GAL. 3. 19.
THe service and Ministery 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 chapter, brings many arguments to prove, that we are not justified by the Law, and that the promise and eternall 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 hypocriticall Iews 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 accomodate 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 Morall Law, as a rule of life (for that is eternall as is to be shewed) but the Regiment, or Mosaicall Administrations in the Ceremoniall 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 Antinomianisme: 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 immediatly by Christ: but I rather take it for a commendation, lest he should have been thought to have condemned it, for you know his adversaries charged this upon him, Act. 21. 21. That he spake against the Law: Now though the Apostle doth extoll the Gospel infinitely above the Law, yet he always gives the Law, those titles of commendation which are due to it; now in what sense the Law is said to be ordained by Angels, is hard to say. That you may the better understand this place, compare with it, Act. 7. v. 53. Who have received the Law by the disposition of Angels Heb. 2. 2. If the word spoken by Angels was stedfast, &c. Deut. 33. 2. The Lord came from Sinai with ten thousands of Saints, from his right hand went a fiery law for them: though this seemeth to refer to the people of Israel, rather then the Angels: But the Septuagint interpret it of Angels: In the Greek we have […] which is as much as command, sanction, and ordaining, as Rom. 13. 2. The ordinance of God; so then the sence of the places put together amounts to thus much, That Iesus Christ, Act 7. 38. Who is the Angel that spake to Moses in the mount, and the same which appeared to him in the bush, ver. 35 being accompanied with thousands of Angels, did from the midst of them, give Moses this law, and Jesus Christ is here called the Angel, because of his outward apparition like one. The Sanctuary did express this giving of the Law; for their God sate between the Cherubims, and from the midst of them uttered his Oracles, for Moses was commanded to build the Tabernacie, according to the pattern as he saw in the Mount, and that is the meaning of the Psal. 68. 8. The chariots of God are twenty thousand Angels, the Lord is in the midst of them, Sinai is in the holy place: So a learned man, Deiu, interpreteth it; that is, God doth in the Sanctuary from the Cherubims, deliver his Oracles, as he did the Law on Mount Sinai from between Angels, and thus you have this fully explained. In the next place, you have the remote cause, by the hand of a Mediator. Some understand this of Moses, that he was the Mediator in giving the Law between God and the Iews, and so that Text, Deut. 5. 5. where Moses is said to stand between the Lord and them, may seem to confirm this interpretation; and Moses indeed may be said to be a Mediator typically, as the sacrifices were types of Christs blood, and as he is called, Act. 7. 35. […] a Redeemer, though Beza, and our English Bible renders it a deliverer.