unlawful copulation with women, free and unmarried; for adultery, as is known, was capital by the express sentence of the law: as,1. With a sister; 2. A father's sister; 3. A mother's sister; 4. A wife's sister; 5. A brother's widow; 6. An uncle's widow; 7. A woman separated. Many other crimes also they reckon up with reference unto ceremonial institutions, as eating of fat, and blood, and leaven on the passover, making an oil like the holy oil, even all such transgressions as are threatened with punishment, but have no express kind of punishment annexed unto them.

28. Secondly, Punishments respecting state and condition were of two sorts;-1. Pecuniary, in a quadruple restitution in case of theft; 2. Personal, in banishment, or confinement unto the city of refuge for him that had slain a man at unawares, Num. xxxv. 25.

29. Thirdly, Capital punishments they inflicted four ways:-1. By strangulation, Deut. xxi. 22; which was inflicted on six sorts of transgressors:-(1.) Adulterers; (2.) Strikers of parents; (3.) Man-stealers; (4.) Old men exemplarily rebellious against the law; (5.) False prophets; (6.) Prognosticators by the names of idols. 2. Burning, Lev. xx. 14; and this, the Jews say, was inflicted by pouring molten lead into their mouths. And the crimes that this punishment was allotted to were,-(1.) The adultery of the priest's daughter. (2.) Incest,-[1.] With a daughter; [2.] With a son's daughter; [3.] A wife's daughter; [4] A wife's daughter's daughter; [5.] A wife's son's daughter; [6.] A wife's mother; [7.] The mother of her father; [8.] The mother of her father-in-law. 3. Death was inflicted by the sword, Exod. xxxii. 27,-(1.) On the voluntary manslayer; (2.) On the inhabitants of any city that fell to idolatry. 4. By stoning, Deut. xxi. 21, which was executed for incest,-(1.) With a mother; (2.) A mother-in-law; (3.) A daughter-in-law; (4.) Adultery with a betrothed virgin; (5.) Unnatural uncleanness with men; (6.) With beasts by men; (7.) With beasts by women; (8.) Blasphemy; (9.) Idolatry; (10.) Offering to Moloch; (11.) A familiar spirit of Ob; (12.) Of Jideoni; (13.) On impostors; (14.) On seducers; (15.) On enchanters or magicians; (16.) Profaners of the Sabbath; (17.) Cursers of fathers or mothers; (18.) The dissolute and stubborn son;-concerning all which it is expressly said that they shall be stoned.

30. Unto the execution of these penalties there were added two cautionary laws;-first, That they that were put to death, for the increase of their ignominy and terror of others, should be hanged on a tree, Deut. xxi. 22; secondly, That they should be buried the same day, verse 23. And this is a brief abstract of the penalties of the law, as it was the rule of the polity of the people in the land of Canaan.

EXERCITATION XXII.

OF THE TABERNACLE AND ARK.

1. The building of the tabernacle. 2, 3. Moses' writing and reading the book of the covenant. 4. Considerations of the particulars of the fabric and utensils of the tabernacle omitted. 5. One instance insisted on; the ark -The same in the tabernacle and temple-The glory of God, in what sense. 6. The principal sacred utensil. 7. The matter whereof it was made. 8, 9. The form of it. 10. The end and use of it. 11. The residence and motions of it. 12. The mercy-seat that was upon it. 13. The matter thereof. 14, 15. Of the cherubim-Their form and fashion. 16, 17. The visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel compared-Difference in them, and reason thereof. 18. Two other cherubim also in the temple. 19. The knowledge of God enjoyed under the gospel superior to the typical representations of him under the old dispensation.

1. THE people having received the law in the wilderness, and therein a foundation being laid of their future church-state and worship, which was to continue "until the time of reformation," Heb. ix. 10, they had also, by God's direction, a place and building for the seat of that worship assigned unto them. This was the tabernacle erected in the wilderness, suited to their then moving state and condition; into the room whereof the temple built afterwards by Solomon succeeded, when they had attained a fixed station in the land of promise. Our apostle respecting the ordinances of that church as first instituted by Moses,-which the Hebrews boasted of as their privilege, and on the account whereof they obstinately adhered unto their observation,-insists only on the tabernacle, whereunto the temple and its services were referred and conformed. And this he doth principally, chap. ix. 1-5, "Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shew-bread; which is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all; which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; and over it the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy-seat."

2. The preparation for the directions which God gave for the building of this tabernacle is declared, Exod. xxiv. The body of the people having heard the law,—that is, the ten words or commandments, which was all they heard, Deut. ix. 10 (what God spake to them was written in the two tables of stone), they removed unto a greater distance from the mount, Exod. xx. 18. After their removal, Moses continued to receive from the Lord that summary of the whole law which is expressed, chap. xxi., xxii., xxiii. And

all this, as it should seem, at the first hearing, he wrote in a book from the mouth of God: for it is said, chap. xxiv. 4, that he "wrote all the words of the LORD;" and, verse 7, that "he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people."

3. The Jewish masters suppose that it was the book of Genesis that is there intended; for, say they, the rest of the law was not yet written, namely, before God himself had written or engraven the ten words on the two tables of stone. But this is a fond imagination, seeing the book which Moses read contained the form and tenor of the covenant made with that people at Horeb, and is expressly so called, and as such was then solemnly confirmed and ratified by sacrifice. It may therefore be supposed that there is a prolepsis used in the recording of this story, and that, indeed, the confirmation of the covenant by sacrifice, which was accompanied with the reading of the book, was not until after the third return. of Moses from the mount with the renewed tables. But this also may well be doubted, seeing this sacrifice was prepared and offered by the "young men of the children of Israel," verse 5; that is, the first-born, whose office was superseded upon the separation of Aaron and his sons unto the priesthood, which God had designed before that last descent of Moses from the mount. We must therefore leave things in the order wherein they are set down and recorded. It appears, therefore, that Moses wrote the law as he received it from God. This being done, he came down and read it in the ears of the people; and he proposed it unto them, as containing the terms of the covenant that God would have them enter into. This they solemnly engaged to the performance of, and thereby had their admission into a new church-state. This being done, the whole was confirmed by sacrifice and the sprinkling of blood, to prefigure the great confirmation of the new covenant by the blood of Christ, as we shall see afterwards.

4. Things being thus settled, Moses goes up again into the mount, to receive directions for that worship of God which he appointed and enjoined unto them in that church-state whereinto they were newly admitted. And here, in the first place, the Lord instructs him in the frame and whole fabric of the tabernacle, as that which was an eminent type of the human nature of Christ, and so indispensably necessary unto the solemn worship then ordained as that no part of it could be rightly performed but with respect thereunto. This, therefore, with all the parts and utensils of it, should now come under consideration. But there are sundry reasons for which I shall omit it in this place; as,-(1.) The most material things belonging unto it must necessarily be considered in our exposition of those places in our apostle where they are expressly insisted on. (2.) Many things relating unto it, as the measures of it, some part of

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the matter whereof it was made, divers colours used about it, are very dubious, and some of them so absolutely uncertain that the Jews themselves can come to no agreement about them; and it is not meet to enter into the discussion of such things without more room and liberty than our present design will allow unto us. (3.) Many learned men have already travailed with great diligence and skill in the discovery of all the several concernments of the tabernacle and temple; from whom the reader may receive much satisfaction who hath a mind to inquire into these things. Add unto all this, that the writing of this part of these discourses is fallen upon such a season as affords me very little encouragement or assistance to enlarge upon it. Only, that the reader may not go away without a taste in one instance of what he might have expected in the whole, I shall choose out one particular utensil of the tabernacle, and give an account of it unto him; and this shall be the ark and its attendancies.

5. The ark was the only furniture of the most holy place, the most sacred and holy of all the utensils of the tabernacle and temple. And it was the same in them both, as is evident, 1 Kings viii. 4–6. It was the repository of the covenant,-for so the law, written by the finger of God in tables of stone, is often called metonymically,-and being anointed, Exod. xl. 10, became DP, "holiness of holinesses," or most holy; a type of Him who was to fulfil the law and establish the covenant between God and man, being thereunto anointed as the Most Holy, Dan. ix. 24. It was also the great pledge of the presence of God in the church; whence it is not only sometimes called his "glory," Ps. lxxviii. 61, "He gave "He gave in," "his glory," beauty, majesty, "into the hand of the enemy," when the ark was taken,-whereon the wife of Phinehas cried, Ti, "Where is the glory?" 1 Sam. iv. 21, because therein the glory departed from Israel, verse 22,-but in its presence also glory was said to "dwell in the land," Ps. lxxxv. 10, ?, because therein the Shechinah or Chabod, or glorious presence of God, dwelt and abode among his people; yea, it hath the name of God himself attributed to it, by reason of its representation of his majesty, Ps. xxiv. 7, 9, 10.

:

We call it by the same name with the great vessel wherein Noah and the seed of all living creatures were preserved; but their names are far distant in the original, both in sound and signification. This was, "aaron," a chest, it may be from 1, a certain wood whereof such chests were made; that was , "tebah," the name of any vessel in the water, great or small, though made with bulrushes, Exod. ii. 3.

6. It was, as the principal, so the first utensil of the tabernacle that God appointed to be made, Exod. xxv. 10; and therein it was as

the heart, from which, by a communication of sacred holiness from the presence of God, all other things belonging unto the worship of the whole were spirited and as it were enlivened. And immediately upon its entrance into the temple, the visible pledge of the presence of God therein appeared to all, and not before, 1 Kings viii. 6, 10, 11. 7. The matter whereof it was made was D, Exod. xxv. 10, "shittim wood," or boards of the tree, mentioned Isa. xli. 19. What wood it was is altogether uncertain, although it seems sure enough to have been none that grew in the wilderness, where the people were at the erection of the tabernacle: for these shittim boards were reckoned amongst the stores of silver and brass, and such other things as they had brought with them into the wilderness, Exod. xxxv. 24; and that expression, in, "Every one with whom was found shittim wood," intimates the rarity of it, and that, it may be, it had been preserved by them for sundry generations. There is, indeed, a place called Shittim, and Abelshittim, mentioned Num. xxv. 1, and chap. xxxiii. 49, but not probably from these trees. However, it was in the plains of Moab, whereunto the Israelites came not until forty years after the making of the ark. Further, then, we know nothing of the shittim tree, or of this wood; for whatever is discoursed of it, as it hath been discoursed by many, is mere conjecture, ending in professed uncertainty. Only, it seems to have been notable for firmness and duration, as continuing in the ark apparently nine hundred years, even from the making of it unto the destruction of the temple by the Chaldeans; and, it may be, it was returned to the second temple, not perishing absolutely until the covenant with that people expired six hundred years after the captivity. But herein it had the advantage of preservation from all external causes of putrefaction, by its enclosure on all parts in a covering of gold.

8. The form of the ark was of a long square chest, of small dimensions, two cubits and an half in length, one and an half in breadth, and so in height also, Exod. xxv. 10,-that is, according to the most approved estimation of these measures, near four feet long, and two feet and some inches broad and high; and further exactness or accuracy about these measures is of little certainty and less use. How the boards of it were joined is not mentioned. Overlaid it was with pure gold, beaten gold, pure and unmixed, a nap, "intus et extra, undequaque," on all the boards of it, both within and without, so that no part of the wood was anywhere to be seen or touched. Round about it, that is, on the edge of the sides upwards,—it had (py, "upon it," round about), "a diadem," or a fringe of gold-work, such as encompassed diadems or crowns. And this, or "diadem," was put only on the ark, the table of shew-bread, and the altar of incense; intending expressions of rays of gold, as coming