7. The first are of three sorts:—First, Of life temporal, as it was an instrument of their government; and eternal with God, as the promise or covenant of grace was exemplified or represented therein, Ley, xvii. 5; Ezek. xx. 11; Rom. x. 5; Gal. ii, 12. Secondly, Of a spiritual Redeemer, Saviour, Deliverer, really to effect what the ordinances of institution did represent, so to save them eternally, to be exhibited in the fulness of time, as we have at large already proved. Thirdly, There are given out with the law various pro- mises of intervenient and mixed mercies, to be enjoyed in earthly things in this world, that had their immediate respect unto the mercy of the land of Canaan, representing spiritual grace, annexed to the then present administration of the covenant of grace. Some of these concerned the collation of good things, others the prevent- ing of or delivery from’ evil; both expressed in great variety.
8. Of the promises whose accomplishment depended, by the in- stitution of God, on others, that is the principal, and comprehensive of the rest, which is expressed, Exod. xx. 12, “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land.” This, saith our apostle, is “the first commandment with promise,” Eph. vi. 2. Not that the foregoing precepts have no promises annexed to the ob- servation of them, nor merely because this hath a promise literally ex- pressed, but that it hath the special kind of promise, wherein parents, by God’s institution, had power to prolong the lives of obedient chil- dren: 12? 278), “ They shall prolong thy days,”—that is, negatively, in not cutting off their life for disobedience, which was then in the power of natural parents; and positively, by praying for their pro- sperity, blessing them in the name of God, and directing them into the ways and means of universal obedience, whereby their days might be multiplied; and on sundry other accounts.
9. For the penalties annexed unto the transgression of the law, which our apostle principally hath respect unto in his discourses on
502 THE SANCTION OF THE LAW [EXERO. XXI.
this subject, they will require a somewhat larger consideration, And they were of two sorts,—first, Such as God took upon himself to inflict; and, secondly, Such as he pin others to see unto the eins of,
The Frrst are of four sorts:—
First, That eternal punishment which he threatened unto them that transgressed and disannulled his covenant, as renewed and ordered in the administration of the law and the ordinances thereof. This we have manifested elsewhere to be the importance of the curse which every such transgressor was obnoxious unto,
Secondly, The punishment which the Jews express by n03 and mins, “excision,” or “cutting off” It is first mentioned Gen. xvii. 14, in the matter of circumcision; sometimes emphatically, Num, xv. 31,39737, “Cutting off that soul shall be cut off from among his people;” and frequently afterwards, Exod. xi 15, 19, xxxi. 14; Lev. xvii. 10, xx. 3, 5,6. It is rendered by the apostle Peter, “EZoAodpevdqceras, Acts ui, 23,—‘‘ Shall be destroyed from among the people;” that is, by the hand of God, as is declared 1 Cor. x. 10; Heb. xi. 28. Twenty-five times is this punishment threatened in the law,—-still unto such sins as disannul the covenant; which our apostle respects, chap. ii. 2, 3, as shall be declared on that place.
10. Now, this punishment the Jews generally agree to be ‘2 own, “by the hand of Heaven,” or that which God himself would immediately inflict ; and it is evidently declared so to be in the inter- pretation given of it, Lev. xvii. 10, xx. 4-6.
But what this punishment was, or wherein it did consist, neither Jews nor Christians are absolutely agreed, the latter on this subject doing little more than representing the opinions and judgments of the other; which course also we may follow. Some of them say that untimely death i is meant by it. So Abarbanel on Num, v. 22, 9) ayyp DY PIA ANON PAY WSY Si 7 ndya WP DIP inn) spin ;—“ It is the cutting off of the days of the sinner, and his death Waban the natural term of it, inflicted by the hand of Heaven.” This untimely death they reckon to be between the years of twenty and sixty; whence Schindler, “ m3, ‘exterminium,’ cum quis prematura morte, inter vigesimum et sexagesimum annum a Deo e medio tollitur, ita tamen ut relinquat liberos;”—“‘ Cutting off, is when any one is taken away by untimely death, between the twentieth and sixtieth year of his age, yet so as that he leave children.” That clause or con- dition, “So that yet he leave posterity” (or “children”) “ behind him,” is, as far as I can find, nowhere added by them, nor doth any thing in the Scripture give countenance thereunto; yea, many of the Hebrews think that this punishment consisted in this, that such an one should leave no children behind him, but that either he should be wholly érexvos, “ without children,” or if he had any before his
SECT. 10-12. ] IN PROMISES AND THREATENINGS. 503
sin, they should all die before him, and so his name and posterity be cut off,—which, say they, is to be “ cut off from among his people.” So Aben Ezra on Gen. xvii. 14. And this opinion is not without its countenance from the Scripture itself. And therefore Jarchi, on the same place, with much probability, puts both these together: “ He shall be cut off by untimely death, and leave no children behind him to continue his name or remembrance amongst the people.” mia x vow on sin 3 oo ww on Sas noo awn O29 we PNY oD, as they speak ;—“ He that hath no children is accounted as dead; but he that hath, is as if he lived, and his name is not cut off”