1

THE COVENANT IN HOREB AND THE HOPE OF ISRAEL. Israel and the covenant at Horeb. Conditions of the covenant. Covenant renewed in the plains of Moab. Harmony of the covenants in persons and promises and things. The heirs of the covenant are immortals. Their inheritance in the heavenly country. Our Lord keepeth covenant to the letter. The hope of the saints and of Israel in the covenant. Also our hope. Canaan is the type of the heavenly country in the new earth. The covenants several, the inheritance personal. Jews not understanding the promises do err. No race according to the flesh embrace Christ crucified. The Bible full of pictures of a heavenly country. Too often taken for poetry alone. Life, land and people. The inheritance in all things new. The reformers and the Book of Common Prayer.

OUR COVENANT AND OUR HOPE.

IN Horeb the Lord appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush, and God called unto him, and said: "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations; I will bring you out of the affliction of Egypt into a land flowing with milk and honey." Ex. iii. Such is God's everlasting promise and the ceaseless hope of Israel.

We search for the testimony of Jesus in the prophecy relating to Israel's deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. Moses hesitated to approach Pharaoh in the attempt to lead forth the children of Israel, "and God said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee. When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain." Ex. iii. 11. In their journey from Egypt, Israel came to Horeb, where they murmured for water, and Moses smote the rock, from which came water that the people

might drink, called by the apostle spiritual drink, saying: "They did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." 1 Cor. x. 3. Here also the Lord gave Israel the statutes and judgments which they should observe to do that they might live: "and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you." Deut. iv. 1. "The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers; but with us, even us who are all of us here alive this day." Deut. v. 2. The same covenant in Christ, God makes even with us also, the Gentiles in Christ, here alive this day. This covenant, recorded in the Decalogue, requires obedience on thy part, that thou through faith in Christ "mayest go in and possess the good land which the Lord thy God sware unto the fathers." Deut. vi. 18. "All the commandments shall ye observe to do, that ye may live and multiply and go in to possess the land (earth) which the Lord sware unto your fathers." Deut. viii. 1. Not only are the ten commandments binding on the Gentiles, but the rewards of obedience are equally secured in eternal life to the Gentiles on the new earth which the Lord sware unto Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and to their seed of promise, which is Christ.

THE CONDITIONS OF THE COVENANT.

The land () sworn to the fathers for their everlasting possession they never had. It does not belong in this world. While sojourning as strangers on the earth, they saw the heavenly country afar off, and by faith they looked for the holy city prepared for them in that better country. In pursuit of that land Moses led Israel out of Egypt, and, at Horeb, God covenanted to give it them, even "the good land which the Lord thy God sware unto the fathers." The covenant made with the fathers in Canaan was thus after several generations renewed with their children in the wilderness. The covenant was the same, with

regard to the parties, to the conditions, and to the land (earth). The Eternal and his chosen people, fathers and children, were the contracting parties; the conditions were obedience on the part of the people, and on the Lord's part to give them everlasting possession of the land of their sojourn. The land was the same land, invisible to the natural eye, but seen afar by faith. And the results to the fathers and to the twelve tribes, so far as appears, were the same in both cases: the fathers were buried in the earth, without any inheritance in it; and their children in the wilderness were likewise buried in the earth, without any inheritance in the promised land.

The conditions of the covenant at Horeb are more fully described as follows: "And Moses took the book of the covenant, and read it in the audience of the people, and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." Ex. xxiv. 7. This is every soul's part in the covenant also. "And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments." Ex. xxxiv. 28. The Lord for his part promises to bring them "unto a good land and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey." Ex. iii. 8. "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high, above all the nations of the earth. But if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, it shall come to pass that as the Lord rejoiced to do you good, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it; and the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from one end of the earth even unto the other." Deut. xxviii. 1, 15, 63. "Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my judgments, and do them, that the land whither I bring you to dwell therein, spew you not out." Lev. xx. 22. The parties to this covenant are the Lord and all his chosen people of every land and tongue.

The conditions and objects of the covenant are intended to secure on the one hand an obedient race, and on the other hand to give them eternal life in the everlasting possession of the land flowing with milk and honey. It is plain also that this covenant with the children, as with their fathers, has a proximate and temporal relation to this world, and an ultimate and eternal relation to the land of everlasting life. In the direction of this eternal relation appears the testimony of Jesus in the spirit of this covenant.

THE COVENANT OF THE DECALOGUE RENEWED.

In the plains of Moab, at the fords of Jordan, Moses renewed the covenant made with Israel of the preceding generation at Horeb. Observe how the covenants are between the Lord and each person individually, and with the two generations successively. "Thou shalt have none other Gods but me. Thou shalt not make; thou shalt not take; thou shalt not kill, steal, slander, covet, neither commit adultery;" so here, "That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into his oath which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day, that he may establish thee to-day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day." Deut. xxix. 12-15. The party of the second part is here described individually and also collectively, and embraces all covenanters, both present and absent, including the unborn seed of faith, who take its vows upon them through all generations unto this day. The lawgiver proceeds, saying: "And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee-the blessing and the curse-and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and

shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and will gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee, and will bring thee unto the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it." Deut. xxx. 1. If a captive Israelite has ever returned in heart and life unto the Lord, how can he possess his fatherland save by coming back from the grave?

Plain it is that the holy covenant is made individually and nationally, and will be redeemed everlastingly in the resurrection from the dead. Most happy is this interpretation for both Jews and Gentiles. Consider how the land of Canaan has spewed out its claimants for eighteen hundred years, in which period many Jews have called, and do now call, to mind the blessing and the curse, and return to the Lord and obey him with a fervent heart; whose captivity the Lord will return, according to his precious promise, when he gathers the meek and the just from among all nations, and "shall bring thee unto the land (earth) which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it," through Jesus and the resurrection. This is the analogy of faith and the testimony of Jesus in the prophecy.

From the opening of the rock in Horeb, when the waters gushed out like a river for the refreshing of Israel, to their dispersion, as at this time a reproach among all nations, and to their promised return into the land of their fathers to possess it for ever, this people and the Lord's dealings with them are real, yet symbolical and typical of the whole household of faith. The Scriptures are constructed to this end, and they have been so received and understood in all Christian nations. The everlasting covenants made with the fathers in Canaan, and with their children in Horeb, and again at the fords of Jordan, are made with Christians. The parties are the same Lord God and Father of all; the same Seed of Abraham, which is Christ; and the same holy land (7) of promise for a possession of