[1.] There was the renovation of the rule of the covenant of works for righteousness and life. And this they would have to be given unto them for those ends, and so sought for righteousness by the works of the law,
[2.] There was ordained in it a typical representation of the way and means whereby the promise was to be made effectual, namely, in the mediation and sacrifice of Jesus Christ; which was the end of all their ordinances of worship. And the outward law thereof, with the observance of its institution, they looked on as their only relief when they came short of exact and perfect righteousness.
Against both these pernicious errors the apostle disputes expressly in his epistles unto the Romans and the Galatians, to save them, if it were possible, from that ruin they were casting themselves into. Hereon “the elect obtained,” but “the rest were hardened.” For hereby they made an absolute renunciation of the promise, wherein alone God had inwrapped the way of life and salvation.
This is the nature and substance of that covenant which God made with that people; a particular, temporary covenant it was, and not a mere dispensation of the covenant of grace.
That which remains for the declaration of the mind of the Holy Ghost in this whole matter, is to declare the differences that are between those two covenants, whence the one is said to be “better” than the other, and to be “ built upon better promises,”
Those of the church of Rome do commonly place this difference in three things: 1. In the promises of them: which in the old covenant were temporal only; in the new, spiritual and heavenly, 2. In the precepts of them: which under the old, required only external obedience, designing the righteousness of the outward
VER. 6.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 87
man; under the new, they are internal, respecting principally the inner man of the heart. 8. In their sacraments: for those under the old testament were only outwardly figurative; but those of the new are operative of grace.
But these things do not express much, if any thing at all, of what the Scripture placeth this difference in. And besides, as by some of them explained, they are not true, especially the two latter of them. For I cannot but somewhat admire how it came into the heart or mind of any man to think or say, that God ever gave a law or laws, precept or precepts, that should “respect the outward man only, and the regulation of external duties’ A thought of it is contrary unto all the essential properties of the nature of God, and meet only to ingenerate apprehensions of him unsuited unto all his glorious excellencies. The life and foundation of all the laws under the old testament was, “ Thou shalt love the Lorp thy God with all thy soul;” without which no outward obedience was ever accepted with him. And for the third of the supposed differences, neither were the sacraments of the law so barely “ figurative,” but that they did exhibit Christ unto believers: for “they all drank of the spiritual rock; which rock was Christ.” Nor are those of the gos- pel-so operative of grace, but that without faith they are useless unto them that do receive them.
The things wherein this difference doth consist, as expressed in the Scripture, are partly circwmstantial, and partly substantial, and may be reduced unto the heads ensuing :—
1. These two covenants differ in the circumstance of time as to their promulgation, declaration, and establishment. This difference
the apostle expresseth from the prophet Jeremiah, in the ninth verse of this chapter, where it must be more fully spoken unto. In brief, the first covenant was made at the time that God brought the chil- dren of Israel out of Egypt, and took its date-from the third month after their coming up from thence, Exod. xix., xxiv. From the time of what is reported in the latter place, wherein the people give their actual consent unto the terms of it, it began its formal obligation as a covenant. And we must afterwards inquire when it was abrogated and ceased to oblige the church. The new covenant was declared _ and made known “ in the latter days,” Heb.i 1, 2; “in the dispen- sation of the fulness of times,” Eph.i. 10. And it took date, as a covenant formally obliging the whole church, from the death, resur- rection, ascension of Christ, and sending of the Holy Ghost. I bring them all into the epocha of this covenant, because though principally it was established by the first, yet was it not absolutely obligatory as a covenant until after the last of them.
2, They differ in the circwmstance of place as to their promul-
gation; which the Scripture also taketh notice of. The first was
88 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP, VIII.
declared on mount Sinai; the manner whereof, and the station of the people in receiving the law, I have in my Exercitations unto the first part of this Exposition at large declared, and thither the reader is referred,’ Exod. xix. 18. The other was declared on mount Zion, and the law of it went forth from Jerusalem, Isa. ii. 3. This dif- ference, with many remarkable instances from it, our apostle insists on, Gal. iv, 24-26: “These are the two covenants; the one from mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.” That is, Agar, the bondwoman whom Abraham took before the heir of pro- mise was born, was a type of the old covenant given on Sinai, before the introduction of the new, or the covenant of promise; for so he adds: “ For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth unto Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.” This mount Sinai, where the old covenant was given, and which was re- presented by Agar, isin Arabia,—cast quite out of the verge and con- fines of the church, And it “answereth,” or “is placed in the same series, rank, and order with Jerusalem,” namely, in the opposition of the two covenants. Yor as the new covenant, the covenant of pro- mise, giving freedom and liberty, was given at Jerusalem, in the death and resurrection of Christ, with the preaching of the gospel which ensued thereon; so the old covenant, that brought the pepe into bondage, was given at mount Sinai in “Arabia