Exercitation 19

Ordinances and Institutions of the Judaical Church respected and unfolded in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Principal heads of them mentioned therein. The call of Abraham, Hebrews 11:8, 9, &c. The foundation of the Church in his posterity. The name of Abram; signification of it. Changed into Abraham; its signification. The time of his birth and death. From where called. Ur of the Chaldees where. And Haran. Extent of Mesopotamia. Moses and Stephen reconciled. Abraham before his call infected with idolatry. Time of his call. Institution of circumcision. End and use of it. Time of the Israelites sojourning in Egypt, Genesis 11:13, Exodus 12:40, 41, Acts 7:6, Galatians 3:17, reconciled. The beginning and ending of the 430 years. The fatal period of changes in that Church. Institution of the Passover. The time of its celebration. The month. Time of the day — between the evenings, when. The occasion and nature of this ordinance. The matter of it. The manner of its observance. Sundry things suited to its first celebration, not afterward observed. The number required at the eating of the Lamb. By whom it was killed. Where. How dressed. Jewish traditions rejected. The feast of unleavened bread. Its rites. Excision to the neglect of what ordinances annexed. Jews acknowledge the figurative nature of this ordinance. Of frontlets and phylacteries, Exodus 23:9. Signs and memorials. The sections of the Law written in the frontlets. The Jews' manner of making their phylacteries: deceits therein. Their trust in them: so proved by our Savior. Of their fringes, their appointment, making and use. Dedication of the first-born males to God. Price of the redemption of children: close of God's first dispensation towards that Church. The solemn [illegible]. Preparations for it. Remote. Occasional temporary institutions between the Red Sea and Sinai. Of the waters of Marah. The giving of Manna. Derivation and signification of the name. Water brought out of the rock. That rock Christ. Immediate preparations for the receiving of the Law. The time that the people came to Sinai. The day. The time of the day that the appearance of God's glory began. The same time that Christ rose from the dead. The place. Sinai the name of the mountain, Horeb of the wilderness. Of the monastery there. Moses' first ascent. The ground of it. The people prepared by the remembrance of mercies and promises. Of their washing their clothes. Not a baptism of standing use. Bounds set to the mount. In what sense it might be touched: Hebrews 12:21. How the offender was to be punished — [illegible] opened. The station and order of the people in receiving of the Law. The ministry of angels in the preparations for God's glorious presence. How the people met God, and God them. When Moses used those words, I exceedingly fear and quake.

There are in the Epistle to 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. Yes, there is nothing material from the call of Abraham, to the utmost issue of God's dispensations towards his posterity, that is omitted by him. And if we have not a previous acquaintance 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 to himself. Now because it will no way be expedient, every time the mention of them does occur, or allusion is made to 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 posterity of Abraham, which by the Apostle in this Epistle we are called and directed to. And they are these that follow.

1. The call and obedience of Abraham, chap. 11. v. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

2. The institution and observation of the Passover, chap. 11. v. 28.

3. The giving of the Law, chap. 1. v. 1. chap. 2. v. 1. chap. 12. v. 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26.

4. The sanction of the Law in promises and penalties, chap. 2. v. 2, 21. chap. 3. chap. 4. chap. 10. v. 28.

5. The building of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and afterwards of the Temple in answer thereunto, chap. 3. v. 3, 4. chap. 9. v. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. chap. 10. v. 19, 20, 21, 22. with its utensils.

6. The calling, succession and office of the High Priest, chap. 7. v. 16, 17, 21, 23. chap. 8. v. 3, 4, 5.

7. The sacrifices and services of them both, chap. 8. v. 3, 5. chap. 9. v. 6, 7, 10, 12, 13. chap. 10. v. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11. chap. 13. v. 11, 12.

It is plain and evident, that under these heads all the principal concernments of the ancient Church, with the worship and rule of God therein are comprised; and they are all of them reflected on, most of them explained, and applied to Gospel-ends by our Apostle. However I shall not in our present consideration of them, engage in the exposition of the particular places in the Epistle where they are treated on, which is to be done elsewhere; but only represent them, as they are expressed in their institution and transaction in the Old Testament, so to make way to a right conception of them, as they are mentioned and made use of in the New.

§ 2 Many of these things, I acknowledge, especially those concerning the Temple, its Fabrick, and its Worship, have been so largely discussed by others, as that I should judge my endeavours, in a review of them, altogether needless, would the nature of our present design admit of its forbearance. For besides what has been formerly attempted, with excellent success, with reference to the Fabrick of Divine Worship, and the Ceremonies thereof from the Scripture, Josephus, and the latter Jewish Masters, by Ahubensci, Arius Montanus, Villalpandus, Capellus, Ribera Constantine Emperour, Broughton, Ainsworth, Weemse, Rivet, and all learned Expositors on these parts of holy Writ, where these things are recorded, there are also some of late, who among ourselves have travelled with much diligence in this subject; Persons worthily skilled in, and industriously improving their knowledge of all that learning which is needful to the due and accurate handling of this subject, and that in discourses. But as things are fallen out, considering the necessity of this discourse to my present design, and that most of the things in our proposal from the Epistle above mentioned, are such as fell not under the consideration of those learned persons, nor are handled by them; and that I design not an exact examination of the particular concernments of all these things, with a discussion of the Reasons and Arguments wherewith various apprehensions of them are attested, but only to represent such a scheme of them to the Reader, as may enable him to judge aright of the references of the Apostle to them, and of the use that he puts them to, I shall proceed in my designed way.

§ 3 First, then the call of Abraham, which was the foundation whereon all the following Administrations of God towards his Posterity, and his whole Worship among them, were built, is excellently and fully described by our Apostle, chap. 11. v. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. By faith Abraham, when he was called, to go out into a place which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went (Genesis 11:4). By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Genesis 12:13, 14). Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised (Genesis 17:19; chap. 21. v. 2). Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea-shore innumerable (v. 13. v. 16; Genesis 15:5). These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth (Genesis 23:4; chap. 47:9; 1 Chronicles 29:15). For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country; and truly if they had been mindful of that from where they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned (Genesis 24:5, 6, 7). But now they desire a better, that is, an heavenly; therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he had prepared for them a city. By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac, and (or even) he that received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, In Isaac shall your seed be called (so that he was his only begotten with respect to the promise, Genesis 21:12; chap. 22. v. 9). Accounting that God was able even to raise him up from the dead, from where also he received him in a figure.

The design of the Apostle in this discourse is to set forth and commend the faith of Abraham, from the fruits and effects of it, in the whole course of his obedience; but he builds it upon, and resolves it into his call: By faith Abraham being CALLED. Neither is it my present purpose to open particularly the discourse of the Apostle, which must be referred to its proper place; only because what we do now, is in a subserviency to the right understanding of this Epistle, I have laid down this account given us therein of the call of Abraham, and his faith and obedience, shown as the reason of our insisting on it, and the foundation whereon what we do therein is built. Neither shall I now at large declare the nature of this Call of Abraham, with the several occurrencies that accompanied it; partly because it is already touched upon in a former Exercitation, and partly because I have elsewhere handled it more largely, and cleared it from the corrupt traditions and opinions of the Jews concerning it. But because this was the root on which the Judaical Church did grow, the stock whereinto all Mosaical Institutions of worship were inserted and grafted, it is necessary that we give a brief historical account concerning it.

Abraham; he was first called by his Parents [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩]Abram; that is, an High Father; not without a signal presaging providence of God. For as of old they gave significant names to their children, so therein they had respect to their present condition, or some prospect they had given them by the Spirit of God of things future, wherein they or theirs should be concerned. So have we the reasons given us of the names of Cain (Genesis 4:5), of Seth (Genesis 4:28), of Noah (Genesis 5:29), of Peleg (Genesis 10:25), and of sundry others. And if we may not suppose that the Parents of Abraham were directed to give him this name of an High Father, by the Spirit of Prophesie, yet considering it suitableness to what God had designed him for, and its readiness to yield to that Change which God made afterwards in it, to a great strengthning of his faith and significancy in a way of instruction to future generations, we must grant that it was done by the designing holy wise Providence of God. For he was an High Father indeed, as being the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. In process of time, upon the solemn establishment of the Covenant with him, God change this name of [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] into [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] (Genesis 17:5). Neither shall your name any more be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. And on the like account did God also change the names of some other persons, or superadded new names to those whereby they were called before, as of Israel to Jacob (Genesis 33:28), upon his prevalency with God as a Prince; Jedidiah to Solomon (2 Samuel 12:25), because the Lord loved him. And many doubtless had new names given to them by themselves or others, or some letter or syllable changed in their names, withall altering their signification, upon emergent occasions. Hence have we so many in the Old Testament, whom we find in several places expressed by divers names, or varied in one place from another. Now this change in the name of Abraham was not, as the Jews fancy, to honor him with the addition of a letter out of the Tetragrammaton; but for the addition of a new Prophetical significancy to it; as God himself expresly declares, Your name shall be [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩]Abraham, for a father of a multitude of nations have I made you. According as he said before, v. 3, You shall be a father of a multitude of nations, [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] in his name denoting [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] a multitude, that is, of Nations, God himself expounding his own intention and design. And herein is a solemn prefiguration of the implanting of Believers of all Nations, into the Covenant and Faith of Abraham; for this name he received upon the solemn establishment of the Covenant with him, as the Apostle explains the place (Romans 4:11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17). All then that believe, are taken into the Covenant of Abraham. And as to the priviledges of it, and inheritance to be obtained by it, they are no less his children and heirs, then those who proceeded from his loins according to the flesh, as has been manifested in our Exercitation concerning the Oneness of the Church. And herein also God manifested what was his design in his Call, and separation to himself, even to make and constitute him, and his Posterity, the means of bringing forth the promised seed, wherein all Nations were to be blessed.

Abraham being the tenth generation from Noah, exclusivè, was the son of Terah, of whom it is said (Genesis 11:26) that Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor and Haran: not doubtless in the same year, but then the eldest of them was born, who ever he was. If Abraham was the eldest, as he is first expressed, he was born 292 years after the flood, in the three hundred ninety second year of the life of Shem, who outlived him thirty five years. And he was the sixth from Heber, born in the two hundred twenty fifth year of his age, who continuing longest of all the Postdiluvian Patriarchs, outlived Abraham about sixty four years. But there is a difficulty in this account. For if Abraham was born in the seventieth year of the age of Terah: Terah living in all two hundred and five years, Abraham at the death of Terah must needs be one hundred thirty five years of age. But the Scripture says expresly that at his departure out of Haran, upon the death of his Father, he was no more but seventy five years old. And if he was seventy five years old at the death of his Father who lived two hundred and five years, he must be born in the one hundred and thirtieth of his Fathers life, and not before; which carries on his birth and death sixty years beyond the former account. So that he outlived Shem twenty five years, and dyed only four years before Heber. Although therefore he be mentioned before Haran (Genesis 11:26), yet indeed Haran was the Eldest Son of Terah, and born before Abraham sixty years. And it appears in the Story, that Lot and Sarah who were the Children of Haran (if Sarah was the Ischa mentioned, as most suppose she was (Genesis 11:29)) were not much younger then Abraham himself. For when Abraham was an hundred years old, Sarah was ninety (Genesis 17:17), and Lot may well be supposed to be Elder then she; so that of Necessity Haran must be many years elder then Abraham, even no less then sixty, as we have declared.

§ 6 His nativity and education was in Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis 11:28, 31). This place is said to be, on the other side of the flood, [in non-Latin alphabet]; or the River (Joshua 24:2), that is, from the Land of Canaan on the other side of the great River Euphrates eastward. It was so also of Tygris, on the East of Aram Naharaim, or Mesopotamia, properly so called; which is not insisted on, because Abraham came over Tygris to Haran with his Father Terah. He came out, says Stephen, from the Land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Canaan (Acts 7:4). He says indeed, that before he came to Canaan, he dwelt in Mesopotamia (v. 2), wherein Haran was also. For the name of Mesopotamia was given of old to all the adjacent regions, even to the Persian Sea. So does Pliny evidently, lib. 6. cap. 26: Mesopotamia tota Assyriorum fuit vicatim dispersa, praeter Babylona, & Ninum. All Mesopotamia belonged to the Assyrians, and consisted of scattered villages, unless it were Babylonia and the country about Nineveh. And again, Reliqua pars Mesopotamiae Assyriaeque-Babylonia appellata est. So that he equals Mesopotamia with Assyria; which how great a tract of those regions it comprehended, is manifest from Ptolomy, Strabo and others. Eupolemus in Eusebius, praeparat. Evang. l. 9. placeth [in non-Latin alphabet], Ura in Babylonia: and there also Pliny mentioneth Ura upon the banks of Euphrates, lib. 5. cap. 24: Fertur Euphrates usque ad Uram. But this seems not to be the Ur where Abraham dwelt. Nor was there any reason that in a design for Canaan, he should remove from any part of Babylonia upon Euphrates to Charan. It is more likely to be the place mentioned by Ammianus lib. 5, where he says, that the Romans in six days came from Corduena in Armenia, ad Ur nomine, Persicum Castellum; to Ur a Persian Castle. And this he placeth between Nisibis and Tygris, and was not far from the place, where it is probably supposed that the Ark rested after the flood; the family of Heber keeping their first seat, not accompanying the [in non-Latin alphabet] or Sons of men (Genesis 11:2, 3, 4), those wicked apostates who went from the East, to find a place to fix the seat of their rebellion against God. Broughton contends, that Ur was in the vale of the Chaldaeans, that is in Babylonia, a very little way, or some few miles from Charan; averring, that Stephen cannot otherwise be defended, who affirms, that he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charan. But as this defence of Stephen is needless, seeing as we have manifested, he took Mesopotamia in a large sense, as others did also, giving the same extent to it with Assyria, the denomination arising from the most eminent and fruitful of these regions: so the removal of a little way, or a few miles, answers not that description which the Holy Ghost gives us of the journey (Genesis 11:31). And Terah took Abraham his Son, and Lot the Son of Haran, and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the Land of Canaan, and they came to Haran and dwelt there. Their design was to go to Canaan: and as the Ura which was in Babylonia was situated on this side of Euphrates as Pliny testifies, so that Abraham could not go from there to Canaan by Haran, but he must twice needlessly pass with all his family over Euphrates, so the expression of their journeying to Haran will not suit to any imaginary Ur within a few miles of it. Nor is it any weight that it is called Ur of the Chaldees, whose proper seat was in Babylonia, and not extended much farther eastward, seeing if the Chaldees, as is most probable, were called Chasdim, as they are constantly, from [in non-Latin alphabet] Chesed the Son of Nachor the Brother of Abraham, there must of necessity be allowed a historical prolepsis in the words; and that is called Ur of the Chaldees, from where the Chaldees were afterwards to have their original, who in time possessed Babylonia and the parts adjacent.

While Abraham lived with his progenitors in Ur, there is no doubt but he § 7 was with them infected with much false worship and idolatry; for so Joshua affirms expressly, that they served [in non-Latin alphabet] (chap. 24:3), even those, whose worship God afterwards prohibited in the first precept of the Law; [in non-Latin alphabet], there shall not be to you other Gods; those, or such as those, whom they served beyond the flood. Other Gods are all false gods. The Jews' imagination about the discovery made by Abraham of the true God, his renunciation of all idolatry thereon, with the breaking of his father's images, and his being cast for that cause by Nimrod into the fire, all about the forty-fourth year of his age, I have considered and exploded elsewhere. And all these figments with that of Haran's being consumed by fire in the sight of his father, they withdraw from the supposed signification of the name [in non-Latin alphabet]; which they would have to signify fire (Genesis 11:28), but as where it relates to the Chaldeans (Ur of the Chaldees) it is apparently the name of a place, a town, or country, so it rather signifies a valley, than fire. And those words (Isaiah 24:3), [in non-Latin alphabet], which we translate in the text, Therefore glorify you the Lord in the fires, may be better read as in the margin, in the valleys, which better answers to the following words: And the name of the Lord God of Israel in the Isles of the Sea. At what year of his age he left Ur with his father is not expressed. But it is apparent, that it was towards the latter end of the life of Terah; even after the death of Haran his eldest son; and that Nahor and Abraham were married to Milcha and Isca his daughters, and Sara had continued barren some remarkable space of time (Genesis 11:28, 29, 30, 31, 32).

From Ur therefore, with his Father, and the rest of their family, he removed to Haran with a design for Canaan (Genesis 11:31). Where this Haran was situated, we before declared. Stephen calls it [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], Charran; and so do the Latin Writers: Assyrias Latio maculavit sanguine Charras; says Lucan, of the overthrow of Crassus's Army near that place. And it may be pronounced either way in the Original, from the ambiguous force of the Hebrew Cheth, which seems best expressed by Charan. How long he stayed here is uncertain, as was said before. That it was not very long appears, from his marrying and the barrenness of Sarah, before he came there. And yet, that they abode there some years is no less evident, from Chap. 12. v. 5. Abraham took Sarai his Wife, and Lot his Brother's Son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls or servants that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the Land of Canaan. It is not the work of a few days or months that is here described. This gathering of substance and getting of souls, was a business of some years; of how many it is uncertain. What was the design of Terah in his attempt to go for the Land of Canaan is not absolutely certain. The especial call of Abraham to that country could not be the bottom of it: for it is most probable, yes, indeed undeniable, that this he had not, until after the death of Terah. It was therefore an act of theirs in answer to the providence of God in a subserviency to that future call, that he might be in more readiness to yield obedience to it, than he could have been in the Land of Ur. Whether Terah did merely seek a new habitation, in a country less peopled than that of his nativity, which doubtless then was the most populous part of the world, as being near the place where mankind first planted after the flood; or whether he might be instructed in the ancient promise, that the posterity of Canaan the Son of Cham who had then possessed the country called after his name, should be servants to the seed of Shem, from whom he was a principal descendant, I know not. In answer to the call of Abraham it could not be; for he was called to leave his Father's House (Chap. 12:1), and not to bring his Father with his household with him, and that at the seventy-fifth year of his age, when Terah was dead: but whatever was the occasion of it, the providence of God used it in the serving of its designs towards Abraham. And here in Haran, if I may be allowed to conjecture, it is probable, that God gave him light into the evil of those superstitions wherein he was educated, revealed himself as the only true God, and so prepared him for his call to the tedious journeying, and long peregrination that ensued thereon.

When his Father Terah was dead, and himself seventy-five years old (Chap. 12:14), God called him to himself, and entered into Covenant with him in the promise of the Land of Canaan (v. 7). And this call of his, was the great foundation whereon God afterwards built the whole structure of his worship under the Old Testament. For herein he both appropriated the promise of the Messiah to him, designing his person as the spring, from whom he should proceed according to the flesh, and set both him and his posterity apart, to be visibly subservient to the great design of his grace in the accomplishment of the promise of a Deliverer made to our first Parents. This we have elsewhere at large declared, and showed how that after his call, every thing was disposed to a significancy of that which was for to come, and was suited for a continuance to that season, and no longer.

§ 10 When Abraham was ninety and nine years old, that is also he had been twenty four years in the Land of Canaan. The Lord confirms his Covenant with him and his seed, by the sign and token of Circumcision (Genesis 17:8, 9, 10, 11, 12), which Paul calls the seal of the righteousness of faith (Romans 4:12), because God thereby confirmed and assured to him an interest in the promised seed, who is the Lord our Righteousness (Isaiah 45:24, 25; Jeremiah 23:6). And because he had accepted of the righteousness and salvation which in, and by him, God had prepared for sinners, in believing the promise (Genesis 15:6). And herein did God manifest that he took his seed together with him into the Covenant, as those, who no less than himself, were to be made partakers of the righteousness exhibited therein, as also to be used for the channel where the holy seed was to be carried on; until the Word was to take it and to be made flesh (John 1:14; Mark 1:1; Romans 9:5). And by this Ordinance of Circumcision, were his posterity separated from the rest of the world, and united among themselves. For however Ishmael, and Esau carried the outward sign of circumcision out of the pale and limits of the Church communicating it to the Nations that sprang of them to this day, to whose observance they also adhere, who being of another extract, have received the Law of Mahomet, who was of the offspring of persecuting Ishmael, as the Turks and Persians, with very many of the Indians; yet their observance of it, was never under the Law of God, nor accepted with him, but is rather accursed by him. But as it was continued in the posterity of Abraham according to the promise, it was the fundamental uniting principle of the Church among them, though dispersed into innumerable particular families. For as there were as many Churches before, as there were families, Ecclesiastical and Oeconomical or paternal Rule, being the same, now the Covenant being one, and the token of the Covenant being one and the same, to all the families that sprang of Abraham, which in their several generations were as the sands of the Sea shore, or as the Stars for multitude, were incorporated into one body among themselves, and separated from all the rest of the world. Not that this Ordinance alone was sufficient to constitute the whole Nation one Ecclesiastical Body or Church, which was done by the following Institutions of Worship, but that the foundation thereof was first laid herein. Neither without some such general initiation into union could it have been orderly accomplished. And as it was the glory of the people of old while they walked in the steps of the faith of Abraham: so it was the carnal boast of their degenerate posterity. Hence have we so often mention of those who were uncircumcised, in the way of reproach and contempt; and when they renewed the administration of it among themselves, upon their first entrance into the Land of Canaan after its commission in the Wilderness, it is said, that they rolled away the reproach of Egypt (Joshua 5:9), because they were now no more as the Egyptians, uncircumcised. And it was their glory, both because God made it the token of his receiving them to be his peculiar people out of all the Nations of the Earth, as also because it was the pledge of their obedience to God, which is the glory of any person or people. But their posterity being carnal, and degenerating from the faith and obedience of Abraham, having quite lost the grace betokened by it, which as Moses often declares to them, was the circumcision of their hearts to hear and obey the voice of God, did yet, and do yet, to this day, boast of it as a sign of their separation to God from other people: not considering that these things were mutual, answering one another, and that this latter is nothing, where the former is not also attended to.

And these are the chief heads that are looked upon by our Apostle in the Call of Abraham, which also we have been more brief in the explication of, because its consideration has elsewhere occurred to us. Now from this Call of Abraham to the deliverance of the Children of Israel out of Aegypt, was as Moses assures us, four hundred and thirty years (Exodus 12:40, 41), and so says our Apostle (Galatians 3:17). But because the Lord tells Abraham, that his posterity should be afflicted in a strange land four hundred years (Genesis 11:13), which words are repeated by Stephen in his Sermon to the Jews (Acts 7:6), the reason of this different account may be briefly enquired after. Here is a double limitation of time, 1. of four hundred and thirty years by Moses, and Paul. 2. Of four hundred years, by God himself to Abraham, repeated by Stephen: The words of Moses are recorded (Exodus 12:40, 41): Now the sojournings of the Children of Israel, in Aegypt, were four hundred and thirty years; and it came to pass, at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even on the self same day, it came to pass, that all the Hosts of the Lord went out of the Land of Aegypt. It is evident that there is an ambiguity in the words of Moses, for if [in non-Latin alphabet] the sojourning, or dwelling in the beginning of the verse do relate to [in non-Latin alphabet], dwelt in Aegypt, it can design no longer space of time then they dwelt there after the descent of Jacob, which by an evident computation of the times, containeth but half the space limited, of four hundred and thirty years. If it refer only to the children of Israel, then it takes in all the sojournings and peregrinations of that people who dwelt in Aegypt, from the first day of their being the people of God. Now this ambiguity is perfectly removed by our Apostle (Galatians 3:16, 17): Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made; and the Covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the Law which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disannul. The giving of the Law, was, as we shall see, immediately upon their coming out of Egypt; and says he, the 430 years are to be reckoned from the Call of Abraham, when God first entered into Covenant with him (Genesis 12:2, 3). From there to the departure out of Egypt, and the giving of the Law that ensued, are 430 years. It is evident then, that by the sojourning and peregrination of the children of Israel, not their mere abode in Egypt, which after their going down (Genesis 46) was only 215 years, or thereabouts; but the whole course of that people, after they were in Abraham called from their own country and a certain habitation therein, until their leaving of Egypt, in order to their taking possession of the land of Canaan as a perpetual inheritance (that is commensurate to the duration of the especial Covenant made with them) is intended. It remains then that we consider the other space of time assigned by God in vision to Abraham, for the affliction of his seed under persecution, namely, four hundred years (Genesis 11:13). Now herein, either the round number of 400 is put for 430, or 30 years are to be abated out of the latter number, for some special cause and reason. The former seems not probable, because Moses does so emphatically note that it was in the four hundred and thirtieth year, that very same day, or night, and therefore 30 years must be taken of, either from the beginning or end of the latter number. To detract it from the end there is no reason; nor will Moses his exact observation of that period allow us so to do. It must therefore be from the beginning. Now this prediction of God to Abraham, about the affliction or persecution of his seed for 400 years, was given him before the birth of Isaac, who being of his seed according to the promise, was to have his share in this affliction; yes, it was to begin with him. He was born, as was proved, 25 years after the promise; so that the 30 years to be taken off from the 430 fall out in the fifth year of his life; which was the time when the persecution began in the mocking of Ishmael (Genesis 21:9), which the Apostle expressly calls persecution, and that upon the account of Isaac's being the heir of the promise (Galatians 4:29). There began the 400 years of their affliction, which ended with the 430 of their peregrination.

In the faith of Abraham, manifested in his obedience to the Call of God, resting on the promise of the blessing by Christ, and in the observation of this ordinance of Circumcision, whereby they were separated to God, and united among themselves, did this people continue, without the addition of any new ordinance of worship for the supportment of their faith, or enlargement of their light, or outward profession of their separation to God to the expiration of 430 years; and this period of time proved afterwards fatal to them, not exactly and absolutely, but in some kind of proportion. For from hence to the building of the Temple by Solomon was 480 years. The duration of that Temple was 415 years. Of the latter, built in the room thereof, somewhat above 500. Some peculiar space being given them beyond their former trials, before their utter destruction.

At the expiration of the period of time discoursed on, our Apostle tells us (Hebrews 11:28) that by faith Moses kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-born, should touch them. This was the second ordinance of common use to the Church, and appropriated to them, which God instituted among them. The story of its institution, and manner of its celebration are at large insisted on (Exodus 12).

§ 14 The time of its institution, and annual celebration, is exactly noted in the Scripture. It was the night before the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt, which is from there called [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] (Exodus 12:42) a night of observances, to the Lord, that is, wherein his institutions of this ordinance were to be observed with great care and diligence. And this night fell in directly upon the expiration of the 430 years before limited, verse 40, 41. For the time of the year, it was in the month [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] Abib, as the Hebrews call the month of the spring, which in those Eastern parts gave blades to the corn, and other fruits of the earth (Exodus 13:4, 23:15, 34:18; Deuteronomy 16:1), which afterwards by a Chaldee name was called Nisan (Nehemiah 2:1; Esther 3:7), and it answered partly to our March, partly to April, beginning before or at the Vernal Equinox, according to the distance of any year from the Embolisinical year. And from hence this month was appointed to be [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] the head, chief or principal of the months (Exodus 12:2), and so consequently the beginning of the year to them; for before this, their year began and ended in September, upon the gathering in of the fruits of the earth (Exodus 23:16), being the time, as most of the present Jews suppose, wherein the world was created. Neither yet was this change absolute to all ends and purposes, but only as to ecclesiastical observances, and feasts, that depended on their distance from this of the Passover. For their civil year, as to contracts, debts and liberties, continued still to begin in September, with their Jubilees (Leviticus 25:8, 9, 10). And from that beginning of the year, most probably, are the months to be reckoned that are mentioned in the continuance and ending of the flood (Genesis 7:11). See Joseph. liber. 1. chap. 4.

§ 15 For the time of the day wherein the Lamb was to be slain, it is designed to be [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] between the two evenings of the 14 day, of the first month. Some of the Jews, as Kimchi, make these two evenings to be, the first declining of the Sun, which began the evening or afternoon, and the setting of the Sun which closes it, answering the ancient division of the day, into morning and evening; so that it might be done by this rule, in any time of the afternoon, though it always followed the evening sacrifice, at the 9th hour, or 3 of the clock. Others, as Aben-Ezra, make the first evening to be the setting of the Sun, the other the departure of all light. And the Jews have a distinction of the day, wherein they call this space of it [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] between the two evenings, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] between the two Suns. So they express themselves in Talmud. Hieros. Berach. cap. 1. [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] All the space of time wherein the face of the East is red, is called day; when it begins to wax pale, it is called between the Suns; (the same with between the evenings) and when it waxeth black, the upper Firmament being like the lower, it is night.

§ 16 The occasion of the institution of this Ordinance, is so fully and plainly declared in Exodus and Deuteronomy, that we shall not need to enlarge upon it. In brief, God being about to accomplish his great work of delivering the people out of Egypt, he thought meet to conjoin together his greatest mercy towards them, and his greatest plague upon their enemies. To this end he gives command to the destroying Angel, to pass through the Land, and to slay all the first-born therein, from his who sate upon the Throne, to the meanest person belonging to the body of that Nation. And although he might have preserved the Israelites from this destruction by the least intimation of his will to the Instruments used therein, yet having respect to the furtherance of their faith and obedience, as also designing their instruction in the way and means of their eternal salvation, he chose to do it by this Ordinance of the Passover. The form of this service is given us (Exodus 12:27), it is called [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] Pesach: and the reason of it is subjoined; for the Lord [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] Pasach passed over the houses of Israel. [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] is to pass on by leaping, making as it were a halt in any place, and then leaping over that which is next. From where he that goes halting is called [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] Pisseach; one that as it were leaps on, from one leg to the other. Some of the Ancients call it Phase; Cheth being only not pronounced. The Greeks retain the name, but corrupt it into [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], and are followed by the Latines, who call it Pascha. Hence after the Apostle had applied this Feast and Sacrifice to the Lord Christ (1 Corinthians 5:7), and Christians began to celebrate the commemoration of the Passion and Suffering of Christ, at the time of the year when that was observed, many both of the Greeks and Latins began to think, that the word was derived from [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], Patior, to suffer, as both Augustin, and Gregory Nazianzen, Serm. de Pasch. do declare, who both of them refute that imagination. The general nature of it was [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] a sacrifice, v. 22, and [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] a feast, v. 14. A sacrifice from the slaying and offering of the Lamb, which was done afterwards for the people by the Levites; and a feast from the joy and remission of labor wherewith the annexed solemnities were to be observed. The matter of it was [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] Saeh, v. 3, that is, a young Lamb or Kid; a male without blemish, for either might be used in this service, v. 5. The manner of the service was, 1. In the Preparation, the Lamb or Kid was to be taken into custody on the tenth day of the month, and kept therein four days, v. 6, which, as the Jews say, was partly that they might discern perfectly whether it had any blemish or no; partly that they might by the sight of the Lamb be minded of their duty, and the mercy of their deliverance. Indeed it was, that it might prefigure the imprisonment of the Lamb of God (Isaiah 53:7, 8), who took away the sins of the world. This preparation, the Jews say, was temporary, and observed only at the first Institution of the Ordinance in Egypt, and that partly lest in their haste they should not otherwise have been able to prepare their Lambs. So also was the sprinkling of the blood on the posts of the doors of their dwelling houses, v. 7, with Hysop, which could not be afterwards observed, when by God's Institution the whole Congregation were to celebrate it in one place; and it had respect to their present deliverance from the destroying Angel, v. 12, and 13. In like manner was their eating it, with their loins girt, their shoes on their feet, and their staves in their hands, v. 11, that they might be in a readiness for their immediate departure, which was not afterwards observed by our Lord Jesus Christ, nor any of the Church. For these signs ceased with the present occasions of them. 2. This Lamb was to be provided for each household, v. 3, 4, which was the third distribution of that people, the first being into Tribes, and the second into Families, from the twelve Patriarchs and their immediate Sons (Joshua 7:16, 17, 18). But because there was an allowance to make their company proportionable to their provision of a Lamb, joining or separating households, v. 4, they ate it afterwards in Societies or Fraternities; as our Savior had twelve with him at the eating of it. And the Jews require ten at least in Society to this celebration. From where the Targum expressly on this place (Exodus 12:4), If the men of the house be fewer than the number of ten; for this was a sacred number with them. They Circumcise not, Marry not, Divorce not, unless ten be present. From there is their saying in Pirke Aboth, where ten sit and learn the Law, the divine presence resteth on them, as (Psalm 82:1). 3. The Lamb being provided was to be killed, and it was directed that the whole Assembly of the Congregation of Israel should kill it, v. 6, that is, every one for himself and family. But after the giving of the Law, and the erection of a Priesthood in the Church, this work, as it was a Sacrifice, was left to the Priests (2 Chronicles 35:1, 2, 3, 4, 5). 4. The place where it was to be killed, was at first in their several houses, or whereever the Assembly of the people was; but this afterwards was forbidden, and the Sacrifice of the Passover confined expressly to the place where the Tabernacle and Temple were to be, and not elsewhere (Deuteronomy 16:6, 7). 5. The preparation of the whole Lamb for eating, was by roasting it, v. 8, 9, and that was done with bread unleavened, and bitterness, or bitter herbs, v. 9, and it was all to be eaten that night. What remained until the morning was to be burned in the fire, as a thing dedicate, and not to be polluted. The Jews have many Traditions about the manner of eating and drinking at this Supper, of the Cups they drank and blessed, of the Cakes they broke, of their Washings, and the like, which as they have all of them been discussed by others at large, so I shall not labor about them, as being satisfied that they are most, if not all of them, inventions of the Rabbins since the destruction of the second Temple, and many of them taken up from what they observed to be in use among Christians, or were led into by such as from the profession of Christianity apostatized to them, which were no small multitude.

To this observation of the Passover, was adjoyned the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which was to begin the next day after the eating of the Lamb, that is, on the 15 day of the first month. For whereas the Paschal Lamb was to be eaten with unleavened bread on the fourteenth, it was a peculiar ceremony of that ordinance, and belonged not to the ensuing feast, v. 15, 16. And in this feast, there are considerable: 1. The total exclusion of all leaven out of their houses. 2. The time of its continuance, which was seven dayes. 3. The double extraordinary Sabbath wherewith it was begun and ended; for on the first day, and last day of the seven, there was to be a solemn and holy convocation to the Lord, to be observed in a cessation from all labor, and in holy duties; and here also it were lost labor to reckon up the cautions, rules and instructions which the Jewish doctors give about the nature, kinds and sorts of leaven, of the search that was to be made for it, and the like, most of them being vain imaginations of superstitious minds ignorant of the truth of God.

This sacrifice of the Passover with its attendant Feast of Unleavened Bread, to be annually observed on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, to the end of the twenty second, was the second solemn ordinance of that people, as the people and Church of God. And the Jews observe, that no other positive ordinances, but only Circumcision and the Passover had that sanction of the [illegible], Excision, or Extermination annexed to them. Concerning Circumcision, the words are plain (Genesis 17:14): The uncircumcised man-child whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, [illegible], that soul shall be cut off from his people, he has broken my Covenant. And with reference to the Passover (Exodus 12:15): Whoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. Whereas they observe, as Aben Ezra upon this place, that it is annexed to above twenty negative precepts; intimating that there is a greater provocation and sin in doing any thing in the worship of God against his commandment, than in omitting what he had commanded, though both of them be evil. The observation I acknowledge in general is true, but the application of it to the Passover is not so. For although we should suppose that the words of Exodus 12:15 do relate to the Passover also, although they seem to respect only the seven dayes of the feast of Unleavened Bread, yet they do not require the observation of the Passover itself under that penalty; but upon a supposition of the observation of the Passover, they were to eat the Lamb with unleavened bread, which was a negative precept, namely, that they should have no leaven in their bread, and so was justly attended in its transgression with this cutting off. And this cutting off, the Jews generally interpret when it is spoken indefinitely, without a prescription of the manner how it should be done, or by whom, to respect [illegible], the hand of Heaven, or the vindictive justice of God, which in due time will find out the transgressor. But we know that God long bare with them in the omission of this ordinance of the Passover itself.

What are the observations of the late Jews in the imitation of their fore-fathers' observance of this ordinance of God, the reader may see in Buxtorf's Synagoga Judaica, and in part in the annotations of Ainsworth; and they need not here be repeated. This only I shall observe, that all of them in their expositions of this institution, do make the application of its several parts to other acts of God in dealing with them. Such as indeed the text of Moses plainly leads them to. And this perfectly overthrows their pretensions, as to their other ceremonies and sacrifices; namely, that they were instituted for their own sakes, and not as signs of things to come; the figurative nature of this their greatest ordinance being manifest, and acknowledged by themselves.

§ 20 On occasion of this great solemn ordinance, there was given to the people two additional institutions; the first concerning the writing of the law on their foreheads and hands, the other of the dedication to God of all that opened the matrix. The first of these, is prescribed, Chap. 13.9. And it shall be for a sign upon your hand, and as a memorial between your eyes, that the Lord's law may be in your mouth: ver. 16. and it shall be for a token upon your hand, and as frontlets between your eyes. Whereunto may be added Deuteronomy 6:6, 7, 8, 9. And these words which I command you this day, shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shalt talk of them when you sittest in your house, and when you walkest by the way, and when you lyest down, and when you risest up; and you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes, and you shall write them upon the posts of your house, and on your gates. In the observation of sundry things, supposed to relate to these precepts, consisteth the principal part of the superstition of the present Jews. For they have mixed the observation of this duty whatever be intended by it, with many foolish and noisome imaginations. It does not indeed appear to me, that any more is intended by these expressions, a sign upon your hand, and a memorial or frontlet between your eyes, but a continual remembrance, and careful practice of the institution itself, and their calling to mind thereby the mercy and goodness of God in their deliverance; which they were to celebrate when they came to a settlement in their own land, by writing some passages of the law upon the doors and posts of their houses. But they are otherwise minded. That which is prescribed to them is called v. 8. [in non-Latin alphabet], a sign, as it was to be on their hand; and [in non-Latin alphabet], a memorial, as between their eyes; both which are very capable of our interpretation, but v. 16. they are called [in non-Latin alphabet] as also Deuteronomy 6:8. From which word, which they know not what it signifies, they draw out all the mysteries of their present observances. The Chaldee renders it [in non-Latin alphabet] Thephilin; which word seems to be taken from the Hebrew [in non-Latin alphabet] prayer or prayers, and to be so called, from the prayers that they used in the consecration and wearing of those frontlets. But because they are rendered in the Greek [in non-Latin alphabet] Philacteria, some would derive it from [in non-Latin alphabet], to conjoyn, keep, and bind, which has some allusion at least to the sense of the Greek word. And this origination and denotation of the word the learned Fuller contends for: Miscelan. l. 5. c. 7. The manner of their present observation hereof to this purpose is; they write four sections of the law on parchment. And why four? That they gather from the signification of the word [in non-Latin alphabet], Totaphoth, Tot. says Rabbi Solomon in Pontus by the Caspian Sea somewhere signifies two, and Poth signifies two in Aegypt; both which make four undoubtedly. Or as they say in the Talmud, Tat in Casphe signifies two, and Pat in Africa. So that four sections, must be written. Scaliger supposeth the word to be Aegyptian, which is not unlikely; but that it should signifie an amulet, or a charm, as Petitus supposeth, is not so probable. For that such amulets were in use among the Heathen, with inscriptions either ridiculous or obscene, which God would not have his people to make use of, and therefore appoints them other things, and inscriptions in their stead, which is the only reason produced for that opinion, does indeed overthrow it. For it is abundantly evident, that God in his laws, does directly on all occasions command the contrary to whatever was in practice of this sort among the nations. So that Maimonides well observes, that the reason of many of their institutions cannot be understood, without a due consideration of the superstition of the neighbouring nations.

These four Sections must be these that follow. The first is, Deuteronomy 6:4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and these words which I command you this day, shall be in your heart; and so onwards as before. The second is, Exodus 13:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And the Lord spake to Moses saying, sanctifie to me all the first born, whatever openeth the Womb among the Children of Israel both of Man and of Beast, it is mine: And Moses said to the people, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten, this day came you out in the moneth Abib: and it shall be when the Lord shall bring you into the Land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware to your Fathers to give you; a Land flowing with Milk and Honey, that you shall keep this service in this moneth; seven dayes shall you eat unleavened bread, and in the seveth day shall be a Feast to the Lord, unleavened bread shall be eaten seven dayes, and there shall be no leavened bread with you; neither shall there be leaven seen with you in all your quarters; and you shall shew your Son in that day saying, this is done because of that which the Lord did to me, when I came forth out of Egypt; and it shall be for a sign to you, upon your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that the Lord Laws may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand has the Lord brought you out of Egypt, you shall therefore keep this Ordinance in its season, from year to year. The third is from the tenth verse of that Chapter to the end of the seventeenth: And it shall be, when the Lord, shall bring you into the Land of the Canaanites, as he sware to you to your Fathers, and shall give it you, you shall set apart to the Lord, all that openeth the Matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which you have, the Male shall be the Lords, and every firstling of an Ass, you shall redeem with a Lamb, and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break his neck, and all the first born of Man among your Children shall you redeem; and it shall be when your Son asketh you in time to come saying, what is this, that you shall say to him, by strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage. And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the first born in the Land of Egypt, both the first born of Man, and the first born of beast, therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the Matrix being Males, but all the first born of my Children I redeem; and it shall be for a token upon your hand, and as frontlets between your eyes; for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth from out of Egypt. The last is Deuteronomy 11. from 13. to 21. And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently to my commandments, which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your Land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your corn, and your wine, and your oyle, and I will send grass in your fields for your cattel, that you may eat and be full, take heed to your selves that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside and serve other Gods, and worship them, and then the Lords wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the Heaven that there be no rain, and that the Land yield not her fruit, and lest you perish quickly from the good Land which the Lord giveth you; therefore shall you lay up these my words in your hearts, and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, and that they may be as frontlets between your eyes, and you shall teach them your Children speaking of them when you sittest in your house, and when you walkest by the way, when you lyest down, and when you risest up, and you shall write them upon the door posts of your house, and upon your gates, that your dayes may be multiplyed, and the dayes of your Children in the Land which the Lord swore to your Fathers to give them as the dayes of Heaven upon the Earth.

§ 21 Because in all these places there is mention made of these frontlets or memorials, therefore do they take them out for this use. And these are to be written on parchment made of the skin of a clean beast, on the side next the flesh, prepared with a pronunciation of a form of words both in the killing of the beast, and in the delivery of the skin to the Dresser, and to the Writer: When they are written, they are wrapt up in small rolls, and so worn upon their foreheads, and left arms, being so rolled and made up, that none of the writing might be seen. And great art is required in the making of these Tephilin which few among them attain to. Hence Fagius tells us a story, of a Master among them in his days, who sold many thousands of these Phylacteries to his countrymen, which had nothing in them but Cards, which served their turns well enough. Their Masters also are curious in describing what part of the head they must be applied to, namely, the fore-part from ear to ear; and the hand must be the left hand, whereby yet they will have the arm above the elbow to be understood; and when they must be worn, namely by day, not by night, on the week days, not on the Sabbath, and the like worthy speculations. The benefit also they receive hereby, is incredible, for by them are they defended from evil, as some by the sign of the Cross, others by the first words of the Gospel of John worn about them; they are sanctified in the Law, and in a word, the Targum on the Canticles, Chap. 8:3. tells us, that God chose them above all people, because they wore the Phylacteries. So just cause had our Lord Jesus Christ to reprove their hypocrisy, superstition and self-justification in the use, abuse, and boasting of these things (Matthew 23:5). All their works they do for to be seen of men, they make broad their Phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments. This about the borders of their garments, was an after institution, yet because of its answerableness to this, we may add it in this place. To this purpose, God gives his command (Numbers 15:38, 39, 40): Speak to the Children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes, in the borders of their garments, throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a Ribband of bl[•]w, and it shall be to you as a fringe, that you may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them, and that you seek not after your own heart, and your own eyes, after which you use to go a whoring, that you may remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God; which Law is repeated again (Deuteronomy 22:12): You shall make you fringes upon the four quarters of your vestures wherewith you coverest your self. These ⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩, locks, or fringes made of thread fastened to the wings or skirts of their garments with a Ribband ⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩, of a blue color (which how to make at present the Jews confess they know not, but suppose it was made with the blood of a fish called Chalazon mixed with Vermilion) had virtue and efficacy from the institution of God, who alone is able to bless and sanctify things in themselves indifferent to sacred use, to the keeping of their hearts in a due reverence to himself, and their eyes from wandering after false worship and superstition; which being now removed and taken away, the things themselves are among the present Jews turned into the greatest superstition imaginable. Their principal vanities about these things having been represented by others out of Maimonides his Treatise on that subject, need not here be repeated.

The last appointment of God occasioned by the mercy solemnly remembered in the § 22 Passover, was the dedication of all the first-born males to himself. The Law of this dedication is recorded (Exodus 13:12, 13), and the manner of its performance is farther added (Numbers 18:15, 16, 17): Every thing that opens the matrix, in all flesh which they bring to the Lord, whether it be of men or beast, shall be yours; nevertheless the first-born of man shall you surely redeem, and the first firstling of unclean beasts shall you redeem; and those that are to be redeemed from a month old shall you redeem, according to your estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the Sanctuary, which is twenty Gerahs. But the firstling of a Cow, or the firstling of a Sheep, or the firstling of a Goat, you shall not redeem, they are holy, you shall sprinkle their blood upon the Altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savour to the Lord. The whole dedication of the first-born males is distributed into three parts: 1. Children, who were to be redeemed with five shekels, twenty Gerahs to one shekel, that is about twelve shillings of our money. 2. Clean beasts, such as were appointed to be offered in sacrifice on other occasions, as the Kine, the Sheep and the Goats. These were to be offered to God, in a sacrifice of burnt-offering without redemption or commutation, after they had been kept a month with the dam. 3. Unclean beasts, whereof an instance is given in the Ass, which were either to be redeemed with money by an agreement with the Priest, or to have their necks broke at the choice of the owner. And all of this to call to remembrance the mercy of God in sparing them, and theirs, when the first-born of man and beast, clean and unclean in Egypt, were destroyed. For hence a peculiar right of especial preservation arose to God towards all their first-born, and this also not without a prospect towards the redemption of the Church of the first-born by Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:23).

And this gave a period to the first dispensation of God towards the Church in the § 23 posterity of Abraham, for the space of 430 years. With the provision and furniture of these ordinances of worship, they left Egypt, and passing through the Red-sea, came into the Wilderness of Sinai, where they received the Law, and were made perfect in the beauty of typical holiness and worship.

To these Ordinances succeeded the Solemn [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], or giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, with the Precepts and Sanctions thereof, mentioned in several places by our Apostle, as chap. 2:2. For if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward. Chap. 10:28. He that despised Moses' Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Chap. 12:18, 19, 20, 21. For you are not come to the Mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire; nor to blackness and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more; for they could not endure that which was commanded; and if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. Ver. 25. They escaped not who refused him that spake on earth. And in other places.

Three things must be explained in reference to this great and solemn foundation of that Judaical Church state, which our Apostle treateth about in this whole Epistle. First, the preparations for it. Secondly, the manner of the giving of it. Thirdly, the Law itself. For the preparations for it, they are either more remote, or immediately preceding it. The former were those temporary, occasional, instructive Ordinances which God gave them at their entrance into the Wilderness, before they came to receive the Law on Sinai.

The first mentioned of this nature is (Exodus 15:23, 24, 25, 26). And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made a Statute and an Ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of those diseases upon you, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth you. The whole course of God's proceeding with his people, whereof we have here the first pledge in the Wilderness, was by a constant series of temporal providential straights, sinful murmurings, and typical mercies.

The waters being bitter, that they could not drink of them, God shewed to Moses a Tree; that is, say some of the Jewish Doctors, he shewed him the virtue of a Tree to cure and make wholesome bitter waters. And they say it was a Tree, whose flowers and fruit were bitter; for no other reason, but because Elisha afterwards cured salt waters by casting into them a cruise of salt. The Targum of Jonathan, and that of Jerusalem say, God shewed him [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] the bitter tree Ardiphne, which is nothing but [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], Daphne, the Lawrel. And on this Tree the Author of that fabulous Paraphrase would have the glorious name of God to be written, according to the incantations in use among them in his days; but that which is designed in the whole, is, that God preparing them for the bitter consuming Law that was to be given them, and discovering to them their disability to drink of the waters of it for their refreshment, gave them an intimation of the cure of that curse and bitterness by him, who bare our sins in his body upon the Tree (1 Peter 2:24), who is the end of the Law for righteousness to them that do believe.

Their second preparation for the receiving of the Law, was the giving of Manna to them from Heaven. Being come into the Wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Sinai, called so from a City in Egypt that it extended to, in the midst of the second month after their departure from Egypt, the stores they brought with them from there being spent and exhausted, the whole Congregation murmured for food. As still their wants and murmurings lay at the bottom, and were the occasion of those reliefs, whereby the spiritual mercies of the Church by Christ were typed out. In this condition God sends them Manna (Exodus 16:14, 15). In the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost of the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is Manna; for they wist not what it was. And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat, ver. 31. And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna, and it was like Coriander seed, white, and the taste of it like wafers made with hony.

When the children of Israel saw it, they said, [in non-Latin alphabet] Man hu: and ver. 31. the children of Israel called the name of it [in non-Latin alphabet] Man. The reason of this name is very uncertain. The calling of it Manna in the New Testament, gives countenance to the derivation of the word from [in non-Latin alphabet] Manah, to prepare and distribute. For what some have thought, that it should be an abbreviation of [in non-Latin alphabet] a guist, and spoken by them in their precipitate haste, is destitute of all probability. If it be from [in non-Latin alphabet] Manah, it signifies a prepared meat, or portion. So upon the sight of it, they said one to another, Here is a portion prepared. But the truth is, the following words, wherein there is a reason given why they said upon the sight of it [in non-Latin alphabet] Man hu, inclines strongly to another signification, [in non-Latin alphabet] For they knew not, Ma hu, what it was. They said one to another, Man hu, because they knew not Ma hu, that is, what it was. So that Man hu is as much as, What is it? and so the words are rendred by the LXX, [in non-Latin alphabet], What is this? and by the vulgar Latine, Quid est hoc? But this difficulty remains, that [in non-Latin alphabet] Man, is not in the Hebrew tongue an interrogative of the thing, no nor yet of the person, nor does signifie what. Aben-Ezra says it is an Arabick word. Chiskuni, an Egyptian; and it is evidently an interrogative of the Person in the Chaldee, and sometimes of the thing, as (Judges 13:14) [in non-Latin alphabet] What is your name? Yes, it seems to be used towards this sense in the Hebrew, Psalm 61:8. [in non-Latin alphabet] where though most take [in non-Latin alphabet] Man, to be the Imperative in Pihel from [in non-Latin alphabet] Manah, which no where else occurs, yet the LXX took it to be an Interrogation from the Chaldee, rendring the words [in non-Latin alphabet], Who shall find out? Being therefore the language of the common people in their admiration of a thing new to them that is expressed, it is no wonder that they made use of a word that had obtained among them from some of the Nations with whom they had been conversant, differing little in sound from that of their own of the same signification, and afterwards admitted into common use among them. From this occasional interrogation, did the food provided for them take its name of Man, called in the New Testament Manna; such occasional imposition of names to persons and things being at all times frequent and usual: as in the Chapter fore-going the place was called Marah, from the bitterness of the water, that they cried out of, upon their first tasting it. And in the next Massah and Meribah, from their temptations and provocations. That which alone we have to observe concerning this dispensation of God towards them, is, that they had this eminent renewed pledge of the Bread of Life, the food of their souls, the Lord Christ, given to them, before they were entrusted with the Law, which by making their only glory, and betaking themselves to, without the healing Tree and heavenly Manna, is become their snare and ruine. See (John 6:31, 32, 48, 49, 51; Revelation 2:17).

A third signal preparation for the Law on the like occasion, and to the same purpose § 27 with the former, is repeated, (Exodus 17:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). And all the Congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim; and there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why chide you with me? therefore do you tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Therefore is this that you have brought us up out of Egypt to kill us with thirst? And Moses cried to the Lord, saying, What shall I do to this people? they be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said to Moses, Go on before the people, and take with you of the Elders of Israel, and your Rod wherewith you smotest the River take in your hand, and go, behold I will stand before you there upon the Rock in Horeb; and you shall smite the Rock, and there shall come water out of it that they may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the Elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not? Marching up farther into the Wilderness, and coming to Rephidim, their fourth station from the Red-sea, meeting with no waters to their satisfaction, they fell into an high murmuring against the Lord, and mutiny against Moses their Leader. And this iniquity, the Jewish Doctors suppose, aggravated, because they were in no absolute necessity of water, the dew which fell from the Manna running in some streams. Hereon God leads Moses to the Rock of Horeb, where himself appeared in the cloud, which he had prepared for the place of giving the Law, commanding him to take his Rod in his hand to smite the Rock, whereon waters flowed out for the relief of this sinful murmuring people. And the holy Ghost has put sundry remarks upon this dispensation of God towards them.

First, Upon the sin of the people, from where he gave a double name to the place where they sinned, for a memorial to all generations; he called it Massah and Meribah; which words our Apostle renders by [in non-Latin alphabet] and [in non-Latin alphabet], chap. 3.9. Temptation, and provoking Contention. And it is often mentioned again both on the part of the people, either to reproach and burthen them with their sin, as (Deuteronomy 9:22) And at Massah you provoked the Lord to wrath; or to warn them of the like miscarriage, chap. 6.16. You shall not tempt the Lord your God, as you tempted him in Massah; as also (Psalm 95:8). And on the part of Moses, as to the signal trial that God had there of his faith and obedience, in that great difficulty which he conflicted withall; as also of those of the Tribe of Levi, who in a preparation to their ensuing dedication to God, clave to him in his straits. (Deuteronomy 33:8) And of Levi he said, Let your Thummim and your Urim be with your holy one, whom you did prove at Massah, and with whom you did strive at the waters of Meribah.

The mercy likewise that ensued in giving them water from the Rock, is most frequently celebrated (Deuteronomy 8:15; Psalm 78:15, 16; Psalm 105:41; Nehemiah 9:15). Now all this was done, to bring them to attend and enquire diligently into the kernel, the pearl of this mercy, whose outward shell was so undeservedly free, and so deservedly precious. For in this Rock of Horeb lay hid a spiritual Rock, as our Apostle tells us (1 Corinthians 10:4), even Christ the Son of God, who being smitten with the Rod of Moses, or the stroke and curse of the Law, administered by him, gave out waters of life freely to all that thirst and come to him.

Thus did God prepare this people for the receiving of the Law, by a triple intimation § 28 of him, who is the Redeemer from the Law, and by whom alone the Law that was to be given, could be made useful and profitable to them. And all these intimations were still given them on their great and signal provocations, to declare, that neither did their goodness deserve them, nor could their sins hinder the progress of the counsel of God's will, and the work of his grace. Hereby also did God revive to them the grace of the promise, which being given, as our Apostle observes, four hundred and thirty years before the giving of the Law, could not be disannulled or impeached thereby.

And these I call the remote preparations of the people for the receiving of the Law, consisting in three revelations of the grace of God in Christ, happening and granted to them, in the three months' space, which they spent between the Red Sea and their coming to the Wilderness of Sinai, or to the Mountain where they received the Law.

§ 29 The immediate preparations for giving of the Law are all of them expressed (Exodus 19), and these we shall briefly pass through, the most of them being insisted on, or referred to by our Apostle in the places before mentioned.

First, the time of the people's coming to the place where they were to receive the Law is related, v. 1. It was [in non-Latin alphabet], novilunio tertio, in the third month after their coming up out of Egypt: that is, on the first day of the month, the month Sivan, on the day of the New Moon. And therefore it is added, [in non-Latin alphabet] on the same day; on which Aben Ezra observes, Moses went up first into the Mountain to receive the commands of God, and returning on that day to the people, he went up again on the third day, that is the third day of the month to give in their answer to the Lord, v. 11, 16. And this fell out, if not on the day, yet about the time of Pentecost whereon afterwards the Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles enabling them to preach the Gospel, and therein our deliverance from the curse of the Law given at that time.

§ 30 For the special time of the day when God began to give out the appearances of his glory, it is said, v. 16. [in non-Latin alphabet], while it was yet morning. And Jarchi observes that all Moses's ascents into the Mountain were [in non-Latin alphabet], early in the morning, which he proves from Chap. 34:4. And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up to Mount Sinai. And [in non-Latin alphabet] Boker properly signifies the first appearance of the morning, the light that must be enquired and sought after before the rising of the Sun. So David (Psalm 130:6) compares the earnest expectation of his soul for mercy, to the diligent watching of men for the morning, that is, the first appearance of light. And this was the season wherein our blessed Savior rose from the grave, and from under the curse of the Law, bringing with him the tidings of peace with God, and deliverance. He rose between the first dawning of light, and the rising of the Sun (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2), to that latitude of time does the Scripture assign it, and the first evidence of it. For whereas John says, that Mary Magdalen came to the Sepulchre very early while it was yet dark (Chap. 20:1), Matthew, when it began to dawn towards day (Chap. 28:1), Mark very early in the morning at the rising of the Sun (Chap. 16:2), who comprises the utmost abode of the women at the Sepulchre, Luke expresses it indefinitely [in non-Latin alphabet], profundo mane, that is, [in non-Latin alphabet] in the first appearance, and dawning of light, at which time the preparation for the promulgation of the Law began.

§ 31 The place they came to, is called the Wilderness of Sinai, v. 2. and so was the Mountain also it self whereon the glorious majesty of God appeared, v. 20. It was also called Horeb (Exodus 3:1): He came to the Mountain of God even to Horeb, where they were to serve God, v. 12. and it was on this account afterwards called Horeb the Mount of God (1 Kings 19:8). And the whole Wilderness was termed the Wilderness of Horeb (Deuteronomy 1). It is therefore generally supposed, that they were several names of the same places; the Mountain and Wilderness wherein it was, being both called Sinai and Horeb. And they were both occasional names, taken from the nature of the place, [in non-Latin alphabet] Sinai from [in non-Latin alphabet] Seneh, a Bush, such as the Angel appeared to Moses in (Exodus 3:2), such whereof a multitude were in that place. And Horeb from its drought and barrenness which is the signification of the word. But the opinion of Moses Gerundensis is far more probable, that Horeb was the name of the Wilderness, and Sinai of the Mountain. That Sinai was the name of the Hill is expressly affirmed, Chap. 19:18, 20: And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the Mount. So Psalm 68:17. And whereas mention is made of the Wilderness of Sinai, it is no more but the Wilderness wherein Mount Sinai was. And for those places before referred to, where Horeb seems to be called the Mount of God, the words in them all, will bear to be read, to the Mount of God in Horeb; Strabo calls this very Mount [in non-Latin alphabet], lib. 16. And Justin of Moses, Montem Sinan occupat: The people therefore abode in Horeb, at the foot of the Mountain, or about it, and the Law was promulgated on the top of Sinai in the most desert solitude of that Wilderness. And in this place has the superstition of some Christians in latter ages built a Monastery for the celebration of their devotion by an order of Monks, whose Archimandrite was not many years since in England. But as the place materially considered, is as evident an object of God's displeasure against the lower part of the creation, upon the account of sin, as almost any place in the world, a waste and howling Wilderness, a place left to solitude and barrenness, so in its allusion or relation to the worship of God, it is cast by our Apostle under bondage, and placed in an opposition to the worship and church state of the Gospel (Galatians 4:24, 25).

Being come to this place, it is said, Moses went up to the Mount to God. § 32 It does not appear that he had any new immediate express command so to do: probably he both came to that place, and so soon as he came there, went up into the Mountain, in obedience to the command, and faith in the promise of God which he received upon his first call (Exodus 3:12), wherein it was given him for a token and pledge of their deliverance, that thereon they should worship God, or receive the Law in that Mountain; which is also the judgement of Aben Ezra upon the place. And it is not unlikely, but that God at that time fixed the cloud which went before them, as the token of his presence, on the top of Sinai, as a new direction to Moses for his going up there.

Being ascended, God calls to him, (the word of the Lord says Jonathan) and § 33 teaches him to prepare the people for the receiving of the Law, v. 4, 5. Two things he proposes to their consideration; first, the benefits that they had already been made partakers of hinted out to them by the mighty and wonderful works of his power; and secondly, new privileges to be granted to them. In the first, he minds them that he had born them on Eagles wings. This Jarchi interprets of their sudden gathering out of all the coasts of Goshen to Ramesis to go away together the same night, Chap. 12:37. But although it may be allowed, that they had in that wonderful collection of themselves, some especial assistance of Providence, besides the preparation which they had been making for sundry days before, yet this expression, evidently extends itself to the whole dispensation of God towards them, from the first of their deliverance to that day. Generally they all of them explain this allegorical expression from the manner how the Eagles, as they say, carry their young, which is on their backs or wings because they fear nothing above them, as soaring over all, whereas other Fowls carry their young between their feet, as fearing other Birds of Prey above them: but there is no need to wring the expression, to force out of it such uncertain niceties. There is no more intended, but that God carried them speedily and safely as an Eagle is born by its wings in her course.

To this remembrance of former mercies, God adds secondly, a treble promise: first, that they should be [in non-Latin alphabet], Segullah, a word that has none to declare it by. We render it here, and elsewhere, a peculiar treasure (Ecclesiastes 2:8); it is rendered by our Apostle (Titus 2:14) [in non-Latin alphabet], a peculiar people: and by another [in non-Latin alphabet] (1 Peter 2:9), which we translate in like manner. Secondly, that they should be [in non-Latin alphabet], a Kingdom of Priests, that is, [in non-Latin alphabet], of Princes, says Jarchi, as David's Sons who were Princes, are said to be [in non-Latin alphabet]. And it is not denied; but that the word is sometimes so used. But whereas here it intends the special separation and dedication of the people to God after the manner of Priests, from there the allusion is taken, the dignity of Princes being included in that of a Kingdom. And this Peter renders [in non-Latin alphabet]; a Kingly Priesthood. And in the translation of this privilege over to Believers under the Gospel, it is said, that by Christ they are made Kings and Priests to God (Revelation 1:6); it is added, that they should be a Holy Nation, as expressly (1 Peter 2:9).

That which God on the other hand requires of them, is, that they keep his Covenant, § 34 v. 5. Now this Covenant of God with them, had a double expression. First, in the giving of it to Abraham, and its confirmation by the sign of Circumcision. But this is not that which is here especially intended: for it was the administration of the Covenant wherein the whole people became the peculiar treasure and inheritance of God upon a new account which is respected. Now this Covenant was not yet made, nor was it ratified until the dedication of the Altar in the sprinkling of it with the blood of the Covenant, as Aben Ezra well observes, and our Apostle manifests at large (Hebrews 9:19, 20, 21). Therefore the people taking upon themselves the performance of it, and all the statutes and laws thereof, of which yet they knew not what they were, did give up themselves to the sovereignty and wisdom of God, which is the indispensible duty of all that will enter into Covenant with him.

§ 35 For the farther preparation of the people, God appoints that they should be sanctified and wash their clothes, v. 10. which was done accordingly, v. 14. The first contained their moral, the latter their ceremonial significative preparation for converse with God. The former consisted in the due disposal of their minds to that godly fear, and holy reverence that becomes poor worms of the earth, to whom that glorious God makes such approaches as he did to them. The latter denoted that purity and holiness which was required in their inward man. From this latter temporary, occasional institution, such as they had many granted to them while they were in the wilderness before the giving of the Law, the Rabbins have framed a baptism for those that enter into their Synagogue; a fancy too greedily embraced by some Christian writers, who would have the holy ordinance of the churches' baptism, to be derived from there. But this washing of their clothes, not of their bodies, was temporary, never repeated, neither is there any thing of any such baptism or washing required in any proselytes either men or women where the laws of their admission are strictly set down. Nor are there the least footsteps of any such usage among the Jews, until after the days of John Baptist, in imitation of whom it was first taken up by some Anti-mishnical Rabbins.

§ 36 The next thing which Moses did by the command of God after he returned from the Mount, was to set bounds to it, and the people, that none of them might press to go up, until the Trumpet had done its long and last sounding, a sign of the departure of the presence of God, v. 12, 13. And you shall set bounds to the people, round about, saying, take heed to yourselves, that you go not up into the Mount, or touch the border of it: whoever touches the Mount shall be surely put to death: there shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through, whether it be beast or man it shall not live, when the Trumpet sounds long, they shall come up to the Mount. The law, the sanction, and the duration of the obedience required, are here represented. The law expresses an evil prohibited both in itself, and in the end of it. The evil itself was, going up into, or so much as touching by any means the mountain, or the border of it. The end therefore this was prohibited was, that they might not gaze, v. 21. Charge the people lest they break through to the Lord to gaze. The sanction is death, enjoined from the hand of men in these verses, and threatened from the hand of Heaven, v. 21, 24. The continuance of the observance was until the Trumpet sounded long, or had done sounding, the sign of the departure of God's special presence which made the place holy only during its continuance.

§ 37 For the law, it is said expressly, that the Mount was not to be touched: it might not be touched by man or beast. Yet our Apostle treating concerning it, calls it the Mount that might be touched (Hebrews 12:21). For although *de jure* while that temporary command continued in force, it might not be touched, which seemed to render it glorious; yet says the Apostle, it was but a carnal thing, that might *de facto* be touched by man or beast, had they not been severely prohibited; and so is no way to be compared with that heavenly Mount Sion which we are called to in the worship of God under the Gospel.

§ 38 The contexture of the words in our translation seems to have some difficulty; Whoever touches the Mount, v. 12, 13. there shall not an hand touch it [in non-Latin alphabet] it should seem that by it [in non-Latin alphabet] the Mount itself is intended, and that the law is reinforced in a particular caution, that so much as an hand should not touch the Mount. But it is far more probable that by, it, touch it, the person, man or beast that touched the mountain is intended. And the words declare the manner how the offender should be destroyed; being made Anathema devoted, accursed by his presumptuous sin, no man was to touch him, or to lay hand on him, to deliver him, lest he also contracted of his guilt. And this sense the ensuing words with the series of them evinces. [in non-Latin alphabet], that is, no hand shall touch it, either to save it, or to punish it, but stoning it shall be stoned, or thrusting through it shall be thrust through; whether man or beast, it shall not live. Let none think by laying hand on it to deliver it: from where Aquila renders [in non-Latin alphabet] by [in non-Latin alphabet], He shall be slain or destroyed *cum impetu, & horrore*, with force and terror, all being to cast stones at him, or to shoot him through with arrows, or thrust him through with darts. So Aben Ezra, [in non-Latin alphabet]. The meaning is, men shall not gather about him to take him, but those that see him, shall stone him from the place of their station. And if he be afar off they shall shoot him through with arrows.

Touching the Mountain, or the border, limit, or bound set to it by Gods appointment, § 47 was the sin forbidden. And the end of it as was said, was that they should not break through, to see, to gaze say we, properly; to look with curiosity on the appearances of Gods glory, for which cause he smote the men of Bethshemesh upon their looking into the Ark (1 Samuel 6). God intending by this prohibition, to beget in the people an awe and reverence of his holy majesty as the great law-giver, and by the terror thereof to bring them and their posterity into that bondage frame of spirit, that servile awe that was to abide upon them, until such time as he came, who was to give liberty and boldness to his Church, by dispensing to believers the Spirit of Adoption, enabling them to cry Abba Father; and to enter with boldness into the Holy Place, even to the Throne of Grace.

In case the punishment appointed were neglected by the people, God threatens to § 48 see the execution of it himself, v. 21. Lest they break through to the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. v. 24. And let not the Priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest he break forth upon them. For to make them watchful in their duty, he lets them know, that their miscarriage in this matter, devolving the punishment of the transgressor by their neglect upon him, should be imputed by him to the whole people, so that he would in such a cause break forth upon them with his judgements, and many of them should be consumed to the terror and warning of the remnant.

The continuance of this prescription, was from the day before the appearance of the glory of God on the Mount, until by the long sounding of the Trumpet they perceived the presence of God had left the place, v. 13. When the Trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the Mount, that is, they had liberty so to do.

Things thus prepared, the people were brought forth to their station to attend § 49 to the Law, v. 17. And Moses brought forth the people out of the Camp, for to meet with God, and they stood at the nether part of the Mount. This station of the people in Mount Sinai, is among the Jews, the most celebrious thing that ever befell them. And many disputes they have about their order therein, some few things we may observe from it.

Moses brought forth the people [in non-Latin alphabet] in occursum ipsius Dei, to meet with God himself: [in non-Latin alphabet], to meet, with or before the word of God, says Onkelos, [in non-Latin alphabet] says Ben Vzziel, the glorious presence of God, [in non-Latin alphabet], and [in non-Latin alphabet]. The essential Word of God, the brightness of his glory, the Son of God, the Head and Law-giver of the Church in all ages.

And they stood at the nether part of the Mount, v. 2. it is said, [in non-Latin alphabet], § 50 And Israel encamped there before the Mount, in the singular number, that is, in such order, says Jarchi, that they were all as one Man. And says he, they were on the East side of the Mountain, where also they kept their station at the giving of the Law: for so he would have the word [in non-Latin alphabet], to denote, though he give no instance to confirm his opinion. But Aben Ezra expresly rejects this fancy, and that by a notable instance, where it is said, the people pitched their Tents before ([in non-Latin alphabet]) the Tabernacle of the Congregation round about. So that although they were round about the Tabernacle, they are said to be before it, because of the special regard which they had to it. And at this station in the Wilderness, command was given to set bounds to the Mount [in non-Latin alphabet] round about, v. 12. which there had been no need of, had not the people been gathered round about the Mountain.

Now they generally agree, that this was the order wherein they stood. First stood § 51 the Priests, mentioned expresly, v. 22. and said there to draw near to the Lord; that is, nearer than the rest of the people, though they also are expresly forbidden to come so nigh as to touch the Mount, v. 24. These Priests were as yet the first born, before a commutation was made, and the Tribe of Levi accepted in their room. Next to the Priests stood the Princes or Heads of the Tribes, attended with the Elders and Officers of the people. The body of the people, or the Men of Israel as they speak, stood next to them; and behind them, the Women and Children. The remotest of all in this order being as they suppose the Proselytes that adhered to them. Thus Aben Ezra expresly, [in non-Latin alphabet], First, Were the first born who drew nigh to God; [in non-Latin alphabet]; and after them were the heads of the Tribes, that is the Princes; [in non-Latin alphabet], after them the Elders; [in non-Latin alphabet]; after them the Officers, [in non-Latin alphabet], after them all the men of Israel, [in non-Latin alphabet], after them the Children, that is, Males: [in non-Latin alphabet], after them the Women, [in non-Latin alphabet], after them the Proselytes or Strangers.

§ 42 All things being thus disposed, in the morning of the third day the appearance of Gods glorious presence began to be manifested, ver. 16. And it came to pass, on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders, and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the Mount, and the voice of the Trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that was in the Camp trembled, v. 18. And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a Furnace, and the whole Mount quaked greatly. That all these things were the effects of the Ministry of Angels preparing the place of Gods glorious presence, and attending upon him in their work, the Scripture elsewhere testifies, and we have before manifested, so that there is no need here farther to insist upon it.

§ 43 Upon this preparation for the descent of the glory of God, upon the sight of his harbingers and evidence of his coming, Moses brought forth the people [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩], to meet with God. He brought them out of the Camp which was at some farther distance, to the bounds that by God's prescription he had set to Mount Sinai. And Rashi on the place observes not unfitly, that this going of the people to meet with God, argues that the glory of God came also to meet with them, as the bridegroom goes out to meet the bride; for it was a marriage covenant that God then took the people into, from where it is said, that God came from Sinai, namely to meet the people.

§ 44 The utmost of the approach of the people was to the nether part of the Mount. The Targum of Jerusalem has a foolish imagination from this expression, which they have also in the Talmud; namely, that Mount Sinai was plucked up by the roots, and lifted up into the air, that the people stood under it, which Jarchi calls a Midrash, that is, though not in the signification of the word, yet in the usual application of it, an allegorical fable.

In this posture the people trembled, and were not able to keep their station, but removed from their place, Chap. 20.28. And the whole Mount quaked greatly, ver. 18, so terrible was the appearance of the majesty of God in giving out his fiery law.

In this general consternation of all, it is added, that Moses himself spake, v. 19. And God answered him by a voice. What he spake is not declared; nor was there any occasion for his speaking, nor can any account be given why he should speak to God, when God was solemnly preparing to speak to him and the people; nor is it said, that he spake to God, but only, that he spake. And it is signally added, that God answered him [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] in, or by a voice. For my part, I doubt not but that in this general consternation that befell all the people, Moses himself being surprised with fear, spake the words recorded by our Apostle, Chap. 12.21. I exceedingly fear and quake; which condition he was relieved from by the comforting voice of God, and so confirmed to the remainder of his ministry. These brief remarks being given upon the preparation for, and the manner of the giving of the Law, we shall summarily consider the general nature of the Law, and its sanction, in our next Exercitation.