Page images
PDF
EPUB

guilty of, not to believe him: and that was all that Abraham did, and all that either Jew or Gentile can do, for obtaining the full advantage of the grant and promife; for he who promised is faithful, and his power almighty.

On this foundation they find themselves forced to think, that the New-Teftament writers made choice of this word for better and higher reasons, than that the Greek tranflators had expreffed by it what they took to be the meaning of the Hebrew phrafe. They themselves knew, that it was the only word in the Greek tongue that could exprefs it any thing near its very emphatic import. They knew that Jefus Chrift was the true BeRiTH; and cutting him off, when he was made a curfe for his people, was the true and only foundation on which the promise of the bleffing ftands. They knew, that the proper meaning of the word they chose was, a grant, or, as we fay, an inftrument by which one makes a conveyance of his goods and property by testament or otherwise and they had their great Master's authority for thus expreffing the conveyance he makes of the kingdom he received

[ocr errors]

received from the Father to his disciples and followers. We may add, what they certainly alfo knew, that this term is never used but to exprefs the deed of one fingle perfon, and which is firm and valid without the concurrence of any other. On all which confiderations, it is very evident the Apostle could not be guilty of fuch an abuse of words, as to chufe this, if he meant to have us believe he was fpeaking of what we call a covenant between God and any of mankind.

But the Apostle himself puts it out of doubt by the tranfaction to which he applies it, viz. the cafe of Abraham, verf. 16.; and which he advances as God's an, in oppofition to man's in the foregoing verse. He mentions no law given to him, by the fulfilment of which he might acquire a right to the bleffing, nor any conditional grant which should suspend his right until the terms were performed; but that the promise was spoken literally, or faid to Abraham and his feed. And he fays. no more than Mofes had taught him: for he takes the facts exactly as he found them laid in his history. The promise is made free and abfolute, before he fo much as believed:

believed and how could he believe, until he knew what he had to believe, and what reafon he had to do fo? But this is not only his cafe; but in all those where God is faid to make a covenant, (excepting only that at Sinai, for which there is an obvious reafon), particularly the only two other cafes parallel to this, viz. his covenant, as we render it, with Noah and David, we will find nothing but promises, or pofitive declarations, of what God was firmly and unalterably determined to do. These were indeed properly Sadhnai; but very improperly, or rather in no sense at all, can they be what in our language we call covenants. One needs no more to be fully affured of this, but to read these transactions as they stand on record, without the commentaries which men have made on them. But it must be a very plain text indeed, which a fkilful critic, who has a turn to ferve, cannot fkrew into a confiftency with his own fentiments, at least to feem to fay nothing against them.

It is but a poor criticism which has been attempted to throw a flur on the Apostle's reasoning, or, if we may call it, his critical remark on the promise made to Abraham

braham and his feed, that he does not fay feeds, as of many, but his feed, pointing to one, viz. That feed is a collective, and naturally fignifies plurally. Perhaps, had they understood the language Mofes wrote in as well as Paul did, they would have found the remark fit for nothing, but to be laughed at. The word rendered feed may be plural as well as child; nor would it be improper, even in our language, to speak of the several seeds he had by Sarah, by Hagar, and by Keturah,

A plain man reading the Apostle's words, when he tells us, that this one feed, to whom the promise was made, is Christ, would very naturally think it was the fame Chrift who had redeemed his people from the curfe of the law, and in whom the bleffing of Abraham came upon the Gentiles; and would find no difficulty in believing, that to him the promise of the bleffing was originally and primarily made, and comes only in and through him to those who believe. He would readily be further confirmed in this when he found, that it is in him, and in him alone, that all nations were to be bleffed. And

And what the Apoftle fays, verf. 17. that this fame promife, which he calls a

very properly a grant, or deed of conveyance, was confirmed of God in, or rather to Chrift, and refts the unalterablenefs of it on this, like that of the Pfalmift, God has spoken, he will not lie unto David. And what the Apostle adds in the close of the chapter, that it is only by their interest in, and relation to Christ, that they become truly Abraham's feed, and heirs of the promise, might put him out of all doubt of his having hit the Apostle's intention.

But there is nothing of ingenuity or learning in this conftruction, and there is nothing of a covenant between God and mankind; and if Christ personal, as he fuffered and died, is the feed to whom the Apostle fays the promise is made, none but he can have any benefit by it. But as the church of Chrift is frequently called his body, and every particular Christian a member of him the head; on which account the church, in this view, the whole body of believers united as they are with him, is called exprefsly Chrift, 1 Cor. xii.

12.

« PreviousContinue »