These are the qualities of the covenant. It is a sure, an everlasting, a peculiar, and a most free covenant, aiming specially at spiritual things.
And then, lastly, you have the condition of the covenant ; and that, though it is not expressed, yet it is implied. ' I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed.' Therefore thou shalt take me for thy God, carry thy- self to me as to thy God, &c. It is usual in other places of Scripture, where mention is made of this covenant, to imply the condition required on our parts. Sometimes both the covenant and condition are mentioned together.
THE FAITHFUL COVENANTER. 7
as in Zech. xiii. 9, ' I will say,' saith God, ' It is my people; and they shall say. The Lord is my God.' The one spriugeth from the other. VvTien God is a God to any, he makes the heart to answer, Thou shalt be my God, and I will be thine always. This is the condition on our part that we make with God in this covenant, to take him for om* God, to be his people, and his peculiar ones.
' I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed.'
Though these words, ' I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed,' be the last words of the text, yet being the substance of the covenant, I think it shall be best to speak of that before I speak of the qualities of the covenant or anything else.
' I will be thy God.'
This is the covenant in the Messiah ; but first, what is it to be a God ?
I answer. To be a God, take it "in the general, is to give being to the creature that had no being of itself, and to inotect and preserve the creature in its being : in a word, to be a creator ; for providence is the perpetuity and continuance of creation. This is to be a God. The office of God, as God, is a most glorious function. To be a king is a great matter, but to be a God, to give being to the creature, to support it when it hath a being, to do all that God should do, this is a most glorious work. But this is but creation. This is not intended especially here, for thus he is the God of all his works. Thus by creation and preservation he is the God of all the men in the world out of the church.
What is then to be thy God ? « I will be thy God.'
I answer, To be a God in a more peculiar manner, is to be a God in covenant ; that is, not only to be a God to preserve and continue this being of ours in a civil life, but it is to be a God in a higher relation to us ; to be a God in a reference to an eternal, supernatural estate in heaven ; to be a God here in grace, and hereafter in glory ; and thus God is a God in a gracious covenant, only by Jesus Christ, and to those that believe in him. ' I will be thy God ; ' that is, ' I will be thy God in Christ,' to give thee a better being than this world can afford ; to free thee from the cursed estate thou art in by nature ; to deliver thee from all ill, spiritually and eternally ; especially to bestow on thee all good, spiritually and eternally ; especially as we have it in the words of the covenant, Gen. xv. 1, 'I will be thy shield and thy exceeding great reward ; ' a shield to keep off all ill, and a reward for all good. So in Ps. Ixxxiv. 9, ' God will be a sun and a shield,' &c. : a sun for all sweet comfort and good, and a shield in regard of defence from ill ; a sun and a shield till we come to the possession of eternal happiness. This is to be a God in a peculiar manner, to give all things necessary for grace and life too — for this life and for a better ; to do all things requisite to bring us to heaven and happiness through Christ, ' in whom all the promises are yea and amen,' 2 Cor. i. 20 ; to be all in all ; to direct the protections and provisions of this Kfe, of our estate here, to a supernatm-al happiness hereafter, to a state beyond nature. For God directs the favours of this life, so that he takes them away or he giveth them, as he seeth them advantageous, or hindrances to a better estate. So is God a God to those that are in covenant with him. To do all this, and to do all this in opposition of all enemies whatsoever ; to do all this in weakness and in the impotency of the creature; to do all this when all second causes are con- trary, as it were, to bring a man to heaven in spite of the devil and of our own corruptions, or all oppositions whatsoever — this is to be a God indeed.