First, The thesis under demonstration is directly and positively affirmed, in most significant and emphatical words, by God himself. Seeing, then, the testimony of his holy prophets and apostles concern- ing him are so excepted against and so lightly set by, let us try if men will reverence himself, and cease contending with him when he appeareth in judgment. Saith he, then, to believers, those whom he taketh into covenant with him: "This is my covenant with you" (in the performance whereof his all-sufficiency, truth, and faithfulness, with all other his glorious attributes, are eminently engaged), " I will l^e your God" (what that expression intends is known, and the Lord here exj^lains, by instancing in some eminent spiritual mercies thence flowing, as sanctification, and acceptance with him by the forgiveness of sins), " and that for ever, in an everh\sting covenant, and I will
1 Ps. Ixxiii. 26 ; Isa. viii. 17,1.10. » 2 Cor. i. 20 ; Ileb. vii. 22, viii. 7-9,
IV.] THE COVENANT OF GRACE. 209
not turn away from you to do you good/' This plainly God saith of himself, and this is all we say of him in the business, and which (having so good an author) we must say, whether men Avill hear or whether they will forbear. Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto men more than unto God, let all judge. Truly they have a sad task, in my apprehension, who are forced to sweat and labour to alleviate and take off the testimony of God.
Secondly, That the way the Lord proposeth to secure his love to his is upon terms of advantage, of glory and honour to himself, to take away all scmple which on that hand might arise, is fully also expressed. Sin is the only differencing thing between God and man ; and hereinto it hath a double influence : — First, Moral, in its guilt, deserving that God should cast off a sinner, and prevailing with him, upon the account of justice, so to do. Secondly, Efficient, by causing men, through its power and deceitfulness, to depart from God, until, as backsliders in heart, they are filled with their own ways.^ Take away these two, provide for security on this hand, and there is no possible case imaginable of separation between God and man once brought together in peace and unity. For both these doth God here undertake. For the first, saith he, " I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more," chap, xxxi. 84. The guilt of sin shall be done away in Christ, and that on terms of the greatest honour and glory to the justice of God that can be apprehended : " God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past," Rom. iii. 25. And for the latter, that that may be thoroughly pre- vented, saith God, " The care shall lie on me ; ' I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts,'" chap. xxxi. 83; "I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me," chap, xxxii. 40. So that the continuance of his love is secured against all possible interveniences whatever, by an assured prevention of all such as have an inconsistency therewithal.
The apostle Paul, setting out the covenant which God ratified in the blood of Christ, which shall never be broken, takes the descrip- tion of it from this place of the prophet, Heb. viii. 9-12 ; and therein fixeth particularly on the unchangeableness of it, in opposition to the covenant which went before, which was liable to mutation, when if these differed only in the approbation of several qualifications, they come to the same end; for if this covenant depend on conditions by ourselves and in our own strength, with the advantage of its proposal to us, attended with exhortations, and therefore by us to be fulfilled, how was it distinguished from that made with the people when they came out of Egypt? But in this very thing the difference of it lieth, as the apostle asserts, verses 6-8. The immutability of this covenant,
1 Heb. iii. 13; Prov. i. 31, xiv. 14. VOL. XI. 14
210 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVERANCE. [CHAP.
and the certain product of all the mercy promised in it might, were that our present task, be easily demonstrated ; as, —
First, From the removal of all causes of alteration. When two enter into covenant and agreement, no one can undertake that that covenant shall be firm and stable if it equally depend upon both ; yea both, it may be, are changeable, and so actually changed before the accomplishing of the thing engaged about therein: however, though the one should be faithful, yet the other may fail, and so the cove- nant be broken. Thus it was with God and Adam. It could not be undertaken that that covenant should be kept inviolable, because though God continues faithful, yet Adam might prove (as indeed he did) faithless; and so the covenant was disannulled, as to any power of knitting together God and man. [Thus it is with] the covenant between husband and wife; the one party cannot undertake that the whole covenant shall be observed, because the other may prove treacherous. In this covenant the case is otherwise. God himself liath undertaken the whole, both for his continuing with us and our continuing with him. Now, he is one, God is one, and there is not another, that they should fail and disannul this agreement. Though there be sundry persons in covenant, yet there is but one undertaker on all hands, and that is God himself It doth not depend upon the will of another, but of him only who is faithful, who cannot lie, who cannot deceive, who will make all his engagements good to the ut- most. He is an all-sufficient one ; " he will work, and who shall let him?" " The Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it?" Yea, he is an unchangeable one; what he undertakes shall come to pass. Blessed be his name that he hath not laid the foundation of a covenant in the blood of his dear Son, laid out the riches of his wisdom, grace, and power about it, and then left it to us and our frail will to carry it on, that it should be in our power to make void the great work of his mercy ! Whence, then, I say, should any change be, the whole depending on one, and him immutable?