CHAP. VIII.

The Laws which God ordained at Mount Sinai, and particularly the Moral Laws.

W

HEN the Ifraelites were on their journey towards the land of Canaan, and in the first day of the third month after their setting out 2, were got as far as mount Sinai (called alfo Horeb ", either becaufe Horeb is an adjoining mountain to Sinai, or that they are only two different rifings of the fame mountain) in the wilderness or defart of Arabia Petræa, there God inftructed Mofes, who was their leader, in the feveral laws which he had ordained for them to keep. The Jewish rabbies obferve, the Lord fpake unto Mofes face to face; that it was not as to other prophets, in dreams and vifions, &c. but in fuch a clear and plain manner as one perfon may converfe with another d.

Here, before we proceed, we cannot but obferve the fad effects of worshipping idols; for when Mofes went up to the mount to receive the laws of God, and ftayed there forty days, the people (that is, a great part of them) thinking he was loft, and obferving

Exod. xix. i. b Mr. Sandys fays, that Sinai hath three tops of a marvellous height; that on the weft fide being of old called Horeb, where God appeared to Mofes in a bufh, being fruitful in pafturage, was far lower, and fhadowed when the fun arifes, by the middlemoft. Travels, book II. p. 123. edit. London, 1615. Alfo Deut. iv. 10. Exod. xxxil 11. d Maimon. Porta Mofis, p. 169.

obferving the pillar, or cloud, which was wont to conduct them, not to move forward as before, contrived to make fome fymbol, or reprefentation of God's prefence to go before them, or that might reprefent God in a vifible manner to them; to which purpose they fet up, a molten calf, and brought their offerings to it . The reafon of this fhape might be, because it was fuch as they had feen in Egypt, (golden bulls being a symbol of the Egyptian god Ofiris, which was alfo called Apis, whom the Egyptians worshipped in the image of a bull; and fometimes they reprefented him by a live bull, which was kept in the temple of Ofiris : In imitation of which, Jeroboam afterwards fet up golden calves in Dan and Bethel.) Now it does not appear, that they had any intention to caft off that God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, but that fomething in the place of God, or reprefenting God might ftand before them: For Aaron proclaimed a feaft to the Lord Jehovah, and the calf moft likely was defigned a fymbol, or fign of his prefence: Yet God conceived fuch indignation against the idol worshippers, that upon his command, three thousand of them were flain by thofe who clave to the worship of the true God*. Whence it appears, that not only fetting up an idol for the true God, but also a worshipping the true God by an image, is idolatry: The reafon is, because the representing God by an idol, is a debafing of him, as if he were a corporal being, like ourfelves; and therefore the Ifraelites

e Exod. xxvii. chap i. fect. 10.

f See Bishop Stillingfleet of Idolatry, As appears from their ancient hiftorians Herodotus, lib. ii. and Diodor lib. i. in Dr. Prideaux's Connection, part 1. book iii. An. 523. k Exod. xxxii,

i Verfe 5.

h Verfe 4

1

Ifraelites are faid to have changed the glory of God into the fimilitude of an ox that eateth grafs '.

To proceed, The laws which God ordained in Mount Sinai, were of three forts, viz. moral, ceremonial, and judicial, or political. The firft, or moral laws, their rabbies call precepts; the ceremonial, by the name of ftatutes; and the judicial, they term, judgments ". Firt, Moral, fo called to distinguish them from fuch laws, which are to be observed, merely because they are ordained, and are called pofitive, or ceremonial: But now the moral laws are fuch as are founded on the nature of things, and enjoined, because they are good in themselves, and arife from eternal reason, and are fuitable to our frame and condition in the world; as that God, who made and preferves us and all the world, should be adored and worshipped by us, and no idol or fpirit fhould partake of his honour; that it must be a high affront to declare a thing in his name, or to appeal to him as a witnefs in vain, or falfly; that fome time be allotted for God's honour and worship; that parents and governors be honoured and refpected; that one man fhould not injure another, in his perfon by murder, or his wife by adultery, in his goods by ftealing, or his reputation by flander and falfe witness; neither fhould men covet what is the property of another.

Thefe moral laws are fummed up in the ten commandments, which God fpake" or publish'd from m Hottinger,

1 Pfalm cvi. 20. compare Rom, i. 23. Thefaurus, lib. II. chap. iii. fect. 2. a There is fome variety of expreffing the publishing of the law, efpecially thefe moral ones, the ten commandments. In Exod. xx. 1. it is, And Goa pake these words, faying, I am the Lord thy God, &c. and Deut. iv. 12. The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire. But in Acts vii. 38. St. Stephen tells the Jews,

This

from the mount, after a very felemn manner, with a long train of terror and magnificence, as thunderings and lightnings, the thaking and fmoaking of the mountains, and the founding of a trumpet, to fhew the majetty and power of the Divine Law giver, and to create the greater veneration for his laws 9.

Afterwards thefe laws, written with the finger of God himself (that is, by his own powerful operation, without employing of Mofes, or any other therein) on two tables of ftone, were delivered by him unto Mofes . Here a queftion may arife: Since the moral law and the law of nature ap

pear

And

And

This is he (Mofes who was in the church in the wilderness, with the angel which spake to him in Mount Sinai, and with our fathers who received the oracles to give unto us. ver. 53. That their fathers received the law by the difpofition eis diatagas, the ordering or miniftration of angels. St. Paul, Gal. iii. 19. fays. It was ordained by angels in the hands of Mofes, a Mediator between God and them. Deut. v. 5. and Heb ii. 2, 3 he makes a comparifon between God's fpeaking the law to the Jews by angels, and his fpeaking to us by his Son: If the word spoken by angels was stedfait, how fhall we efcape, if we neglect fo great falvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord? So that either we muft understand, (1) That God himself, in a frict sense, fpake the words, which because they came from the shechinah, or the Divine Glory, that was incompaffed with the hoft of angels, are therefore faid to be spoken by angels. Or 2dly, That one principal angel formed the voice, with the attendance of many others: Which, becaufe it was done by the immediate fpecial command of the Divine Majefty, appearing in the hecl inah, is therefore faid to be fpoken by God himself, or the Logos. See Grotius and Dr Whitby on Heb. ii. z. who quote Jofephus for this fenfe laft mentioned, (Antiq. Judg. I. xv. chap. v. in the tranflation, chap. 8.) But Bishop Patrick on Exod. xx. 1. approves of the fenfe firft given. • Exod. xx. I. P Exod. xix. 14. to the end. 9 Exod. XX. 20. ↑ Exod. xxxi. 18. Deut. ix. 19.

pear, in the main, to be the fame, what occafion was there for the folemn declaring of what, by the light of nature, might be known before? In anfwer hereto we are to remember what has been before obferved, viz. That, fince the fall of Adam, our affections and faculties are depraved, and our understanding is fo darkened, that the knowledge of the natural law hath been much obfcured; fo that God was pleased, out of his great wisdom and goodness, to renew the impreffion of the general law of nature, and confirm, and particularly explain the fame, by a new revelation.

It is plain, that in the ten commandments, God had a particular refpect to the Jews, and their state; because he reprefents himself in a particular manner, as their God, and as expecting their obedience, in gratitude for what he had done for them in Egypt; I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, &c. yet they are of a moral obligation to all mankind in fome refpe&t or other, and are inforced as fuch by our Lord and his apoftles: And as the preface to the commandments, I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, &c. belonged ftrictly to the Jews, and their deliverance from their flavery in Egypt; fo, in another fenfe, to all mankind, he is the Lord our God, who made and preferves us, especially to us Chriftians, who, by the gofpel, are delivered from the thraldom under the devil and fin.

The two first commandments forbid idolatry, with fome difference. In the firft is forbidden the owning any other god except the true God: Now, to own or to have any other god, is to afcribe fupreme authority, power and goodnefs to a falfe god, as the old Heathens did, either to the fun, VOL. I. C c

moon