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Page 41
1. Nothing can be more expressly asserted in the Old Testament
than the perpetual obligation of those rites which were to
distinguish the Jews from other nations. It appears, for instance,
(from the 17th ch. of Genesis,) in the tenor of the covenant made
with Abraham, that circumcision was to distinguish his posterity,
to the end of time. It is called �an everlasting covenant� to be kept
by his posterity through all their generations. See the ch. where the
condition of the covenant is, that God would give to Abraham and
his posterity, the perpetual inheritance of the promised land with
whatever privileges were implied in his being their God, on
condition that their male children were circumcised in testimony of
putting themselves under that covenant. There is no limitation with
respect to time; nay it is expressly said that the covenant should be
perpetual.
The ordinance of the Passover is also said to be perpetual, Ex. xii.
14, &c. �And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and you
shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations.
You shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.� This is repeated
afterwards, and the observance of this rite is confined to Israelites,
Proselytes, and slaves who should be circumcised, v. 48.
The observance of the Sabbath was never to be discontinued, Ex.
xxxi. 16. �Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath
throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign
between me and the children of Israel for ever.�
The appointment of the Family of Aaron to be Priests, was to
continue as long as the Israelites should be a nation. See Lev. vii.
35.
The Feast of Tabernacles was to be forever. Lev. xxiii. 41. �It
shall be a statute for ever, in your generations.� The observance of
this Festival is particularly mentioned in the prophecies, which
foretell a future settlement of the Jews in their own land, as
obligatory on all the world; as if an union of worship at Jerusalem
was to be, according to them, effected among all nations by the
united observance of this Festival there, see Zech. 14; what he
there says is confirmed by what Isaiah prophecied concerning the
same period. Is. 2. �It shall come to pass in the last days, that the
mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the
mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations
shall flow unto it. And many people shall go, and say, Come ye,
and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the
God of Jacob, and He will teach us of his ways, and we will walk
in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word
of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations,
and rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into
ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation. shall not
lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any
more.�
With respect to all the Laws of Moses, it is evident from the
manner in which they were promulgated, that they were intended
to be of perpetual obligation upon the Hebrew nation, and that by
the observance of them they were to be distinguished from the
other nations, see Deut. xxvi. 16.
The observance of their peculiar Laws was the express condition
on which the Israelites were to continue in possession of the
promised land; and though on account of their disobedience they
were to be driven out of it, they had the strongest assurances given
them that they should never be utterly destroyed, like many other
nations who should oppress them; but that on their repentance God
would gather them from the remote parts of the world, and bring
them to their own country again. And both Moses, and the later
Prophets assure them, that in consequence of their becoming
obedient to God in all things, which it is asserted they will, (and
which may be the natural consequence of the discipline they will
have gone through,) they shall be continued in the peaceable
enjoyment of the land of promise, in its greatest extent to the end
of time. See to this purpose Deut. iv. 25, &c.; also. Deut. 30,
where it is thus written.
�And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon
thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and
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
shall obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day,
thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul; that,
then, the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have
compassion upon thee, and will return, and gather thee from all the
nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. If any of
thine be driven out unto the utmost parts of heaven, from thence
will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch
thee. And the Lord thy God will bring thee unto the Land which
thy Fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it, and He will do
thee good, and multiply thee above thy Fathers. And the Lord thy
God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou
mayest live; and the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon
thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.
And thou shalt return, and obey the voice of the Lord, and do all
his commandments which I command thee this day." &c.
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