8 
ISRAEL. 
the camp trembled.” They then marched forth, to take their stations round the mount, 
and await the descent of God. 
“ And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it 
in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount 
quaked greatly. 
“ And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, 
Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. And the Lord came down upon Mount 
Sinai .” 1 
The Law was now given in three portions; the first, the Ten Commandments, openly 
proclaimed by the Divine voice, as the great principles of universal order; those principles, 
which our Lord and Saviour lias declared permanently binding on all ages, and incapable 
of being changed in even an iota ." 2 The two remaining portions, the law of worship, and 
the law of society, applicable chiefly to the Jew alone, were transmitted through Moses. 
This was the most majestic demonstration that was ever given to Israel, or perhaps will 
ever be given to man; until that close of Christianity which it so singularly resembles— 
the Second coming, when “ the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with 
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God .” 3 
And “ the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming 
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our 
Lord Jesus Christ .” 4 
In both, the leading features are the same, the grandeur, the wrath, the irresistible 
power, the flame, the trumpet, the voice of the angelic world, and the descending Deity. 
But all the past is eclipsed by the new glory of the second coming, the splendour of the 
Resurrection. 
It has been objected to the Mosaic Law, that it omits the doctrine of immortality; hut 
the objection arises from confounding the nature of a religion and a law. The Israelites had 
the religion before. The patriarchs bowed down to Jehovah, worshipped Him with sacrifice, 
and looked forward to the advent of the Messiah. Their religion had the doctrine of 
immortality; “they all died in faith,” the hope of a resurrection. 
The object of law is the order of society. But society ends at the edge of the grave; 
and the rewards and punishments of the future world are no more within the contemplation 
of its tribunals, than they are within its power. 
Yet the distinctions of the Mosaic code still raised it incomparably above all the 
efforts of human wisdom. It met, with an amplitude till then unknown, the threefold 
objects, of religious ceremonial, the privileges of the sovereign, and the rights of the people; 
it exhibited the contrast of a law incapable of addition, diminution, or change, to the helpless 
perplexity, narrow principles, and perpetual changes of human legislation; it brought 
forward the thunders of Omnipotence to assert its authenticity; and, finally, it stamped all 
its provisions with a pledge beyond the highest reach of human power. 
Unlike human law, which knows only crime and penalty; the Mosaic Law extended 
itself to righteousness and reward; it prepared expiation for offence to man and heaven; 
1 Exod. xix. 18-90. 2 Matt. v. 18. 3 1 Thess. iv. 4 2 Tliess. i. 7, 8. 
