2. Cliri.st looketh for the donation, and the accomplishment of God's terms u])on it. As for help and a.ssistance : Isa. 1. 9, 'Behold, the Lord will help me.' So Isa. xlix. 5, ' And my God shall be my strength.' It is spoken of Christ in many places. And Isa. xlix. 7, ' Thus saith the Lord, the Kedeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to liim whom the nations abhor, to a servant of nilers, kings shall see and arise, and princes also shall worship, because of liie Lord that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and lie shall choose thee.' He comforts himself with the promises of success and glory, that
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though the nations should despise it, yet kings should see it, and rulers worship him. The apostle, quoting a prophecy of Christ, saith in his person, Heb. ii. 13, ' I will put my trust in him ;' that is, for his seed ; ' Behold I and the children which God hath given me.' So for his people : the Spirit is called the promise of the Father, Luke xxiv, 49, ' And, behold, I send the promise of the Father unto you,' that is, the Spirit which my Father hath promised, he will give you. And he pleadeth for his own glory upon this ground, because he had submitted to God's terms : John xvii. 5, ' And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory I had with thee before the world was.' So for his people, ver. 24, ' Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, and that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me ; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.' Thou didst promise this glory to me, and to them in me, in the everlasting covenant. And thus I have given you a taste of this matter.
The reasons are these : —
First, That God might found another covenant upon it ; therefore God would make a covenant with his Son before he would make a covenant with his creatures ; for indeed Christ's covenant is the foun- dation of another covenant. Unless he had been bound to Christ by this, the other would not have been sure, if God had not obliged Christ to the oversight of it. That this reasoning may be looked upon as the more cogent, do but eye the several differences between both these covenants.
1. This was made with Christ ; he is the only federate or person in covenant with God : but now, in the other, Christ is indeed a main federate, the prime federate or chiefest person in covenant, but not the only federate. That he is the prime federate is clear : Gal. iii. 16, ' To Abraham and his seed were the promises ; but he saith not seeds, as of many, but to thy seed, as to one, which is Christ \' that is, Christ mystical ; the whole church, head and members, are called Christ in scripture : 1 Cor. xii. 12, ' For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.' It is true, the promises are mainly pitched upon his person, but from him descend to the rest : for the covenant is not made with Christ only, as appeareth, Heb. viii. 8, ' I will make a covenant with the house of Israel, and the house of Judah.' It is made with all believers. This is made to Christ mystically, whereas the other we speak of now is made to Christ personally.
2. This made with Christ is a covenant of works in the very form- ality of it, and obliged him to subject himself to a covenant of works, to fulfil perfect obedience for the creatures, and to satisfy for the debts of the creatures, and to buy out their peace by the price of his own blood ; but now the covenant made with believers is a covenant of grace. God dealt with Christ in justice, that he might deal with us in mercy : Rom. iii. 24, ' Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ,' God dealeth with us freely, though he satisfied his justice upon Jesus Christ. The yoke of the old covenant is not upon the neck of believers, because the stroke of it is upon the back of Christ.
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3. Tliis covenant made with Christ is eternal, hefore all worlds ; the other, the covenant of grace, is made with us in time, and we enter into it in time. I confess in itself it is very old, ever since the first promisee drojiped from God's mouth : Gen. iii. 1.5, ' Tiie seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head, and thou slialt bruise his lieel.' Though since that it hath been renewed, and we come to have share in it at conversion, yet I say it is very old, ever since the fall ; however it is not so old as the covenant with Christ, that was before all time : Titus i. 2, ' In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began,' that is, to Jesus Christ. Before any succession of time Christ received promises for you, and undertook to bestow eternal life ujwn believers : 2 Tim. i. 9, it is said, ' Accord- ing to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began ;' that is, it was given to Christ for us. And this it may be is the meaning of that, Heb. xiii. 20, that ' Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant;' the blood appointed to be shed to be the ever- lasting covenant between God and him.