sustenance, for healing, shall assuredly be imparted to them in the hour of need^ :" " the lambs shall be carried in his bosom ; and he will gently lead them that are with young'' ;" and of those entrusted to him, he will lose not so much as one*^ : no power in the universe shall ever pluck them from his hands'^ ]
In all that he has done for us, he has had respect to his own covenant-engagements —
[Here I wish you to mark distinctly the exceeding fulness of the Apostle's mind ; and the vast accumulation of important truth, which, apparently without any necessity, he brings to- gether, for the purpose of more deeply impressing our minds, and more largely unfolding to us the great mysteries of re- demption. Here he traces up every thing to a covenant; a covenant made from all eternity between the Father and the Son, and in due season ratified and confirmed with the Re- deemer's blood. In that covenant, the Son of God engaged to assume our nature ; and in that nature, to expiate our guilt by his own obedience unto death. The Father promised to accept his vicarious sacrifice, and to give him a people who should be his joy and his glory through eternal ages. In accordance with this covenant, Christ had laid down his life : and in agreement with it, the Father had now raised him from the dead, and empowered him to perfect the work he had undertaken. "What a field of mysterious information is here- opened to our view ! Every thing connected with our salvation is traced up to an everlasting covenant. Is God reconciled to us, and become a " God of peace ?" Has he, under this cha- racter, "raised from the dead the Lord Jesus?" Has he, for the accomplishment of his gracious purposes, invested his dear Son with " the pastoral office," and committed us to him as "his sheep?" AH has been effected in conformity with an everlasting covenant, and from respect to that blood by which the covenant was confirmed. And does not all this, at the same time that it opens to us the most mysterious truths, give us an assurance which nothing else could convey ? Yes, verily : for if the Lord Jesus were to suffer one of his sheep to be plucked out of his hand, or the Father were to refuse to impart to us one atom of what the Saviour has purchased for us, the covenant itself would be broken. But that covenant cannot be broken : and therefore every one, who believes in Christ, may be assured, that God is to him a " God of peace;" and that the reconciliation which has been effected shall never finally be dissolved.]
^ Ezek. xxxiv. 11—16, 23, 24. " Isai. xl. 11.
c John xvii. 12. ^ John x. 27—30.