Vindiciæ legis & fœderis

(4.) 'Tis evident however, that after the first opening of the Promise of Christ, Gen. 3. 15. God foreseeing the Pride of Fallen Man, who naturally inclines to a Righteousness of his own in the way of doing, was pleased to revive the Law of Nature, as to its matter, in the Sinai Dispensation, which ⟨p. 34⟩was 430 Years after the first Promise had been renewed, and further opened unto Abraham, of whose Seed Christ should come; and this he did not in opposition to the Promise, but in subserviency thereto, Gal. 3. 21. And though the matter and substance of the Law of Nature be found in the Sinai Covenant, strictly taken for the Ten Commandments, yet the Ends and Intentions of God in that terrible Sinai Dispensation were two-fold: (1.) To convince Fallen Man of the sinfulness and impotency of his Nature, and the impossibility of obtaining Righteousness by the Law, and so by a blessed necessity to shut him up to Christ, his only Remedy. And (2.) To be a standing Rule of Duty both towards God and Man, to the end of the World: But if we take the Sinai Covenant more largely, as inclusive of the Ceremonial with the Moral Law, (as it is often taken, and is so by you, in the New Testament) then it did not only serve for a Conviction of Impotency, and a Rule of Duty, but exhibited and taught much of Christ, and the Mysteries of the New Covenant in those its Ceremonies, wherein he was prefigured to them.

(5.) Whence it evidently appear that the Sinai Covenant was neither repugnant to the New Covenant in its scope and aim. The law is not against the promise, Gal. 3. 21. nor yet set up as co-ordinate with it, with a design to open two different ways of Salvation to Fallen Man, but was added to the Promise, in respect of its Evangelical purposes and designs; on which account it is called by some a Covenant of Faith or Grace, in respect of its subserviency unto Christ, who is the end of the Law for righteousness,