Four hundred and thirty years after the first solemn declaration of these promises, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in virtue of the first promise, were redeemed out of bondage in Egypt, and saved from the tyranny and cruelty of Pharaoh. Then, in order to the full completion of its stipulations, God, by the hand of Moses, proposed a covenant with all Israel at Sinai; in which he guarantees to do all for them contemplated in the promise, confirmed by an oath to Abraham, in being a God to his seed after him. This

constituted them a kingdom of God, a holy nation, a peculiar people. All the blessings comprehended in the first promise to Abraham, or that could grow out of the relation to God which it contemplated, were in full detail carried out into this transaction, and secured to the whole nation. The relation was, however, temporal, and its blessings temporal and earthly. The second promise made no part of the Jewish institution or covenant at Sinai, more than it did of the patriarchal or antecedent institution. The typical or figurative part of the family worship, enlarged and improved, was translated into the national institution and made a part of it; and whatever spiritual privilege was enjoyed by the Jew, was enjoyed upon the same principle with the patriarch--by faith in the second promise, and by an intelligent and believing attendance upon all the appointed means which either prefigured the coming redemption, or realized the blessings which were to be derived through the promised seed.

[A. C.]      

Source:

Alexander Campbell. "Sinaitic Covenant." The Millennial Harbinger Extra 5 (August 1834): 393-394.

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