is farther stated, Num. xviii. 15, 16, 17. "Every thing that openeth the matrix, in all flesh which they bring unto the Lord, whether it be of men or beast, shall be thine; nevertheless the first born of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem, and those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thine estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs. But the firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem, they are holy, thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savour unto the Lord." The whole dedication of the first-born males is distributed into three parts. 1. Children, who were to be redeemed with five shekels, twenty gerahs to one shekel, that is about twelve shillings of our money. 2. Clean beasts, such as were appointed to be offered in sacrifice on other occasions, as the kine, the sheep and the goats. These were to be offered to God, in a sacrifice of burntoffering without redemption or commutation, after they had been kept a month with the dam. 3. Unclean beasts, whereof an instance is given in the ass, which were either to be redeemed with money by an agreement with the priest, or to have their necks broken at the choice of the owner. And all of this to call to remembrance the mercy of God in sparing them, and theirs, when the first-born of man and beast, clean and unclean in Egypt, were destroyed. For hence a peculiar right of special preservation arose unto God towards all their first-born, and this also not without a prospect towards the redemption of the church of the first-born by Jesus Christ, Heb. xii. 23.

§ 23. And this concluded the first dispensation of God towards the church in the posterity of Abraham, for the space of 430 years. With the provision and furniture of these ordinances of worship, they left Egypt, and passing through the red sea, came into the wilderness of Sinai, where they received the law, and were made perfect in the beauty of typical holiness and worship.

§ 24. To these ordinances succeeded the solemn voodia, or giving of the law on mount Sinai, with the precepts and sanctions thereof, mentioned in several places by our apostle, as chap. ii. 2. "For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward." Chap. x. 28. "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses." Chap. xii. 18, 19, 20, 21. "For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire; nor unto blackness and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which they that heard intreated that

the word should not be spoken to them any more; for they could not endure that which was commanded; and if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.", ver. 25. "They escaped not who refused him that spake on earth." And in other places.

§ 25. Three things must be explained in reference to this great and solemn foundation of the Jewish church state, of which our apostle treateth in this whole epistle. First, the preparations for it. Secondly, the manner of the giving of it. Thirdly, the law itself. For the preparations for it, they are either more remote, or immediately preceding it. The former were those temporary, occasional, instructive ordinances which God gave them at their entrance into the wilderness, before they came to receive the law on Sinai.

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The first mentioned of this nature is Exod. xv. 23, 24, 25, 26. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of those diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee." The whole course of God's proceedings with his people, whereof we have here the first pledge in the wilderness, was by a constant series of temporal providential straits, sinful murmurings, and typical mercies.

The waters being bitter, that they could not drink of them, God shewed to Moses a tree; that is, say some of the Jewish Doctors, he shewed him the virtue of a tree to cure and make wholesome bitter waters. And they say it was a tree, whose flowers and fruit were bitter; for no other reason, but because Elisha afterwards cured salt waters, by casting into them a cruise of salt. The Targum of Jonathan, and that of Jerusalem say,

,the bitter tree Arlipine אילן מדיר בארדפני God shewed him

which is nothing but Aap Daphne, the Laurel. And on this tree the author of that fabulous paraphrase would have the glorious name of God to be written, according to the incantations in use among them in his days. But that which is designed in the whole, is, that God preparing them for the bitter consum ing law that was to be given them, and discovering to them

their inability to drink of the waters of it for their refreshment, gave them an intimation of the cure of that curse and bitterness by him, who bearing our sins in his body upon the tree, (1 Pet. ii. 24.) is the end of the law for righteousness unto them that do believe.

§ 26. Their second preparation for the receiving of the law, was the giving of manna unto them from heaven. In their progress between Elim and Sinai, they came to the wilderness of Sin, so called from a city in Egypt, to which it extended, in the midst of the second month after their departure from Egypt; the stores which they brought with them from thence being exhausted, the whole congregation murmured for food. For still their wants and murmurings lay at the bottom, and were the occasion of those reliefs, whereby the spiritual mercies of the church by Christ were typified. In this condition God sends them manna, Exod. xvi. 14, 15. " In the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lav a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost of the ground. and when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna; for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat, ver. 31. And the house of Israel called the name thereof manna, and it was like Coriander seed, white, and the taste of it like wafers made with honey."

When the children of Israel saw it, they said,

Man hu: and ver. 31. the children of Israel called the name of it Man. The reason of this name is very uncertain. The calling of it manna in the New Testament, gives countenance to the derivation of the word from Manah, to prepare and distribute. For what some have thought, that it should be an abbreviation of on a gift, and spoken by them in their precipitate haste, is destitute of all probability. If it be from Manah, it signifies a prepared meat, or portion. So upon the sight of it, they said one to another, here is a portion prepared. But the truth is, the following words, wherein there is a reason given why they said upon the sight of it Man hu, in

,כי לא ידעו מה הוא,clines strongly to another signification

For they knew not, Ma hu, what it was. They said one to another, Man hu, because they knew not Ma hu, that is, what it was. So that Man hu is as much as, What is it? and so the words are rendered by the LXX. TI SOTI TYTO, What is this? and by the vulgar Latin, Quid est hoc? But this difficulty remains, that Man, is not in the Hebrew tongue an interrogative of the thing, no nor yet of the person, nor doth signify what. Aben-Ezra says it is an Arabic word. Chiskuni, an Egyptian; and it is evidently an interrogative of the person in

the Chaldee, and sometimes of the thing, as Judg. xiii. 14. 1 Tow, What is thy name? Yea, it seems to be used towards this sense in the Hebrew, Psal. lxi. 8. 1773) JA DONI 707 where though most take 1 Man, to be the imperative in Pihel from Manah, which no where else occurs, yet the LXX took it to be an interrogation from the Chaldee, rendering the words Tits, Who shall find out? This being then the language of the common people in their admiration of a thing new unto them, it is no wonder that they made use of a word that had obtained amongst them from some of the nations with whom they had been conversant, differing little in sound from a word of their own of the same signification, and afterwards admitted into common use amongst them. From this occasional interrogation, did the food provided for them take its name of Man, called in the New Testament manna. This occasional imposition of names to persons and things has been at all times frequent and usual; as in the chapter foregoing, the place was called Marah, from the bitterness of the water, of which they complained upon their first tasting it. And in the next chapter the names of Massah and Meribah, are derived from their temptations and provocations. The only observation which we would make concerning this dispensation of God towards them is, that they had this eminent renewed pledge of the Lord Christ that bread of life, and food of their souls given unto them, before they were entrusted with the law. But they making the law their only glory, and betaking themselves to it, without the healing tree and heavenly manna, the law thus used has become their snare and ruin. See John vi. 31, 32. 48, 49. 51. Rev. ii. 17.

$27. A third signal preparation for the law on the like occasion, and to the same purpose with the former, is repeated, Exod. xvii. 1-7. "And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journies, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim; and there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to kill us with thirst? And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel, and thy rod wherewith thou smotest the river take in thine hand, and go: behold I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock,

and there shall come water out of it that they may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord amongst us or not?" Marching up farther into the wilderness, they came to Rephidim, their fourth station from the Red Sea. There they met with no waters to their satisfaction, and therefore they fell into a high murmuring against the Lord, and mutiny against Moses their leader. And this iniquity the Jewish doctors suppose was the more aggrava ted, because they were in no absolute necessity for water, the dew which fell from the manna running in some streams. Hereon God commands Moses to go to the rock of Horeb, which he had prepared for the place of giving the law, and promises to meet him there; he commands him also to take his rod in his hand to smite the rock, and when this was done, waters flowed out for the relief of this sinful murmuring people. The Holy Ghost bath put sundry remarks upon this dispensation of God towards them.

First, Because of the sin of the people, he gave a double name to the place where they sinned, for a memorial to all generations: he called it Massah and Meribah, which words our apostle renders by ugaopes and Пagarixgaμos, ch. iii. 9. temptation and provoking contention. And it is often mentioned both with respect to the people, either to reproach and burden them with their sin, as Deut. ix. 22. "And at Massah ye provoked. the Lord to wrath;" or to warn them of the like miscarriage, ch. vi. 16." You shall not tempt the Lord your God, as you tempted him in Massah;" as also Psal. xcv. Š. It is also mentioned with reference to Moses, as to the signal trial that God had there made of his faith and obedience, in that great difficulty with which he conflicted; as also of those of the tribe of Levi, who in a preparation to their ensuing dedication to God, clave to Moses in his straits. Deut. xxxiii. 8. "And of Levi he said, Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one, whom thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah."

The mercy likewise that ensued, in giving them water from the rock, is most frequently celebrated, Deut. viii. 15. Psal. lxxviii. 15, 16. Psal, cv. 41. Neh. ix. 15. Now all this was done, to bring them to attend and inquire diligently into the kernel of this mercy, whose outward shell was so undeservedly free, and so deservedly precious. For by this rock of Horeb was typified a spiritual rock, as our apostle tells us, 1 Cor. x. 4. even Christ the Son of God, who being smitten with the rod of Moses, or the stroke and curse of the law administered by him,