delivered at Sinai, the grounds of which | two, is wholly with a view to compen. are either so obvious as not to require particular exposition, or are sufficiently unfolded in the course of the ensuing notes; so that a precise explication of them may at present be waved. sate the mutilation by leaving the nominal integrity of the code unimpaired. That such a disjunction of the parts of the tenth commandment is wholly unauthorized and violent, will be evident upon a comparison of the text as it 2. Classification of the Precepts of the stands in the chapter before us and in Law. In all ages of the church it has been admitted that the Moral Law was comprised in ten distinct commandments. Of these again a very ancient and generally recognized division is into two tables; the first embracing the first four, the second the last six, of the precepts; the first containing, in a general way, the duties we owe to God, the second, those which we owe to our fellow-men. This division, which is very natural, is warranted by the express words of the Savior, Mat. 22. 37-40, who divides the Law into two great commandments, "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, &c. This is the first and great commandment; and the second is like unto it, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.' Deut. 5. 21. In the present passage the coveting of a 'house' occurs before the coveting of a 'wife;' whereas in the other passage the order is reversed and 'house' occurs after 'wife.' If then the Papal division were well founded, the ninth commandment according to the one reading would be, 'Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house,' and according to the other, "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife. Such a diversity it appears from Hallett's Notes on Scripture Texts (vol. 3. p. 55.) actually exists in some of the Catechisms and Manuals of the Roman church. suppose, with Protestants, that 'house' and wife' belong to the same precept, and the change in collocation is a matter of no moment. But A difference occurs also between the Heb. and the Gr. copies in regard to the collocation of the sixth and seventh commandments. The Gr. places our seventh before the sixth, and this order is fol In the numerical arrangement and distinction of the several precepts of the decalogue, it is well known that the Romanists differ essentially from Protestants. Following the authority of Au-lowed by such of the early Christian gustin, the Roman Church makes but one commandment of the two first, while in order to keep good the number ten, they divide the tenth into two, making the first sentence of that commandment the ninth. The consequence has been that in many professed recitals of the ten commandments in books of devotion, what we term the second, forbidding idolatry, is entirely omitted. The motive for thus abstracting the second commandment from the Decalogue is very easily imagined on the part of a church which gives so much countenance to image-worship; and it is equally obvious that the partition of the tenth into Fathers as used the translation of the 3. Nature and Scope of the Law. It is too obvious to require proof that man was formed to be a creature of law. At his very creation, the law of God was written on his heart. Those divine fingers which so curiously wrought the physical fabric of his body, interwove also the precepts of this law with the interior frame-work of his soul. Nor are we to suppose that man had been utterly destitute of all external notices of this law from the creation to the present time. Though not previously so expressly and formally revealed, yet as sin was in the world from Adam to Moses, so we cannot doubt that that law, by the knowledge of which is the knowledge of sin, was also in the world. But nothing is more certain than that in process of time all flesh had corrupted its way, and the traces of the moral code were nearly obliterated among men. The great fundamental truths of religion were lost and buried in the abounding idolatry and immorality that every where prevailed. In these circumstances, when it pleased God to separate to himself a peculiar people, who should know his will, and be the depositaries of his truth, he saw fit to republish this law, and so to record it as to give it a permanent establishment in the world; and in order to convey a more suitable impression of its spirit and design, it was to be delivered in circumstances of the greatest imaginable pomp and terror. The intrinsic propriety of this will be seen at once on considering the character of the Law. As contrasted with the Gospel it was a dispensation of wrath, a ministration of condemnation and death. 'Cursed be every one that ontinueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them, is its inexorable language. It was a 'fiery law,' denouncing judgment without mercy for every offence, and not knowing either abatement, or interinission, or compromise of its stern demands. The circumstances of its de Ac. livery, therefore, were intended to be in keeping with its character. Being a transcript of the divine perfections, it was to be so promulgated as to impress those who heard it, and those who should hear of it, with a just sense of the greatness, majesty, glory, and terribleness of that Being from whom it emanated. It was designed to work a deep conviction of the fearfulness of Jehovah's displeasure, and to inspire alarm by awaking a sense of sin. cordingly, as it was attended with the terrors of Sinai in its proclamation, sc it comes into the conscience with the dread of God's wrath. As the mountain shook, as the people trembled, as Moses himself said, 'I exceedingly fear and quake,' so the soul when it becomes convinced of sin, is filled with dismay. Fearfulness and trembling come upon it; it shakes with violent apprehensions of woe, and looks for instant destruction. Such is the necessary consequence. Whenever a man obtains a correct view of the Law, and feels that he has broken it; when he sees that the Law is spiritual, and that he is carnal, sold under sin; when he perceives that he is condemned, and every moment liable to the curse; he cannot but experience the same kind of inward emotions and perturbations as the Israelites experienced when they saw the fires of Sinai, heard its thunders, and felt its shaking. Thus one main object of the giving of the Law was attained—the begetting a sense of native sinfulness, of distance from God, of exposedness to wrath. But this would lead directly to another of equal importance-the ne cessity of a Mediator. And this effect was very decidedly wrought on the present occasion. They were conscious that they could not approach to God without some kind of intervention. Accordingly, they who but just before had been with difficulty restrained from breaking through the bounds that had been assigned them, were now alarm With this view of the essential nature and genius of the Law before us, we cannot easily fall into the error against which the apostle Paul has se anxiously warned us, of supposing that it was given in order to man's being saved by his living up to its demands. It was not given to give life. 'By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified.' It was rather designed as a divine revelation of man's religious and moral duties, as a perfect standard and rule of obedience, and one too of per petual and universal obligation. For as every precept of it flows directly from the unchangeable perfections of God, it must for ever make the same uncompromising demand upon the obedience of its subjects. The ceremonial statutes might serve a temporary end and be abolished. But of the Moral Law our Savior says, 'Heaven and earth shall ed that they drew back from their station, and entreated that God would no longer deliver his commands to them in that way, lest they should die. They desired that Moses might act as a mediator between God and them, and that all future intimations of the divine will should be given through that medium. They were not perhaps aware of the full meaning of their own request, nor of how much a greater mediator than Moses they stood in need. But God approved of their request, and not only complied with it, but promised another Mediator at a future period, who should resemble Moses, and whom the people were required, under the highest penalty, to obey. For it was on this occasion that the promise contained Deut. 18. 15-19, was given, 'The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall heark-pass away, but one jot or one tittle en. According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth: and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.' The agency of Moses, therefore, throughout the whole transaction, passing to and fro between God and the people, now ascending the mount and entering the cloud, and now again coming forth, returning to the camp, and delivering his messages, was expressly designed as a lively type of the mediatorship of Christ in effecting our acceptance and salvation. And thus it serves, as the apostle says, 'as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.' VOL. I 22 shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.' It must necessarily enter into the Christian dispensation, and pervade it through every period of its existence. It will even pass into heaven itself and there be the delight and govern the service of every glorified spirit and ministering angel. This will be more evident if we consider that it is the universal law of love. God is love, and his Law inculcates love. A compend of the whole Law is embraced in the recept, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy mind and all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.' Love therefore must be of universal and eternal obligation, immutable as the nature of God himself. God cannot divest himself of love, nor even abrogate the Law which requires it. From all this we perceive the great ends which were to be answered by the promulgation of the Law of the ten commandments, and for the same reasons we can see why it was that such a scene was chosen for the purpose. The genius of the Law was severe, rigid, dark, fearful, terrific. In accordance with this the people of Israel were led into a dreary, desolate wilderness, a region of barren rocks and thirsty sands, where all nature appeared in its most wild, and rugged, and desert aspect. There, amidst bleak mountainous masses of granite, separated by narrow ravines, in which only here and there little patches of herbage, and scattered trees ae found, the Law of Sinai was proclained, as if it were especially intended to teach them that that dispensation, compared with the gospel, was like the most desert and forbidding locality on .he earth's surface contrasted with the most blooming and luxuriant paradise which the hands of nature and art ever conspired to beautify. This view of the event before us will no doubt become more and inɔe striking, in proportion as the geological and topographical features of that region are more fully disclosed, as they are in a fair way to be, in conquence of the growing influx of travel to that memorable and interesting arter of the globe. 4. Principles of Inter,lation. 'Thy commandment,' says David, 'is exceeding broad;' in which we read a clear intimation of the extent and spirituality of the divine requirements, as reaching beyond the outwaru actions, and taking cognizance of ine inmost thoughts and intentions of the heart. With so important a portion of revelation, therefore, before us, it is evidently a matter of great moment to fix upon correct principles of interpretation, and in coming at these, nothing is more obvious than that the mode of interpretation adopted by Christ and his apostles is to be a directory for us in putting our constructions upon the precepts of the Decalogue. Referring then to our Lord's sermon on the mount, it is clear beyond all question that the Law, properly understood, lays its demands and its prohibitions upon the inward actings of the spirit, and not merely upon the outward conduct. If we are taught by this supreme authority to regard cher ished lust as adultery, and harbored hate as murder, how can we avoid the inference that all the commandments are equally extensive in their import, and address themselves directly to the heart as the fountain of action and the criterion of character? To the same conclusion are we irresistibly brought by the language of Paul in his reason. ings upon the Law in the Epistle to the Romans. It was only when he came to understand fully the spiritual nature of the Law and the sternness and universality of its requirements, that he became convinced of sin, and, as it were, slain by its killing power. The same view of the character of this deeply searching moral code is undoubtedly maintained throughout the whole tenor of the Scriptures, so that we cannot well hesitate to admit the justness of the canon laid down in the Assembly's Catechism, for interpreting the demands of the Law, that it binds every one to full conformity in the whole man, unto the righteousness thereof, and to entire obedience for ever; so as to require the utmost perfection in every duty, and to forbid the least degree of every sin.' Accordingly, in putting a due sense upon the several pre. cepts, we must admit that 'when a par ticular duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden, with all the causes, occasions, and temptations which might lead to it; and when a sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is commanded, together with all the requisite means to its performance.' It may also be remarked in regard to the distinction of the precepts into affirmative and negative, that there is ground for it in the consideration that what God forbids is at no time to be On the whole, it is obvious that this momentous and immutable Law is framed with the utmost wisdom of its divine author, and that if its deep spirituality, its rigid and uncompromising demands, its perpetual authority, and its awful sanctions, were duly appreciated, it would awaken and keep alive every where the slumbering consciousness of sin, and at once lead to and endear the atonement of Christ, who was made a curse for us that he might redeem us from the curse of the violated Law. done; what he commands is always our | place of the encampment and took its duty, yet every particular duty is not position on the mountain. Here it asto be done at all times. Moreover, itsumed, in the first instance, a hue of must be perceived that in the negative dense and pitchy darkness, which would mode of injunction, there is something contrast more strongly with the fiery more emphatic, and that leaves less splendors that were ere long to burst room for evasion. Thus, had the first out of its bosom, and together with the commandment, Thou shalt have no earthquake, and the thunder, and the other gods, &c.,' been propounded af trumpet-blast, to clothe the scene with firmatively, Thou shalt worship one a grandeur utterly unparalleled on earth. God,' the Samaritans, for instance, It is true, the Shekinah is here premight still have contended that they sented in aspect different from any in kept this commandment, though they which we have yet contemplated it. mixed the worship of other gods with We have hitherto beheld it in connexion that of the true. with an audible voice-as a fire burning in but not consuming the bushy thicket -as an illuminated pillar of cloudbut no where else have we seen it with the accompaniment of thunders and lightnings and the voice of a trumpet, and all the fearful array of Mount Sinai. Still that this was an actual exhibition of the Shekinah the narrative leaves us no room to doubt. The ancient versions plainly confirm this view. Of these one of the Chaldee Targums renders the account in the 19th chapter;-'Moses led the people out of the camp to meet the Shekinah of Jehovah ;' another, 'to meet the Word of the Lord;' and the Arab, 'to meet the Angel of the Lord.' Now it is to be recollected that we have previously shown that the visible Shekinah is repeatedly termed the 'Angel of the Lord,' and that this is the true object which is to be brought before the mind whenever in the books of Moses the title 'Angel of the Lord' occurs. The Shekinah was so called because it was the ordinary medium or organ through which the Most High manifested his presence and evinced his favor or disfavor towards the chosen people. Bearing this fact in mind, let us turn to Acts, 7. 37, 38, where in the speech of Stephen it is said, 'This is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like untɔ me: him shall ye hear. This is he the t 5. Ministry of Angels in the Delivery of the Law. No attentive reader of the Scriptures can fail to have been struck with the fact, that in several passages, both of the Old and New Testament, the presence and the agency of angels is expressly recognized on the occasion of the giving of the law. A somewhat extended and minute examination, therefore, of the circumstances attending this reinarkable event will here be proper, in order to obtain, if possible, the true clue o the language employed by the sacred writers in describing it. It will be evident, if we mistake not, from the tenor of our annotations on the preceding chapter, that the pillar of cloud, the sublime Shekinah, which had hitherto directed the journeyings of the Israelite, now removed itself from over the |