121265994 deuteronomy-33-v-2

DEUTERONOMY 33 VERSE 2
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
2 He said:
“The Lord came from Sinai
and dawned over them from Seir;
he shone forth from Mount Paran.
He came with[a] myriads of holy ones
from the south, from his mountain slopes.[b]
BARNES, “By “Seir” is to be understood the mountain-land of the Edomites, and by “mount
Paran” the range which forms the northern boundary of the desert of Sinai (compare Gen_14:6
note). Thus the verse forms a poetical description of the vast arena upon which the glorious
manifestation of the Lord in the giving of the covenant took place.
With ten thousands of saints - Render, from amidst ten thousands of holy ones: literally from
myriads of holiness, i. e., holy Angels (compare Zec_14:5). God is represented as leaving heaven
where He dwells amidst the host of the Angels 1Ki_22:19 and descending in majesty to earth
Mic_1:3.
A fiery law - more literally as in the margin, with perhaps an allusion to the pillar of fire
Exo_13:21. The word is much disputed.
CLARKE, “Instead of he came with ten thousand saints, by which our translators have rendered
meribeboth kodesh, Dr. Kennicott reads Meribah-Kadesh, the name of a place: for we
find that, towards the end of forty years, the Israelites came to Kadesh, Num_20:1, which was
also called Meribah, on account of their contentious opposition to the determinations of God in
their favor, Num_20:13; and there the glory of the Lord again appeared, as we are informed
Num_20:6. These four places, Sinai, Seir, Paran, and Meribah-Kadesh, mentioned by Moses in
the text, are the identical places where God manifested his glory in a fiery appearance, the more
illustriously to proclaim his special providence over and care of Israel.
We have already seen that Dr. Kennicott reads Meribah-Kadesh, the name of a
place, instead of meribeboth kodesh, which, by a most unnatural and forced
construction, our version renders ten thousands of saints, a translation which no circumstance of
the history justifies. Instead of a fiery law,
esh dath, he reads, following the Samaritan
version,

esh ur, a fire shining out upon them. In vindication of this change in the original,
it may be observed,
1. That, though dath signifies a law, yet it is a Chaldee term, and appears nowhere in any
part of the sacred writings previously to the Babylonish captivity: torah being the
term constantly used to express the Law, at all times prior to the corruption of the Hebrew,
by the Chaldee.

2. That the word itself is obscure in its present situation, as the Hebrew Bibles write it and esh
in one word
eshdath, which has no meaning; and which, in order to give it one, the
Massorah directs should be read separate, though written connected.
3. That the word is not acknowledged by the two most ancient versions, the Septuagint and
Syriac.
4. That in the parallel place, Hab_3:3, Hab_3:4, a word is used which expresses the rays of
light,

karnayim, horns, that is, splendours, rays, or effulgence of light.
5. That on all these accounts, together with the almost impossibility of giving a rational
meaning to the text as it now stands, the translation contended for should be adopted.
Instead of All his saints are in his hand, Dr. Kennicott reads, He blessed all his saints -
changing beyadecha, into barach, he blessed, which word, all who understand the
Hebrew letters will see, might be easily mistaken for the other; the daleth and the resh being,
not only in MSS., but also in printed books, often so much alike, that analogy alone can
determine which is the true letter; and except in the insertion of the yod, which might have
been easily mistaken for the apex at the top of the beth very frequent in MSS., both words have
the nearest resemblance. To this may be added, that the Syriac authorizes this rendering. Instead
of leraglecha, and middabberotheycha, Thy feet, and Thy words, Dr. Kennicott
reads the pronouns in the third person singular, leraglaiv and middabberothaiv,
His feet, His words, in which he is supported both by the Septuagint and Vulgate. He also
changes
yissa, He shall receive, into
yisseu, They shall receive. He contends also that
Mosheh, Moses, in the fourth verse, was written by mistake for the following word
morashah, inheritance; and when the scribe found he had inserted a wrong word, he added the
proper one, and did not erase the first. The word Moses, he thinks, should therefore be left out of
the text, as it is improbable that he should here introduce his own name; and that if the word be
allowed to be legitimate, then the word king must apply to him, and not to God, which would be
most absurd. See Kennicott’s first Dissertation, p. 422, etc.
GILL, “And he said,.... What follows, of which, in some things, he was an eye and ear witness,
and in others was inspired by the Spirit of God, to deliver his mind and will concerning the
future case and state of the several tribes, after he had observed the common benefit and blessing
they all enjoyed, by having such a law given them in the manner it was:
the Lord came from Sinai; there he first appeared to Moses, and sent him to Egypt, and wrought
miracles by him, and delivered his people Israel from thence, and when they were come to this
mount he came down on it, as Aben Ezra, from Gaon, or he came to it; so to Zion, Isa_59:20, is
out of or from Zion, Rom_11:26; here he appeared and gave the law, and from thence went
with Israel through the wilderness, and conducted them to the land of Canaan:
and rose up from Seir unto them: not to the Edomites which inhabited Seir, as say Jarchi, and
the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, but to the Israelites when they compassed the land of
Edom; and the Lord was with them, and gave them some signal proofs of his power and
providence, kindness and goodness, to them; particularly, as some observe, by appointing a
brazen serpent to be erected for the cure those bitten by fiery ones, which was a type of the
glorious Redeemer and Saviour, and this was done on the borders of Edom, see Num_21:4; for
the words here denote some illustrious appearance of the Lord, like that of the rising sun; so the
Targum of Onkelos,the brightness of his glory from Seir was shown unto us;''and that of

Jonathan,and the brightness of the glory of his Shechinah went from Gebal:
he shined forth from Mount Paran: in which the metaphor of the sun rising is continued, and as
expressive of its increasing light and splendour: near to this mount was a wilderness of the same
name, through which the children of Israel travelled, and where the Lord appeared to them: here
the cloud rested when they removed from Sinai; here, or near it, the Spirit of the Lord was given
to the seventy elders, and from hence the spies were sent into the land of Canaan, Num_10:12; in
this wilderness Ishmael and his posterity dwelt, Gen_21:21; but it was not to them the Lord
shone forth here, as say the above Jewish writers, and others (d); but to the Israelites, for here
Moses repeated the law, or delivered to them what is contained in the book of Deuteronomy, see
Deu_1:1; beside, in a literal sense, as these mountains were very near one another, as Saadiah
Gaon observes, the great light which shone on Mount Sinai, when the Lord descended on it,
might extend to the other mountains and illuminate them, see Hab_3:3,
and he came with ten thousands of saints: or holy angels, as the Targums of Onkelos and
Jonathan, and so Jarchi; which sense is confirmed by the authorities of Stephen the protomartyr,
and the Apostle Paul, who speak of the law as given by the disposition of angels, they being
present, attending and assisting on that solemn occasion, Act_7:57; see Psa_68:17; the
appearance of those holy spirits in such great numbers added to the grandeur and solemnity of
the giving of the holy law to the people of Israel, as the attendance of the same on Christ at his
second coming will add to the lustre and glory of it, Luk_9:26,
from his right hand went a fiery law for them: the Israelites; Aben Ezra thinks the phrase, his
right hand, is in connection with the preceding clause; and the sense is, that fire came from the
law, thousands of saints were at the right hand of God to surround Israel, as the horses of fire
and chariots of fire surrounded Elisha; and the meaning of the last words, a law for them, a
law which stands or abides continually; and so the Septuagint version is,at his right hand angels
with him:''no doubt that law is meant which came from God on Mount Sinai, by the ministration
of angels, into the hand of Moses; called a fiery law, because it was given out of the midst of the
fire, Deu_5:26; so the Targum of Onkelos,
the writing of his right hand out of the midst of fire, the law he gave unto us;''and because of its
effects on the consciences of men, where it pierces and penetrates like fire, and works a sense of
wrath and fiery indignation in them, by reason of the transgressions of it, it being the
ministration of condemnation and death on that account; and, because of its use, it serves as a
lantern to the feet, and a light to the path of good men: this law may include the judicial and
ceremonial laws given at this time; but it chiefly respects the moral law, and which may be said to
come from God, who, as Creator, has a right to be Governor of his creature, and to enact what
laws he pleases, and from his right hand, in allusion to men's writing with their right hand, this
being written by the finger of God; and because a peculiar gift of his to the Israelites, gifts being
given by the right hand of men; and may denote the authority and power with which this law
came enforced, and Christ seems to be the person from whose right hand it came: see Psa_68:17.
HENRY, “He begins his blessing with a lofty description of the glorious appearances of God to
them in giving them the law, and the great advantage they had by it.
I. There was a visible and illustrious discovery of the divine majesty, enough to convince and for
ever silence atheists and infidels, to awaken and affect those that were most stupid and careless,
and to put to shame all secret inclinations to other gods, Deu_33:2. 1. His appearance was

glorious: he shone forth like the sun when he goes forth in his strength. Even Seir and Paran, two
mountains at some distance, were illuminated by the divine glory which appeared on Mount
Sinai, and reflected some of the rays of it, so bright was the appearance, and so much taken
notice of by the adjacent countries. To this the prophet alludes, to set forth the wonders of the
divine providence, Hab_3:3, Hab_3:4; Psa_18:7-9. The Jerusalem Targum has a strange gloss
upon this, that, “when God came down to give the law, he offered it on Mount Seir to the
Edomites, but they refused it, because they found in it, Thou shalt not kill. Then he offered it on
Mount Paran to the Ishmaelites, but they also refused it, because they found in it, Thou shalt not
steal; and then he came to Mount Sinai and offered it to Israel, and they said, All that the Lord
shall say we will do.” I would not have transcribed so groundless a conceit but for the antiquity of
it. 2. His retinue was glorious; he came with his holy myriads, as Enoch had long since foretold he
should come in the last day to judge the world, Jud_1:14. These were the angels, those chariots of
God in the midst of which the Lord was, on that holy place, Psa_68:17. They attended the divine
majesty, and were employed as his ministers in the solemnities of the day. Hence the law is said to
be given by the disposition of angels, Act_7:53; Heb_2:2.
JAMISON, “Deuteronomy 33:2-4
The Lord came — Under a beautiful metaphor, borrowed from the dawn and progressive
splendor of the sun, the Majesty of God is sublimely described as a divine light which appeared
in Sinai and scattered its beams on all the adjoining region in directing Israel’s march to Canaan.
In these descriptions of a theophania, God is represented as coming from the south, and the
allusion is in general to the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai; but other mountains in the same
direction are mentioned with it. The location of Seir was on the east of the Ghor; mount Paran
was either the chain on the west of the Ghor, or rather the mountains on the southern border of
the desert towards the peninsula [Robinson]. (Compare Jdg_5:4, Jdg_5:5; Psa_68:7, Psa_68:8;
Hab_3:3).
ten thousands of saints — rendered by some, “with the ten thousand of Kadesh,” or perhaps
better still, “from Meribah” [Ewald].
a fiery law — so called both because of the thunder and lightning which accompanied its
promulgation (Exo_19:16-18; Deu_4:11), and the fierce, unrelenting curse denounced against the
violation of its precepts (2Co_3:7-9). Notwithstanding those awe-inspiring symbols of Majesty
that were displayed on Sinai, the law was really given in kindness and love (Deu_33:3), as a
means of promoting both the temporal and eternal welfare of the people. And it was “the
inheritance of the congregation of Jacob,” not only from the hereditary obligation under which
that people were laid to observe it, but from its being the grand distinction, the peculiar privilege
of the nation.
KD, “Deuteronomy 33:2
In the introduction Moses depicts the elevation of Israel into the nation of God, in its origin
(Deu_33:2), its nature (Deu_33:3), its intention and its goal (Deu_33:4, Deu_33:5).
Deu_33:2
“Jehovah came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; He shone from the mountains of
Paran, and came out of holy myriads, at His right rays of fire to them.” To set forth the glory of the

covenant which God made with Israel, Moses depicts the majesty and glory in which the Lord
appeared to the Israelites at Sinai, to give them the law, and become their king. The three clauses,
“Jehovah came from Sinai...from Seir...from the mountains of Paran,” do not refer to different
manifestations of God (Knobel), but to the one appearance of God at Sinai. Like the sun when it
rises, and fills the whole of the broad horizon with its beams, the glory of the Lord, when He
appeared, was not confined to one single point, but shone upon the people of Israel from Sinai,
and Seir, and the mountains of Paran, as they came from the west to Sinai. The Lord appeared to
the people from the summit of Sinai, as they lay encamped at the foot of the mountain. This
appearance rose like a streaming light from Seir, and shone at the same time from the mountains
of Paran. Seir is the mountain land of the Edomites to the east of Sinai; and the mountains of
Paran are in all probability not the mountains of et-Tih, which form the southern boundary of
the desert of Paran, but rather the mountains of the Azazimeh, which ascend to a great height
above Kadesh, and form the boundary wall of Canaan towards the south. The glory of the Lord,
who appeared upon Sinai, sent its beams even to the eastern and northern extremities of the
desert. This manifestation of God formed the basis for all subsequent manifestations of the
omnipotence and grace of the Lord for the salvation of His people. This explains the allusions to
the description before us in the song of Deborah (Jdg_5:4) and in Hab_3:3. - The Lord came not
only from Sinai, but from heaven, “out of holy myriads,” i.e., out of the midst of the thousands of
holy angels who surround His throne (1Ki_22:19; Job_1:6; Dan_7:10), and who are introduced
in Gen_28:12 as His holy servants, and in Gen_32:2-3, as the hosts of God, and form the
assembly of holy ones around His throne (Psa_89:6, Psa_89:8; cf. Psa_68:18; Zec_14:5;
Mat_26:53; Heb_12:22; Rev_5:11; Rev_7:11). - The last clause is a difficult one. The writing

in two words, “fire of the law,” not only fails to give a suitable sense, but has against it the fact
that , law, edictum, is not even a Semitic word, but was adopted from the Persian into the
Chaldee, and that it is only by Gentiles that it is ever applied to the law of God (Ezr_7:12,
Ezr_7:21, Ezr_7:25-26; Dan_6:6). It must be read as one word,
, as it is in many MSS and
editions - not, however, as connected with ֹ
,
, the pouring out of the brooks, slopes of the
mountains (Num_21:15), but in the form
, composed, according to the probable conjecture
of Böttcher, of
, fire, and (in the Chaldee and Syriac), to throw, to shoot arrows, in the
sense of “fire of throwing,” shooting fire, a figurative description of the flashes of lightning.
Gesenius adopts this explanation, except that he derives from , to throw. It is favoured by
the fact that, according to Exo_19:16, the appearance of God upon Sinai was accompanied by
thunder and lightning; and flashes of lightning are often called the arrows of God, whilst
shaadaah, in Hebrew, is established by the name
(Num_1:5; Num_2:10). To this we may
add the parallel passage, Hab_3:4, “rays out of His hand,” which renders this explanation a very
probable one. By “them,” in the second and fifth clauses, the Israelites are intended, to whom this
fearful theophany referred. On the signification of the manifestation of God in fire, see Deu_4:11,
and the exposition of Exo_3:2.
J. W. GEORGE, “It was believed that the veil of the future was often
opened for those about to die, and that hence the last words were
freighted with special knowledge and power. In this case there
is the additional weight derived from the fact that Moses was in
the fullest sense the man of God. This was a favorite designation
of a prophet, but is applied to Moses again only in Josh. 14 : 6
and the title of Ps. 90.
2-5. First part of the Psalm or framework, the description of

a theophany to be compared with those pictured in Judg. 5:4;
Hab. 3:3; Ps. 68 : 8 f . Yahweh comes in majesty and assumes
kingship over his people.
2. There are several difl5culties in this short verse ; on the whole
the best result seems to come from the following translation :
Yahweh came from Sinai,
And from Seir beamed upon his people;
He shined forth from Mount Paran,
And came from Meribah-Kadesh,
From his right hand was a burning fire for them.
The fifth line is in the Hebrew unintelligible and it disturbs the
balance of the poem, which has mostly four-lined stanzas. Sinai :
for this mountain D uses the name Horeb ; see i : 2-6. This does
not refer to the giving of the Law when Yahweh came down
upon Sinai, Exod. 19 : 18-20, but he came from Sinai, passing
through the places named, to manifest his power to the people
and inspire them in their struggles and battles. This mountain
must have been a sacred region long before the Israelites came
there. Seir, in Edom, a country generally regarded as hostile
to Israel, yet a similar representation is found in Judg. 5:4:
Yahweh when thou comest forth from Seir,
When thou marchedst from the field of Edom.
WILLIAM PARKINSON, “THE DELIVERY AND AUTHORITY OF THE LAW.
Deut. xzxiii. — 2. And he saidy The Lord came from Sinai^ •
and rose up from 8eir unto them ; he shined forth from motaU
Paran^ and he came loith ten thousand of saints : from his right
hand went a fiery law for them.
Here begins the subject of the chapter, the title
of which we had in the preceding verse. The sub-

ject consists of two parts : a solemn recognition of
what the Lord had done for Israel, and a prophetic
ewuriciation of blessings, special and general, which
he designed thereafter to confer upon them ; the for-mer
extending to the end of the fifth verse, and the
latter from thence to the end of the chapter.
In the text, Moses recognizes the Majesty of the
Lawgiver, and asserts three things concerning the
law.
L He recognizes the Majesty of the Lawgiver.
I say he recognizee it, because in this place he mere-ly
acknowledges or declares what he had seen and
heard of that Majesty on Sinai's awful summit, near
forty years before. , It was the Majesty of Jehovah
himself: The Lord came from Sinai ; not by. loco-motion,
or change of place, for he is omnipresent ;
but by a visible manifestation of his presence. This
was,
13
98 THE DfiLIVEEY AND [SEB. Ul.
1. Very dreadful. It came to pass on the third
day in the morning, (as the Lord had said to Mo-ses,)
that there were thunders and lightnings, and
a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the
trumpet exceding loud ; so that all the people that
was in the camp trembled. And mount Sinai was
altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descend-

ed upon it in fire ; and the smoke thereof ascend-ed
as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount
• quaked greatly.
By allusion to this, the psalmist in celebrating the
Majesty of God, says He looketh on the earth
and it trembleth; he toucheth the hills and they
smoke.** Then it was, that, as related in the
text. The Lord came from 8inaif that is, manifest'
ed himself from thence to Israel : for Moses brought
forth the people out of the camp to meet with God,
and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And
the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, on the top
of the mount, and that in the sight of all the peo-ple.
' How awful the sight ! One should think the
Israelites could never have lost the impression which
it must have made upon them ; and that it would
for ever have blasted their unbelief — suppressed their
murmurings — and eradicated every vestage of their
inclination after other gods. Nay — if, for a moment,
we could forget the deep depravity of human nature,
and iho strength of Satan's instigations, we should
suppose that even the inspired record of that tre-mendous
scene, wherever granted, would have con-founded
and silenced atheists and deists, and '' gain-sayers
of every description, to the end of time.
• Exo. xix. 9, 16, 18. ^ Pgal. civ. 32. « xix. 17, 20.coinp.
V. n.
8ER. III.] AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. 99

And this, indeed, is the very reason which God
himself assigned for thus manifesting his Majesty to
Israel : The Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come
unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear
when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever.*
This thick doud might be designed as an emblem
both of the legal dispensation, which is dark and
threatening, and of that awful obscurity which con-ceals
the divine essence from human ken, and for-bids
our curious pryings into what, of himself or
his decrees, God has not seen fit to reveal. ^'No
man hath seen God at any time. Secret things
belong unto the Lord our God ; but those things
which are revealed belong unto us and to our chil-dren
c.'** In himself, God is light f yet, with refer-ence
to men, he holdeth back the face of his
throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it ; and giv-eth
not account of any of his matters*.* He came
down in the sight of all the people of Israel ; he
caused them to see and hear what convinced them,
that of a truth his dread Majesty was there : The
Lord spake to them out of the midst of the fire ;
they heard the voice of the words, but saw no si-militude.*'
He made darkness his secret place :
his pavilion round about him was dark waters, and
thick clouds, *
Chiefly, however, this vision was designed to estab-lish
the oracular authority of Moses ; which, tliough
abundantly evinced in Eg3rpt and at the Red sea,
might need this farther confirmation to repress that
unbelief which was the besetting sin of Israel. In
' Ibid. Ver. 9. « John i. 18 and Deut xxix. 29. ^ i John i. o.

•Job. xxvi. 9. and xxxiii. 13. *» D6Ut. iv. 12. 'Pstal. xviii. 11.
100 THE DELIVERY AND [SER. lU.
their audience, therefore, and before their eyes, euch
an intercommunity occurred between God and Mo-ses,
as bid defiance to unbelief itself- When the
voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed loud-er
and louder, Moses spake ; and though what he
then said, was not recorded by him, it was revealed
to an apostle — ^is preserved in the New Testament —
and well agrees with the circumstances of the case.
The people had already trembled at the ordinary
sound of the trumpet ; ver, 16. but this waxing loud-er
and louder, became at length, together with the
vision, so terrible, that Moses himself said, lex-cedingly
fear and quake.* And God answered
him by a voice — not a small still voice, as
most commentators have supposed, but by a very
sonorous and articulate one — a voice that might be
heard and understood by all the people ; it being not
only audible, but also intelligible— the voice of
words.' None but such a voice could have com-ported
with the promise and design of the vision and
communication ; the Lord having said unto Moses,
Xo, / come unto thee in a thick doudf that the people
matf hear when I speak with thee^ and heUete thee
for e/ce/r. Thus addressing him, the Lord, in the
hearing of all Israel, called Moses up to the top of
the mount, which neither man nor beast might
touch on pain of death ; and Moses, in full view of
the people, went up, which, without such an ex-

plicit call, neither he, nor any other man could have
presumed to do. * And having had these sensible
apd indubitable demonstrations of his intercourse
with God, well might his nation thenceforward regard
•'Heb. xii. 21. »Ibid. ver. 19. »Exo. xix. 19, 20.
SER. III.] AAJTHORITY OP THE LAW. 101
faim as God's living oracle to tfaem, and believe him
and'his writings /or e-wr.*
To believers, it is highly grateful and confirmato-ry,
to find the oracular authority of Moses, and con-sequently
of his writings, thus indubitably established
* The designation too of the seventy elders, who acted in subordi-nation
to Moses, was established in a similar, though less magnifi-cent
manner: **' The Lord,*^ agreeable to his antecedent promise to
Moses, came down in a cloud, and opake onto bim, and took of
the Spirit that was upon him,** that is, a measure of the same Spi-rit
which more abundantly rested upon Moses, and gave it unto the
seventy elders ; and it came to pass, that when the Spirit rested up-on
them, they prophesied, that is, Ihey immediately possessed and
manifested such wisdom and eloquence as altogether transcended
their natural capacities; and which w:as intended us asigm to diena-tion
« thatt they were chosen aadiquidified of God to act as coadjutors
to Moses in matters of government. It is added, '^ and did not
cease, that is, from prophesying. Herein, however, our translation
follows the Chaldee paraphrase, (ppDd vh)) and not the original ; for
the Hebreif (lOD' Kb) literally signifies, they did not add ; and which
is favored by the LXX. who render it, ««« p«mc m wpoatiwro and they did

not add any more. Hence this clause has generaUy been interpret-ed
to mean, that they prophesied th€U day and never afterward.
But as the gift of wisdom, to answer its design; must have re-mained
in them to qualify them for their official work ; it is high-ly
probable that the gift of prophecy, in its kind, remained in them
also, for the purpose of re-confirming the authority by which they
acted, whenever that authority was called in question. Wherefore,
I imderstand the clause they did not add^ to mean, either, that
ihej did not affect or exaggerate ; but that, in siziging, speaking or
acting, however much they were transported above themselves, they
never exceded, as the word also signifies, (2 Chron. ix. 6.) the
impulse of the Holy Spirit upon them ; or, that their prophes3ring,
aside from the record of the fact itself, added nothing to the pro-phetic
writings ; it being designed merely to show that their call to
the station they were to fill, was of God, and not a pretence of
their own, to secure aggrandizement, nor a device of Moses, to
lessen his own labor. And, aceordingly, whai they uttered, was not
added to the inspired volume. See Numb. zi. 16, 17^ 2S.
102 THE DELIVERY ANB [SER. III-by
the intercourse which God held with him at Sinai.
How much more, then, should our faith and hope
be confirmed in the gospel, and therefore in Christ
as The Lord our righteousness, while we consider
the intercourse which he enjoyed with heaven, and
the testimony thence given of him, at his baptism
and at his transfiguration. Rising from the waters
of Jordan, in which he was baptized, he received
the most illustrious demonstrations of heavenly ap-probation,
in his thus ratifying this ordinance for
the observance of believers in all subsequent gene-

rations, and of the concurrence of the Father and
of the Holy Spirit with him, in all the objects of his
Mission, as the Messiah; yea more— the highest
possible attestation to his divine Sonship, and conse-quently
to his proper divinity : — ^In the sight, not only
oiJohUj the administrator,* but also of the thousands
then and there assembled,t the Spirit, like a dove,
descended upon him,| and in the audience, no doubt,
of all present, the Father, from heaven, proclaimed.
This is my beloved Son^ in whom I am well pleased.*
* This being the sign bj which he was to know him. John. i.
32-34.
fFor herein he was made manifest to Israel. John i. 31. Comp.
Luke iii. 21, 22.
X Why, in the interpretation of this passage and its paraUels, so
many efforts have been made, to exclude the/orm and retain only
the motion of the dove, I am unable to perceive. Luke says, ** The
Holy Ghost descended ^uiumitts^ hSttt mni «tpcff(»i2v in a corporeid form^
like a dove upon him. That the divine Spirit, on that occasion,
assumed some visible form is evident, and why not that of a dove,
the well-known emblem of innocence T Grotius and Dr. Owen,
with much probability, supposed that what was visible was a
bright flame in the shape of a dove.
»Matt. liL 15—17. Mark L 9—11. and Luke iii. 21, 22.
Comp. John zii. 28—30.
8ER. III.] AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. 103

The same testimony also was repeated at his trans-figuration
;*^ when, having taken with him Peter and
James and John^ a competent number of credible
witnesses, ''into a high mountain apart,* he was''
suddenly metamorphosed ** before them ;*' so that his
face did shine as the sun^ and his raiment was white
as the light ; and, behold there appeared unto them^
(that is, unto the three disciples,) Moses and Elias
talking with him, (Christ,) and toAo, according to
Luke, appeared in glory ^ in the glory of their heav-enly
forms, and spaJce of his decease, which he should
accomplish at Jerusalem. The sight so enraptured
Peter, that he seems to have thought it would be
heaven enough to remain there: he ''said unto Je-sus,
Lord it is good for us to be here; if thou wilt,
let us make here three tabernacles : one for thee, and
one for Moses, and one for Elias. For, accord-ing
to Marky he wist not what to say, and, accord-ing
to Luksy he spake, not knowing what he said,
so powerful were his mingling sensations of fear and
joy. But, how short the vision ! The glory of heav-en
cannot be sustained by the church on earth — the
glorified saints have no need of tabernacles made
with hands — ^nor must the most eminent of them be
trusted in or worshiped. Therefore, while he yet
spake, behold a bright doud, denoting the divine
presence, overshadowed them, that is, Jesus, Moses,
and Elias, the two latter of whom the disciples saw
no more ; and behold a voice out of the doud, the
voice of God the Father, which, repeating the testi-
• Matt. xm. 1—^. Mark. iz. 2—10. and Luke iz. 28—36.
* Doubtless one of the mountains of Israel, but whether Tahor

or /femioft, or anjr other of those pitched upon by diflTerent wri-ters,
is neither certain nor material.
I
104 tHe DETLfVEEY ATIB [sfiR. IH.
many giren of Christ at Jordan^ said, This is wy her
loved Softf in tthom lam well pleased j hear te him —
him in whom the dispensation of Moses ^' is abolish-ed/''
and the predictions of the prophets, repre-sented
by that distinguished one, Elias^ are ful-filled;''
and who was thenceforth to be heard, be-lieved,
and obeyed, as the sole oracle and sovereign
of the church. ' Wherefore, as that thick cloudy
which appeared on mount Binai, might be designed
to symbolize the dark and threatening dispensation,
through which God spake to national Israel, btf Mo-seSf
this bright cloudy which appeared on the mount
where our Lord was transfigured, might, in like man-ner,
be designed as an emblem of the luminous and
glorious dispensation of the gospel, through which
God speaks to spiritual Israel, by his Son.'
Upon this incontrovertible and unequivocal testi-mony
borne to the divine Sonship of Christ, the
apostle Peter, as one of those who heard it deliver-ed,
still confidently relied, when, in prospect of his
approaching dissolution, he reconunended to surviv-ing
sajints, an unwavering steadfastness in the faith

of the gospel : I will endeavour, said he, that ye
may be able, after my decease, to have these things
always in remembrance. For we have not followed
cunningly devised fables, when we made knovm un-to
you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For
he received from God the Father, honor and glory,
when there came such a voice to him, firom the excellent
glory. This is my beloved iSStm, in whom lam well
pleased. And this voice which came from heaven
p2Cor. ui. 13. «i Matt. v. 17. 'Psal. ii. 6. xlv. 11. and
Mark ix. 7. • Heb. i; 2.
SER. III.] AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. 105
we heard, when we were with him in the holy
mount. '
From Him, to whose divine Sonship God the Fa-ther
bore this unequivocal testimony, all the writers of
the New Testament received their call to the apostol-ic
office and the instructions and gifts requisit to the
performance of their apostolic work. Paul excepted,
they were all of the original twelve whom He ordain-ed
and sent forth to preaxh^ endued with power to
work miracles, in confirmation both of their mission
and their doctrine. With the above exception, it
can scarcely be doubted, that they were all among
those who were converted under the ministry and
baptized by the hands of John the baptist, whom
God sent to preach and baptize,^ and thereby, in-

strumen tally, to make ready a people prepared for
the Lordy the Lord Christ,* and whom, as soon as be
was made manifest to Israel, they followed.^ Nay,
comparing Matt. iii. with chap. iv. 18 — ^22, and Luke
iii. 21, 22, it must seem highly probable, that (ex-cepting
as above) they were all present at the bap-tism
of Christ, and of course that they heaM the
voice of the Father proclaiming Him to be his Son ;
and three of them we know heard this proclamation
when it was repeated at the time of his transfigura-tion.
Are they, then, to be charged with unreason-able
credulity for believing that he was The Son of
God I K is certain, too, that they were of those
among whom The Lord Jesus went in and out,
during the whole of his public ministry, and to
whom also he showed himself alive after his passion,
* 2 Peter i. 14—18. « Mark. iii. 13—19. Comp. Matt. x. 1 — I.
and Luke ix. 1, 2, 10. ^John i. 6, 7, 33. » Luke L 17.
y John i. 35—49.
14
106 THE DELIVERY AND [SER. III.
by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty
days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the
kingdom of God-' Now, having had such advan-tages
bf intimacy with Christ, and having left all
their worldly interests, and hazarded their lives for
his sake and in his cause and service, was not their
oral testimony concerning him worthy of credit,

wherever they delivered itl And is not their tmit-ten
testimony concerning him equally credible,
wherever it is granted
That they did not understand some things spoken
to them by their divine Master while he tabernacled
on earth, is indeed manifest from their own books.
But this, instead of weakening, greatly strengthens
the evidence that they wrote under the infallible
guidance of divine inspiration; for, without such
guidance, they would have remained under those
mistakes, and would have written accordingly ; be-sides,
had they been left to the common dictates of
proud reason, even when their mistakes were made
known unto them, they would not have recorded
them. While, therefore, their mistakes serve to
show that they had no more natural sagacity than
other men, nay, that in some instances they were
specially dull of apprehension and slow of heart
to believe, their record subsequently made of these
mistakes and of their own and one another's faults,
serves equally to prove, that when they wrote their
books, and which was not till after Christ was glo-rijiedy
they were under the enlightening, directing,
and constraining, as well as sanctifying influence of
the Holy Spirit. To this, the history of their illu-
* Acta i. 3. 21.
oER. III.] AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. 107
mination exactly corresponds. For Christ, in human

nature, being by the right hand of God exalted to
heaven, and having, as Mediator, received of
the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, that is,
having received the Holy Ghost according to the
Father's promise,' He, agreeably to his own promise
made to his apostles,** shed forth the same up-on
them ; and which was, in tthem, the Spirit of
truth, to guide them into all the truth^ — to ena-ble
them to understand, as well as to remember all
things which he had spoken unto them,* — to guide
them into the true design and reference of Old Tes-tament
types and predictions, which, therefore, can
only be gathered with certainty from the New Tes-tament;
'and, especially to reveal to them whatever,
in regard to doctrine, ordinances, christian duties or
church-discipline, was farther requisit, to complete the
sacred canon, the only Rule of our faith and pra^:-
tice;^ also as a Spirit of prophecy , to show them
and to foretell by them, things to come, even to the
end of the world.*
• Psal. Ixviii. 18. *» John xv. 26, and xvi. 7. e Acts. ii. 33.
d John xvi. 13. « Ibid xiv. 26. 'Luke xxiv. 44—46. Acts iii.
21, and the Epistle to the Hebrews. « 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.
* Hence appears the great mistake of those who interpret this
promise with reference to all the regenerate under the present dis-pensation.
For if they were all guided by the Spirit into all the
truths they would, of course, all understand every part of revealed
truth exactly alike ; whereas, not to speak of different denomina-tions
of professed christians, even in any one' denomination of
them, scarcely can two individuals be found, either among
public teachers or private professors, who thus perfectly agree in
their understanding of the doctrine and precepts of revelation.

But, understood as it was meant, that is, with reference to the
writers of the New Testament, this promise was evidently verified :
for although, being all men of like passions with others, (Acts xiv.
108 THE DELIVERY AND [SER HI.
Nor should it be overlooked^ that the Holy Ghost
thus shed down on the day of Pentecost, and gi?en
to the apostles to guide them into aU the truth, was
also at the same time given to them, and probably to
all the rest of the hundred and twenty disciples, (then
specially according in faith and hope of the promise,)
in his miraculous gifts, by which the donation was
rendered visible and indubitable. As a sign to them-selves
and to one another, the Spirit, in the likeness of
fire, and in the form of cloven tongues, (an emblem
of the divers languages in which they were to preach
the gospel) sat visibly on each of them. And then
were all jUledwith the Holy Ghost and began to sped
with other tongues Sfc* And, as a sign to the
15.) thej, as such, differed sometimes in opinion, and in some cases,
adopted measures dictated bj carnal policy, by which they vaifdji
hoped to serve the cause of Christ, (Acts, xvi, 3.) or, at least, to
secure themselves from reproach and persecution ; (Acts. xxi. ^
26. and Gal. ii. 11 — 14 ;) yet, in writing their respective histories
and epistles, while, in divine sovereignty, their stile and manner
were preserved sufficiently distinct — while some recorded facts
which others, for this reason, were caused fb omit — and while, as
occasion required, one enlarged more on this doctrine, duty or privi-

lege, and another on ikat^ they were all, in regard to matter, so con-stantly
under the infallible guidance of the Spirit of truth, that we
hazard nothing. in affirming, that, rightly interpreted, they nefcr,
on aoj subject, contradict themselves or one another. Tbe
judgment which PatUj on a matter of difficulty in the church at
Corinth, gave without conmiandment or revelation from the Lord,
only furnishes additional evidence, that he was guided by the
spirit of truth ; for though he inserted it in his inspired epistle, he
carefully excepted it from what he wrote by inspiration. 1 Cot.
vii. 6. 25.
• Whether this is said of the twelve only, or of the seventy
also, or of all the hundred and twenty mentioned. Chap. i. 15» ^^
been a question among commentators and critics. The context
SEC. III.] AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. 109
multitade, whom the rumor thereof presently brought
together, this miraculous gifl of tongues then con-furnishing
no clue in faror of the second opinion, we pass it with-out
farther remark. For restricting this miraculous affiatm to the
twelve^ a plausible argument has been raised from the verbal con-nexion
between the last verse of the preceding chapter and the first
verse of this ; proceding on the assumption that the apostles, re-stored
to their original number of twelve, by the accession of Mat*
thiasy are exclusively meant by the aU^ here said to have been with
one accord in one place. But the subject of the sacred historian
being manifestly the assembly of the disciples^ which, including
others with the eleven and the seventy, consisted of about a hun^
dred and twenty^ the account concerning Matthias, is but a part
of their continued history ; he being added to them^ by being added
to the eleven who were of them. The farther narration, therefore,

(Chap. ii. 1 dxs.) that when the day of Pentecost was fully
come they were all with one accord in one place,*' and that the
Spirit, assuming a visible i^pearance, sat on each of them, must
be understood, not of the twelve only, nor yet of all the disciples
then at Jerusalem, but of the hundred and twenty, specially treated
of by the historian.
Hence, although this number included more than the tweht
and the seventy, it does not follow that it included women^
as supposed by Dr. Gill, on verse 4, and by Dr. Doddridge,
on verse 3, note d. For, although at the place where they
abode, from the ascension of Christ, till the day of Pentecost,
the apostles, (ver. 14.) *' all continued with one accord in prayer
'and supplication with the women,' ' those godly women who
followed Christ from Galilee, and were at his cross and at his
grave, among whom was Mary the mother of Jesus.. . and with his
brethren, his kinsmen after the flesh, who being converted from
their former prejudices, (John vii. 5.) were among his disciples ;
yet the hundred and twenty to whom Peter addressed his speech
concerning the election of one to supply the place of Judas, were
evidently all males ; for in ver. 16, he calls them men and bre^
thren ; and indeed the 15th verse itself, on which those of the con-trary
opinion chiefly rely, may safely be so interpreted as to con-tribute
to the support of our argument ; for, as Dr. Lightfoot ob-serves,
the names there mentioned may justly be taken, not only
for persons, as all agree, but for men, (as in the Syriac version,) nay,
110 THE DELIVERY AND ^SEC. III.
ferred by the Spirit, was immediately employed in
their hearing and to their great amazement : — They

for men ofname^ or distinction, (as suggested by the Arabic,) and so
as denoting, besides the apostles, emphaticaUytbe seventy, and other
brethren abreadj distinguished by grace and gifts; probably all min-isters
of the word, who had companied with the apostles^ all the time
the Lord Jesus went in and out among them, yer. 21 ; and of whom,
he gave Peter to know, that one must be chosen to the apostleship,
and on whom, as on the Apostles, (making in all ahoiti a hundred
and twenty,) he then, by the Spirit, conferred the gift of tongues,
that they might preach the gospel intelligibly to all the nations among
whom he designed to send them. For the same purpose, and in
like manner, that is, without human instrumentality, he bestowed
the gift of tongues, in the first instance, upon gentiles also. Acts
X. 46. Afterward, it was given by the laying on of the apostles'
hands. Acts. viii. 15—17 , and xix. 6. Thus, as by the mtroett-lous
confusion of tongues, the seed of the Jirst Adam were scat-tered
to people the world ; Gen. xi. 7, 8, and Deut. xxxii. 8 ; so,
by the doctrine propagated by this miraculous gift of tongues^ the
seed of the second Adam are gathered to people the church. John
xvii. 20. and Eph. i. 10. The former, in point of fact, defies in-
^delity itself; for none can deny that language, originally one, has,
according to Gen. xi. 1. 9. become multiplied into many^ But the
latter, as a miracle, is no greater than the former, and therefore
is equally credible.
Concerning this famous hundred and twenty, let it be farther
observed —
1. That they were not, as some have thought, all the disciples o^
Christ then living ; for, of above five hundred brethren, to
whom, after his resurrection, he appeared at once in Galilee, ''the
greater part remained even down to the time when Paul wrote
his first epistle to the Corinthians ; Chap. xv. 6, compared with
Matt, xxviii. 10.

2. That they (the 120) were not only distinguished among the
disciples, by a remarkable steadfastness in the truth and devoted-ness
to God, but favored also with an extraordinaiy faith in the
promise of the Spirit's descent, and probably, too, with some in-timations
that the approaching day of Pentecost was the time ap-pointed
for its fulfilment; and hence, on that day they i^^^
all in one place, waiting for it, with an accordance in f^^
SEC. III.} AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. Ill
«aid one to another ^ Behold, duly observe this strange
fact — are not all these which speak GaUileans ? — all
and hope and prayer ^ peculiar to themselves. See Luke xxiv. 49.
and Acts i. 4, 5. And,
3. That to suppose, as some do, that thej (the 120) were all the
disciples of Christ the» at Jerusalem, is utterly unreasonable ; for
the promise of the Holy Ghost being commonly known among
them, and the time being the first day of the week, when they
were accustomed to meet together, nay the great day of Pente-cost,
when specially the expectation of its fulfilment, however faint-ly,
might prevail among them, they no doubt, male and female, as
generally as possible, repaired to Jerusalem, where the favor was
to be granted, and convened with the hundred and twenty, though
inferior to them in their faith and hope of the promise, and in the
part which they shared in the donation. Probably others also,
both citizens and foreigners, from motives of curiosity, attended
the meeting : for otherwise, how came the wonder to h^wiised
abroad ? Unless, indeed, the sound from heaven,'' ttlat came

**like a rushing mighty wind announced it.
Nor does the number of the assembly hereby supposed, imply
any objection ; for the place in which they met, was not any pri-vate
mansion in the city, but the temple, the house of God ; for
had they not met there on that day, how could their meeting
there on successive days foe called, as in verse 46, a continuing
daily in the temple ? The suggestion of some, that the Jews would
not have permitted it, vanishes at the recollection that He whose
dominion ruleth over all, could with infinite ease restrain
their opposition, that the transactions of that notable day, by their
occurring at the temple, might be the more public and the less lia-ble
to contradiction. Thereby also, he literally fulfilled his an-cient
promise, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all
people ; Is. Ivi. 7 ; there being at that time some devout persons
in it out of every nation under heaven, or of the then known
world. Acts ii. 5.
To this general view of the case, (and in my opinion to no oth-er,)
all the recorded events of that memorable day harmoniously
correspond. The apartment of the temple then occupied, was
not the upper room, mentioned Acts i. 13 ; for admitting that to
have been a room of the temple, (and which, from Luke zziv. 63,
i
112 THE DELIVERY AND [SEC, III.
men of the same province — ^and illiterate men tooi,
knowing, heretofore, no language but their own, and

is probable,) it was, as the context shows, the place where the apos-tles,
and some other disciples of both sexes abode during
the interval of ten days between the ascension of Christ
and the descent of the Spirit, and not the place of their assem-blage
on the day of Pentecost. Indeed, recollecting that in
the language of scripture, the temple sometimes denotes any
or all of the buildings that were within its surrounding wall;
(see Matt. zxi. 12 — 14, and John viii. 2, 3 ;) it is not neces-sary
to understand that the meeting in questim,~was held in any
room of the temple, properly so called, or that any one of them
was large enough for the purpose ; but probably in '* the great
court, the court of Israel, which included the court of the
priests ; the two being separated only by a low partition, which
although it served for distinction, was no obstruction to sight or
hearing; and which together, according to Josephus and the To/-
mudic writers^ extended a hundred and eighty^seven cubits^ from
east to west, and a hundred and thirty-Jive from north to south ;
that is, allowing, as is commonly done, 21.889 inches, or about
21f inches to the cubit, it formed a vast oblong of near 4D0 feet
by about 244. See 2 Chron. iv. 9. and Dr. Lightfoot's works. Vol.
1. p.p. 1088. 1090. Also '' Antiquities of the Jews,'' by Wm.
Brown, D. D. Vol. h p. 49.
This spacious inclosure being under the care of the Levites^ the use
of it might the more readily be granted to the disciples through the
influence otBamahas^ generally believed to have been one of the
seventy^ and who was a Leviie^ Actsiv.36. Moreover, its adjacency
to the still larger court, commonly called the outer courts or the
amrt of the GerUtks^ easily accounts for the convenient approach
of the multitude, where, in divers languages, they heard the mi-raculous
gift exemplified, at which those who understood the lan-

guages spoken, were amazed, while others, in their ignorance,
mocked — and subsequently, in their native language, the sermon
preached by Peter^ under which three thousand of them were con-verted.
And the gifts of the Spirit being exeedingly various,
(1 Cor. xii. 4 — 11.) while the hundred and twenty^ by the min-culoua
gift of divers tongues, were enabled intelligibly to addrass
those piesent of whatever nation, the other disciples, male and fe-
6EB. III.] ADTfiORITY OF THB LAW. IIS
that; but imperfectly — And how hecur we every man
of us, one or more of them speaking correctly in
otMT own tongue^ wherein we were horn. Nay, hav-ing
admitted that although, by descent, they were all
Jews, yet that, by nativity and language, they were
ot fifteen different countries, they repeat and there-by
confirm the matter of their amazement, saying,
We^ diversified as we are in our languages, do se-verally
hear them, with a correspondent diversity,
speak in our respective tongues j the wonderful works
of God. Astonishing indeed ! But they spake as the
Spirit gave them utterance. Others, neverthe-less,
mocking said. These men are full of new
wine. What, a fit of drunkenness give them the
male, were so filled with the consolations and so increased in
the ordinafj gifts of the Spirit, that in the sense of Joel's predic-tion,
these sons and daughters of Israel — ^these servants and hand^
maidens of the Lord, M prophesied. Of the males, some preach-ed
and others exhorted, each of which is prophesying ; 1 Cor. xiv.
3 ; and of the rest male and female, probably some, like Deborah^
(Judges y. 4.) like iSftmeon, (Luke ii. 25 — 36.) like the four virgin

daughters of Philip y (Acts xxi. 9.) and, like Agabus^ (ver. 10, 11.)
foretold events ; others, like Miriam^ (£zo. xv. 20, 21.) and, like
some in the church at Cortnih^ (1 Cor. xiv. 2, 5.) might have
the gift of extemporizing in poetry ; some, like Anna^ (Luke ii.
86--d8.) might in a rapturous manner give thanks^ and in an
edifying way talk of Jesus; and others, nay, at intervals, all to-gether,
might sing and pray in the Spirit^ which, in males or fe-males,
is to prophesy. 1 Chron. xxv. 1 — 3. and 1 Cor. xi. 4, 5.
Similar meetings, in regard to the abundant consolations and or-dinary
gifts of the Spirit, have occasionallly been enjoyed by the
saints in all successive generations, and such will be more frequent
in the latter da^s. See Joel ii. 28, 29, which only began to be
fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Acts. ii. 16 — 18.
An honest desire to silence gainsayers — to check fanatics — and
to assist christians, it is hoped will be considered a sufficient apology
for the inconvenient length of this note.
15
i
114 THE DELIVERY AND [SER. HI.
knowledge of languages ! A short way, to be sure,
for a man to become a linguist ! Yet this is but a
genuine instance of infidel wisdom ; which often ad-mits
the grossest absurdities, rather than the probable,
nay, well authenticated facts of divine revelation.
In palliation, however, of their offense, let it be re-

collected, that these mockers were not of those Jews,
convened from the several countries, in the respec-tive
languages of which the disciples spake, but oth-ers,
natives of Judea, who understood no language
but that which was then common among themselves,*
and to whom, therefore, the foreign languages mira-culously
spoken by the disciples, were wholly unin-telligible,
and so might be taken, by them, for the
mere cant and gibberish of men intoxicated. I^erhaps
too, they had, at that moment, forgotten the hour,
by adverting to which the apostle Peter refuted and
silenced the calumny. These,'* said he, are not
drunken as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour
of the day, that is, nine 6^ clock in the morning ;
whereas, no Jew making any pretensions to religion,
or even to common decency, used any inebriating li-quor
till after morning prayer, the stated time of
which ended at the fourth hour, ten o^dock.f
Hitherto, (save in notes) we have excepted Paul;
he not being converted till after the ascension of
Christ to heaven and the descent of the Spirit on
the day of Petecost. But although he was not, like
the original twelvcy called to the apostleship while
Christ was upon earth; and therefore spake of him-self
as, in this respect, one born out of due time,'*
• Which is generallj supposed to have been thie Syriae of
Chaldee.
t Chaldee Paraph, on EccL x. 17.

an abortvoe ; ^ he, nevertheless, had all the qualifica-tions
of an apostle, nay, in one particular exceded all
the rest. They indeed saw Christ after his resurrec-tion,
and at the time of his ascension, but Paul saw
him after he was glorified : and who said to him, ^^ I
have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make
thee a minister and a witness, that is, of his resur-rection
; a minister, a preacher of the word, he might
have made him, by bestowing on him grace and
gifts, without appearing to him in person; but not a
competent witness of his resurrection, and therefore
not an apostle.*^ To this Pavl had respect, when,
to silence those who denied his apostolic authority,
he said, Am I not Wfi apostle ? — Have I not seen
Jesus Christ our Lord 1 • That in spiritual gifts, he
was not inferior to any of the rest, must be evident
to every one who attentively reads The Acts of
THE APOSTLES, Written by Luke. And though, in
consideration of his former blasphemy of Christ and
persecution of the church, he accounted himself the
least of the apostles, yea, not meet to be called
an apostle ; yet, in commendation of the grace of
God bestowed upon him, he said, I labored more
abundantly than they all, that is, more than any
one of them all — probably he traveled and preached
more, and the number and length of his epistles
prove that he wrote more.^
How absurd, then, as well as impious are all the
attempts of deistical writers, to reduce the credibility
of Moses aiid the prophets, and of Christ and his
apostles, (the latter constantly referring to the for-

b fin-ptt/iar*. I Cof. XV. 8. « Matt, xxviii. 16, 17. Luke xxiv.
50—62; and Acts i. 3. ^ Acts x. 41. • 1 Cor. ix. 1. '1 Cor.
XV. 9, 10.
IIQ THE DELIVERY AND [SER. III.
mer, w inspired of God,) to a par with that oiNtaoM^
Mahomet, th% pope of Rome, and other impostora.
Both Numa and Mahomet claimed, indeed, to have
intercourse with God, the former by the nymph Eger
ria, and the latter by the angel GaJbriely but neither
had or even pretended to have, either an eye or an ear-witness
to the fact ; whereas the intercourse which
God held with Moses at Sinai — ^the testimony which
he bore to the divine Sonship of Christ at Jor-dan
— and the exemplification of the gift of tongues
conferred on the apostles, with others, at the day of
Pentecost, were all witnessed and acknowledged by
thousands. And though the pope has claimed to be
the vicar of Christ, and to possess infallibility, all
the pretended miracles by which he cmd his legates
have endeavoured to establish his credibility, have
been useless trifles — ^have been performed either in
private, or among groups of his credulous devotees,
or, at least, only in countries subject to his jurisdic-tion,
where, to avow a scruple, or even to examine a
case, would have been to hazard life ; wherefore
they are justly believed to have been all mere
juggles, or ^^ lying wonders^ as they are called by
an inspired apostle ; 2 Thess. ii. 9. But the mira-cles
of Moses in Egypt, at the Red sea, and in the
wilderness — those of Christ in the land of Judea—

and those of his apostles, performed in his name,
both there, and afterwards in the gentile world, were
all important and useful — ^and though wrought in
pubUc, and, therefore, open to the investigation Both
of the friends and foes of the christian cause, the
reality of them was never denied by either. On the
contrary, even the chief priests and pharisees, those
bitterest enemies of Christ, said of him, This
8BR.UI.] AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. 117
man doeth many miracles T John xi. 47 ; and of
bia apostles, Peter and John, '^ What shall we do to
these men 1 for that a notable miracle (the healing
of the impotent man) hath been done by them is man-ifest
to all them that dwell at Jerusalem, and we
cannot deny it/' Acts iv. 16. Nay more, their fool-ish
and blasphemous attempt to account for the mir^
acles of Christ, by imputing to him a collusion with
Satan, was itself admitting the actual occurrence of
the miracles, and that they were the effects of super*
human power.' But, could Satan himself raise the
dead t Let modern infidels, then, like ancient magi-cians,
confess TkUisthe finger of God. Exo. viii. 19.
Having thus considered some of the internal evi-dences
of the inspiration of the scriptures, without
offering any other apology for this long digression^
than the importance of the subject which it embra-ces,
I return to the text, confirmed in the belief, that
it is not only the language of Moses, but of Moses
speaking as he was moved by the Holy Ghost

The manifestation of the divine Majesty [herein
recognized, was not only very dreadful, but
2. Very glorious : The Lord who came from Si-nai,
rose up from 8eir, alluding to the rising of the
Sun ; he shined forth from mount Paran, like the
Sun pursuing his course and shining in his strength.
For these expressions, The Jerusalem Targum,
as noticed by Bp. Patrick, accounts thus : When
God,'' saith the Targumist, ^ came down to give the
law, he offered it on mount Seir to the Edamite$
but they refused it because they found in it. Thou
$haU not kill ; they being much given to war and
« Matt. xii. 32--32.
(
118 THE DELIVERY APTD [8£R. III.
blood-shed. Then he offered it on mount ParcmXo
the IshmaditeSf who also refused it because they
found in it, Thau shalt not steals a vice very com-mon
among them. And then he came to mount
Sinai and offered it to Israel j and they said, ^^AU
that the Lord shall say we will do. Now, although
this gloss is merely a strange and unauthorized con-ceit,
I have thought proper to mention it, partly for

its antiquity, but chiefly because it so aptly serves to
illustrate the true reason why such multitudes of'
mankind, on one pretence or other, reject the Bible;
namely, because it forbids vices j to the pursuit of
which they are strongly inglined, and enjoins du-ties,
to the observance of which they are decidedly
opposed. And though many, while filled with dread
under alarming sermons, like the Israelites, when
they heard the book of the covenant, say, All
that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient ;^
yet, like them, they soon relapse into former sins ;
and so, like the Scribes and Pharisees in the days of
Christ, they say, and do not.* It is certain how-ever,
that these manifestations were made, not to the
Edomites, nor to the Ishmaelites, but to the chil-dren
of Israel. Of them Moses had spoken in ver. 1 ;
and here, continuing their history, he says, The Lord
came from Sinai and rose up from Seir unto them —
unto them, observe, and not to some other people.
The words plainly evince that at each of the pla-ces
named, God had appeared to Israel in some mag-nificent
manner, or in some marvellous work. The
facts, too, are upon record. At Sinai, as noticed
already, he gave them very terrible, and yet very
^ Exo. zxiv. 7. Matt. xziii. 3.
SER. m.] AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. 119
glorious indications of his presence. The thick
cloud in which he descended, the fearful thunders

.and lightnings which proceded from it, and the
convulsion of the whole mountain beneath it, all de-clared
that God was there. At Seir when they were
compassing the land of Edom, his providential pre-sence
with them was manifested, both in the judicial
death of many and in the miraculous preservation of
the residue, equally liable — ihe former by the stings
oi fiery serpents, sent among them as a scourge for
•their murmurings, and the latter by a sight of the-brazen
serpent prescribed as the sovereign and only
remedy. ^ And at Par an, he granted them repeated'
manifestations of his presence and tokens of his fa-vor.
There the cloud first rested when they had re-moved
from Sinai, ' — there the Lord instituted the
order of the seventy elders, as helps to Moses, and
descending in a cloud, conferred on them their re-quisit
qualifications, — and from thence, by his com-mand,
the spies were sent to reconnoiter the pro-mised
land. ' Moreover, between Paran and 7V
phely and probably at the foot of the former, Moses,
led by divine inspiration, rehearsed the law to them —
that is, delivered to them what is contained in this
book. °
Nevertheless, it is, not improbable, that in these
figurative expressions, Moses referred to something
which, at the giving of the law, was common to all
those places ; for, as the rising Sun, to which there
is a manifest allusion, instantly illuminates distant
hills, so God manifesting his glory on Sinai, might
^ Numb. xxi. 4—0. See Ser. I. p. 28, 29. and Ser. II. p. 81—91.
Num. X. 11, 12. Ibid. xi. 16, 17, 25. » Ibid.xiii. 3. ^ Deut.
i. 1,3. also chapters it. and v.

120 THE DELIVBRY AND [SBR. 01.
extend its refulgence to those neighbouring moun-tainSy
and in their reflection of it, might seem to rise
up from 8eir and to shine forth from Par an. Comp.
Hab. iii. 3, 4.
Nor must we forget his tributary glory, arishig
from his retinue on that solemn occasion ; he came
with ten thousands of saints^ holy ones,* by whom
are meant the myriads of angels who then attended his
presence and subserved his design : for they were
not only his attendants^ but his ministers also, at the
delivery of the law — the law was given by the dispo-sition
of angels y and ordained by them,^ in the hand of
* u mediatory namely Moses. ^ It is worthy of remark,
too, that, He who only descended on mount Sinai,
DWELLS in mount Zion, and that here, in token of su-perior
favor, he employs twice the former number of
his angelic ministers: This is the hilj which God
desireth to dwell in ; yea the Lord will dwell in it for
ever. And here, as if to signify, that, compared
with national Israel, the gospel church is more hon-orable
and more secure, The chariots of God are
twenty thousand^ even thousands of angels : nor
have they'the charge alone : the Lord is among them,*'
to. direct their ministrations, — as in Sinai, «o in the
holy pla^^j^ the church. '
Moses having recognized the Majesty of the Law-giver,
manifested at the time of his descent on mount

Sinai,
IL Asserts three things concerning the law which
heathen delivered.
• They being employed in preparing and setting in order the ta-bles
on winch the law was written, as we are assured they were in
-the articulation of its words. Heb. ii. 2.
P Acts yii. 53. Gal. iii. 19. 4 Psal. bmii. 16, 17.
SEE. III.] AUTHORITY OP THE LAW. 121
F^rstf whence it proceded, to wit, from the hand,
the right hand of God— ^row his right hand went a . ..
law. It was conceived, indeed, in his mind, and was
given as an expression of his moral perfections ; yet,
by allusion to a man's writing or engraving with his
right hand,^this law is said to precede from the right
hand of the Law-giver, because by him it was writ-ten
or engraven upon tables of stone ; the tables
were the work of God, and the writing was the writ-ing
of God graven upon the tables. ' Moreover, as
the right hand is the more powerful and honorable,'
the law might be said to emanate from the right hand
of God, to denote its supreme authority and moral
excellence; for although, to fallen man, it is the
ministration of death and condemnation, yet, in refer-ence
to its author and matter, it is emphatically gZori-
By these remarks, all must perceive that I under-stand
the term law in this place, with restriction to what

is commonly called the moral law, the law cotisist-ing
exclusively of the decalogtie, the ten commantl-ments
; that being all that was written or engraven
on the tables, that were delivered from the hand of
the Law-giver. Deut. v. 22. and x. 4.*
' Exo. xxxii. 16. • Ibid. xv. 6. Psal. xliv. 3. ^ 2 Cor. iii. 7. 9.
* The Judgments given in the Judicial law, and the rites en-joined
in the ceremonial law, were, it is true, also from God, and
by his authority were binding upon Israel. Of the farmery which
are chiefly recorded in the book of Exodus^ he said to Moses,
These are the judgments which thou shall set before them ; £xe.
zzi. 1 ; and of the hitter ^ most of which are contained in the
book of Leviticus, Moses having written them, bears this testimo-ny
— These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Mo^
ses for the children of Israel in mount Sinai; Levit. xzvii. 34 ;
mount Sinai here and in chap. xxv. 1. meaning, however^ not
16
122 THE DELIVERY AND [SER- 111.
Secondly f for whom this law, at that time, ve7U
forth from the hand of God ; to wit, for the peo-strictly
the mountain so called, from which the commandments of
the moro^ and the judgments of the jWicia/ law were delivered,
but the toilderness in which that mountain stood ; see Numb. i. 1 ;
for these ceremonial commandments were not giv^ till after the
Tabernacle was erected, out of which they were delivered, and to
the service of which they belonged. Levit. i. 1. Nevertheless,

these Judgments and Rites werb not, like the ten commandments,
written by the finger of God^ Exo. xxxi. 18 ; nor, hkrf them,
spoken out of the midst of the fire, Deut. v. 22. They were writ-ten
by Moses, as hl3 received them from the mouth of God ; Exo.
xxiv. .4. xxxiv. 27. and Levit. i. 1 ; and though, in Exo. xxiv. 7.
the judgments^ (probably with the moral precepts,) and, in 2 Kings
zxiii. 2, 21. these and the ceremonial Rites together^ are caUed
the book of the covenant^ the obligation of Israel to observe the
whole, was, notwithstanding, founded in the moral part, by which
they were bound to acknowledge Jehovah alone as their God, and
consequently to obey him in all he should require of them.
The moral law was the ^rsf that God delivered to Israel at Sinai.
It was on their literal (not spiritual) observance of this law, that he
suspended his grant of all the tempornl blessings, by which he
promised to distinguish them as a nation, and to the enunciation
of which they replied, All that the Lord hathspoken we will do.*'
And these mutual declarations considered, (all that has been said
to the contrary notwithstanding,) this law is justly called a cave^
nant. Exo. xix. 5, 8. and Deut. v. 2. Comp. Is. i. 19, 20. Nay,
the very words which God himself wrote upon the tables of stone,
are expressly denominated the words of the covenant^ the ten com-mandments,
(Exo. xxxiv. 28) and the tables themselves, the t-ahles
of the covenant wliich the Lord made with Israel. Deut. ix. 9.
While therefore, by divine appointment, the judicial law, adapt-ed
to the civil state of Israel, and the ceremonial law equaUj
adapted to their ecclesiastical state, became appendages to the ori-ginal
covenant, the moral law inviolably remained the basis^ to
which, without the repeal or infraction of any of its injunctions,
the judgments certainly, and, by consequence, the ceremonies
also, in the tenor of their words, or precepts, harmoniously cor-responded.
Exo. xxxiv. 27. And accordingly, thenceforward the
whole constituted the book of the covenant which God made with
that people, and by which they were to be governed in morals, pol-

SER; III.] AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. 123
pie of Israel ; from his right hand went forth a. . .law
for them.^^ To account for this restrictive clause,
itics^ and religion. See 2 Chron. zx:Kiy. 30, 31. and comp. MaL
i. 6—14. ii. 1 — 17.iii. 7 — 14.andiv. 4: also Heb. viii. 9. and ix. 1.
Hence it may be inferred with certainty — 1. That while this com-plex
and temp^arj' covenant remained in force, no Israelite, by right-ly
observing any precept of the judicial or of the ceremonial law,
violated any command in the moral law, rightly understood.— -3.
That whereas the moral law, like the perfections of God of which
it is a transcript, remains forever immutable, no povenant-engage-ment
which persons may have entered into, nor any human injunc-tion,
as that of a parent, master or magistrate, to do what is con*
trary to thtU law^ can be binding on the parties so engaged or
commanded. See Acts. v. 29. And— ^. That an oath itself, taken
contrary to the tenor of the moral law^ or, either to do or to abet
and protect others in doing what that law forbids^ can, in Grod*8
account, impose no obligation on any person or persons so com-mitted.
To take such an oath is indeed horribly wicked ; but de-clining
to comply with it, is only forbearing to commit the still
greater wickedness of acting in conformity to it. Thus, for in-stance,
if the more than forty Jetos^ who wickedly bound them-themselves
by an oath, not to eat or drink till they had kilkd Paul^
had been permitted actually to perpetrate the bloody deed, and
thereby to have violated the divine command T^ou shalt not kiU^
they would certainly have added greatly to their wickedness of tak-ing
the oath; whereas, if they had repented of their oath and
voluntarily abandoned their murderous design, they would, so far,

have been in the way of duty. Acts, zxiii. 12, 13. And who will
presume to deny, that it would liave been a virtue in Herod to have
violated his iniquitous oath by which he had bound himself to give
to the dancing daughter of Herodias whatsoever she should ask,
rather than to have isolated the law of Go^ ais he did, by com-mitting
murder, that he might give her the head of John the Bap*
tist? Matt. xiv. 6—12. and Mark vi. 21-. 29.
Let none, however, construe these observations into an apology
for the shocking crime of perjury. For whoever understandingly
and willingly comes under the obligation of an oath to do or suffer
anything which is not inconsistent with the revealed will of God, is
most sacredly bound to compliance with the tenor of it ; nay, hav-
124 THE DELIVERY AND [SER III-most
commentators have understood the law here
intended to be the whole Sinaic dispensation ; this
being given only to Israel and exclusively for thevn.
But the scriptures referred to in the preceding article,
and in the note annexed to it, forbid us to adopt that
interpretation, however conveniently it may seem to
accord with the clause for ihemj and compel us to
adhere to the interpretation already given ; and by
which we include nothing under the term law^ as
here used, but the decalogue, commonly called the
morallaw.
Nor is the term law, taken in this limited sense, at
all inconsistent with the restrictive clause under con-
• sideration. For this law, as delivered to Israel at
. Sinai, was specially, nay exclusively for them. By

their own confession it was only to th^m, and there-fore,
as then spoken, only/or them that God uttered the
words of it ; for who is there of all flesh said they,
^' that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking
out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived f*—
For them, exclusively for their use, God inscribed the
commandments of this law on the tables of stone
which he delivered to Moses ; who, addressing Israel,
said, *Uhe Lord delivered unto me two tables of
stone, written with the fihger of God ; and on them
was written according to all the words which the
ing taken such oath, even though he should afterward discover
that to comply with it must tend to his own hurt^ his loss of repu-tation,
or property, or both, he cannot violate it, but at the most
awful peril — ^that of exclusion from the kingdom of heaven. Psal.
XV. 4. Nevertheless, perjury is not the vnpardonahU sin ; for this,
as well as for other crimes of high degree, God may subsequendy
grant to the criminal repentance unto life^ Acts. xi. 18, and remit
his sin, through the redemption that is in Christ. Matt. xii. 31,
38, Luke xxiv. 47. Rom. iii. 24. Comp. 1 Cor. vi. 0—11.
Deut. V. 26.
I
SER. III.] AUTHORITY OP THE LAW. 125
Lord spake with you in the mount, out of the midst
of the fir€j in the day of the assembly.'' * And
though) to express his holy indignation at their mak-ing
and worshiping the molten calf and to signify,
that thereby they had broken the law, Moses cast

those tables, out of his hands, and brake them be-fore
their eyes ; * yet God, in like manner, wrote the
same commandments upon two other tables, which
Moses, by his direction, deposited in the ark, where
they were preserved inviolate, and which, as thus
engraved and preserved, were, like the former tab-bies,
only for them, for their use, ^ Chiefly, how-ever,
this law, as then delivered in the form of a co-venantf
was /or them ; it being, as such, specially fct
their observance and for their benefit. See Exo. xix.
5—8. and xxxiv. 28.
Here, however, we must carefully distinguish be-tween
this special promulgation of the moral law, and
the extent of its obligation. For the obligation which
the Israelites were under to observe it, was none
other than that which is universal and perpetual.
This obligation is founded in the relation necessari-ly
subsisting between God as the Creator, and his
intelligent creatures ; he possessing an underived au-thority
to require of them whatever he thought fit
and proper, and which could be nothing but what
was agreeable to his holy nature and holy will ; and
they being indispensably bound to a perfect compli-ance
with all his revealed requirements, on pain of
enduring the penalties respectively annexed to them.
Under this obligation he brought both the angelic
nature and the human, into being- Nor was there
'^ Deut. ix. 10. * Ibid. ver. 17. y Ibid. x. 4, 5.
126 THE DELIVERY AND [SER. lO.

in either, as they came from the hand of God, any
thing incongruous to this obligation. That he ore*
ated angels holy, has never, that I know of, been
called into question ; and that he so created man, is
clearly revealed ; God made man upright. * Aa
such, therefore, both must have been naturaUy abUj
yea naturally inclined^ to comply with the obligations
they were respectively under. Immutability, how-ever,
belonged to neither. This would have beep
inconsistent with'their^tate of probation, nay, with
ctheir creaturdy existence and continual depend-ence
upon their Creator. Wherefore, being left to
the freedom of their own respective wills, cmd with-f
ut any 'provision or promise of additional strength
in case of trial, they both transgressed and fell.
Whatt was the test of angelic obediencb is not re-vealed,
and therefore we cannot precisely determine
wherein their original sin consisted.* All we certainly
.'. • ^ « Eccl. vii. 29.
•By several inspired allusions, however, to the fall of angels, it
seems highiy probablthat their original sin was pride. Thus, for
instance, the fall of the haughty, aspiring king of Babylon^ is liken-ed
to the fall of Lucifer from heaven. Isa. xiv. 4 — 17. Paul cau-tio{
ied Timothy not to promote a novice to the office of a bishop, a*
pastor^ *' lecrt, being lifted up with ppde, he should fall into the
eondenmation of the. devil ; that is, like him be condemned for
pride. Tim. iii. 6. And the war in heaven^ of which John had a
viHion, though it respects l!he war between Christ and Satan, car-ried
on through the instrumentality of their respective angels, or
ministers, hi the church on earth, is, nevertheless, described in

terms denoting an evident allusion to the original rebelion in hear-en,
and to the fall and ejection of the rebels from their former ho-ly
and happy condition. Rev. xii. 7 — ^9,
The innocent occasion of that rebelion, in those once holy Spir-its,
might be God's commanding them to worship his Son ; Heb.
i« 6 : and whicly*ii'«i|it be provoked by a proclamation in heaven,
rf ^ -
8EB. III.] AUTHORITY OP THE LAW. 127
know of them, is that there were elect-angtUj which
iinplie^ the non-election of others ; • and that the lat-ter
are called the angels that sinned, and the angels
that kept not their first estate, ajid that, by the au-thority
and act of God, they are reserved in chains of
darkness unto the judgment of the great day. ^ The
elect-a/ngels we suppose were confirmed in Christ as
their Head of conservation, and that they are all
ministering spirits, sent fortl^to minister for them who
shall be heirs of salvation. *
The first penal injunction which God delivered to
man was only prohibitory — forbidding him, on pain
that the Son, whom they were required to worship, would assume^
not their nature, but the human; Heb. ii. 16; and Ihat he would
exalt the elect of the human family above them in nearness to God
and communion with him. Rev. vii. 9 — 12. Perhaps, too, it was
announced among them, that God had confirmed the standing and
secured the happiness of some of them in his Son, while he had
left the rest dependent on their own freewill. Hence one of them,

it should seem, and probably one who was distinguished above
others while in a state of rectitude, felt the origin of phde — ^proposed
rebelion against the Son of God and those of theangelic spirits,declar-ed
to be confirmed in him ; and, being followed in the rebelion by
all the non-elect angels, he is called Beelzebub^ the prince of the de-vils,
and he and they are called the devil and his angels. Markiii. 22*
Matt. XXV. 41 . Now what but the same principle o£ pride, imbibed
from Satan, provokes the rebelion of Arians, Socinians, and Deists,
against the revealed requirement, that all men should honor the Son
even as they honor the Father? John v. 23. And whence but from
the same source, is all that enmity manifested by self-justiciaries
against the sovereign discrimination which God, in election, has
made among the human family ? Rom. ix. 11 — ^24.
That pride, had proved fatal to Satan, may^be concluded from
his care to beget the same principle in our first parents ; Gen. iii.
5; nay, from his horrid, but fruitless attempt on Christ himself
Matt. iv. 8 — 9.
• 1 Tim. V. 2L- ^ 2 Pet. ii. 4. and Jude, ver. 6. « Heb. i. 14.
128 THE DELIVERY AND [SBR. III.
of death, to eat of the fruit of a specified tree ; The
Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it ; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die, or dyingy die, as it is in the He-brew
; * for, djdng a hgal death, by transgression^ he
must, by consequence, die a moral death, that is,
become unrighteous and unholy, and, as such, be

subject to corporal death, and liable to death eter-nal.
° Nor did the effects of his transgression ter-minate
in himself; human nature in him became
guilty and totally depraved, and as suck, vdth all
the consequent liabilities, he transmitted it to all his
posterity ; for, hy one man sin entered into the world
and death] hy sin ; and so death passed upon ail
men, for that all have sinned. ^
Man's obligation to obey God, nevertheless remain-ed
and must for ever remain undiminished : and the
rule of his obedience is the toill of God, however
made known to him. The will of God, thus under-stood,
consists of two parts— his moral reqniremenis
and his positive injunctions — emanating, the former
necessarily from his moral perfections, the latter ar-bitrarily
from his sovereign authority. His moral
requirements,, as they necessarily procede from his
moral perfections, so they declare him to be a holy
and righteous being, as clearly as the rays of light
which necessarily procede from the Sun, declare that
to be a pure and luminous body; and as the rays of
light necessarily preceding from the Sun, can nei-d
nion niD moth tamuth. Gen, ii. 16, 17. « Ibid. iii. 19. and
Rom.vi,23. ^ Ibid. v. 12. 18.
8£B. III.] AUTHORITY OF THE LAW. l29
tlier cease nor change, but with the cessation or
change of the Sun itself; so the moral requirements
of God can never cease nor change, unless his own

Being should cease or change ; but as he is the eter-nal
God and changeth notj his moral requirements
are necessarUy eternal and immutable. Not so his
positive injunctions. These, emanating arbitrarily
from his sovereign authority^ he might multiply or
diminish, modify, supplant or repeal, at pleasure,
without undergoing any change in his perfections,
essential or moral, and without intermitting, or in-fringing
any of his moral requirements. Hence the
successive accumulation of positive institutions under
the Old Testa/mentj and the comparative paucity of
them under the New. Hence also the cessation of
circumcision — ^the change of the Sabbath from the
seventh to the Jirst day of the week — the supplant-ing
of the Ugalj by the evangelical dispensation —
and the consequent abrogation of Mosaic ceremaniesy
and the institution oi gospel-ordinances.
The subject before us, however, claims our atten-tion
only to God's moral requirements. These he
expressed in the decalogue, the ten commandments ;
and though, as delivered to Israel at Sinai, these
commandments were emphatically for them^ they,
nevertheless, (excepting the fourth^*) constitute a
law, which, in its moral tenor, exactly corresponds
to the law of nature, which God originally inscribed
• All the laws'of the decalogue, saith Eben Ezra, are accord-ing
to the dictates of nature, the law and light of reason, and
knowledge of men, excepting this: Wherefore no other has the
word remember prefixed to it ; there being somewhat in the light
of ereiy man*s reason and conscience, to direct and engage him,
in some measure, to the observation of them. In Dr. GilPs Expos,
on Exo. XX. 8.

17
130 THE DELIVERY AND [sER. III.
on the heart of man ; and which, however mwred and
obscured by the fall and consequent total depravity
of our nature, is not thereby entirely obliterated ; but
remains so far legible in every rational human being,
as to be read by the scrutinizing eye of conscience ;
and is the rule by which this faculty of the soul, (if
not judicially seared/^) always, according to the light
of evidence received, necessarily determines what is
morally right, and what is morally wrong, and this
whether in our own conduct or in that of others.*
This law, too, like that of the revealed command-ments
corresponding to it, has respect both to God
and to man — 1. To God. By the light of reason, ex-ercised
according to this law, mankind without any
revelation but that made in the volume of nature,
may discover that there is one God, and essentially
but one, and that he, as their Creator and the Cre-ator
of all the works of nature they behold, justly
claims their supreme love, and exclusive worship,
adoration and dependence. This is plain from the
case of the heathen, who have no law but that of na-ture,
and no light of evidence, but what comes through
the medium of nature ; and yet are criminal in not
acknowledging the Supreme Author of nature ; be-cause
that which may be known of God is manifest
in them, in their own existence, or to themj to

their rational apprehension, through his visible
works; for God hath showed it (that which
may be known of him) unto them. For the in-visible
things of him, from the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that
» 1 Tim. iv. 2.
• That such knowledge may consist with total moral depravity,
is evident in fallen angels. See Job i. 6 — 12. ii. I — 10. and Mark
i. 23—20.
are made, even his eternal power and Godhead ; so
that they are without excuse ; and not the less so,
on account of the darkness and stupidity to which
they were subjected for their impiety and ingrati-tude
; because that when they knew God, by the
light of nature, they glorified him not as God, nei-ther
were thankful ; but became vain in their ima-ginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools. And hence the abominable idolatries and
unnatural sensualities which follow in their history.
See Rom. i. 19 — 32. And, as the law of nature
respects the duty of mankind towards God, so also—
2. Their duty toward each other ; and which, in mat-ters
of moral equity and purity, may generally be
known by this law. Hence the universal idea of
meum et tuumy mine and thine, in regard to hus-bands,
wives and children — houses, lands and chat-tels
of every kind ; and which is clearly perceived

and strictly observed by many of the heathen tribes
and nations. Thus too, is brought to light the agree-ment
between the injunctions of the moral law and
the dictates of the law of nature ; For when the
Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the
things contained in the law, these, having not the
law, are a law unto themselves ; having within
themselves a law correspondent to that which is re-vealed.
By thus acting they also show the work
of the law, the inscription of the law of nature,
written in their hearts, their conscience also bear-ing
witness, to the moral right and wrong of their
lives, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing
or else excusing one another, as well as themselves,
Rom. ii. 14, 15
192 T9£ DELIVERT AlfP [SSR. in.
The moral law, therefore, whether as delivered to
Israel at Sinai, or as contained in the book of the
covenant written for the immediate use of that peo-ple,
or as it is variously incorporated with the whole
of the inspired volume, is, strictly taken, nothing
but a verbal copy of the law of nature, which God
concreated with man. Wherefore, the standard by
which the heathen, as such, shall be judged, is es-sentially
the same with that by which the Jews and
all others favored with the Scriptures, shall be
judged; '^ for as many as have sinned without law,
that is, without the written law, and dying impeni-tent,
^' shall also perish without (that) law ; and as
many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by

the law. Rom. ii. 12. Yet with this difference in
the sentence ; the latter, and especially those under
the New Testament, having had the standard of trial
more clearly revealed to them, and so having sinned
against more light and knowledge, will (if not brought
to repentance, and pardoned through Christ,) in the
strictest justice, as the greater sinners, receive the
greater punishment.^ Not, however, as a necessary
consequence X)f their having these sacred writings,
which to have, is, in itself, a great blessing ; but as a
merited consequence of their presumptuous trans-gressions
of the law thus clearly revealed — their stu-pid
insensibility to the providential goodness and long
forbearance of God manifested toward them— their
impious disregard of all his threatenings and warn-ings
so plainly made known to them — and their wil-ful
contempt of his Son and disbelief of the record
which he has given concerning him. *
This law, then, either as written or unwritten, is
* John xix. 11. Matt. x. 15. * Rom. ii.5 — D. John Hi. 19, and
1 John T. 10.
[SBR. III. AUTHeRlTX OF THE LAW. 13S
the univeri^al standard of trial ; and every son and
daughter of Adam, tried by it, whether as it is con-tained
in their nature, or as it is revealed in the Bible,
is found wtmting — ^wanting both in holiness of heart
and rectitude of life. Upon law ground, therefore,
every mouth must be stopped, mid all the world be-

come guilty before God. Rom. iii. 19. Hence .
Thirdly J the distinguishing characteristic of this law
of God — from his right hand went ^l fiery law. By
thus characterizing this law, Moses might only design
to commemorate the terrible manner of its delivery.
Preparatory thereto, The Lord descended upon
mount Sinai in fire, and in the actual promulgation
of it, his voice was heard speaking out of the midst
of fire. ^ But the Holy Ghost in the prophet, by giv-ing
the fearful epithet fi^ry to this law, doubtless
designed more — ^namely, to imply some of its dis-tinguishing
properties and principal uses. The per-tinence
of the epithet to this design, may easily be
seen in the following instances.
Fire is a common emblem oi purity ^ and therefore
a fit emblem of this law, which is a mere blaze of
moral purity ; '^ the commandment of the Lord is
pure, and in it, God is revealed as a consuming
fire to impenitent transgressors.*
Like fire, this law gives light ; not sight, but light
to those who have sight. What is said of its entrance
at mount Sinai, nmy justly be said of its entrance
into the conscience of a regenerate sinner : '^ The law
entered that the oflfence might abound, not that it
might become more abundant, but that it might the

k Deut. iv. 12, 13. Psal. xix. 8. comp. Rom. vii. 12. Deut.
IT. 24.
134 THE DELIVERY AND [SER. III.
more abundantly and clearly appear. Thus it is,
that by the law is the knowledge of sin. **
hike Jircy this law gives distress and creates alarm.
Such were its effects upon the Israelites, when it
was delivered to them from Sinai ^ ; and its tenden-cy
is the same in the conscience of every awakened
sinner : the law worketh wrath, that is, threatens wrath,
and fills the sinner with apprehensions of it.'
As fire is useful or hurtful, according as it is right-ly
or wrongly employed ; so is this law. The law is
good if a man use it laxcfvlly' — to show his fallen
and helpless condition, and as a rule of moral duty ;
but, if he rely on it, that is, on his obedience to it,
for life, it must inevitably prove his death, his ever- .
lasting ruin ; for as many as are of the works of the |
law are under the curse, c.' and the command- I
m^nt, the law, which, had human nature remain-ed
in conformity to it, was ordained to life, such
life as Adam enjoyed in paradise, is found, as .
a violated covenant, to be unto death legal and moral,
temporal and eternal. So every regenerate sinner
finds it to be, when under conviction by it;* and so
must every finally impenitent sinner find it, when
sinkiilg under its sentence to that death which is

the wages of sin, ^nd which, as it is opposed to eter-nal
life, can be none other than eternal death.
From our subject, we infer
1. That fallen mankind are not, as many suppose
them to be, in a state of probation, that is, on trial,
whether they will secure their salvation or not. If so,
it must be with reference either to the law or to the
a Rom. V.20. « Ibid. iii. 20. p Exo. xix. 16. xx. 18 and Heb. xii.
19,20. q Rom. iv. 15. ' 1 Tim. i. 8. • Gal. iii. 10. * Rom. vii, 10.
» Ibid. vi. 23.
SER III.] AUUHORITY OF THE LAW. 135
gospel. Not, surely, with reference to the law; for
by this, whether considered as innate or as revealedy
they are all condemned already. ^ And to suppose
them in a state of probation with reference to the
gospely is to suppose that salvation by Christ is at
their own option, and dependent on their own exer-tions
; whereas, it is not of him that willeth, nor
of him that runneth ; but of God that showeth mer-cy.'**
Nay, Christ himself hath said, No man can
come to me, except the Father who hath sent me
draw him .^
2. That none can escape the penalty annexed to
the violation of the covenant of works, in the guilt
of which all are involved, but by an act of God's
mere grace; and as such act can never pass but

in harmony with divine justice, it is impossible it
should pass in favor of any, but in consideration of
the satisfaction made to divine justice by Christ;
who, for all he represented in his obedience and
death, ^^ magnified the law and made it honora-ble,
and *• put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
And accordingly, although all whom God justifies,
me justified freely by his grace; yet, with reference
to law and justice, they are justified throvghthe re-demption
that is in Christ Jesus.''
3. That the unregenerate can have no communion
with God, nor render any acceptable worship to
him.
They can have no communion with God. Com-munion
implies agreement ; but there can be no
agreement between God and unregenerate sinners.
^ John ill. J8. * Rom. ix. 16. y John vi. 44. « Isa. xlii. 21.
Heb. ix.26. Rom iii. 04— 26.
136 THE DELIVERY AND [SER. lU.
He 18 the Uting Gody but they are dead in trespoMS-es
and nns ; ^ he is Light, but they are darkness i^
he is holjfy but they are filthy f he is Love, but
they are enmity ; ^ unless, therefore, there can be
communion between life and death — ^light and dark-ness
— ^holiness and wickedness — ^love and enmity,
there can be no communion between God and unre-generate
siimers ; there being noliiing in either that

can hold communion with the other. And as there
can be no communion between God and unregene-rate
sinners in timef so, by consequence, not in eter-fdty.
God, we are assured by revelation as well as
reason, changethnot: — and though death makes a
great change in the condition of sinners — ^removing
them from time to eternity — from the society of men
to the society of devils — ^from temporal comforts, to
hell-torments, and from the prospects of cheering
hope, to the horrors of black despair — it, neverthe-less,
makes no change in their moral character ; then*
carnal mind remains, and will for ever remain, enmi-ty
against God. Rom. viii. 7. Nay more : While
here, the events of Providence and the example imd
admonition of the godly — ^yea, their own respect for
society — their desire^ of that honor which cometh
from men — ^their regard to worldly interest, and
even their vague hopes of divine mercy, all unite
80 to restrain their corruptions, that the turpitude of
their satanic disposition is not fully developed ; John
viii. 44. Eph. ii. 2, 3. ; but all these means of restraint
ceasing in death, their disembodied souls thereupon
become, like fallen angels, utterly hopeless, and
^ Jogh. iii. 10. Eph. ii. 1. « 1 John i. 5. Eph.- v. 8. ^ Psal.
xcix. 9. and liii. 3. * 1 John iv. 8. Kom. viii. 7.
8BR m.] AUTHORITY OP THE LAW, 137
therefore infernally ragefiil. They that go down
to the pit, cannot hope c. Is. xxxviii. 18, There
their worm'' of a guilty conscience ^'di^th not, and .

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