4.46 STATE AND ORDINANCES OF THE CHURCH [EXERC. XIX.
things are foretold concerning them, not only in their own propheti- cal writings, but also by the divine writers of sundry books of the New Testament. But all this, we say, must come to pass when the veil shall be taken from before their eyes, and when “ they shall look on him whom they have pierced,” and joyfully receive him whom they have sinfully rejected for so many generations. Until this be done, they may wrestle as they can with their own perplexities, and comfort themselves as well as they are able in their miseries, and get money in their dispersions by all unlawful arts and ways imaginable, and expose themselves to the delusions of impostors, false prophets, and pretenders to be their deliverers,—which, to their unspeakable misery and reproach, they have now done ten times;—deliverance, peace, tranquillity, acceptance with God and man, they shall not obtain. Here lies the crisis of their condition: When they shall receive, acknowledge, and believe in, that Messiah who came so long time since unto them, whom their fathers wickedly slew and hanged on a tree, and whom themselves have since no less wickedly rejected ; and when, by his Spirit and grace, they shall be turned from ungodli- ness, and shall have their eyes opened to see the mystery of the grace, wisdom, and love of God in the blood of his Son;—then shall they obtain mercy from the God of their forefathers, and returning again into their own land, “ Jerusalem shall be inhabited again, even in Jerusalem,”
EXERCITATION XIX.
STATE AND ORDINANCES OF THE CHURCH BEFORE THE GIVING OF THE LAW.
1, 2, Ordinances and institutions of the Jewish church referred to and unfolded in the Epistle to the Hebrews—Principal heads of them mentioned therein. 3. The call of Abraham, Heb. xi, 8-19. 4. The name Abram; signification of it—Changed into Abraham; its signification—The foundation of the church in his posterity. 5. The time of his birth and death. 6. Ur of the Chaldees, where; and Haran—Extent of Mesopotamia—Moses and Stephen reconciled. 7. Abraham before his call infected with idolatry. 8, 9. Time of his call. 10. Institution of cireumcision—End and use of it. 11. Time of the Israelites’ sojourning in Egypt—Gen. xv. 13; Exod. xii, 40, 41; Acts vii. 6; Gal. iii. 17, reconciled—The beginning and ending of the four hundred and thirty years. 12. The fatal period of changes in the Jewish church. 13. Institution of the passover. 14. The time of its celebration— ~ The month. 15. Time of the day—®)2°25 3, “between the two evenings,” when. 16. The occasion and nature of this ordinance—The matter of it— The manner of its observance—Sundry things, suited to its first celebration, not afterwards observed—The number required at the eating of the lamb— By whom it was killed—Where—How dressed—Jewish traditions rejected. 17%. The feast of unleavened bread—Its rites, 18, Excision, to the neglect
SECT. 1.] BEFORE THE GIVING OF THE LAW. 447
of what ordinances annexed. 19. Jews acknowledge the figurative nature of this ordinance, 20. Of frontlets or phylacteries, Exod, xiii, 9—Signs and memorials—The sections of the law written in the frontlets. 21. The Jews’ manner of making their phylacteries—Deceit therein—Their trust in them re- proved by our Saviour—Of their fringes, their appointment, making, and use. 22. Dedication of the first-born males to God—Price of the redemption of children. 23. Close of God’s first dispensation towards that church, 24. The solemn voyodecix, 25. Preparations for it—Remote preparations; occa- sional, temporary institutions between the Red Sea and Sinai—Of the waters of Marah. 26. The giving of manna—Derivation and signification of the name. 27, 28. Water brought out of the rock—That rock Christ. 29. Im- mediate preparations for the receiving of the law—The time that the people came to Sinai—Theday. 30. The time of the day that the appearances of God’s glory began—The same time that Christ rose from the dead. 31. The place—Sinai the name of the mountain, Horeb of the wilderness—Of the monastery there. 32. Moses’ first ascent-—The ground of it. 33. The people prepared by the remembrance of mercies and promises. 34. What required of the people. 35. Of their washing their clothes—Not a baptism of stand- ing use. 36, Bounds set unto the mount. 37. In what sense it might be touched, Heb. xii. 18, 38-40. How the offender was to be punished— 79 SB DAN-ND opened. 41-43. The station and order of the people in receiving of the law. 44, 45. The ministry of angels in the preparations for God’s glorious presence—How the people met God, and God them. 46. When Moses used these words, “I exceedingly fear and quake,” Heb, xii. 21.
1, THERE are in the Epistle [of Paul] unto the Hebrews either direct discourses concerning, or occasional mention is made of all, or at least the most important things in the whole Mosaical economy, and state of the church and worship of God therein under the old testament; yea, there is nothing material, from the call of Abraham unto the utmost issue of God’s dispensations towards his posterity, that is omitted by him:: And if we have not a previous acquaint- ance with these things, which he supposed in them to whom he wrote, much darkness and many mistakes must needs attend us in the consideration of what’ he treateth on, and the ends which he proposeth unto himself. Now, because it will no way be expe- dient, every time the mention of them doth occur, or allusion is made unto them, to insist upon them as first instituted, I thought meet, in the close of these prolegomena, to present the reader with a brief scheme and delineation of the whole Mosaical economy, as ‘also of those other previous concernments of the church, in the pos- terity of Abraham, which by the apostle in this Epistle we are called and directed unto. And they are these that follow:—l. The call and obedience of Abraham, chap. xi. 8-19. 2. The institution and observation of the passover, chap. xi. 28. 3. The giving of the law, chap. 1. 1, ii. 1, xu. 18-21, 25, 26. 4. The sanction of the law in promises and penalties, chap. ii. 2, iii, iv., x. 28. 5. The building of the tabernacle in the wilderness, and afterwards of the temple in answer thereunto, chap. iii. 3, 4, ix. 1-5, x. 19-22, with its uten- sils. 6. The calling, succession, and office of the high priest, chap.