The
preface to the ten commandments deserves a particular notice in the matter
of the Sinai transaction, Exod. xx. 2, “I am the Lord thy God, which have
brought thee out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
Hence it is evident to me, that the covenant of grace was delivered to the
Israelites on
Mount Sinai. For the Son of God, the
messenger of the covenant of grace, spoke these words to a select people,
the natural seed of Abraham, typical of his whole spiritual seed. He
avoucheth himself to be their God; namely, in virtue of the promise, or
covenant made with Abraham, Gen. xvii. 7, “I will establish my covenant
– to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee:” and their God, and
their God, which brought them out of the land of Egypt; according to the
promise made to Abraham at the most solemn renewal of the covenant with him.
– Gen. xv. 14, “Afterwards shall they come out with great substance.”
And he first declares himself their God, and then requires obedience,
according to the manner of the covenant with Abraham, Gen. xvii. 1; “I am
the Almighty God, (i.e., in the language of the covenant, The Almighty God TO THEE, to
make THEE for ever blest through the promised SEED,) walk thou before me,
and be thou perfect.”
But that the covenant of works was also, for special ends, repeated and
delivered to the Israelites on
Mount Sinai, I cannot refuse, 1. Because of
the apostle’s testimony, Gal. iv. 24, “These are the two covenants; the
one from
Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage.”
For the children of this Sinai covenant the apostle here treats of, are
excluded from the eternal inheritance, as Ishmael was from Canaan, the type
of it, ver. 30, “Cast out the bond-woman and her son; for the son of the
bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman;” but this
could never be said of the children of the covenant of grace under any
dispensation, though both the law and the covenant from Sinai itself, and
its children, were even before the coming of Christ under a sentence of
exclusion, to be executed on them respectively in due time. 2. The nature of
the covenant of works is most expressly in the New Testament brought in,
propounded, and explained from the Mosaical dispensation. The commands of it
from Exod. xx. by our blessed Saviour, Matt. xix. 17-19, “If thou wilt
enter into life keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said,
Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery,” &c. The
promise of it,
Rom.
x. 5, “Moses describes the
righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doth these things
shall live by them.” The commands and promises of it together, see Luke x.
25-28. The terrible sanction of it, Gal. iii. 10. For it is written, (viz:
Deut. xxvii. 26,) “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things
which are written in the book of the law to do them.” 3. To this may be
added the opposition betwixt the law and grace, so frequently inculcated in
the New Testament, especially in Paul’s epistles. See one text for all,
Gal. iii. 12, “And the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them
shall live in them.” 4. The law from
Mount Sinai
was a covenant, Gal. iv. 24,
“These are the two covenants, the one from the
Mount Sinai;” and such a covenant as had a
semblance of disannulling the covenant of grace, Gal. iii. 17, “The
covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was 430
years after, cannot disannul;” yea, such a one as did, in its own nature,
bear a method of obtaining the inheritance, so far different from that of
the promise, that it was inconsistent with it; “For if the inheritance be
of the law, it is no more of promise,” Gal. iii. 18, wherefore the
covenant of the law from Mount Sinai could not be the covenant of grace,
unless one will make this last not only a covenant seeming to destroy
itself, but really inconsistent: but it was the covenant of works, which
indeed had such a semblance, and in its own nature did bear such a method as
before noted; howbeit, as Ainsworth says, “The covenant of the law now
given could not disannul the covenant of grace,” Gal. iii. 17. Annot. on
Exod. xix. 1.
Wherefore I conceive the two
covenants to have been both delivered on
Mount Sinai
to the Israelites. First,
The covenant of grace made with Abraham, contained in the preface, repeated
and promulgate there unto
Israel, to be believed and embraced by
faith, that they might be saved; to which were annexed the ten commandments,
given by the Mediator Christ, the head of the covenant, as a rule of life to
his covenant people. Secondly, the
covenant of works made with Adam, contained in the same ten commands,
delivered with thunderings and lightnings, the meaning of which was
afterwards cleared by Moses, describing the righteousness of the law and
sanction thereof, repeated and promulgate to the Israelites there, as the
original perfect rule of righteousness, to be obeyed; and yet were they no
more bound hereby to seek righteousness by the law than the young man was by
our Saviour’s saying to him, Matt. xix. 17, 18, “If thou wilt enter into
life, keep the commandments – Thou shalt do no murder,” &c. The
latter was a repetition of the former.
Thus there is no confounding of
the two covenants of grace and works; but the latter was added to the former
as subservient unto it, to turn their eyes towards the promise, or covenant
of grace: “God gave it to Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth the
law? it was added, because of transgressions, till the Seed should come,”
Gal. iii. 18, 19. So it was unto the promise given to Abraham, that this
subservient covenant was added; and that promise we have found in the
preface to the ten commands. To it, then was the subservient covenant,
according to the apostle, added, put, or set to, as the word properly
signifies. So it was no part of the covenant of grace, the which was entire
to the fathers, before the time that was set to it; and yet is, to the New
Testament church, after that is taken away from it: for, says the apostle,
“It was added till the seed should come.” Hence it appears that the
covenant of grace was, both in itself, and in God’s intention, the
principal part of the Sinai transaction: nevertheless, the covenant of works
was the most conspicuous part of it, and lay most open to the view of the
people.
According to this account of the
Sinai transaction, the ten commands, there delivered, must come under a
twofold notion or consideration; namely, as the law of Christ, and as the
law of works: and this is not strange, if it is considered, that they were
twice written on tables of stone, by the Lord himself, – the first tables
the work of God, Exod. xxxii. 16, which were broken in pieces, ver. 19,
called the tables of the covenant, Deut. ix. 11, 15, – the second tables,
the work of Moses, the typical Mediator, Exod. xxxiv. 1, deposited at first
(it would seem) in the tabernacle mentioned, chap. xxxiii. 7, afterward, at
the rearing of the tabernacle with all its furniture, laid up in the ark
within the tabernacle, chap. xxv. 16; and whether or not, some such thing is
intimated, by the double accentuation of the Decalogue, let the learned
determine; but to the ocular inspection it is evident, that the preface to
the ten commands, Exod. xx. 2, and Deut. v. 6, stands in the original, both
as a part of a sentence joined to the first commands, and also as an entire
sentence, separated from it, and shut up by itself.
Upon the whole, one may compare
with this first promulgation of the covenant of grace, by the messenger of
the covenant in paradise, Gen. iii. 15, and the flaming sword placed there
by the same hand, “turning every way to keep the way of the tree of
life.”
