it is a better covenant ? And, after all, what it has to do with the subject before us ?
To these points I will briefly address myself in succession.
What the covenant is, the Prophet Jeremiah will inform us : " 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 : 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 ; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this is 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 I will be their God, and they shall be my people V But has this any thing to do with us under the Christian dispensation ? Yes : twice does the Apostle quote that very passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews0 ; expressly declaring, in both places, that it is that very covenant which we, under the Gospel dispensation, are supposed to have embraced.
But when, and with whom, was this covenant made ? It is that covenant which God made with Abraham, when he promised to him, that "in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessedd." St. Peter, addressing the Jews of his day, says, " Ye are the children of the Prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed6."
But what have we to do with it ? St. Paul tells us, it is the Gospel covenant, whereby we, and every one under the Gospel dispensation, must be saved : " The Scripture," says he, " foreseeing that God would jus- tify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed f."
b Jer. xxxi. 31—33. c Heb. viii. 8—10. and x. 15—17.
d Gen. xviii. 18. xxii. 18. xxvi. 4. e Acts iii. 25.
f Gal. iii. 8.