The works of the Reverend and learned John Lightfoot D. D., late Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge such as were, and such as never before were printed : in two volumes : with the authors life and large and useful tables to each volume : also three maps : one of the temple drawn by the author himself, the others of Jervsalem and the Holy Land drawn according to the author's chorography, with a description collected out of his writings.

CHAP. LVIII. Why the Law was published then and not before. (Book 58)

AT Sinai was delivered no new thing, the Law in some kind was known before. Sacrifice was used by Adam in the garden, when the body of the beasts went for an offering for his soul, and the skins for a covering for his body: Cain and Abel learn this part of worship from their father. The division of clean and unclean beasts is known to Noah, when they come to him for their lives as they had done to Adam for their names. Abraham when God made a * 1.1 covenant with him, Genesis 15. Divides and di∣vides not his beasts and fowls, just as God commands, Lev. 1. 6. 17. and so of the rest. Fathers could teach their Children these things as they themselves had learned them of their Fathers. But when men began to multiply, and multitude to be more wicked, than would they not be so easily bridled by a Law, whose author they knew no more of, but their Fathers: And when men lived but a short time in comparison of the first men, and so could not see the full setling of the Law in their houses: And when God had fetched him a people out of Egypt, and laid the foundation of a glorious Church, with signs and wonders, then he thought it fit for their restriction, as also ‖ 1.2 for their distinction from the Heathen, to give the Law from his own mouth, the more to procure reverence to him: For Heaven and Earth must needs hearken when the Lord speaketh, Isa. 1. 2. And thus did † 1.3 the Heathen fain they received their Laws from a Deity that was never seen, and yet their Laws were the better observed for that reason.

Notes

• * 1.1

  So says the Geneva Bible in marg▪ but Rab. Solomon long before saith thus, It is the custom of those that make cove∣nants, to divide beasts into two parts, and pass between the parts: as Jer. 24. 18. And God passes be∣tween these in this smoking furnace and fire brand, for ma∣king covenants in like kinds Homer speaks near this.
• ‖ 1.2

  Vid. Jarchi on Ruth, cap. 1.
• † 1.3

  Numa, Mi∣nos, &c.