greatest outward mercies and blessings that Christ confers upon us.^ If a man be under a covenant of grace, and doth not know it, how can he rejoice in the Lord ? How can he sing out the high praises of God ? How can he delight himself in the Almighty ? How can he triumph in Christ Jesus ? How can he cheerfully run the race that is before him ? How can he bear up bravely and resolutely in his sufferings for the cause of Christ ? How can he besiege the throne of grace with boldness ? How can he be temptation-proof ? How can he be dead to this world ? How can he long to be with Christ in that other world ? And if a man be under a covenant of works, and doth not know it, how can he lament and bewail his sad condition ? How can he be earnest with God to bring him under the bond of the new covenant ? How can he make out after Christ ? How can he choose the things that please God ? How can he cease from doing evil, and learn to do well ? How can he lay hold on eternal life ? How can he be saved from wrath to come ? &c. If we are under a covenant of grace, and do not know it, how can we manage our duties and services with that life, love, seriousness, holiness, spiritualness, and upright- ness, as becomes us ? ^ &c. If we are under a covenant of works,^ and do not know it, how rare shall we be in religious duties ! How weary shall we be of religious duties, and how ready shall we be to cast off religious duties! By these few things I have been hinting at, you may easily discern how greatly it concerns all sorts of persons to know what covenant they are under ; whether they are under the first or second covenant ; whether they are under a covenant of works or a covenant of grace. Now having premised these seven things, my way is clear to that I would be at, which is this — viz., 1. Tliat there are hut two famous covenants that ive must abide by. In one of them, all men and women in the world must of necessity be found — either in the covenant of grace or in the covenant of works. The covenant of works is a witness of God's holiness and perfection ; the covenant of grace is a witness of God's goodness and commiseration. The cove- nant of works is a standing evidence of man's guiltiness ; the covenant of grace is the standing evidence of God's righteousness. The cove- nant of works is the lasting monument of man's impotency and changeableness ; the covenant of grace is the everlasting monument of God's omnipotency and immutability. Now no man can be under both these covenants at once. If he be under a covenant of works, he is not under a covenant of grace ; and if he be under a covenant of grace, he cannot be under a covenant of works. Such as are under a covenant of works, they have the breach of that covenant to count for, they being the serpentine brood of a transgressing stock ; but such as are under a covenant of grace shall never be tried by the law of works, because Christ, their surety, hath fulfilled it for them. Acts xiii. 38,39 ; Eom. viii. 2-4 ; Gal. iv. 4-6. But let me open myself more fully thus : — That all unbelievers, all Christless, graceless persons, are under a covenant of loorks, lohich they are never able safely to live under.
1 Prov. i. 32; ilal. ii. 2; Dcut. xxviii. 15-20; Lev. xxvi. 14-24; 2 Oor. ii. 14; Heb. xii. 1.
- Ps. xvi. 4 ; Amos viii. 5; Mai. i. 13 ; Hosea vi. 4, and iv. 10; Ps. xxxvi. 3. ^ Query, 'grace?' — Ed.
304 THE COVENANT OF GRACE PROVED AND OPENED,
Should they live and die under a covenant of works, they were surely lost and destroyed for ever ; for the covenant of works condemns and curses the sinner : Gal. iii. 10, ' Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.' Neither hath the sinner any way to escape that curse of the law, nor the wrath of God revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodli- ness, but in the covenant of grace, Rom. i. 18. This covenant of works the apostle calls ' the law of works,' Rom. iii. 27. This is the covenant which God made with man in the state of innocency before the fall, Gen. ii. 16, 17. In this covenant God promised to Adam, for himself and his posterity, life and happiness, upon the condition of perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience; and it is summed up by the apostle, ' Do this and live,' Gal. iii. 12. God having created man upright, after his own image, Eccles. vii. 29 ; Gen. i. 26, 27, and 'so having furnished him with all abilities sufficient for obedience, thereupon he made a covenant with him for life upon the condition of obedience ; I say, he made such a covenant with Adam, as a public person, as the head of the covenant ; and as he promised life to him and his posterity in case of obedience, so he threatened death and a curse unto him and his pos- terity in case of disobedience : ' In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;' or, 'dying thou shalt die,' Gen. ii. 17.-^ God, in this covenant of works, did deal with Adam and his posterity in a way of supremacy and righteousness, and therefore there is mention made only of the threatenings : ' In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death.' And it is further observable, that in this covenant that God made with Adam and his posterity, he did promise unto them eternal life and happiness in heaven, and not eternal life in this world only, as some would have it ; for hell was threatened in these words, ' In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death ;' and therefore heaven and happiness, salvation and glory, was promised on the contrary. We must necessarily conclude that the promise was as ample, large, and full as the threatening was ; yet this ' must be remembered, that when God did at first enter into covenant with us, and did promise us heaven and salvation, it was upon condition of our personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience, and therefore called a cove- nant of works. 'Do this and live' was not only a command, but a covenant, with a promise of eternal happiness upon perfect and per- petual obedience. All that are under a covenant of works, are under the curse of the covenant, and they are all bound over unto eternal wrath ; but the Lord Christ has put an end to this covenant, and abolished it unto all that are in him, being himself made under it ; and satisfying the precept and the curse of it, and so he did cancel it, ' as a handwriting against us, nailing it unto his cross,' Col. ii. 14. So that all they that are in Christ are freed from the law as a cove- nant ; but unto all other men it remains a covenant still, and they remain under the curse of it for ever, and the wrath of God abides upon them, John iii. 36. Though the covenant of works, as it is a