1 Eom. xi. 33-36 ; 1 Cor. ii. 7 ; Eph. i. 8, and iii. 10 ; Ps. cxlvii. 5 ; lea. xl. 28 ; Rev. vii. 12.
320 THE COVENANT OF GRACE PROVED AND OPENED.
up to the day of redemption? Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27; Luke xi, 13; Eph. i. 13. Here thou mayest find him in the covenant of grace. Dost thou, 0 sinner ! want grace, all grace, great grace, abundance of grace, multiplied grace ? Here thou mayest find it in the covenant of grace ? Dost thou, 0 sinner ! want peace, or ease, or rest, or quiet in thy conscience ? Here thou mayest find it in the covenant of grace. Dost thou want, 0 sinner ! joy, or comfort, or content, or satisfac- tion ? Here thou mayest have it in a covenant of grace. 0 sinner, sinner ! whatever thy bodily wants are, or whatever thy soul wants are, they may all be supplied out of the covenant of grace. God, in his infinite wisdom and love, has laid into the covenant of grace, as into a common store, all those good things, and all those great things, and all those suitable things, that either sinners or saints can either beg or need. Now the adequate suitableness of the covenant of grace to all a sinner's wants, straits, necessities, miseries, and desires, does sufficiently demonstrate the covenant of grace to be a well-ordered covenant. 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, and where there are no defences wanting to secure a people ; so that must needs be a well-ordered covenant, where there is nothing wanting to govern poor souls, or to secure poor souls, or to save poor souls ; and such a covenant is the covenant of grace. I might easily lay down other arguments to evince the covenant of grace to be a well-ordered cove- nant. As for the right placing of all persons and things in the cove- nant of grace, and from the outward dispensation of it, God revealed it but gradually. First, he discovered it more darkly, remotely, and imperfectly, as we see things a great way off; but afterwards the Lord did more clearly, fully, immediately, frequently, and completely dis- cover it, as we discern things at hand. God did not at once open all the riches and rarities of the covenant to his people, but in the open- ing of those treasures that were there laid up, God had a respect to the non-age and full-age of his people ; and from God's dispensing and giving out all the good and all the great things of the covenant in their fittest time, in a right and proper season, when his people most need them, and when they can live no longer without them. But I must hasten to a closing up of this particular. Thus you see in these eight particulars how gloriously the covenant of grace, under which the saints stand, is set out in the blessed Scriptures.
Concerning the covenant of grace, or the new covenant, that all sincere Christians are under, and by which at last they shall be judged, let me further say, besides what I have already said, All man- kind had been eternally lost, and God had lost all the glory of his mercy for ever, had he not, of his oion free grace and mercy, made a new covenant with sinful man. The fountain from whence this new covenant flows is the grace of God : Gen. xvii. 22, ' I will make' {Heb., ' I will') ' my covenant.' This covenant is called a covenant of grace, because it flows from the mere grace and mercy of God. There was nothing out of God, nor nothing in God, but his mere mercy and grace, that moved him to enter into covenant with poor sinners, who were miserable, who were loathsome, and polluted in their
THE COVENANT OF GRACE PROVED AND OPENED. 321
blood, and who had broken the covenant of their God, and were actually in arms against him.i This must needs be of mere favour and love, for God to enter into covenant with man, when he lay wallowing in his blood, and no eye pitied him, no, not his own. As there was nothing in fallen man to draw God's favour or affection towards him, so there was everything in fallen man that might justly provoke God's wrath and indignation against him ; and therefore it must be a very high act of favour and grace, for the great, the glorious, the holy, the wise, and the all-sufficient God, to enter into covenant with such a forlorn creature as fallen man was. Nothing but free grace was the foundation of the covenant of grace with poor sinners. Now let us seriously mind how this covenant of grace, or this new covenant, runs both in the Old and in the New Testament : 2 Jer. xxxi. 31, ' Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah;' ver. 32, ' Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt ; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord ;' ver. 33, ' But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel ; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people ;' ver, 34, ' And they shall teach no more every man his neigh- bour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord ; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord : for I will forgive their iniquities, and I will remember their sin no more.' Now let us see how Paul doth exegetically ex- plain this new covenant in that Heb, viii. 6, ' But now hath he ob- tained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises ; ' ver; 7, ' For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second ; but finding fault with them, he saith,' ver. 8, ' Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and the house of Judah': ver. 9, ' Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt ; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord ;' ver. 10, ' But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord ; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts : and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people ;' ver. 11, ' And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest ;' ver. 12, ' For I will be merciful
1 Isa. xli. 1, 2 ; Eph. i. 5-7, and ii. 5, 7, 8 ; 2 Sam. vii. 21; Eom. ix. 18, 23; Jer. xxxii. 38-41 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27, and xvi. 1-10. Surely if a woman commit adultery, it is a mere act of favour if her husband accept of her again, Jer. iii. 7. The applica- tion is easy.