shall come to that better land, where " there shall no more be the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts." Even in this world we are taught that such a period shall arrive r : but, if not permitted to behold it here, we shall assuredly behold it in the world above, where " former things shall have passed away, and sin and sorrow shall be found no mores." "Where- fore comfort ye one another with these words."]
r Zech. xiv. 21. s Rev. xxi. 4.
Exod. xxiv. 6 — 8. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basons; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people : and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.
OF such terrible majesty is God, that none could behold his face and live. Even in his most conde- scending intercourse with men, he has made them to feel, that he is " a God greatly to be feared, and to be had in reverence of all them that are round about him." When he descended on Mount Sinai, to proclaim his law, all the people of Israel en- treated that he would not speak to them any more, except through the intervention of a Mediator. He was graciously pleased to make further communica- tions to his people, and to enter into a covenant with them : but here a select number only were permitted to approach him, and of them none but Moses was suffered to " come near unto him."
The covenant which he made with them, is the subject now before us: and we shall consider it in a two-fold view:
I. As made with Israel —
An altar being built, together with twelve pillars, the one to represent Jehovah, and the other the twelve tribes of Israel, the covenant was,
1. Made—
96.] god's COVENANT WITH ISRAEL. 459
[God, as the author of that covenant, declared by Moses the terms on which he would acknowledge Israel as his peculiar people. Moses had written in a book the laws which God had made known to him, the moral, the ceremonial, the judicial; and all these he read in the audience of the people. To these, in the name of God, he required a cheerful and uniform obe- dience : and, upon their obedience to these, God promised on his part to favour them with his continued protection, and with the ultimate and peaceful enjoyment of the promised land. Thus was care taken that they should know to what they were to subscribe, and that their future welfare depended on their fidelity to their own engagements.
The people on their part gave their consent to the terms prescribed : and this they did in the most solemn manner. In declaring their acceptance of the covenant they were unani- mous, cordial, unreserved. There was not one dissentient voice. They had repeatedly before engaged to do whatever the Lord should enjoin a; but here they do it with additional force and emphasis b. Nor do they make the least exception to any one thing as burthensome or oppressive. In the most unqualified manner they bind themselves to a perfect and perpetual obe- dience ; " All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient."]
2. Ratified—
[From the very time that God first set apart Abraham to be the progenitor of his peculiar people to the time when that people were carried captive to Babylon, it seems to have been customary to confirm covenants by sacrifices ; which, when slain, were divided into parts placed opposite to each other ; and then the parties covenanting passed between those parts, and thereby pledged themselves to a faithful observance of the covenant c. But in this instance solemnities were used, which shewed that the sacrifices were essential to the covenant itself. God could not enter into covenant with sinners till an atonement had been offered for their sins. And now that this atonement was offered, one half of the blood of the sacrifices was poured upon the altar, to evince that God was reconciled to them ; and the remainder was sprinkled upon the book and upon the people, in order to seal upon their hearts and consciences his pardoning love, and to remind them, that all their hope in that covenant de- pended on the blood of atonement with which it was sprinkled.]