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Canaan, and candidates of an incorruptible inheritance. "And God said moreover unto Moses: Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel. The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.”

He will be known by a name expressive of his relation to this patriarch and his seed forever. Of his gracious kindness according to his covenant, to the posterity of Abraham, he will preserve a memorial to all generations of men.

That this legislative transaction should disannul the covenant of promise is very unlikely. That it should, there can hardly be supposed any thing more absurd, unless it should be, that the anti-typical redemption did. against the promise of God? there had been a law which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." Gal. iii. 21.

Is the law then God forbid; for if

It is not only upon the principles of priority, which in all courts is a strong claim, but also because both of these events were contemplated in this ancient covenant. We have seen that the redemption from Egypt was effected by the Lord, because he remembered his covenant with their fathers, and it is equally evident that the NewTestament redemption of his people out of all nations, wherein they have been servants of sin and slaves to Satan, is contemplated in the very terms of the Abrahamic dispensation of the cove

nant of grace. Gal. iii. 8. "And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached the gospel before unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. v. 17. And this

I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law that was 430 years after, cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect." It is true, if the law should be considered as a covenant of works, and obedience to it be the supposed condition of life and happiness, then it would have this effect, to abrogate the previous dispensation of grace. But this was not the case. v. 13. "For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. The moral law however was and still is useful. By this sinners are led to the knowledge of sin, and believers are directed to duty. It is a rule of life in the hands of a Mediator to believers.

The ceremonial law was a veiled gospel, or as the scripture expresses it, a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. So far from Christ's coming to destroy the ancient covenant of promise, that the promises were in him, all yea and amen. They were fulfilled and ratified in Jesus Christ. In the giving of the law and the redemption of that period, he is known by the name Jehovah, immutable in his character, and faithful to his promises of salvation. Then might Israel say, “The Lord is our judge,

the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king, he will save us." The intelligent would at once see that the law was holy, and just, and good.

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It is evident too, that whatever were the manifestations of propitious providence and benign grace to adults; the same, if not greater, were made to the children. They, as well as the adults, are baptised in the cloud and in the sea." God carries them as on eagles wings-he spreads his cloudy presence over them, to correct the fervid heat of day, and chilling damps of night. To all of them in the preface of this law, he inost graciously says. I am the Lord your God." The form of this preface, as well as its place in relation to the law, will abundantly satisfy all who kuow any thing about grace, that there was grace in this legation, and, so long as grace shall last, this law must of course be considered as having a gracious sanction.. Because God is the Lord and our God and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments."

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It is true the trumpet of the Almighty souuded long and strong in peals of hoarse thunder the Eternal gave his voice; but still it was the voice of the everlasting Father inculcating salutary precepts and maxims upon his children. He claims them all as his.. Ex. xiii. 1, 2. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all the first born;" and as the Apostle reasons, "If the first fruits be holy, the lump is also holy, if the root be holy, so are the branches." Particular provision was made for the education

of youth in this code. v. 8th. "And thou shalt show thy son in that day, saying; This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me, when I came forth out of Egypt. v. 9. And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes; that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth, for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt." v. 14. And it shall be, when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage." There was gospel mystery in all these rites and in the events which they commemorated, and therefore the parents must be careful to instruct their children in their allusion and sig nification. They were charged not only to answer the questions, which juvenile curiosity might propound, and which parental piety will always feel a peculiar pleasure to gratify; but they were to make the gospel of their time and of that dis pensation the great topic of discourse!

Children were embraced and contemplated in the body of the decalogue or ten commandments. Thus in the second, parents are charged by all the solicitude they would naturally have for their children, to worship God in no other way than in that of divine institution. They must make to themselves no similitude or imitation for their supposed help or imaginary gratification in worship. They must receive, observe and keep pure

entire all such religious worship and ordinan

ces as God hath appointed in his word. Why? "For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.' See how abundant he is in mercy and grace even in legislation.

Again, in the fourth precept of the decalogue; where he enjoins the sanctification of one whole day in seven, he enacts that all the holy man's household shall partake of this rest. The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, &c. The same character who is before called their God, in reference to covenant relation, is here said to be the Lord that made heaven and earth; wherefore it s evident, that if any have another God than the God of Abraham, and of Israel as their God, he is not the Lord that made all things. In the fifth commandment too, the covenant relation of God to his people in all successive generations is very obvious. "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee." This commandment is quoted in the New Testament, as a part of a code, by which it is evident the whole of that vode is sanctioned.

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