The word man, signifies all sorts of cattle, which the apostle renders by Onolov, to include those also which were of a wild nature; no living creature was allowed to come to the mount. For the opening of the words, we must inquire, 1. What it was that was commanded. 2. How they could not endure it. 3. What farther evidences there were, that it was not to be endured by them; which are added unto the assertion laid down in the beginning of the verse.

First. Consider what is meant by To diaorεdouevov, that which was commanded;' 'the edict,' or, as some, 'the interdict.' For it may relate unto that which follows, that which was commanded, namely, that if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it should be stoned or thrust through with a dart. Respect is had herein unto the whole charge given unto the people, of not touching the mount, or passing the bounds fixed unto them, wherein beasts also were included. And this, no doubt, was a great indication of severity, and might have occasioned danger unto the people, some or more of them. But this is not intended herein, nor hath this word respect unto what followeth, but unto what goeth before. For,

1. The note of connexion, yap, 'for,' intimates that a reason is given in these words of what was asserted before. They intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more, for they could not endure that which was commanded.

2. The interdict of touching the mount was given three days before the fear and dread of the people, as is evident in the story; so as no respect could be had thereunto in what they said afterwards, when they were surprised with fear.

3. Though there was in it an intimation of the necessity of great reverence in their approach unto God, and of his severity in giving of the law, yet the people did not look on it as a matter of terror and dread which they could not bear. For they came afterwards unto the bounds prescribed unto them with confidence; nor did begin to fear and tremble, until the mount was all on fire, and they heard the voice of God out of the midst of it.

4. Even the words of Moses, repeated in the next verse, were before the people had declared their dread and terror; so as that both these things are added only as aggravating circumstances of the insupportableness of what was commanded.

That therefore which was commanded, was nothing but the law itself.

Secondly. Hereof it is said, they could not endure it, or they could not bear it, or stand under it. And there were three things that concurred to convince them of their disability to bear the command. 1. The manner of its delivery, which they had a principal respect unto in their fear, and desire that it might be spoken unto them no more. This is plain in the story, and so they directly express themselves, Deut. 2. It was from the nature of the law itself, or the word that was spoken with respect unto its end. For it was given as a rule of justification, and of acceptance with God. And hereon they might easily see how unable they were to bear it. 3. There was administered with it a spirit of bondage unto fear, Rom. viii. 15, which aggravated the terror of it in their consciences.

v. 23-27.

These are the effects which a due apprehension of the nature, end, and use of the law, with the severity of God therein, will produce in the minds and consciences of sinners. Thus far the law brings us, and there it leaves us. Here are we shut up. There is no exception to be put in unto the law itself. It evidenceth itself to be holy, just, and good. There is no avoidance of its power, sentence, and sanction: it is given by God himself. The sinner could wish that he might never hear more of it. What is past with him against this law cannot be answered for; what is to come cannot be complied withal. Wherefore, without relief in Christ here, the sinner must perish for ever. This, I say, is the last effect of the law on the consciences of sinners. It brings them to a determinate judgment, that they cannot bear that which is commanded. Hereon they find themselves utterly lost, and so have no expectation but of fiery indignation to consume them. And accordingly they must eternally perish, if they betake not themselves unto the only relief and remedy.

Thirdly. Of this terror from the giving of the law, and the causes of it, the apostle gives a double illustration.

First. The first whereof is in the interdict, given as unto the touching of the mount. For this was such as extended unto the very beasts. Si vel bestia, And if so much as a beast,' káv Onpiov Oryn; for so was the divine constitution: 'whether it be beast or man, it shall not live,' Exod. xix. 13. I doubt not but that divine providence removed from it such brute creatures as were not under the power of men, such as might be wild about those mountainous deserts, or the fire consumed them, to the least creeping thing. But the prohibition respects the cattle of the people, which were under their power, and at their disposal. And besides an illustration of the absolute inaccessibleness of God, in and by the law, it seems to intimate the uncleanness of all things which sinners possess, by their relation unto them. For unto the impure, all things are impure and defiled. Therefore doth the prohibition extend itself unto the beasts also.

The punishment of the beast that did touch the mount was, that it should die; and the manner of its death, and so of men guilty in the like kind, was, that it should be stoned, or shot through with a dart. It is expressed in the prohibition, that no hand should touch that which had offended, λιθοβοληθήσεται, η βολιδι κατατοξευθήσεται. It was to be slain at a distance with stones or darts. The heinousness of the offence, with the execrableness of the offender, is declared thereby. No hand was ever more to touch it, either to relieve it, which may be the sense of the word, or to slay it, lest it should be defiled thereby. And it showeth also, at what distance we ought to keep ourselves from every thing that falls under the curse of the law.

VER. 21.—Secondly. The second evidence which he gives of the dreadful promulgation of the law, and consequently of the miserable estate of them that are under its power, is in what befel Moses on this the instance. 2. The cause of the consternation ascribed unto him. And we may consider, 1. The person in whom he giveth 3. How he expressed it.

1. The person is Mwans, Moses.' The effect of this terror extended itself unto the meanest of the beasts, and unto the best of men. Moses was, 1. A person holy, and abounding in grace above all others of his time, the meekest man on the earth. 2. He was accustomed unto divine revelations, and had once before beheld a representation of the divine presence, Exod. iii. 3. He was the internuncius, the messenger, the mediator between God and the people at that time. Yet would none of those privileges exempt him from an amazing sense of the terror of the Lord in giving the law. And if, on all these advantages, he could not bear it, much less can any other man so do. The mediator himself of the old covenant, was not able to sustain the dread and terror of the law: how desperate then are their hopes who would yet be saved by Moses!

2. The cause of his consternation was the sight, it was so terrible. To pavτaloμevov, visum quod apparebat, 'that which appeared,' and was represented unto him. And this takes in, not only what was the object of the sight of his eyes, but that of his ears also, in voices and thundering, and the sound of the trumpet. The whole of it was terrible, or dreadful. Ovтw po¤ɛρov nv, 'it was so dreadful,' unto such an incomprehensible degree.

3. His expression of the consternation that befel him hereon, is in those words he said, 'I exceedingly fear and tremble.' He said so; we are assured of it by the Holy Ghost in this place. But the words themselves are not recorded in the story. They were undoubtedly spoken then and there, where, upon this dreadful representation of God, it is said that he spake;' but not one word is added of what he spake, Exod. xix. 19. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice;' yet nothing is added, either of what Moses spake, or of what God answered. Then no doubt did he speak these words: for it was immediately upon his sight of the dreadful appearance, unto which season the apostle assigns them.

The expositors of the Roman church raise hence a great plea for unwritten traditions, than which nothing can be more weak and vain. For, 1. How do they know that the apostle had the knowledge hereof by tradition? Certain it is, that in the traditions that yet remain among the Jews, there is no mention of any such thing. All other things he had by immediate inspiration, as Moses wrote the history of things past. 2. Had not these words been now recorded by the apostle, what had become of the tradition concerning them? Would any man living have believed it? Let them give us a tradition of any thing spoken by Moses or the prophets, or by Christ himself, which is not recorded, with any probability of truth, and somewhat will be allowed to their traditions. Wherefore, 3. The occasional divine record of such passages ascertaining their verity, without which they would have been utterly lost, is sufficient to discover the vanity of their pretended traditions.

Moses spake these words in his own person, and not, as some have judged, in the person of the people. He was really so affected as he expresseth it; and it was the will of God that so he should be.

He

would have him also to be sensible of his own share of terror in the giving of the law.

It is said that God answered him with a voice; but what he said unto him is not recorded. No doubt but God spake that which gave him relief, which delivered him out of his distress, and reduced him unto a frame of mind meet for the ministration committed unto him, which in his surprisal and consternation he was not. And therefore immediately afterwards, when the people fell into their great horror and distress, he was able to relieve and comfort them, no doubt with that kind of relief which he himself had received from God, Exod. xx. 20. It appears, then, that

All persons concerned were brought unto an utter loss and distress, by the renovation and giving of the law, from whence no relief is to be obtained, but by him alone who is the end of the law for righteousness unto all that do believe.

VER. 22-24.Αλλα προσεληλύθατε Σιων ορει, και πολει Θεου ζων· τος, Ιερουσαλημ επουρανιῳ, και μυριάσιν αγγελων, πανηγύρει και εκκλησία πρωτοτοκων εν ουρανοις απογεγραμμένων, και κριτῇ Θεω πάντων, και πνευμασι δικαίων τετελειωμένων, και διαθήκης νέας μεσιτη Ιησου, και αἱματι ῥαντισμου κρείττονα λαλουντι παρα τον Αβελ.

The Vulgar Latin and the Syriac seem to have read uvoladov, instead of μυριάσιν. Hence they join πανηγύρει, the word following, unto those foregoing, unto the assembly of many thousands of angels; but without warrant from any copies of the original.

VER. 22-24.—But you are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, (namely) the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company (myriads) of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written (enrolled) in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, speaking better things than (that of) Abel.

This is the second part of the comparison, completing the foundation of the exhortation intended by the apostle. In the former, he gave an account of the state of the people and the church under the law, from the giving of it, and the nature of its commands. In this he so declares the state whereinto they were called by the gospel, as to manifest it to be incomparably more excellent in itself, and beneficial unto them. And because this whole context, and every thing in it, is peculiar and singular, we must with the more diligence insist on the exposition of it.

1. We have here a blessed, yea a glorious description of the catholic church, as the nature and communion of it is revealed under the gospel. And such a description it is, that if it were attended unto and believed, it would not only silence all the contentious wrangling that the world is filled withal about that name and thing, but cast out also other preju

dicate conceptions and opinions innumerable, which divide all Christians, fill them with mutual animosities, and ruin their peace. For if we have here the substance of all the privileges which we receive by the gospel, if we have an account of them, or who they are who are partakers of those privileges; as also the only foundation of all that church communion which is amongst them; the grounds of our perpetual strifes are quickly taken away. It is the access here ascribed unto believers, and that alone, which will secure their eternal salvation.

2. Whereas the catholic church is distributed into two parts, namely, that which is militant, and that which is triumphant, they are both comprehended in this description, with the respect of God and Christ unto them both. For the first expressions, as we shall see, of Mount Sion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, do principally respect that part of the church which is militant; as those that follow (the most of them) do that which is triumphant. There is in the religion of the papists another part of the church, neither in the earth, nor in heaven, but under the earth, as they say, in purgatory. But herewith they have nothing to do, who come unto Christ by the gospel. They come indeed unto the spirits of just men made perfect; but so are none of those, by their own confession, who are in purgatory. Wherefore believers have nothing to do with them.

3. The foundation of this catholic communion, or communion of the catholic church, comprising all that is holy and dedicated to God in heaven and earth, is laid in the recapitulation of all things in and by Jesus Christ, Eph. i. 10, 'All things are gathered into one head in him, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth;' which is the sole. foundation of their mutual communion among themselves. Whereas therefore we have here an association in the communion of men and angels, and the souls of them that are departed, in a middle state between them both, we ought to consider always their recapitulation in Christ, as the cause thereof. And whereas not only were all things so gathered into one by him, but by him also God reconciled all things unto himself, whether they be things on earth, or things in heaven,' Col. i. 20. God himself is here represented as the supreme sovereign head of this catholic church, the whole of it being reconciled unto him.

4. The method which the apostle seems to observe in this description of the church catholic in both the parts of it, is first to express that part of it which is militant, then that which is triumphant, issuing the whole in the relation of God and Christ thereunto, as we shall see in the exposition.

5. That which we must respect as our rule in the exposition of the whole, is, that the apostle intends a description of that state whereunto believers are called by the gospel. For it is that alone which he opposeth to the state of the church under the Old Testament. And to suppose that it is the heavenly future state which he intends, is utterly to destroy the force of his argument and exhortation. For they are built solely on the pre-eminence of the gospel state, above that under the law, and not of heaven itself, which none could question.

6. We must consider then, 1. What believers are said to come unto;