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to signify that when the testament of God is sealed with his blood, the truth of it is then accomplished, and thus it is made new and eternal.

V. Hence it appears in what sense the apostle said, that the Jews were conducted to Christ by the tuition of the law, before he was manifested in the flesh. (w) He confesses also that they were children and heirs of God, but such as on account of their age required to be kept under the care of a tutor. (x) For it was reasonable that before the Sun of righteousness was risen, there should be neither such a full blaze of revelation, nor such great clearness of understanding. Therefore the Lord dispensed the light of his word to them in such a manner, that they had yet only a distant and obscure prospect of it. Paul describes this slenderness of understanding as a state of childhood, which it was the Lord's will to exercise in the elements of this world and in external observances, as rules of puerile discipline, till the manifestation of Christ, by whom the knowledge of the faithful was to grow to maturity. Christ himself alluded to this distinction, when he said, "The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached." (y) What discoveries did Moses and the prophets make to their contemporaries? they afforded them some taste of that wisdom which was in after times to be clearly manifested, and gave them a distant prospect of its future splendor. But when Christ could be plainly pointed out, the kingdom of God was revealed. For in him are discovered "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," (2) by which we penetrate almost into the farthest recesses of heaven.

VI. Nor is it any objection to our argument, that scarcely a person can be found in the Christian Church, who is to be compared with Abraham in the excellency of his faith; or that the prophets were distinguished by such energy of the Spirit as, even at this day, is sufficient to illuminate the whole world. For our present inquiry is, not what grace the Lord hath conferred on a few, but what is the ordinary method which he hath pursued in the instruction of his people: such as is found even

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among the prophets themselves, who were endued with peculiar knowledge above others. For their preaching is obscure, as relating to things very distant, and is comprehended in types. Besides, notwithstanding their wonderful eminence in knowledge, yet because they were under a necessity of submitting to the same tuition as the rest of the people, they are considered as sustaining the character of children as well as others. Finally, none of them possessed knowledge so clear as not to partake more or less of the obscurity of the age. Whence this observation of Christ: "Many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." (a) "Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear." (b) And indeed it is reasonable that the presence of Christ should be distinguished by the prerogative of introducing a clearer revelation of the mysteries of heaven. To the same purpose also is the passage, which we have before cited from the First Epistle of Peter, that it was revealed to them, that the principal advantage of their labours would be experienced in our times. (c)

VII. I come now to the third difference, which is taken from Jeremiah, whose words are these: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was husband to them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (d) From this passage the apostle took occasion to institute the

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following comparison between the law and the gospel: he calls the former a literal, the latter a spiritual doctrine; the former he says was engraven on tables of stone, but the latter is inscribed on the heart; (e) the former was the preaching of death, but the latter of life; the former was the ministration of condemnation, but the latter of righteousness; the former is abolished, but the latter remains. As the design of the apostle was to express the sense of the prophet, it will be sufficient for us to consider the language of one of them, in order to discover the meaning of both. There is however some difference between them. For the apostle speaks of the law in less honourable terms than the prophet does; and that not simply with respect to the law itself, but because there were some disturbers, who were full of improper zeal for the law, and by their perverse attachment to the ceremonies obscured the glory of the gospel, he disputes concerning the nature of the law with reference to their error and foolish affection for it. This peculiarity in Paul therefore will be worthy of our observation. Both of them, as they contrast the Old and New Testaments with cach other, consider nothing in the law, but what properly belongs to it. For example, the law contains frequent promises of mercy; but as they are borrowed from another dispensation, they are not considered as part of the law, when the mere nature of the law is the subject of discussion. All that they attribute to it is, that it enjoins what is right and prohibits crimes; that it proclaims a reward for the followers of righteousness, and denounces punishments against transgressors; but that it neither changes nor corrects the depravity of heart which is natural to all men.

VIII. Now let us explain the comparison of the apostle in all its branches. In the first place, the Old Testament is literal, because it was promulgated without the efficacy of the Spirit; the New is spiritual, because the Lord hath engraven it in a spiritual manner on the hearts of men. The second contrast therefore serves as an elucidation of the first. The Old Testament is the revelation of death, because it can only involve all mankind in a curse; the New is the instrument of life, because it delivers us from the curse, and restores us to

(e) 2 Cor. iii. 6, &c.

favour with God. The former is the ministry of condemnation, because it convicts all the children of Adam of unrighteousness; the latter is the ministry of righteousness, because it reveals the mercy of God, by which we are made righteous. The last contrast must be referred to the legal cercmonies. The law having an image of things that were at a distance, it was necessary that in time it should be abolished and disappear. The gospel, exhibiting the body itself, retains a firm and perpetual stability. Jeremiah calls even the moral law a weak and frail covenant, but for another reason; namely, because it was soon broken by the sudden defection of an ungrateful people. But as such a violation arises from the fault of the people, it cannot be properly attributed to the Testament. The ceremonies, however, which at the advent of Christ were abolished by their own weakness, contained in themselves the cause of their abrogation. Now this difference between the "letter" and the "spirit" is not to be understood, as if the Lord had given his law to the Jews without any beneficial result, without one of them being converted to him: but it is used in a way of comparison, to display the plenitude of grace, with which the same Legislator, assuming as it were a new character, hath honoured the preaching of the gospel. For if we survey the multitude of those, from among all nations, whom by the influence of his Spirit in the preaching of the gospel the Lord hath regenerated and gathered into communion with his Church, we shall say that those of the ancient Israelites who cordially and sincerely embraced the covenant of the Lord were extremely few; though, if estimated by themselves without any comparison, they amounted to a considerable

number.

IX. The fourth difference arises out of the third. For the Scripture calls the Old Testament a covenant of bondage, because it produces fear in the mind; but the New it describes as a covenant of liberty, because it leads the heart to confidence and security. Thus Paul, in the eighth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, says, "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." (f) To the same purpose is (f) Rom. viii. 15. ૩૨

VOL. I.

now

that passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the faithful are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest," where nothing can be either heard or seen, but what must strike terror into the mind; so that even Moses himself is exceedingly afraid at the sound of the terrible voice, which they all pray that they may hear no more; but that now the faithful" are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," (g) &c. What Paul briefly touches in the passage, which we have adduced from the Epistle to the Romans, he explains more at large in his Epistle to the Galatians, when he allegorises the two sons of Abraham in the following manner: that Agar, the bond-woman, is a type of mount Sinai, where the people of Israel received the law; that Sarah, the free-woman, is a figure of the celestial Jerusalem, whence proceeds the gospel. That as the son of Agar is born in bondage, and can never attain to the inheritance, and the son of Sarah is born free and has a right to the inheritance; (h) so by the law we are devoted to slavery, but by the gospel alone are regenerated to liberty. Now the whole may be summed up thus, that the Old Testament filled men's consciences with fear and trembling; but that by the benefit of the New Testament, they are delivered and enabled to rejoice. The former kept their consciences under a yoke of severe bondage; but by the liberality of the latter they are emancipated and admitted to liberty. If any one object to us the case of the holy fathers of the Israelitish people; that as they were clearly possessed of the same spirit of faith as we are, they must consequently have been partakers of the same liberty and joy; we reply, that neither of these originated from the law; but that when they felt themselves by means of the law oppressed with their servile condition, and wearied with disquietude of conscience, they fled for refuge to the gospel: and that therefore it was a peculiar advantage of the New Testament, that they enjoyed an exception from the common law of the Old Testament, and were exempted from those evils. Besides we shall deny that they were favoured with the (h) Gal. iv. 22, &c.

(g) Heb. xii. 18, &c.

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