58 CnR1ST1AN DISPI:NS,ITION. figures of Christ, the true sacrifice of atonement. This covenant was also confirmed to Noah and his sons after the flood, with some further precepts about the distinctions of meats and the punishment of murder, and the promise that the earth shoald be no more destroyed by water, of which the rainbow was an appointed seal. This is that dispensation by which Job and Melcllisedec also were saved with many others in that earl/ age of the world. The same covenant was continued to Abraham with some clearer promises of the Messiah, or Saviour.. The gospel was preached to Abraham; Gal. iii. 8. together with the addition of a promised inheritance in the land of Canaan, as a type of hea- ven, and the peculiar precept of circumcision, which was a figure of the mortification ofsin. This is called the dispensation of Abraham. The same gracious covenant or gospel was yet farther re- vealed to Moses, and by him to the nation of Israel in the wilder -, isessof Sinai. This was called the Levitical or Mosaical or the Jewish dispensation. Heb, iv. 2. The gospel was preached to them as well as unto us. And here the law and will of God were more explicitly set before them, and their encouragements to re- pentance and hope in divine mercy for eternal life grewgreater by the many discoveries of grace they enjoyed, and by the dwelling of God among them upon the mercy-seat. Here also there werea multitude of emblems or signs and pledges, both of the blessings of God and the duties of man, which are usually called the Jewish ceremonies. Rut it must he observed, that in this dispensation of Moses, there were very many precepts and promises of a car- nal and temporal kind superadded to the gospel of grace, which precepts and promises together with"the ten commands considered apart from the gospel, made up that Sinai- covenant, which was really a covenant of works ; it was made between God as the political head or king of that people; and the Jews as his subjects ; and it was by the observance of this outward covenant the Jews were to enjoy the land of Canaan, and tempo- ral blessings therein. Let it be well considered that this Sinai-covenant which is often called the law in scripture and which in this chapter is called the first covenant, was a distinct thing from the covenant of grace, or that gospel which secretly ran through all the dispen- sations, and which was included in this dispensation also ; that gospel which in some clear expressions, and many types and dark hints was witnessed by the law and the prophets; Rom. iii., 21. and by which both Abraham and David, and the pious Jews
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