' Omnis vita est propter delectationem. Philosophers say that a fly is more excellent than the heavens, because the fly has life, which the heavens have not.
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heart shall be against the holy covenant,' Dan. xi. 28, 30 ; he shall have indignation against the holy covenant, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant. So the psalmist, ' For he remem- bered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant,' Ps. cv. 42, 43 ; i promise here being put for covenant by a synecdoche ; Luke i. 72, ' To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant.' The parties interested in this covenant are holy. Here you have a holy God and a holy people in covenant together. Holiness is one of the principal things that is promised in the covenant. The covenant commands holiness, and encourages to holiness, and works souls up to a higher degree of holiness, and fences and arms gracious souls against all external and internal unholiness.2 The author of this covenant is holy ; the mediator of this covenant is holy ; the great blessings contained in this covenant are holy blessings ; and the people taken into this covenant are sometimes styled holy brethren, holy men, holy women. ' An holy temple, an holy priesthood, an holy nation, an holy people,' as you may see by comparing the scriptures in the margin together. 3 Whenever God brings a poor soul under the bond of the covenant, he makes him holy, and he makes him love holiness, and prize holiness, and delight in holiness, and press and follow hard after holiness. A holy God will not take an unholy person by the hand, as Job speaks, chap, viii. ; neither will he allow of such to take his covenant into their mouths, as the psalmist speaks, Ps. xx. 6.
[4.] Fourthly, This covenant of grace, under which the saints stand, is sometimes styled a covenant of peace : Num. xxv, 12, ' Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace.' Peace is the comprehension of all blessings and prosperity, AH sorts of peace, viz., peace with God, and peace with conscience, and peace with the creatures, flows from the covenant of grace, Mai. ii. 5, There is (1,) An external peace, and that is with men ; (2.) There is a supernatural peace, and that is with God ; (3.) There is an internal peace, and that is with conscience ; (4.) There is an eternal peace, and that is in heaven. Now all these sorts of peace flow in upon us through the covenant of grace. The Hebrew word for peace comes from a root which denotes perfection. The end of the upright man is perfection of happiness, Ps. xxxvii. 37.^ Hence the Rabbins say, that ' the holy blessed God finds not any vessel that will contain enough of blessings for Israel, but the vessel of peace.' Peace is a very comprehensive word. It carries in the womb of it all outward blessings. It was the common greeting of the Jews, ' Peace be unto you : ' and thus David, by his proxy, salutes Nabal, * Peace be to thee, and thy house.' The ancients were wont to paint peace in the form of a woman, with a horn of plenty in her hand. The covenant of grace is that hand, by which God gives out all sorts of peace unto us : Isa. liv. 10, ' Neither shall the covenant of my peace
^ Heb., The word of his holiness, that is, his sacred and gracious covenant that he had made with Abraham and his posterity.
* See my Treatise of Holiness. [Vol. iv. — G.]
=* Ps. 1. 5 ; Heb. iii. 1 ; 1 Thes. v. 27 ; 2 Peter i. 21 ; 1 Peter iii. 5 ; 1 Cor. iii. 17 ; 1 Peter ii. 9, &c.
* This covenant is styled a covenant of peace, because it breeds, settles, quiets, and establisheth our hearts in perfect peace, it stills all fears and doubts and thoughts of heart.
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be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.' The covenant is here called the covenant of peace, because the Lord therein offers us all those things that may make us completely happy ; for under this word peace the Hebrews comprehend all happiness and felicity : Ezek. xxxiv. 25, ' And I will make with them a covenant of peace \ the Hebrew is, ' I will cut with them a covenant of peace.' This expres- sion of cutting a covenant is taken from the custom of the Jews in their making of covenants. The manner of this ceremony or solemnity, Jeremiah declares, saying, ' I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had struck before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof,' Jer. xxxiv. 18. Their manner was to kill sacrifices, to cut these sacrifices in twain, to lay the two parts thus divided in the midst, piece against piece, exactly one over against another, to answer each other : then the parties covenanting passed betwixt the parts of the sacrifices so slit in twain, and laid answerably to one another : the meaning of which ceremonies and solemnities is conceived to be this — viz., as part answered to part, so there was a harmonious correspondency and answerableness of their minds and hearts that struck covenant : and as part was severed from part, so the covenanters implied, if not expressed, an imprecation or curse ; wish- ing the like dissection and destruction to the parties covenanting, as most deserved, if they should break the covenant, or deal falsely therein.^ To this custom God alludes, when he saith, ' 1 will cut with them a covenant of peace,' Isa. xlii. 6 ; and this he did by making Christ a sacrifice, by shedding his blood, and dividing his soul and body, who is said to be given for a covenant of the people, that is, to be the mediator of the covenant between God and his people. So Ezek. xxxvii. 26, ' Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them ; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them,' &c. The word fdr peace is Shalom, by which the Hebrews understand not only outward quietness, but all kind of outward happiness. Others, by the covenant of peace here, do understand the gospel, wherein we see Christ hath pacified all things by the blood of his cross. And Lavater saith, it is called a covenant of peace. Quia Christi merito, pax inter Deum et nos constituta est. Not only outward, but inward peace, between God and us, is merited by our Lord Jesus Christ, Col. i. 20. But,