matthew 12:37,) if ever we escape the curse which will fall on the ungodly. And (3.) That although we are not bound to obey the decalogue, as delivered to Moses literally written in stone, (in which St. Paul observes that it is “done away,” 2 Corinthians 3:7, 11,) yet we are obliged to obey it, so far as it is a transcript of the moral law, that eternally binds all rational agents, and so far as Christ has made it his own by spiritualizing and enforcing its moral precepts on the mount; — I say its moral precepts, because the fourth commandment, which is rather of the ceremonial than of the moral kind, does not bind us so strictly as the others do. Hence it is that St. Paul says, “Let no man judge you in respect of the Sabbath days,” Colossians 2:16, and even finds fault with the Galatians for “observing days,” with a Jewish scrupulosity.
That the moral law of Sinai was a peculiar edition of God’s evangelical law adapted to the Jewish commonwealth, and not an edition of the Adamic law of innocence, I prove by the following arguments: — 1. Romans 10:5, St. Paul produces Moses as describing the righteousness which is of the law of Sinai: “That the man who does these things shall live by them.” And Romans 8:13, he himself describes the righteousness which is of “the law of liberty” thus: “If ye live after the flesh ye shall die; but if ye, through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Now are not those people excessively prejudiced, who deny either that in both these descriptions the promise, shall live, is the same; or that it is suspended on sincere obedience? And therefore is it not evident that St. Paul never blamed the Jews for seeking salvation by an humble obedience to the moral precepts of the Mosaic covenant, in due subordination to faith in the Divine mercy and in the promised Messiah; but only for opposing their opus operatum, their formal, partial, ceremonious, Pharisaic obedience, to that very faith which should have animated all their works?
2. The truth of this observation will appear in a still stronger light, if you consider, that when the evangelical apostle asks, “What says the righteousness of faith?” he answers almost in the very words in which the legal prophet asserts the practicableness of his own law. For St. Paul writes, “The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach,” Romans 10:8. And Moses says, Deuteronomy 30:11, “The word is very nigh unto thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it;” which undoubtedly implies a believing of that word, in order to the doing of it; agreeably to the doctrine of our Church, which asks, in her catechism, “What dost thou learn in the commandments?” and answers, “I learn my duty toward God, &c, which is to believe in him,” &c. Thus we see, that as the Mosaic law was not without Gospel and faith, so the Christian Gospel is not without law and obedience; and consequently that those divines who represent Moses as promiscuously cursing, and Christ as indiscriminately blessing all the people under their respective dispensations, are greatly mistaken.
3. Whatever liberty the apostle takes with the superannuated ceremonies of the Jews, which he sometimes calls “carnal ordinances,” and sometimes “beggarly elements,” it is remarkable that he never speaks disrespectfully of the moral law, and that he exactly treads in the steps of Moses’ evangelical legality: for if Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, saying, “Honour thy father and mother,” &c, St. Paul writes from Mount Sion, “Honour thy father and mother, (which is the first commandment of the second table with promise,) that it may be well with thee,” Ephesians 6:2, 3. As for Christ, we have already seen, that when he informs us how well it will be with us if we keep his commandments, he says, “This do, and thou shalt live;” i.e. thou shalt “inherit eternal life” in glory.
4. As Christ freely conversed with Moses on the mount, so St. Paul is freely conversant with Moses’ legality in his most evangelical epistles. Take another instance of it. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” says the Jewish lawgiver, Leviticus 19:28. “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,” Romans 13:8, 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 threefold cord, with Moses and St. Paul, to draw us out of the ditch of Antinomianism, into which pious divines have inadvertently led us. “If you 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 2:8, 9, 13. “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 showed no mercy, will have judgment without mercy:” and he does it in the very words of Moses and St. Paul, “Do not commit adultery, do not kill,” James 2:11. 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 any 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’ 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 Romans 2, to Romans 8; Galatians 6, to Galatians 2; and Matthew 25, to John 10. 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 obedience, the fruit of faith; and the great apostle chiefly insists upon 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. B. 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; Christianity in antitypes and naked truths. Judaism sets forth the second Gospel axiom, without destroying 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.” I see, therefore, no more reason to believe that Mount Sinai flames only with Divine wrath, than to think that Mount Sion burns only with Divine love; for if a beast was to be thrust through with a dart for rushing upon Mount Sinai; 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 vengeance 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 was “the meekest man upon earth,” as well as the severest of all the prophets.
8. To prove that the decalogue is a Gospel “law 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 “school master” it “brings us to Christ” that we may be “justified by faith” as sinners; and afterward 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 “showing 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’ law as being the impracticable law 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 Ezekiel 16, gives us demonstration from that context, that since it (the Mosaic law) was a marriage covenant, 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 edition 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 the 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 made with Abraham: a gracious covenant this, into which they were all admitted by the sacrament of circumcision. Nor could they be put under the Adamic 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 paradisiacal 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 obsolete ceremonies of Moses’ 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 Gospel covenant, although circumcision is now abolished; so was Moses’ law a Gospel law, although the ceremonial part is now abrogated. Lastly’ St. Paul, Romans 9:4, placed “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 could 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 f4 Mosaical economy, comprehensive of the ceremonial as well as moral precepts; and that law is of faith, as the learned Turretine has proved by four Scripture arguments.
(i.) Because it contained Christ, the object of faith.
(ii.) Because it impelled men to seek Christ by faith.
(iii.) Because it required that God should be worshipped, which cannot rightly be without faith. And (iv.) because Paul describes the righteousness of faith in those very words whereby Moses had declared the precepts of the law. Again:
(2.) The law in Scripture is taken strictly for the moral law only, considered abstractedly from the promises of grace. These are two different senses and acceptations of the law.
Apply this excellent distinction of the refinements, with which the doctrine of the law has been perplexed, and you will easily answer the objections of those who, availing 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 burthensome 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 apostles’ creed in our Churches, 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, Hebrews 8:6, &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 high priest: Christ is a living, spiritual temple: and Moses’ tabernacle was a lifeless, material building: Christ writes the decalogue internally, upon the table 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 Corinthians 3:11: 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 Corinthians 3:9.
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, shall 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 of my Spirit upon all flesh, and my servants and my handmaids shall prophesy, i.e. 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 7:39, and 1 Peterer 1:12; and it is chiefly on account 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 Hebrews 8:2 Corinthians 3, and Galatians 4:1, is, (1.) That the Jewish dispensation puts a heavy yoke of ceremonies upon those who are under it, and by that means “gendereth 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, Hebrews 4:2, 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 dispensations 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, Hebrews 12:18-21, give us so dreadful a description of Mount Sinai? And why does he add, ‘ o terrible was the sight [of that mount burning with fire] that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake?’“
ANSWER. 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 for 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 on them that obey not the Gospel,” than ever Moses did on 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 hasting 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 terror of the Lord [in that great day of retribution,] we persuade men?” Nay, does not he conclude his dreadful description of Mount Sinai, and its terrors, by threatening Christian believers, who “are come to Mount Sion,” with more dreadful displays of Divine justice than Arabia ever beheld, if they do not obey “Him that speaks from heaven?” Hebrews 12:25. And does he not sum 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 Antinomians, 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 adopting 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 that obey not the Gospel,” whether they despise its gracious offers, or trample under foot its righteous precepts. If Zelotes would attentively read Hebrews 12:14- 29, and compare that awful passage with Hebrews 2:2, 3, he would see that this is the apostle’s anti-Solifidian 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 was 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 radiant 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 particularly upon those that “sin wilfully after they have received the knowledge of the truth. There remaineth 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’ 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,” Hebrews 10:26-31. Thus speaks the champion of free grace. Such is the account which he gives of Christ’s severity toward those who despise his dispensation, — a severity this, which will display itself by the infliction of a punishment much sorer than that inflicted on 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 shows that the Mosaic and the Christian covenants equally set before us blessing and cursing; and that, according to both those dispensations, the obedience of faith shall be crowned with gracious rewards; while 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 readers, thus: — Blessings Of The Mosaic Covenant, Being the words of Moses.
I.
Moses said, Consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, &c, that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day, Exodus 32:29. Behold, I set before you this day a blessing, &c, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord.
And it shall come to pass, that thou shalt put the blessing upon Curses Of The Christian Dispensation, Being the words of Christ.
II.
Jesus began to upbraid the cities, wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not. Wo unto thee, Chorazin: — wo unto thee, 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 art Mount Gerizim, &c, Deuteronomy 11:20, 29.
And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently, &c, that the Lord thy God will bless thee. 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 a holy people to himself, if thou shalt walk in his ways. And, &c, he shall open to thee his good treasure, Deuteronomy 28:1-12.
This is the blessing wherewith Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel.
And he said, The Lord came from Sinai, &c, with ten thousands of saints, from his right hand went a fiery law; yea, he loved the people. Let Reuben live, and not die. And of Levi he said, Let thy Thummim and thy Urim [thy perfections and thy lights] be with thy holy one. And of Napthali he said, O Napthali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord, possess thou the west. Happy art thou, O Israel; who is like unto thee, O people saved by 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, Matthew 11:20, 25. I tell you, Nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Cut it down, [the barren fig tree:] 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 13:5, 9.
The Lord of that [once blessed but now backsliding] servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and will cut him asunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant, who knew his Lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes, Luke 12:46. Wo unto you, hypocrites: — ye shall receive the greater damnation: — ye make a proselyte twofold more a child of hell than yourselves. Wo unto you, ye blind guides — ye fools, and blind — ye pay tithe of mint, and have omitted judgment, mercy, and faith, &c. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers; ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
the Lord, the shield of thy help?
Thine enemies shall be found liars, and thou shalt tread upon their high places, Deuteronomy 33:1 to 29.
The Lord passed by before Moses, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, &c. And Moses made haste, &c, and said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, &c, pardon our iniquity, and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. And he (the Lord) said, I make a (or the)covenant, Exodus 34:6-10.
Wo to that man by whom the offence cometh; wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off. It is better to enter into life maimed, rather than be cast into everlasting fire, Matthew 18:7, 8. Wo unto you that are rich,&c. Wo unto you that are full, &c.Wo unto you that laugh now, &c.Wo unto you, when all men shall speak well of you, Luke 6:24. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil — for I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat, &c, Matthew 25:42.
I flatter myself, that if Zelotes and Honestus candidly weigh the preceding arguments and scriptures, they will reap from thence a double advantage:
(1.) They will no more tread the honour of Christ’s moral law in the dust — no more rob it of its chief glory, that of being a strict rule of judgment.
(2.) Honestus will be again benefited by a consider. able part of the New Testament; and Zelotes by a considerable part of the law and the prophets, which (as our Lord himself informs us) “hang on” those very “commandments” that the Antinomians divest of their sanction, and the Pharisees of their spirituality.