George Paxton I.7

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SECT. VII.

THE POWER OF REPRESENTING POSTERITY IN A RELIGIOUS COVENANT, NOT A JEWISH PECULIARITY.

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THE Moral Law, which was given to Israel, certainly contains no peculiarity; but is the same in every age, and to every people. We must seek for the peculiarities of the Old Testament dispensation in the Ceremonial and Judicial Law.

The ceremonial institutions were all shadows of good things to come. They only signified that Christ had not yet put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. When Christ came, they became old and unprofitable. They had no more to do after the arrival of the Saviour, whose approach they proclaimed.

In the state of civil affairs, the New Testament required no alterations, excepting in a few instances; such as the distinctions among the tribes, the law with regard to the cities of refuge, the prohibition of intercourse with lepers, or others, that were ceremonially unclean: regulations which, under the Old Testament, served as a fence to the Ceremonial Law as distinguished from the Moral, and prevented the interference of the church with the state. But, the ceremonial institutions having obtained their end in the death of Christ, there is no more occasion for this judicial fence. As to the intrinsic nature of civil government, and the immediate end of it, the good of civil society, the New Testament made no alterations. It is evident, then, that neither the duty of covenanting in general, nor the right of religious ancestors to represent their posterity in particular, comes under the description neither of the Ceremonial or Judicial Law. This right is not a ceremonial institution, because it has nothing in its nature that necessarily refers to the coming of Christ as a future event: representing posterity in a religious covenant, in which we avouch the Lord to be our God by solemn oath, says not whether the Saviour is, or is not come. Nor does it belong to the Judicial Law. No person will maintain that it is now unlawful for the members of a political body to enter into conventions, and bind their posterity, as well as themselves, by solemn oaths and subscriptions to make good their promises. If we could consider the representation of Israel at Sinai, merely in a civil or political view, it would have been the same with such a transaction. On this supposition it must have belonged, not to that part of the Judicial Law which respected the peculiar circumstances of the Jews, but to that part of it which is re-

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maining in force. But it could not belong to the Judicial Law, because the covenanting at Sinai and Jordan was altogether a religious solemnity.

There is nothing in this representation which refers to the local situation of Israel, like the Temple or the Altar; for what may prevent any nation from doing as Israel did at the command of God? It is physically impossible for all the males of every nation to go thrice a-year to their capital city to worship there; but there is not a people under heaven, who cannot devote themselves and their children to God. This duty will apply to the church in any situation, and under any dispensation of grace. The peculiar privileges of Israel, however, were attached to the land of Canaan, and to the city and temple of Jerusalem, and could not be transported beyond the limits of that country. Of this assertion, the present condition of the Jews is a proof; for since their dispersion, they offer no sacrifice nor oblation to God. Their ceremonial observances are either become impracticable or palpably absurd. The ordinance of circumcision is indeed a portable institution; but to prevent the observation of it, it is not only expressly forbidden in the New Testament, but treated with contempt. “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision*.”

A peculiar privilege must be abolished by the same authority which gave it existence, when it is no more to be enjoyed. But where is the abolition of this right to be found? According to Daniel, the design of our Lord’s coming was to cause the sacrifice and the oblation cease—to abolish the Ceremonial Law, the middle wall of partition, that every peculiarity might be removed, and Jew and Gentile be blended into one people. To prevent mistakes, those peculiar circumstances in the Jewish worship, which the New Testament church might be in danger of retaining, are particularly pointed out. But, though mankind are much inclined to retain and exercise this right, and though our Lord, who knows all things, knew that it would be received in the church, and powerfully influence the sentiments and conduct of his people, the scripture makes no mention of its abolition, as one of the peculiarities which distinguished the Jewish people from every other. The Passover was abolished when Jesus instituted the Supper. Circumcision passed finally away, when he charged the disciples, “saying, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost†.” The Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, by the frequent appearances of the Saviour to his disciples on that day,

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* Phil. iii. 2.

† Mat. xxviii. 19.

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the illapses of the Spirit, and the approved observation of inspired men. The right of which we are speaking, was not an ordinance indeed, but a member of one. But, even in those cases where the substance of the ordinance remained, the abolished circumstances are either stated in express terms, or by necessary implication. One day in seven was devoted to God under the New Testament as well as under the Old, but it was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, which is necessarily inferred from the practice of Christ and his Apostles. Instrumental music was used under the Old Testament in religious worship. God is still to be praised, but in a more spiritual manner, not with instruments of music, but with the heart and lips only. This is an unavoidable consequence from the words of the Apostle, where, describing the manner in which New Testament believers are to conduct the praises of God, he passes over in silence the use of musical instruments*. But the New Testament scriptures give us no direction about the manner of conducting religious vows, though they undoubtedly speak of the duty as still in force, and observed by the churches.

Nor can it be fairly argued that this right is of so trivial a nature that it deserves no particular notice. No approved circumstance in the worship of God can be of trifling moment. But this, God himself has honoured with his special notice, both in his covenant with Abraham, and in his first particular application of it to the natural posterity of the Patriarch at Sinai and Jordan. It is also represented by the prophets, in their reproofs to that rebellious people, as a heinous aggravation of their guilt, that they had broken the covenant which the Lord had made with their fathers. These things duly considered, it seems indispensibly necessary that in a perfect rule of faith and manners, the abolition of a circumstance of such magnitude to the Old Testament church, which so greatly increased the guilt of her apostacy, which run through all her privileges, and characterized all her worship, should be clearly marked.

If this right was peculiar to the Jews, the exercise of it must now be displeasing to God. Why then is it not forbidden? If it be still the privilege of the church, it cannot be a peculiarity. Besides, as this right belongs neither to the Ceremonial nor Judicial Law, if it be an exclusive appointment of the former dispensation, it is a detached and singular privilege, among the extraordinary institutions with which the Jewish people were favoured. For this reason it was the more necessary to point it out, and set it aside by a clear and positive prohibition, because it was more ready to slip into the faith and practice of the New

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* Eph. v. 19. Col. iii. 16. Jam. v. 13.

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Testament church. It is granted by many, on evidence which has never yet been overthrown, that Covenanting is a moral duty which shall continue in the church till the end of time. In the case of Israel, we find that duty coupled with a right of representing their posterity, which is supposed to be peculiar to them, without any intimation that it is so. Surely, then, it was necessary to disjoin them by express revelation, to prevent an unhallowed imitation. For, the Law of God is not designedly left imperfect; it is not expressed in studied obscurity, nor jumbled into inextricable confusion, to ensnare the unwary subject, and gratify the malignity of a cruel lord.

The adoption and practice of this peculiarity cannot be innocent in the present dispensation; for it must be an act of will-worship—what God does not now require, but wills to cease. Yet the scripture, which is intended to lead us unto all truth, leaves us, in this instance of sin and duty, without a rule of conduct. And if man may be guilty when he introduces into religious worship what God has not required, or wills to cease with another dispensation, without giving us any intimation of his will, how are we to vindicate Him from being the author of sin? It is an acknowledged principle of justice and equity among reasonable men, that laws should be made known to all the subjects, that the crimes which they forbid may be avoided, or the transgressors left without excuse. But, though the Father of mercies is our Lawgiver, we are not, in this case, it seems, to expect that reasonable and necessary indulgence, which is the more singular, as he has granted it in every other. The right of offering sacrifices to God, was not a peculiar privilege of the Jews, but belonged to every family, age, and country; but the Passover was a peculiar ordinance, instituted in Egypt, and enjoined anew at the giving of the Law. Of this rite, the scriptures record the institution, and delineate all the circumstances, with scrupulous accuracy. The first institution contains several temporary or peculiar circumstances; but the final directions of Moses in the 16th Chapter of Deuteronomy, by leaving them out, shewed that people, with sufficient clearness, that they were no longer to be observed. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which superseded the Passover, was, in the beginning, attended with many circumstances of the same kind; but the Apostle Paul, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, states, in precise and unequivocal terms, the Institution and the Manner in which it is to be dispensed to the end of time. But upon this Right, once connected with the duty of public vows, the scriptures observe a profound silence. Why is this duty, the crowning point of the Christian’s profession, left encumbered with extraneous matter? Why are

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the people of God, if this be a peculiar Jewish privilege, left, in this instance, to grope in the dark? God acts a sovereign, but never a capricious nor unwise part. If the wisdom of Christians be insufficient to guide them in other duties, it is no less so in this.

If this right be a Jewish peculiarity, the adoption of it, and every attempt to reduce it to practice, must be hurtful to the New Testament church. Will-worship can produce nothing but evil. To observe it now must be to go back to the beggarly elements, to the rudiments of the world. This truth the Galatians exemplified; “When we were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world. But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage*?” These Gentiles, but just delivered from the darkness of heathen delusions, by a strange infatuation, turned aside, and submitted to the dark hints and severe injunctions of the Mosaic Law: they were zealous for observing the peculiar institutions of the Jews, and thereby endangered their eternal welfare. The same Apostle earnestly dissuades the Colossians from observing the ceremonial rites of the Law, which he calls the first principles or elements of the Church in her infant state, and which were in themselves of a carnal nature: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, AFTER THE RUDIMENTS OF THE WORLD, and not after Christ†.” Such observance he declares to be now contrary to the mind and will of Christ revealed in the gospel, and that none of these peculiar and ceremonial rites now lead the soul to him alone for salvation. An instance might be given of a Jewish peculiarity, which the folly and presumption of man have admitted into the New Testament churches, and which, as might be expected, has every where been productive of the very worst consequences. But what evil has the exercise of this right done? What danger brings it to the souls of men; what ordinance has it injured; what doctrine has it vitiated? What religious exercise has it misled, impeded, or weakened? Has it not bound men to God and to one another with the strongest ties? Is it not calculated to create the strongest confidence among church members of which the present imperfect state will admit? Does it not unite the succeeding generations of the righteous together, combine them into one compact body, obliging them to walk in the same way, and to mind the same thing; and thus secures them more effectually from the attacks of earth and hell? These are important benefits which no example (for we have shewn that obligation it has none) can effectuate

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* Gal. iv. 3, 9.

† Col. ii. 8.

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in any comparable degree. A Jewish right transplanted by the error of men into the present dispensation, contrary to the will of God, producing only good—good substantial and permanent is a singularity indeed.

But, though it belonged to no class of singular privileges bestowed upon Israel, it may be pleaded, that it was a solitary but special prerogative of the Old Testament. This plea would ill accord with the confessed superiority of the present dispensation. Many special favours Jehovah bestowed upon the Jewish nation which no other people had reason to expect; but he conferred no benefit upon the Jewish church, of which we are deprived, or for which we have not received a valuable equivalent; for the present dispensation, the Apostle declares “excelleth in glory.” The Jewish church had the seal of Circumcision; we have received Baptism in its room. They had the Passover; we are now blessed with the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. They had their bloody sacrifices; our faith is now immediately directed to Him who appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

They had their ordinances of purification; we have the washing of water by the word. Religious Vows is the privilege of both dispensations, and was enjoyed by Israel as a Church, not as a Nation. Their fathers represented them in the radical covenant of their church, which was, unquestionably, a real and important benefit to that and all succeeding generations. What have we received for this, if it be not now competent to church members? There is not an ordinance of the New Testament which in the least resembles it, or which, in any respect, answers the same purpose. Have we received nothing?—Let the Apostle no more assert, that the glory of the present dispensation excelleth; that the privileges and benefits of the New Testament church are more valuable and extensive than those of the Old. If Ancestors cannot now represent their Posterity in Religious Covenants, the goodness of God is retrograde; and the infancy of the Church is more highly favoured than her maturity.

But farther, there is nothing in this right inconsistent with the characteristics of the New Testament dispensation. It is the distinguishing glory of this dispensation to reveal the Saviour as already come. It furnishes the church with a nearer and fuller view of the Covenant of Grace. Believers now see the condition of it fulfilled in his obedience and death; and all its promises, in him yea and amen. They behold him as their great Prophet removing the veil which concealed the sublime mysteries of salvation, and exhibiting them to public view.

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They see him as their King, meek and having salvation, and exalted to give repentance and remission of sins. The New Testament dispensation has extinguished all the observances of the Ceremonial Law. It has removed those civil institutions which were peculiar to the Jews, and served as a fence to their ritual, and has left the nations at liberty to devise and adopt any form of government they please, which offers no injury to the law of God. It has introduced the positive institutions of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and has changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. It corrects the gross mistakes concerning moral duties, which, in our Saviour’s time, prevailed among church members. It gives further instructions concerning the occasions and manner of performing many of them, and sets the motives and encouragements to the practice of them in the strongest light: and, in fine, it has extended the kingdom of Christ to all the nations of the earth, preferring neither nations nor individuals, but placing all upon the same level. To none of these things is the right for which we plead contradictory. The ceremonial rites and peculiar civil institutions of the former dispensation are either become altogether impracticable, or damnable to the presumptuous observer, and the sabbath of the seventh day improper. But this right is of so spiritual and general a nature, that it is as practicable now as before; it combines with the present state of things as easily as the duty of covenanting itself; and is, in every respect, as proper since the coming of Christ, as before his appearance in human nature.

Again, it is still incumbent upon Christians to regard not only the spirit, but likewise the letter and form, of many precepts and examples of the Old Testament. “It will hardly be disputed that whatever was the duty of ancient Israel, is so far still the duty of Christians, as it had no necessary relation to the peculiarities of their church, or of their state, or as it may be practised by any church or state, without impropriety or inconsistency with the advantages of the New Testament dispensation. And then we are by no means to depart from the letter or form of any precept of God’s law, if he has not himself given us any intimation that we may depart from it. Hence, if the form of a duty be the same in the New Testament as in the Old, we may conclude that the form as well as the spirit of it is obligatory upon us. And, if a duty, with respect to the spirit of it, is plainly enjoined in the New Testament without any change either expressed or implied, of the form or manner in which it was practised under the Old Testament, we may safely conclude, that with regard to such a duty, we are not allowed to

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deviate from the form prescribed by the divine authority of the Old Testament.

But some appear to be of opinion that the precepts and examples of the Old Testament, repeated or referred to in the New, derive all their authority and obligation upon us from that repetition, or that reference. So far is this opinion from being true, that, in some respects, the authority of the New Testament rests upon the authority of the Old, as its foundation: not that the New is less immediately from God than the Old; their origin and intrinsic excellence are equally divine: but, with regard to order and connection, the one is to the other as the higher parts of a building are to the lower. The New Testament continually establishes the authority of the Old, and builds upon it. The history of the New Testament answers to the prophecies of the Old. As to the doctrines of the New Testament, our Lord and his Apostles constantly referred their hearers to the Old, affirming that they said “no other things than what Moses and the Prophets had said before.” Our Saviour and his Apostles proposed many examples to the imitation of their hearers, as obligatory upon them, by the authority alone of the Old Testament. So, our Lord defended the conduct of his disciples, in plucking and eating the ears of corn on the Sabbath, from the example of David, Matt. xii. 3, 4, 5. So the Apostles encourage us to faith, to patience, and prayer, from the examples of Abraham, of Job, and Elias, Rom. iv. James v. 11, 17, 18. The phrase, It is written, which commonly in the New Testament denotes divine authority, is applied to the history of the Old, Gal. iv. 22. Indeed, hardly any thing would appear more unreasonable to an impartial reader of the New Testament, than to suppose that, when the penmen of it repeated a precept, or referred to an example of the Old Testament, they meant to give something a divine authority and obligation which otherwise it would not have had.

For a great part of the first century, the Old Testament was all the written word that Christians were in possession of; and yet they were enjoined to take heed to that word, and commended for searching the scriptures daily. The Bereans were more noble than those of Thessalonica. But in what respect were they more noble? In setting aside the authority of the Old Testament? Quite the reverse: it consisted in manifesting so high a regard to the authority of the Old Testament, that they would not receive even the doctrine of the Apostles, without examining whether it was or was not, agreeable to that divine record. It is plain, therefore, that the first Christians subjected their hearts and consciences to the Old Testament as much as ever the Jews did.

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And why should not we do the same? Were church members loosed from their obligation to submit to the authority of the Old Testament as soon as all the books of the New Testament were published? By no means. The obligation was constituted by God himself, and none but he could loose them from it; and that he never did. Nay, they were more obliged than ever to read and study the Old Testament, when the Lord, in the New, had drawn aside the vail, and had placed the great things of his law in the most glorious point of view.

The authority, therefore, of the Old Testament, being in itself superior to objection, we are bound to obey the precepts, and to imitate the examples of it, even such of them as we cannot find expressly repeated in the New Testament. So, we are obliged by the authority of the Old Testament, to abstain from marrying within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity; to swear to the truth when called before a lawful magistrate; to spare the life of one chargeable with accidental manslaughter; to have the seal of the covenant administered to our children: and yet none of these precepts is to be found expressly repeated in the New Testament. In the same manner, the history of the Old Testament, comprehending a period of nearly four thousand years, contains a vast variety of characters and situations unnoticed in the New Testament, which are highly proper for our imitation. We are not more bound to imitate the patience of Job, which is mentioned, than the victorious chastity of Joseph, and the faithful friendship between David and Jonathan, which are not mentioned in the New Testament.

Besides, with respect to those situations which are common to both the Old and New Testaments, the duty of the church, in some of them, is much more fully exemplified in the Old. The New Testament, indeed, gives us some account of the public proceedings of the churches planted by the Apostles, of those in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus: but these accounts are very short; it is plain, they were never intended to be the only standard of the duty of God’s people in a visible church state, to the exclusion of the various useful examples of their duty in that capacity, which the more copious, particular, and long continued history of the Old Testament supplies. In the New Testament we have hardly any more than a view of a particular church during the stay of an Apostle in it, which was sometimes but one day, and seldom longer than a few weeks: but, in the Old, we see the church of Israel passing through a great variety of conditions, sometimes in prosperity, sometimes in adversity; sometimes excited to reformation, sometimes seduced to idolatry by the civil magistrate, or by her own office-bear-

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ers; sometimes lively and zealous in the observation of divine ordinances, and sometimes growing lukewarm, carnal, and secure. Hence, we need not be surprised to find some duties incumbent on church members, in their joint capacity, more clearly exemplified in the Old Testament than in the New; since, in that long succession of circumstances and situations which are recorded of the Jewish church, we cannot, in reason, suppose but that there must have been occasions for the regular performance of whatsoever the Lord requires of a people in their church capacity: but so extensive an exemplification of such duties is not to be expected in the period of about thirty years after our Saviour’s ascension; the period to which the history of the New Testament is confined.

On the whole, nothing is more absurd than attempting to raise our esteem of one part of Revelation at the expence of another. A believing submission of heart is due to all that God says. It is undeniable that we have more of the great and precious promises of the everlasting covenant, and more precepts and examples, with respect to the duties of civil and of sacred society, in the Old than we have in the New Testament. The New Testament constantly, in all its histories, in its rules and exhortations, in its doctrines and reasonings, confirms the authority of the Old: so that, if a duty is plainly enjoined in the Old Testament, and is not altered, or annulled in the New, we need not scruple to go forward in the practice of such a duty upon the authority alone of the former*.”

In fine, the depravity of the Gentile world requires this obligation to duty as well as that of Israel. The Jews were a stiff-necked and rebellious people, whom it was difficult to restrain by any obligation. God, in mercy to them, as well as for his own glory, not only promulgated from the top of Sinai the law of the ten commandments, but also laid them under the superadded obligation of a Solemn Covenant, in which he promised to be their God, and they vowed to be his people. Man is not now become more obedient to the revealed will of God. Restraints, numerous and powerful as ever, are required to check the career of human folly. Daily experience proves, that no obligations are sufficiently powerful to restrain the sinner. The thunders of the Law do not affright him; the allurements of the Gospel do not constrain him; and what, with many, is of greater moment than either, public opinion loses its controlling influence. He proclaims his sin as Sodom, and refuses to be ashamed. If all men do not run to

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* Anderson’s Essays.

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the same excess of riot, it is not for want of inclination; but of the divine permission, the opportunity, or the means of gratification. Even the genuine Christian feels a strong propensity to evil, which, without the immediate aid of Heaven, he is by no means able to correct. If then, this obligation was necessary under the Old Testament, it is no less so under the New. The voice of human necessity is as loud as ever; the benevolence of God as perfect. His wisdom and love dictated that mode of covenanting to Israel. This was the only necessity which bound the Father of mercies, and the same necessity still remains.