that you may find in it remedies to cure all your diseases, and cordials to comfort you against all your faintings, and a spiritual armoury to arm you against all your enemies, viz., the world, the flesh, and the devil, Isa. xl. 28, and Ps. cxlvii. 5. Dost thou, O distressed sinner, want a loving God, a compassionate God, a reconciled God, a sin-pardoning God ? Here thou mayest find him, in the covenant of grace. Dost thou want a Christ to counsel thee by his wisdom, and to clothe thee with his right- eousness, and to adorn thee with his grace ? Here thou mayest find him in a covenant of grace. Dost thou want the Spirit to enlighten thee, to teach thee, to convince thee, to awaken thee, to lead thee, to cleanse thee, to cheer thee, and to seal thee up to the day of redemption ? Eph. i. 18. Here thou mayest find him in a covenant of grace. Dost thou want grace, or peace, or rest, or quiet, or content, or comfort, or satis- faction 1 Here thou mayest find it in a covenant of grace. God has laid into the covenant of gi-ace, as into a common store, all those things that- sinners or saints can either beg or need. Look, as that is a well-ordered commonwealth where there are no wholesome laws wanting to govern a people, and where there are no wholesome remedies wanting to relieve a people ; so that must needs be a well-ordered covenant, where there is nothing wanting to govern poor souls, or to relieve poor souls, or to save poor souls ; and such a covenant is the covenant of grace.
And sure the covenant of grace is a sure covenant: Deut. vii. 9, 'The Lord thy God he is God, the faithful God' (or the God of Amen), ' which keepeth covenant with them that love him ;' Ps. Ixxxix. 33, ' My covenant will I not break ' (Hebrew, I will not profane), ' nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.^ All God's precepts, all God's predictions, all God's menaces, and all God's promises, are the issue of a most just, faithful, and righteous will. God can neither die nor lie : Titus i. 2, ' In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.' There are three things that God cannot do : (1.) He cannot die ; nor (2.) he cannot lie ; nor (3.) he cannot deny himself: Josh, xxiii. 14, 'And behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth ; and ye know in all your hearts, and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you ; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof O sirs ! the covenant of grace is bot- tomed upon God's everlasting love, upon God's unchangeable love, upon God's free love, John xiii. 1. Whom God loves once, he loves for ever: ' I have loved thee with an everlasting love,' Jer. xxxi. 3. God can as well cease to be, as he can cease to love those whom he has taken into covenant with himself And as the covenant of grace is bottomed upon God's everlasting love, so it is bottomed upon God's immutable counsel: ' God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutabihty of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath,' Heb. vi. 17. And as the covenant of grace is bottomed upon the immutable counsel of God, so it is bottomed upon the free purpose of God: 2 Tim. ii. 19, * The foundation of God standeth sure ;' that is, the decree and purpose of God's election stands firm and sure. Now the purpose of God's election is compared to a foundation, because it is that upon which all our happiness and blessedness is built and bottomed, and because, as a foundation, it abides firm and sure. And as the covenant of grace is » Jer. xxxi. 31, 33, 36-37 ; Ps. xix. 7 ; Rev. iii. 14 ; Isa. liv. 10.
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bottomed upon the free purpose of God, so it is bottomed upon the glorious power of God, Isa. xxxiii. 11, xli. 2 ; Mai. iv. 1 ; 1 Cor. i. 25. The power of God is an infinite power, it is a supreme power, a power that overtops the power of all mortals. What is the stubble to the flames, the chaff to the whirlwind ? No more is all created power to the power of God. The weakness of God is stronger than men ; and did not Pharaoh find it so ? and Haman find it so ? and Seniiacherib find it so ? and Nebuchadnezzar find it so? and Belshazzar find it so? and Herod find it so ? In all the ages of the world the power of God hath bore down all before it. The power of God is an independent power, a matchless power, an incomparable power, an enduring power, an eternal power. And as the covenant of grace is bottomed upon the power of God, so it is bottomed upon the oath of God : Luke i. 72, ' To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant/ Ver. 73, ' The oath which he sware to our father Ab- raham.' Heb. vi. 17, 18; Ps. Ixxxix. 34, 35. To think that God will break his oath, or be perjured, is an intolerable blasphemy. Once more give me leave to say, the covenant of grace is bottomed not only upon the oath of God, but also upon the precious blood of Christ. The blood of Christ is called ' the blood of the everlasting covenant,' Heb. xiii. 20, Mat. xxvi. 28. ' This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins,' Heb. ix. 15. 'And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testa- ment, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal in- heritance.'' Ver. 17, 'A testament is of force after men are dead.' It is called a covenant and a testament. (1.) A covenant in respect of God, and a testament in respect of Christ. (2.) A covenant in respect of the manner of agreement, and a testament in respect of the manner of confirming. Jesus Christ died as a testator, and by his death con- firmed the testamentary gift before made of life and salvation. Now, the covenant of grace being thus gloriously bottomed as you see, it must roundly and undeniably follow, that the covenant of grace is a sure covenant.