Watts - BX5200 .W3 1813 v.3

CHAPTERVI, IV. Let it then be well considered, that this Sinai covenant. between God, as their national king, and the Israelites as his subjects, which is often called the law in scripture, and some- times the first covenant, taken separately and apart by itself, was a very distinct thing from the covenant of grace, and was but a temporal appendix to it. Yet the covenant of grace, or that gospel of pardon of sin and eternal life, which more evidently or more secretly ran through all the dispensations of God since the fall, was included in the Jewish dispensationalso, as the most eminent part of ít: This gospel related to their eternal concerns with God as the Lord of conscience. This in-some clear expres- sions, and in many types and dark hints, was witnessed by the lare and the prophets, as Rom. iii. 21. And it was this gospel, by which both Abraham and David, and the pious Jews were pardoned, and savedwith an eternal salvation : St. Paul proves this in Rom. iv. That great apostle in his epistles to-the Romans and Gala- tiansand Hebrews, is often teaching them, that this Sinai coven- ant, this law of Moses with all the ceremonies of it, could not give them life; Gal. iii. 21. that is, peace of conscience, With pardon of sin and eternal salvation ; nor was this Sinai covenant ever intended or designed by God himselffor this end, and it was in due time disannulledfor the weakness and unprojitableness thereof ; Heb. vii. 18. yet the carnal Jews were very fond of applying it to thissense and purpose, expecting that the blood of bulls and goats should take away their sins, and this law of ceremonies shouldmake the codsers thereunto perfect, and cleanse their conscience in the sight of God, as the Lord -of souls and consciences. -- And this is the reason why St. Paul gives them so frequent warnings against this mistake ; particularly in the third and fourth chapters to the Galatians, wherehe represents the law as a covenant of works, which curses them who continue not in all things written in the law to do them ; chapter iii. verse 10. and he represents the difference between this law and the gospel, by the difference between mount Sinai and mount Zion or Jerusa- lem in which Zion stood, the one as leading to bondage, and leaving the Jews under guilt and fear, the other as giving liberty, and life, and peace, chapter iv. verses 21-31. And it is for the same reason that Paul says ; Gal. v. 3. that he that is state, in which the righteous God, as the Judge of -All, can, and will rewardor, punish them : But communities, cities or nations, belong only to this world, and are all dissolved, sod have.no being in the other, and can neither be rewarded or punished there as public bodies: And therefore God who exercises visible judg- ment on earth, when he pleases, will frequently reward or punish communities visibly in this world, to sheer his love to virtueand piety, and his aversion to all sin, and to preserve an awful apseof his holiness and government among the children of men.

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