religion were enjoined. A priesthood and a complicated system of sacrifices were introduced. The promises were rendered more defi- nite, settincr forth more clearly by the instructions of the propliets the person and work of the coming Redeemer as the prophet, priest, and kino- of his people. The nature of the redemption He was to effect and the nature of the kingdom He was to establish were thus more and more clearly revealed. We have the direct authority of the New Testament for believing that the covenant of grace, or plan of salvation, thus underlay the whole of the institutions of the Mosaic period, and that their principal design was to teach through types and symbols what is now taught in explicit terms in the gospel. Moses, we are told (Heb. iii. 5), was faithful as a servant to testify concerning the things which were to be spoken after.
Besides this evangelical character which unquestionably belongs to the Mosaic covenant, it is presented in two other aspects in the Word of God. First, it was a national covenant with the Hebrew people. In this view the parties were God and the people of Israel; the promise was national security and prosperity; the condition was the obedience of the people as a nation to the Mosaic law ; and the mediator was Moses. In this aspect it was a legal covenant. It said, " Do this and live." Secondly, it contained, as does also the New Testament, a renewed proclamation of the original covenant of works. It is as true now as in the days of Adam, it always has been and always must be true, that rational creatures who perfectly obey the law of God are blessed in the enjoyment of his favour ; and that those who sin are subject to his wrath and curse. Our Lord assured the young man who came to Him for instruction that if he kept the commandments he should live. And Paul says (Rom. ii. 6) that God will render to every man according to his deeds ; tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil; but glory, honour, and peace to every man who worketh good. This arises fi'om the relation of intelligent creatures to God. It is in fact nothing but a declaration of the eternal and immutable principles of justice. If a man rejects or neglects the gospel, these are the principles, as Paul teaches in the opening chapters of his Epistle to the Romans, according to which he will be judged. If he will not be under grace, if he will not accede to the method of salvation by grace, he is of necessity under the law.
These different aspects under which the Mosaic economy is presented account for the apparently inconsistent way in which it is spoken of in the New Testament. (1.) When viewed in relation to the people of God before the advent, it is represented as divine
376 PART III. ch. n. — the covenant of grace.
and obligatory. (2.) When viewed in relation to the state of the Church after the advent, it is declared to be obsolete. It is repre- sented as the lifeless husk from which the living kernel and germ have been extracted, a bodj from which the soul has departed. (3.) When viewed according to its true import and design as a preparatory dispensation of the covenant of grace, it is spoken of as teaching the same gospel, the same method of 'salvation as that which the Apostles themselves preached. (4.) When viewed, in the light in which it was regarded by those who rejected the gospel, as a mere legal system, it was declared to be a ministration of death and condemnation. (2 Cor. iii. 6-18.) (5.) And when contrasted with the new or Christian economy, as a different mode of revealing the same covenant, it is spoken of as a state of tutelage and bondage, far different from the freedom and filial spirit of the dispensation under which we now live.
The Grospel Dispensation.
The gospel dispensation is called new in reference to the Mosaic economy, which was old, and about to vanish away. It is distin- guished from the old economy, —
1. In being catholic, confined to no one people, but designed and adapted to all nations and to all classes of men.
2. It is more spiritual, not only in that the types and ceremonies of the Old Testament are done away, but also in that the revela- tion itself is more inward and spiritual. What was then made known objectively, is now, to a greater extent, written on the heart. (Heb. viii. 8-11.) It is incomparably more clear and explicit in its teachings.
4. It is more purely evangelical. Even the New Testament, as we have seen, contains a legal element, it reveals the law still as a covenant of works binding on those who reject the gospel ; but in the New Testament the gospel greatly predominates over tlie law. Whereas, under the Old Testament, the law predominated over the gospel.
5. The Christian economy is specially the dispensation of the Spirit. The great blessing promised of old, as consequent on the coming of Christ, was the effusion of the Spirit on all flesh, i. e., on all nations and on all classes of men. This was so distinguish- ing a characteristic of the Messianic period that the evangelist gays, " The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." (John vii. 39.) Our Lord promised that after his death and ascension He would send the Comforter, the