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God to give them the laws which they were to obey, as His chosen people, until the promised Saviour should come into the world. Some of these laws were already binding upon them, and were always binding upon the whole race of men, being what are called moral laws; laws which are taken from the very nature of Almighty God Himself, and which command man to imitate the perfections of his Maker, so far as they can be imitated by a creature in this world. Others were of a different kind, and were designed by God to keep up the true religion among the children of Israel, and to preserve them separate from all the rest of the world until Jesus Christ should be born. For the Israelites alone were to be the chosen people of Almighty God until the Saviour came, who would break down this distinction between them and the rest of mankind, and call people of every nation to enter into the number of His people. Not that it was impossible that any persons except the children of Israel should be saved; for we read in the Bible of different persons who, though living among the heathen, yet served and loved the one true God, and thus were under His favour and protection. The great purpose of the separation between the Israelites (also called Hebrews) and the rest of mankind (who were called Gentiles) was the preservation of the knowledge of God, by all this body of laws and regulations, until Christ should be born, and should send the Holy Spirit upon all the nations of the earth, and reveal to man many things concerning Himself which it was not His pleasure to make known until then.

These laws also, which were now given to the Jews by Moses from God, were not intended to alter the old covenant made first of all with Adam, and afterwards specially confirmed by God to Abraham. God had from the first in His mercy made what is called a covenant of faith with man, by which He promised salvation, as a free gift, to all who believed in His promises, repented of their sins, and sincerely loved and served Him. This old covenant was the same, in its real nature, as that Christian covenant by which God still accepts the faith

and penitence of us who are Christians; and it was for the sake of the merits of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, that this covenant was originally made by God with Adam, and afterwards confirmed to Abraham and all his posterity for ever.

To the observance of these laws God attached a promise of perfect temporal freedom and prosperity for the children of Israel. Under the Christian covenant, since our Saviour Jesus Christ has died upon the cross, temporal prosperity is not to be considered a mark of Divine favour, as it was with the Jews. As we have greater spiritual gifts to help us, so God expects from us that we should conquer all our natural love for earthly enjoyments much more completely than the Jews could do; and the greatest glory of a Christian is to follow Christ as nearly as possible in the sufferings He endured for us. But with the Jews it was not so. Worldly happiness, riches, and liberty were to be their reward, so long as they remained faithful and abstained from the idolatries of the heathen; but immediate punishment was to follow whensoever they broke through the laws that God had given them. Accordingly, the whole history of the Israelites is an account of their repeated transgressions and chastisements; for the obstinacy and unbelief of this chosen nation were as remarkable as the extraordinary favours which it pleased God to bestow upon them.

CHAP. VI. The Ten Commandments.

WHEN the time was thus come for the giving of the law, which was afterwards called the law of Moses, Moses went up to God in Mount Sinai, where God spoke to him, and communicated to him all he was to say to the people of Israel. And God desired him to tell the people to wash and purify themselves for two days, and on the third day to come near to the foot of the mountain, but not to attempt to ascend it, or even to touch its base, under peril of being stoned, or shot to death with arrows. And when the third day was

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come, behold, thunders began to be heard, and lightning to flash, and a very thick cloud to cover the mount, and the noise of the trumpet sounded exceeding loud and the people that was in the camp feared. And when Moses had brought them forth to meet God from the place of the camp, they stood at the bottom of the mount. And all Mount Sinai was on a smoke: because the Lord was come down upon it in fire, and the smoke arose from it as out of a furnace: and all the mount was terrible. And the sound of the trumpet grew by degrees louder and louder, and was drawn out to a greater length: Moses spoke, and God answered him. And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, in the very top of the mount; and he called Moses unto the top thereof. And when he was gone up thither, He said unto him: Go down, and charge the people; lest they should have a mind to pass the limits to see the Lord, and a very great multitude of them should perish the priests also that come to the Lord, let them be sanctified, lest He strike them. And Moses said to the Lord: The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai : for Thou didst charge, and command, saying: Set limits about the mount, and sanctify it. And the Lord said to him: Go, get thee down: and thou shalt come up, thou and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people pass the limits, nor come up to the Lord, lest He kill them. And Moses went down to the people and told them all. And the Lord spoke all these words: I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me: and shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love Me and keep My commandments. Thou shalt not take the

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name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day. Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works. But on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayst be long-lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house: neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his. And all the people saw the voices, and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mount smoking: and being terrified and struck with fear, they stood afar off, saying to Moses: Speak thou to us, and we will hear : let not the Lord speak to us, lest we die. And Moses said to the people Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that the dread of Him might be in you, and you should not sin. These were the ten commandments, which were the foundation of all the rest of the laws which God gave to the Israelites, and they were afterwards written upon two tables of stone by the Almighty Himself, and given by Him to Moses.

CHAP. VII. The Golden Calf.

THE awful display of the Divine glory and majesty with which the giving of the ten commandments had been accompanied so terrified the Israelites, that they prayed that God might no more speak to them Himself, but

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