As to the Israelites themselves, this temporal covenant was a great instance of God’s goodness towards them. For they were thus called out of idolatry, separated from the rest of the world, built into an holy church of God, put under a most amazing theocracy, indulged for a time with a ritual of carnal institutions, because of the hardness of their hearts, which ritual was full of every instruction by doctrines, types, figures and miracles, all shewing in the strongest manner, that they were to be heirs of the heavenly promises made to their forefathers.
And as to the rest of the world, no particular message or messenger, tho’ new risen from the dead, proclaims to them in so powerful a manner, the vanity of their idols, the knowledge of the one true God of all the world, as this remarkable body of people set up in the midst of the world did. So that the law, tho’ nothing but a temporal covenant of outward care and protection, was not only most divinely contrived to preserve the faith of the first holy patriarchs, and guide them to the time and manner of receiving the promises made to their fathers, but it was all mercy to the rest of the world, being no less than one continual, daily, miraculous call to them to receive blessing and protection, life and salvation in the knowledge and worship of the one true God of heaven and earth.
Now when the children of the patriarchs, were to be entered into this new covenant, the utmost care was taken by the Spirit of God, that to eyes that could see and ears that could hear, enough should be shewn and said, to prevent all carnal atheism to temporal and outward things, and bring forth a spiritual Israel, full of that faith and piety, in which their holy ancestors, as pilgrims on earth, had lived and died devoted to God, in hope of everlasting redemption.
To this end Moses, tho’ bringing them under a ritual of bodily washings and purifications, yet that they might use them only as outward confessions and memorials of an inward spiritual pollution, and as types and figures of their being to be delivered from it; is led by the inspiration of God, not only to insert in the books of the law, the most sublime doctrines and heavenly precepts of patriarchal holiness, but to lay before them, for their daily instruction, a history of the most deep and affecting truths: truths that had every thing in them fitted to awaken and keep up that strong hope of an eternal redemption, under the power of which, the holy patriarchs had overlooked every thing in time for the sake of eternity.
I mean, the most wonderful history of the creation and curse of this world, of the high origin of man and his dreadful fall from it, his redemption and covenant of life restored in a seed of the woman, the lives and deaths of the holy patriarchs, their patience under all sufferings, their contempt of worldly advantages, their heavenly visions, revelations and speeches from the invisible God, keeping them thereby in an holy intercourse with the invisible world, full of faith and hope of the good things of eternity.
To mention one or two of those great doctrines of Moses, which set forth the original perfection and heavenly nature of man.
God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness. Is not this as high a doctrine of immortality, does it not give the same instruction, raise the same hope, and call for all the same elevation of the heart to God, as when St. John saith, Beloved, it does not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be LIKE him? Just the same truth, and fitted to have the same effects, as when Moses said, God made man in his own LIKENESS.
St. Paul says, God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. A comfortable doctrine indeed, and full of hope of immortality; yet only the same comfort and hope of immortality which had been openly preached by Moses.
When Moses bringeth in the Deity, as saying, The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent; he preaches that very same gospel, and in the same manner which the apostle did. For his words plainly teach, that God was in the seed of the woman reconciling the world unto himself; as when St. Paul says, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself; the difference is nothing else, but in two different names given to our Redeemer.
* Now tho’ Moses was the first recorder of the gospel salvation in a written book, yet was he not the first preacher of it. For it was proclaimed in Adam’s day, from heaven, as the birth of Christ in the flesh, in the days of Herod. For when God said, The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent, the same good tidings of salvation was proclaimed from heaven by God himself, as when the angel said to the shepherds, Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.