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THE

OECONOMY

OF THE

COVENANTS

BETWEEN

GOD AND MAN.

COMPREHENDING

A Complete Body of Divinity.

By HERMAN WITSIUS, D. D.
Profeffor of Divinity in the Universities of Franeker, Utrecht,
and Leyden; and alfo Regent of the Divinity College of
the States of Holland and Weft Friesland.

Faithfully tranflated from the LATIN, and carefully
revised,

By WILLIAM CROOKSHANK, D. D.

To which is prefixed,

The LIFE of the AUTHOR.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

Printed for EDWARD DILLY, in the Poultry.

MDCCLXIII.

D

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THE

OECONOMY

OF THE

Divine Covenants.

BOOK IV.

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CHA P. IV.
Of the Decalogue.

THINGS had a quite different appear Under
Yance under Mofes. What was fpoken Mofes was
There and there, and delivered only by given the
word of mouth, was now enlarged with law.

very many additions, digefted into one body, and, at the command of God, configned to lafting records; which neither the rage of enemies, nor fire, nor fword, nor all-confuming time fhall be able to abolish. But neither the nature of our defign, nor our intended brevity will permit us to profecute every thing at large, that comes under this head. In this chapter we shall treat concerning the giving of the 18 VOL. III.

A

law,

A three

fold law given to Ifrael.

The law

giver is God.

law, and the covenant of God with the Ifraelites, founded on that law.

II. It was the prerogative of the people of Ifrael above other nations, that to them pertained the covenants and the giving of the law, Rom, 9. 4. And there were several kinds of laws given them, of which there are principally three mentioned by divines. The MORAL, or the DECALOGUE, the CEREMONIAL and the POLITICAL, Or FORENSICK. The people of Ifrael may doubtlefs be confidered three ways. ft. As rational creatures, depending upon God, as the fupreme reafon or cause both in a moral and natural; fenfe. And thus the law of the decalogue was given them; which, as to its fubftance, is one and the fame with the law of nature, and binds men as fuch. 2dly.. As the church of the Old Teftament, who expected the promised Meffiah and happier times, when he fhould make every thing perfect. And therefore they received the ceremonial law, which really fhewed, that the Meffiah was not yet come, and had not yet perfected all things; but that he would come, and make all things new. 3dly. As a peculiar people, who had a polity or government, fuited to their genius and difpofition, in the land of Canaan.

A

republick conftituted not fo much according to those forms, which philofophers have delineated, but which was, in a peculiar manner, a Theocracy, as Jofephus fignificantly calls it, God himself holding the reins of government therein, Judges 8. 23. Under that view God prescribed them political laws.

Who

III. We are firft to speak of the DECALOGUE and its promulgation. Mofes has accurately defcribed it Exod. 19 and 20. The LAW-GIVER, or if you will the Legiflator, is God himself. The one law-giver, who is able to fave and to destroy, Jam. 4. 12. has a right of dominion over the confciences of men. As the fupreme reafon or caufe, he is the rule of all reafonable creatures; and as the fupreme Lord, is the ruler of all, and, by taking Ifrael to himfelf for

a people, in an efpecial manner thewed himself to be their God. In the firft words of the law, he afferts his own divinity, proclaiming, I am Jehovah thy God.

manner

IV. But we judge it criminal for any to doubt, And in efthat this is to be understood of the whole undivided pecial trinity, whofe equal majefty, in one Deity, we are the Son. all bound to acknowledge and worship. Nevertheless, as the Son of God was then, in a certain peculiar refpect, the king of the people of Ifrael and of the church at that time; the giving of the law is also, in a fingular manner, afcribed to him. For Stephen, in expreis words, declares As 7. 38. compared with v. 35, that it was an Angel, who spoke with Mofes and the fathers on mount Sinai, even that very angel, who appeared to Mofes in the bufh, and faid, that he was the God of Abraham, Ifaac and Jacob. But no chriftian will deny, that this was Chrift. And Chrift, certainly, is he who afcended on high &c. Pf. 68. 18, compared with Eph. 4. 8. But he himself went forth before his people in the wilderness, when the earth book, the heavens alfo dropped at the prefence of God; even Sinai itself was moved at the prefence of God, the God of Ifrael, that is, at the giving of the law, Pf. 68. 7, 8. Certainly, the Apoftle, Heb. 12. 26, fays, that he who spoke from heaven, and whofe voice then (nainely at the giving of the law) fbook the earth, was our Lord Jefus Chrift to whom we are now alfo to hearken; as Zanchius has learnedly obferved T. IV. lib. 1. c. Who profeffedly and at large proves, that he who promulgated the law, was the Son of God, de tribus Elohim, lib. 2. c. 3.

12.

V. What the celebrated Iac. Altingius has observed An anon Deut. 5. 6, from a catechifm of the ancient Jews, cient cavery much deferves our notice. The Jews fay, three techifm of the Jews Spirits are united in one; the loweft fpirit, which is called the HOLY SPIRIT the middle spirit, which is the fubject INTERMEDIATE, and called WISDOM and INTELLIGENCE; and this is the spirit which proceeds from the midst

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on this

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