Vindiciae legis, or, A vindication of the moral law and the covenants, from the…Vindiciae legis, or, A vindication of the morall law and the covenants, from the…

An additional LECTURE.

An additionall LECTVRE.

The service and Ministry of the Angels about the promulgation of the Law, will much make to the honour of the Law; for we never read of Laws enacted by so sacred and August a Senate as the Moral Law was, where Jesus Christ accompanied with thousands of Angels, gave these precepts to the people of Israel: We read of three solemn services of the Angels; the first was, their singing at the Creation of the world, Job 38. 7. for by the morning stars, are meant the Angels: The second was at Christs birth, when they cried, Glory be to God, &c. and the third may be this in the promulgation of the Law. For the unfolding of the words, know that the Apostle in the former part of the ⟨p. 165⟩chapter, brings many arguments to prove, that we are not justified by the Law, and that the promise and eternal life could not come by it Now lest this discourse should seem derogatory to the Law, he doth here, as in other places upon the like occasion, make an objection: To what use then is the Law and v. 21. Is that Law against the promises? Which he answers with great indignation, God forbid; and to the former objection, he answereth in my Text, showing the end of the Law, that is, not the end of the Law absolutely in it self, but of the delivery at that time; it was added because of transgressions, to convince the proud and hypocritical Jews of their wickedness, and thereby to seal that righteousness of Christ. He doth not here take all the manifold uses of the Law, but that which was accommodate to his present scope. This use he doth illustrate from the circumstance of duration; It was to be till the coming of Christ, whereby you see, that the Apostle meaneth not the Moral Law, as a rule of life (for that is eternal as is to be showed) but the Regiment, or Mosaical Administrations in the Ceremonial part thereof: and there is nothing more ordinary with Paul, then to take the Law Synecdochically, for one part of the Law; which rule if observed, would Antidote against Antinomianism: In the next place he commends this Law by a seasonable, and fit digression from a two-fold Ministerial cause, one proxime and immediate, the Angels; the other remote, by the hand of a Mediator: some indeed think this is added for the debasement of the Law, and to difference it from the Gospel, because the Law was given by Angels, but the Gospel immediately by Christ: