By Patrick Fairbairn
Published by Smith & English, 1854
BOOK THIRD.
CHAPTER II, SECTION FOURTH.
Having now considered what the law, properly so called, was In itself, we proceed to inquire into the ends and purposes for which it was given, and the precise place which it was designed to hold in the divine economy. Any misapprehension entertained, or even any obscurity allowed to hang upon these points, would, it is plain, materially affect the result of our future investigations. And there is the more need to be careful and discriminating in our inquiries here, as from the general and deep-rooted carnality of the Jewish people, the effect which the law actually produced upon the character of their religion, was to a considerable extent different from what it ought to have been. This error on their part has also mainly contributed to the first rise and still continued existence of some mistaken views regarding the law among many Christian divines.
There can be no doubt, that the law held relatively a different place under the Old dispensation, from what it does under the New. The most superficial acquaintance with the statements of New Testament scripture on the subject, is enough to satisfy us of this. "The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." But there is one point--the first that properly meets us in this department of our subject---in regard to which both dispensations are entirely on a footing. This point has respect to the condition of those to whom the law was given, and which, being already possessed, the law could not possibly have been intended to bring. So that an inquiry into the nature of that condition, of necessity carries along with it the consideration of what the law could not do.
Now, as the historical element is here of importance, when was
it, we ask, that this revelation of law was given to Israel? Somewhere,
we are told, about the beginning of the third month after their
departure from the land of Egypt. [1] Hence, from the very period of
its
introduction, the law could not come as a redeemer from evil, or a
bestower of life and blessing. Its object could not possibly be to
propose any thing which should have the effect of shielding from death,
rescuing from bondage, or founding a title to the favour and blessing
of heaven--for all that had been already obtained. By God's
outstretched arm, working with sovereign freedom and almighty power in
behalf of the Israelites, they had been brought into a state of freedom
and enlargement, and under the banner of divine protection, were
travelling to the land settled on them as an inheritance, before one
word had been spoken to them of the law in the proper sense of the
term. And whatever purposes the law might have been intended to serve,
it could not have been for any of those already accomplished or
provided for.
It is of great importance to keep distinctly in view this negative side of the law--what it neither could, nor was ever designed to do. For, if we raise it to a position which it was not meant to occupy, and expect from it benefits which it was not fitted to yield, we must be altogether at fault in our reckoning, and can have no clear knowledge of the dispensation to which it belonged. It is in reference to this, that the apostle speaks in Gal. iii. 17, 18: "And this I say, that the covenant, which was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise." The Jews had come in the apostle's time, and most of them, indeed, long before, to look to their deeds of law as constituting their title to the inheritance; and the same leaven of self-righteousness was now beginning to work among the Galatian converts. To check this tendency in them, and convince them of the fundamental error on which it proceeded, he presses on their consideration the nature and design of God's covenant with Abraham, which he represents as having been "confirmed before of God in Christ," because in making promise of a seed of blessing, it had respect pre-eminently to Christ, and might justly be regarded in its leading objects and provisions, as only an earlier and imperfect exhibition of the Christian covenant of redemption. But that covenant expressly conferred on Abraham's posterity, as Heaven's free gift, the inheritance of the land of Canaan; and it must also have secured their redemption from the house of bondage, and their safe conduct through the wilderness, since these were necessary to their entering on the possession of the inheritance. Hence, as the apostle argues, their title to these things could not possibly need to be acquired over again by deeds of law afterwards performed, for this would manifestly have been to give to the law the power of disannulling the covenant of promise, and would have made one revelation of God overthrow the foundation already laid by another.
But that God never meant the law to interfere with the gifts and promises of the covenant, is clear from what he said to the children of the covenant immediately before the law was given: "Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." (Ex. xix. 5.) Here God addresses them as already standing in such a relation of nearness to him, as secured for them an interest in his faithfulness and love. He appeals to the proofs, which he had given of this, as amply sufficient to dispel every doubt from their mind, and to warrant them in expecting whatever might still be needed to complete their felicity. "Now therefore if ye will obey my voice"--not because ye have obeyed it, have the great things which have just been accomplished in your experience taken place, but these have been done, that you might feel your calling to obey, and by obeying fulfil the high destiny to which you are appointed. In this call to obedience we already have the whole law, so far as concerns the ground of its obligation, and the germ of its requirements. And when the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, to proclaim the words of the law, he is simply to be regarded as giving utterance to that voice which they were to obey. Hence also, in prefacing the words then spoken by the declaration, "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," he rests his claim to their obedience on precisely the same ground as here; he resumes what he had previously said in regard to the peculiar relation in which he stood to them, as proved by the grand deliverance he had achieved in their behalf, and on that founds his special claim to the return of dutiful obedience, which he justly expected at their hands. And when it was proclaimed as the result of this obedience, that they would be to God "a peculiar people, a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation," they were given to understand, that thus alone could they continue to occupy the singular place they now held in the regard of Heaven, enjoy intimate fellowship with God, and be fitting instruments in his hand for carrying out the wise and holy purposes of his divine government. This, however, belongs to another part of the subject, and has respect to what the law was given to do.
We see, then, from the very time and manner in which the law was introduced, that it could not have been designed to interfere with the covenant of promise; and as all that pertained to redemption, the inheritance, and the means of life and blessing, came by that covenant, the law was manifestly given to provide none of them. Nor could it make any alteration on the law in this respect, that it was made to assume the form of a covenant. Why this was done, we shall inquire in the sequel. But looking at the matter still in a merely negative point of view, it is obvious, that the law's coming to possess the character of a covenant, could give it no power to make void the provisions of that earlier covenant, which secured for the seed of Abraham, as heaven's free gift, the inheritance and everything properly belonging to it. And if the Israelites should at any time come to regard the covenant of law as having been made for the purpose of founding a title to what the covenant with Abraham had previously bestowed, they would evidently misinterpret the meaning of God, and confound the proper relations of things. This, however, is what they actually did on a large scale, the grievous error and pernicious consequences of which are pointed out in Gal. iv. 21-31: "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free-woman. But he, who was of the bondwoman, was born after the flesh; but he of the free-woman was by promise, Which things are an allegory; for these are the two covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar, For this Hagar is (i. e. corresponds to) Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, (Isa. liv. 1), Rejoice thou barren, that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she that hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise," &c.
Here the proper wife of Abraham, Sarah, and his bondmaid Hagar, are viewed as the representatives of the two covenants respectively, and the children of the two mothers as, in like manner, representatives of the kind of worshippers, whom the covenants were fitted to produce. Sarah, the only proper spouse of Abraham, stands for the heavenly Jerusalem; that is, the true church of God, in which he perpetually resides, and begets children to himself. Whoever belong to it are born from above, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." And that Sarah's son might be the fit representative of all such, his birth was delayed till she had attained an advanced age. Born as Isaac was, it was impossible to overlook the immediate and supernatural operation of God's hand in his birth; and if ever mother had reason to say, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," it was Sarah when she brought forth Isaac. But what was true of Isaac's natural birth, is equally true of the spiritual birth of God's people in every age. The church, as a heavenly society, is their mother. But that church is so, simply because she is the habitation of God, and the channel through which his grace, flowing into the dead heart of nature, quickens it into newness of life. And the covenant in the hand of this church, by which she is empowered to bring forth such children to God, must be substantially the same in every age; viz. the covenant of grace, which began to be disclosed in part on the very scene of the fall --which, was again more distinctly revealed to Abraham, when he received the promises of a seed of blessing, and an inheritance everlasting, and which has been clearly brought to light, and finally confirmed in Christ for the whole elect family of God. This unquestionably is the covenant which answers to Sarah, and belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem; to this covenant all the real children of God owe their birth, their privileges, and their hopes; those, who are born of it, in whatever age of the church, are born in freedom, and heirs of the inheritance.
It is this church, standing in and growing out of this covenant, that the prophet Isaiah addresses, in the passage quoted by the apostle, as a "barren woman, a widow, and desolate," and whom he comforts with the promise of a numerous offspring. He does not expressly name Sarah, but he evidently has her in his eye, and draws his delineation both of the present and the future in language suggested by her history. For, as in her case, so the seed of the true church was long in coming, and slow of increase, compared with those born after the flesh. It seemed often, especially in such times of backsliding and desolation as those contemplated by the prophet, as if the spouse were absolutely forsaken, or utterly incapable of being a mother, and she appeared all the more in need of consolation, as her carnal rival even then possessed a large and numerous offspring. But the prophet cheers her with the prospect of better days to come; and gives her the assurance, that, in the long run, her spiritual seed would greatly outnumber the fleshly seed of the other. This prospect began (as the apostle intimates, v. 31) to be more especially realized, when the kingdom opened the door of salvation to the Gentiles.
The other covenant, which answers to Hagar, was the covenant of law ratified at Sinai; but that by no means corresponding, as is often represented, to the Old Testament church or dispensation. For viewed in the light of mothers, the two covenants are spoken of as directly opposite in their nature, tendency, and effects, while the Old and New Testament dispensations present no such contrast to each other. They are rather to be regarded as in all essential respects the same, They differ, not as Ishmael differed from Isaac, but only as the heir, when a child, differs from the heir when arrived at maturity. Of all the true members of both churches, Abraham is the common parent and head; and whether outwardly descended from his loins or not, they constitute properly but one people. They are all the children of faithful Abraham, possessing his covenant-relation to God, and his interest in the promises of good things to come, (Rom. iv. 11--13; Gal. iii. 29). But the seed that came by Hagar, which was born, not properly of God, but of the will of the flesh, was entirely of another kind, and represented no part of the true church in any age; it represented only the carnal portion of the professing church--the unregenerate, idolatrous, or self-righteous Israelites of former times, who deemed it quite enough that they were able to trace their descent from Abraham--and the merely nominal believers now, who satisfy themselves with an outward standing among the followers of Jesus, and a formal attendance on some of the ordinances of his appointment. These are they, "who say they are Jews, but are not;" they no more belonged to the seed of God, under the Old Testament, than they do under the New; they are Ishmaelites, not Israelites--a spurious, fleshly offspring, that should never have been born, and when born, without any title to the inheritance and the blessing.
It was the prevailing delusion of the Jews in our Lord's time, as it had been also of many former times, not to perceive this--not to understand, what yet God had taken especial pains to teach them, that the subjects of his love and blessing were always an elect seed. From the time of Abraham, they had chiefly belonged to his stock, but never had they at any period embraced all his offspring:--not the sons of Hagar and Keturah, but only the son of Sarah; not both the sons of Isaac, but only Jacob; not all the sons of Jacob, but only such as possessed his faith, and were, like him, princes with God. The principle, "not all Israel, who are of Israel," runs through the entire history; and too often also do the facts of history afford ground for the conclusion, that those who were simply of Israel, had greatly the preponderance in numbers and influence over such as truly were Israel.
But how did such children come to exist at all? How did they
get a being within the bosom of the church of God? They also had a
mother, represented by Hagar, and that mother, as well as the other, a
covenant of God, the covenant of Sinai. But why should it have produced
such children? In one way alone could it possibly have done so; viz. by
being put out of its proper place, and turned to an illegitimate use.
God never designed it to be a mother; no more than Hagar, respecting
whom Abraham sinned, when he turned aside to her, and took her for a
mother of children; her proper place was that only of an handmaid to
Sarah. And it was, in like manner, to pervert the covenant of law from
Sinai to an improper purpose, to look to it as a parent of life and
blessing; nor could any better result come from the error, "It
gendereth unto bondage," says the apostle; that is, in so far as it
gave birth to any children, these were not true children of God, free,
spiritual, with hearts of filial confidence and devoted love; but
miserable bondmen, selfish, carnal, full of mistrust and fear. Of these
children of the Sinaitic covenant we are presented with a finished
specimen in the Scribes and Pharisees of our Lord's time--men, who were
chiefly remarkable for the full and ripened development of a spirit of
bondage in religion--who were complete in all the garniture of a
sanctified demeanour, while they were full within of ravening and
wickedness--worshipping a God, whom they eyed only as the taskmaster of
a laborious ritual, by the punctual observance of which they counted
themselves secure of his favour and blessing--crouching, like slaves,
beneath their yoke of bondage, and loving the very bonds that lay on
them, because nothing higher than the abject and hireling spirit of
slavery breathed in their hearts. Such were the children, whom the
covenant of law produced, as its natural and proper offspring. But did
God ever seek such children? Could he own them as members of his
kingdom? Could he receive them to an interest in his promised
blessings? Assuredly not; and therefore it was entirely against his
mind, when his professing people looked in that direction for life and
blessing. If really his people, they already had these by another and
earlier covenant which could give them; and those who still looked for
them to the covenant of law, only got a serpent for bread, instead of a
blessing a curse. [2]
It seems very strange, that so many Christian divines, especially of such as hold evangelical principles, should here have fallen into substantially the Jewish error, representing the Israelites as being in such a sense under the covenant of law, that by obedience to it they had to establish their title to the inheritance. Not only does Warburton call the dispensation, under which they were placed, roundly "a dispensation of works," [3] but we find Dr John Erskine, an evangelical writer, among many similar things, writing thus: "He, who yielded an external obedience to the law of Moses, was termed righteous, and had a claim in virtue of his obedience to the land of Canaan, so that doing these things he lived by them. Hence Moses says, Deut. v. 25, 'It shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God;' i. e. it shall be the cause and matter of our justification, it shall found our title to covenant blessings. But to spiritual and heavenly blessings, we are entitled by the obedience of the Son of God, not by our own." [4] It was very necessary, when the learned author made obedience to the covenant of Sinai the ground of a title to the inheritance of Canaan, that he should bring down its terms as low as possible; for had these not been of a superficial and formal nature, it would manifestly have been a mockery to make the people's obedience the ground of their title. But what, then, becomes of the covenant of Abraham, if the inheritance, which it gave freely in promise to his seed, had to be acquired over again by deeds of law? And what, indeed, becomes of the spiritual and unchangeable character of God, if in one age of the church, he should appear to have exacted duties of an external kind, as the ground of a title to his blessing, while in another all is given of grace, and the duties required are pre-eminently inward and spiritual! In such a case, there not only could have been no proper correspondence between the earlier and the later dispensations, but the revealed character of God must have undergone an essential change; he could not be "the Jehovah, that changeth not." The confusion arises from assigning to the covenant of law a wrong place, and ascribing to it what it was never intended to do or give. "God did never make a new promulgation of the law by revelation to sinful men, in order to keep them under mere law, without setting before them, at the same time, the promise and grace of the new covenant, by which they might escape from the curse, which the law denounced. The legal and evangelical dispensations have been but different dispensations of the same covenant of grace, and of the blessings thereof. Though there is now a greater degree of light, consolation, and liberty, yet if Christians are now under a kingdom of grace, where there is pardon upon repentance, the Lord's people under the Old Testament, were (as to the reality and substance of things) also under a kingdom of grace." [5] So that it is quite wrong, as the judicious author states, to represent those "who were under the pedagogy of the law, as if they had been under a proper and strict covenant of works."
Bahr, who rises immeasurably above all who have imbibed their notions of the legal dispensation in the school of Spencer and Warburton, and who everywhere exhibits a due appreciation of the moral and religious element in Judaism, still so far coincides with them, that he elevates the law to a place not properly its own. After investigating the descriptions given of the Decalogue, he draws the conclusion, that "for Israel this formed the foundation of its whole existence as a people, the root of its religious and political life, the highest, best, most precious thing the people had, their one and all." [6] So also again, when speaking of the covenant and the law being entirely the same, he says to the like effect: "This covenant first properly gave Israel as a people its being; it was the root and basis of the life of Israel as a people." [7] No doubt understanding, as he does, by the law or covenant all the precepts and institutions of Moses, which he holds to have been represented in the Decalogue, the idea here expressed is not quite so wide of the truth as it might otherwise appear. But still the statement is by no means correct; it is utterly at variance with the facts of Israel's history, and calculated to give a false impression of the whole nature and design of the Mosaic legislation. It presents this to our view simply as a dispensation of works, having law for the root of life, and consequently the deeds of law for the only ground of blessing. In plain contrariety to the assertion of the apostle, [8] it virtually says that a law was given which brought life, and that righteousness was by the law. Finally, it gives such a place to the mere requirements and operations of law, that nothing remained for grace to do, but merely to pardon the shortcomings and transgressions of which men might be guilty, as subject to law; all else was earned by the obedience performed; even forgiveness itself in a manner was thus earned, because obtained as the result of services rendered in compliance with the terms and prescriptions of law.
This glorification of law, however, has not been confined to the Old Testament Church. There are not a few Christian divines who are so enamoured of law, that the gospel of the grace of God has become in their hands only a kind of modified covenant of works; and they can only account for faith holding the peculiar place assigned to it in the work of salvation, because in their view it comprehends all graces and virtues in its bosom. Salvation appears not directly and properly as the free gift of divine grace in Christ, but rather as the acquired result of man's evangelical righteousness, or, as it is generally termed, his sincere though imperfect obedience. The title to heaven must still be earned, only the satisfaction of Christ has secured its being done on much easier conditions. There is no need for our entering into any exposure of this New Testament legalism, as we have seen that its prototype under the Old Testament, though it had more seemingly to countenance it, was still without any proper foundation. But we may briefly advert to the statements of another class of theologians, who, while they admit that the Old, as well as the New Testament Church, was under a dispensation of grace, to which it owed all its privileges, blessings, and hopes, at the same time regard the covenant of Sinai as in itself properly the covenant of works, by obedience to which, if faithfully and fully rendered, men would have founded a title to life and blessing. They justly regard it as in substance a republication of the law of holiness originally impressed upon the soul of Adam; but fall into perplexity and confusion by adopting a somewhat erroneous view of the primary design and object of that law. The righteousness there required they are accustomed to represent as that "by the doing of which man was to found his right to promised blessings;" [9] or, to use the language of another, "in virtue of which he might thereon plead and demand the reward of eternal life." [10] Then, viewing such a law or covenant of works in reference to men as sinful, the works required in it are necessarily considered as "the condition of a sinner's justification and acceptance with God," "a law to be done that he might be saved." [11]
But was a law ever given, or a covenant ever made with man with any such professed design? Was it even propounded thus to Adam in paradise? Had he not received as a free gift from the hand of God, before anything was exacted of him in the way of obedience, both the principle of a divine life and an inheritance of blessing? So far from needing to found by deeds of righteousness a title to these, he came forth at the very first fully fraught with them; and the question with him was, not how to obtain what he had not, but how to continue in the enjoyment of what he already possessed. This he could no otherwise do than by fulfilling the righteous ends for which he had been created. To direct him towards these, therefore, must have been, if not the sole, at least the direct and ostensible object of whatever law was outwardly proposed to him, or inwardly impressed upon his conscience. If the word to him might be said to be, "Do this and live," it could only be in the sense of his thereby continuing in the life, in the possession and blessedness of which he was created. And it was the fond conceit of the Pharisaical Jews, that their law was given for purposes, higher even than those for which any law was given to man in innocence; that they might, by obedience to law, work out a righteousness, and acquire a title to life and glory, which did not naturally belong to them. It is simply against this groundless and perverse notion, which had come latterly to diffuse its leaven through the whole Jewish mind, that our Lord and his apostles are to be understood as speaking, when in a manifold variety of ways they endeavour to withdraw men's regards from the law, as a source of life, and point them to the riches of divine grace. [12]
It is, then, carefully to be remembered, in regard to the Old Testament church, that she had two covenants connected with her constitution--a covenant of grace, as well as of law; and that the covenant of law, as it came last, so it took for granted the provisions of the existing covenant of grace. It was grafted upon this, and grew out of it. Hence, in revealing the terms of the legal covenant, the Lord spake to the Israelites as already their God, from whom they had received life and freedom (Ex. xx. 2), --proclaimed himself as the God of mercy, as well as of holiness (v. 5, 6),--recognised their title to the inheritance as his own sovereign gift to them (v. 12),--thus making it clear to all, that the covenant of law raised itself on the ground of the previous covenant of grace, and sought to carry out this to its legitimate and fruitful results. [13]
That this also is the order of God's procedure with men under
the Gospel, nothing but the most prejudiced mind can fail to perceive.
Everywhere does God there present himself to his people as in the first
instance a giver of life and blessing, and only afterwards as an
exacter of obedience to his commands. Their obedience, so far from
entitling to salvation, can never be acceptably rendered, till they
have become partakers of the blessings of salvation. These blessings
are altogether of grace, and are, therefore, received through faith.
For what is faith, but the acceptance of heaven's grant of salvation,
or a trusting in the record in which the grant is conveyed? So that, in
the order of each man's experience, there must, as is fully brought out
in the epistle to the Romans, first be a participation in the mercies
of God, and then growing out of this a felt and constraining obligation
to run the way of God's commandments. How can it, indeed, be
otherwise? How were it possible for men, laden with sin, and underlying
the condemnation of heaven, to earn anything at God's hands, or do
what might seem good in his sight, till they become partakers of grace?
Can they work up so far, at least, against the stream of his
displeasure, and begin of themselves the process of recovery, which
they only require him to perfect? To imagine the possibility of this,
were to betray an utter ignorance of the character of God in reference
to his dealings with the guilty. He can,
for his Son's sake, bestow
eternal life and blessing on the most unworthy, but he cannot stoop to
treat and bargain with men about their acquiring a title to it through
their own imperfect services. They must first receive the gift through
the channel of his own providing; and only when they have clone this,
are they in a condition to please and honour him. Not more certainly is
faith without works dead, than all works are dead which do not spring
from the living root of faith already implanted in the heart.
1. Ex. xix. 1.
2. On this negative side of the law, may be consulted Bell on the Covenants, which, though full of repetition, is clear and satisfactory on this part of the subject; it forms a sort of expanded, though certainly rather tedious illustration of Vitringa's Com. on Tsa. liv. 1. On the positive side of the law, or what it was designed to do, the work is not quite so successful.
3. Div. Leg. B. v. Note C.
4. Theological Dissertations, p. 44.
5. Fraser on Sanctification; Explic. of Rom. vii. 8.
6. Symbolik, i. 386, 387.
7. Symbolik, ii. p. 389.
8. Gal. iii. 21.
9. Bell on Covenants, p. 198.
10. Boston's Notes on Marrow of Modern Divinity, p. 1, Introd.
11. Ib. P. 1, c. 1, and the Marrow itself there; also Fraser on Rom. vii. 4, and Chalmers's Works, vol. x. p. 207.
12. Rom. iii. vii.; 2 Cor. iii. 6, 7; Gal. iii. 11,21; Phil. iii. 8, 9; Eph. i. 3-7; Tit. iii. 4-7; 1 John i. v. 11; also of our Lord's Discourses, Luke xv.; xix. 1-10; John iii. 16- 18; vi, 61. When he directed the lawyer, who tempted him with the question, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" to the commandments of the law, and in reference to the perfect love there required to God and man, said, "This do and thou shalt live:" it is clear he merely met the inquirer on his own ground, and aimed at sending him away with an impression of the impossibility of obtaining life by perfecting himself in the law's requirments. So also, such expressions as that in Rom. vii. 10, of "the commandment being ordained to life," (lit. which was for, or unto life), cannot mean that it was given to confer life, or to shew the way of obtaining it, for this is denied of any law that ever could have been given to sinful men, Gal. iii. 21. It simply means, that the law was given to subserve or promote the purposes of God in respect to life.
13. The relation between the two covenants is briefly, but correctly stated by Sack in his Apologetik, p. 179: "The matter of the law is altogether grounded upon the covenant of promise made with Abraham. . . . The law neither could nor would withdraw the exercise of faith from the covenant of promise, or render that superfluous, but merely formed an intermediate provision, until the fulfilment came." The relation is seldom correctly made out by writers of the class last referred to. For example, Boston would have the two covenants to have been revealed simultaneously from Sinai, making the Sinaitic covenant as much a covenant of grace as of law, (on the Marrow, p. 1, c. 2.) Burgess (on Moral Law and Covenants, p. 224,) represents it as properly a covenant of grace.