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ants of Adam, to whom the covenant of grace is not revealed, are considered as under a covenant of works with God, wherein," &c. &c. We have never read that God made this covenant with His fallen creatures. We have never encountered this covenant. The only statements which even sound like it are contained in that covenant of the law, which the author himself considers as a dispensation of the covenant of grace. Certainly we are nowhere instructed to "consider all as lying under it, to whom the covenant of grace is not revealed." But this by the way. We proceed to the following words, which introduce more distinctly the point to which we would direct attention :

"There is yet another sense in which the word covenant, or testament, is used, when applied to the different methods in which God has carried on and revealed His purposes of grace, before and since the coming of Christ: then it is called, by way of distinction, the old and the new covenant, or testament; and its meaning is then the same as dispensation, or the portions of the Scriptures revealed under the former or the latter dispensation." (p. 15.)

This is awkwardly expressed: it sounds as if the dispensations, and "the portions of Scripture revealed under them," were the same thing; and there is a misapplication of words in speaking of "portions of Scripture" as "revealed." The truths contained in them were revealed, and the books were inspired; but the ideas belonging to these words are very different. We will not, however, enter on the subject of the Scriptures or the application of the word testament to them. We confine our attention to the statements that the word covenant, when accompanied by epithets old and new, is "applied to the different methods in which God has carried on and revealed His purposes of grace before and since the coming of Christ," and that "its meaning is the same as dispensation." It is further alleged that this is the meaning in which the word is employed in the epistle to the Hebrews, after that meaning itself has been more fully explained.

"Let it be, however, understood, that the Old Testament dispensation here includes the whole of the Divine dealings with man, in a general point of view, from the fall to the commencement of the New Testament dispensation; and when more distinction of time is required, it will be obtained by dividing the former into its respective periods. This twofold division here adopted, accords best with the language of the Scriptures. Heb. ix. 15:- He is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.' Here the first testament must comprise all the former ages since the fall, for the transgressions under it, are sins committed from the beginning. Compare also 2 Cor. iii. 6." (p. 17.)

It may seem censorious to find fault with such statements as

these; nor should we count them noticeable, if they only occurred by the way. But here they stand at the head and source of the discussion, in a chapter which proposes to fix the precise meanings and relations of the leading terms, and which begins with the words, "Clear ideas are very important in order to ascertain the truth." Impressed with the same conviction, and regarding the position which has been taken as involving a serious mistake, and as a source of confusion in subsequent inquiries, we must maintain, that when the words old and new covenant are used in Scripture, the meaning is not "the same as dispensation," but that the old covenant, or first testament, is the separate covenant with Israel, that the word is used in that meaning only in the texts which Mr. Alford has adduced, and that we have no right to appropriate it to describe "the whole of God's dealings with fallen man before the introduction of Christianity," or to "denote the incomplete or typical way in which before Christ the knowledge of truth was dispensed."

The author thinks that the term old covenant or testament must be referred, not to the Israelitish covenant as a separate institution, but to "the whole of the Divine dealings from the Fall;" because, he says, the "transgressions under it," mentioned in Heb. ix. 15, "are sins committed from the beginning." Now it is certain that the death of Christ was for the redemption of transgressions from the beginning as well as to the end of time; but this is no reason for giving that latitude of meaning to the expression used, and so impairing the definite argument in which it is introduced. The apostle is presenting the eternal covenant of God in Christ to those who have already a covenant from God, in a regular system of provisions divinely made, and of engagements divinely sanctioned. There is no controversy on its divine origin, or on the efficacy of its provisions, or on the certainty of its promises, within its own range and for its own purposes. The only question is, what was that range, and what were those purposes. The writer takes up the details of this covenant, and shows that in itself it was not, and could not be, proposed for spiritual and eternal objects. It did not provide admission into the true sanctuary, did not propose redemption of moral transgressions, or effect a cleansing of the conscience, or promise an eternal inheritance. Except in the way of type and suggestion, it left all this untouched. In its nature and its direct effects, the covenant belonged not to the spirit, but to the flesh; i.e., to the outward, circumstantial, temporal life. The idea that it was more than this, that, it could meet the wants of the soul, and contain resources for spiritual cleansing, for righteousness and eternal life, was entirely a human invention. Deeply fixed as it was in the Jewish mind, and widely infecting even the Hebrew-Christian church, it had no sanction from God, who had, on the contrary, surrounded this covenant with a cloud of testimony to a better covenant, which had been promised

before it was heard of, and would be disclosed when it had served its turn. From one of these testimonies, the expression old and new covenant or testament is directly derived by the writer of the epistle, viz., the promise in Jer. xxxi. 31, &c., from which he draws the inference, "In that he saith a new covenant he hath made the first old," and then proceeds to use those terms in the argument to which Mr. Alford has referred us. If we turn to that argument with the inquiry, What is meant by the old covenant, or the first testament? we have the distinct answers,-" That which I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt;" or, again, that which "was dedicated, not without blood," when " Moses took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you."

Or, again, if we inquire of the other passage to which Mr. Alford has referred us (2 Cor. iii.), the answer is still the same, -That which was ministered by Moses when his face shone, which was written in stones, which left those who had it (as far as it was concerned) under "condemnation" and "death," and "is done away in Christ."*

The old covenant, then, is not the dispensation of God's purposes of mercy carried on from the Fall, but the definite covenant pledged to Abraham, and made with Israel at Mount Sinai, having for its provisions the Levitical system, and for its promise, the possession of Canaan, with its attendant blessings. Of the provisions and promises of this covenant the inspired writer is speaking to the Hebrews in the argument under consideration, going through all the leading parts of the Levitical system; and a careful observation shows more distinctly how entirely the argument is concerned with that system alone. Take, for instance, the very passage to which our author appeals for his wider meaning of the expression, Heb. ix. 13, 14, 15. See how, in the mention of "the blood of bulls and of goats," the writer keeps his eye simply on the provisions of the Levitical covenant. The lamb, the whole burnt offering, is not mentioned. It was not Levitical in its origin, or in the limitation of its use. It was antecedent to the Law, and was offered by persons not priests, and by strangers to the covenant of Israel. But the blood of bulls and of goats was the appointed sin-offering of that covenant, purifying from

*The expression, "done away in Christ," is appropriated to the veil on the heart of the readers of the Old Testament. The true application of it appears to us to be that given above, which is supported by dean Alford, who holds it to be "the only admissible sense of the words consistently with the symbolism of the passage." The word

καταργούμενον has been used in all the other verses of the thing ministered, i.e., the old covenant and its glory, and evidently in verse 14 has the same meaning, "the veil not being rolled back, so as to see that it, the old covenant. (as a covenant) is done away in Christ."

sins against it, and qualifying for participation in its communion and services. Was that blood effectual? Certainly, for its own purposes. It "sanctified to the purifying of the flesh," but it did not touch the "conscience" so as to relieve it from the moral uncleanness of dead works, or qualify for the spiritual service of the living God, or make a "way into the holiest of all," or effect any redemption available for an "eternal inheritance." The first testament had its provisions, but not for these purposes. Moral transgressions under it were unredeemed by it; and it is with reference to that particular fact that the words are used (v. 15) which our author has misconstrued.

In another place, more exact language is used, and a more true interpretation given, though not quite consistent with what had been said before. By making a short extract, we shall at once. deal fairly by our author and advance a step in our discussion:

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"The old covenant referred to by Jeremiah and St. Paul, which, on Christ's coming, was ready to vanish away, was God's covenant with Israel as a nation, made through Moses at Mount Sinai. The words of the prophet state as much; Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt.' This refers to the national covenant in itself, without respect to that other covenant of grace, whose narrow string of mercy was interwoven with it, and through which, David, and all God's elect, from among his professing people, found pardon and peace with God. In order to understand the Old Testament Scriptures, it is important always to bear in mind, that the Sinai covenant given through Moses to Israel, contained a spiritual and heavenly covenant within an earthly and national one: the carnal Israel exalted the latter and nearly lost sight of the former, and obscured it with their vain traditions. Christ cleared away their abuses, and brought out the covenant of grace, fully developed in all its spiritual and heavenly features, under the Christian dispensation: the peculiarities connected with the manner of dispensing it, to the nation of Israel, and through the darkness of the times before Christ, were then cast aside." (p. 100.)

This passage affords a clearer view than is found in many others of the relations between the two covenants and the two dispensations. For the spiritual necessities of man, for his eternal prospects, in his capacity as an immortal being, there are not two covenants, a new and an old. There never was but one,-the covenant of grace, founded on the mediation of the incarnate Son, and embraced and enjoyed by faith. This covenant (i.e., the knowledge of its nature, and enjoyment of its blessings) has been dispensed in different degrees and under different external arrangements. Looking to any particular degree of its revelation, or any separate constitution of things connected with it, we may speak of that portion of the dealings of God with man as a separate dispensation, making as many dispensations as we please. But the great

division in time, supplied by the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh, is far more complete and definite than those created by any minor distinctions.

We do not, therefore, complain that the whole of God's dealings with fallen man from Adam to Christ should be treated as one dispensation, distinguished from that which has followed it by incompleteness of information and typical circumstances; only we maintain that the first covenant is coincident, not with the whole, but with a part of that dispensation; and that the greatness of the advance which was made in that part of it, is not discerned for want of a clear perception of its distinct character. The author discourses in two or three places on what he calls, in the heading of a chapter, the "slight difference between God's dispensation before Moses, and the Jewish." We cannot think it slight, when we consider that it consisted in the creation and administration during the one period of a covenant which has no existence during the other.

One reason why this broad line of demarcation is so much overlooked, is found in the antiquity involved in the term "patriarchal dispensation," which this author, like so many others, has failed to observe. That term represents to us two things as united which ought to be kept separate; namely, the general state of ancient religion among godly persons, and the peculiarities superadded to that state in the case of the single family to which a special covenant was pledged. We take our idea of patriarchal religion from those with whom we are best acquainted, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who no doubt in their general religious knowledge and habit, represent (though favourably) the true religion of their age; but we must remember that, in their separation from the world, special directions from heaven, promises of Canaan, and covenant of circumcision, they are already in the dawning of that "first testament" with which the other servants of God in the world have no concern. The distinction, then, is to be drawn, not between the condition of the chosen family in the commencement and in the completion of their peculiar covenant, but between the condition of men under that covenant in its developed state, and the condition of men entirely outside it. Such were Abraham's own ancestors, Melchizedek, Job, Jethro, and others, persons incidentally mentioned, who must not be looked upon as single cases, but as instances of the once large but gradually decreasing class of worshippers of God,-all under the first dispensation, but none of them under the first testament.

We will now proceed to a close inspection of that testament itself, as a part of the general dispensation under which it falls, and a most remarkable phenomenon it is. A covenant is introduced with the clearest evidences of Divine intervention, and the most solemn sanctions of Divine authority, complete in all its parts, in conditions, provisions and promises; a majestic and har

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