covenant of the everlasting possession of the promised land. Abraham believed God, and it was "counted to him for righteousness:" and as St. Paul tells us, Rom. iv. 9, “He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith that he had, yet being uncircumcised." And in this the apostle further informs us, "he is the Father," and grand exemplar " of all believers :" for "the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh" is a spiritual benefit, which neither believing Jew or Gentile has ever yet seen wrought in an adopted child of God here upon earth;-so that, freed from in-dwelling sin, he could "keep the commandments," and "enter into life." The baptized Christian knows, that it is only by being "conformed to Christ in his death," and "buried with him," that he can be delivered from "the body of this death." But we gather from scripture that there will be a generation of men upon earth at the end of this dispensation, "whose hearts" "God will circumcise," and they shall be "all righteous,"-not by imputation, but inherently so-" and inherit the land for ever," as the "days of heaven upon earth."

We find, however, that it did please God, in his dealings with the circumcised family of Abraham,"uncircumcised in heart," as was fully proved at the time when he was putting them in possession of the land, in virtue of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,-to enter into a covenant with them, as a people, concerning the everlasting inheritance of the country of which they were going over Jordan to take possession. This was the cove

nant made with Israel in the wilderness at Mount Sinai. It was an actual covenant, and the first that was ever struck with them respecting life, and the everlasting possession of the country.

The dispensation of Christ was typified more fully in symbolical rites, and sacrifices, and various purifications; and over these sacrificed victims, God entered into covenant with them about their continuation in he land, as he had done with their father Abraham, with respect to its occupation at the time predicted. In this respect, therefore, it was a covenant in the secondary sense: but, besides being "shadows of good things to come," the ceremonial rites enjoined by the covenant were endowed by the ordination of God, with a certain virtue and efficacy for "the purification" of "earthly things," and "sanctified to the purifying of the flesh," so that, as regarded their continuance of life upon the land of promise, it was something more than an engagement sanctioned by a "Berith." It was in sacramental types and shadows an anticipation of the real Berith, and was to serve as an introduction to it. It was not only a compact between God and the natural descendants of Israel, respecting their life upon the land of promise; but it was also "a yoke of bondage" imposed upon the believing children of Abraham, who were in the midst of them, "heirs by promise," of the heavenly country: they too "were kept under the law" "shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed."* "The law entered, that sin

* Galatians iii..

might abound;" and, by teaching them "the knowledge of sin," and the "weakness of the flesh," might be "their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ." "The heirs of promise," died on the land of which they had possession, as well as the unbelievers;-died under the curse of the legal covenant. They were, therefore, compelled to journey on in the footsteps of that faith of their father Abraham, which could trust in God as raising the dead, and executing a covenant of eternal life for Abraham, and all his believing seed, as he had promised and sworn.

This is the covenant, therefore, which we are to contrast with that promised to Abraham and put in force, when "the promised seed" died and rose, and as mediator passed into the heavens. The Sinaic covenant coming in first, made that a second. This covenant at Sinai was but "for the time being," and "waxed old," which made the covenant promised to Abraham a new one when it came to be carried into effect. The Jews, as a nation, have rejected the new covenant, and "are cut off from their olive tree;" "a remnant were saved through faith," "according to the election of grace," and God is now "visiting the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name.” But the day will come, when the survivors of Israel in the flesh will be brought into the bonds of this new covenant, and established in their land for ever.

This covenant, which God made with the fathers of Israel in the desert, promised life and suspended death, in the land promised to Abraham for his descendants; not the life of the children of the resurrection in the heavenly country, but the re

moval of the sentence of death pronounced on Adam and his children, and a prolonged existence for ever in the land of Canaan; that very blessing which we have seen described, as the assured portion of Israel in the age to come. On that occasion, it promised this, however, on condition of observing the moral law; a summary of which, in its chief heads, God himself, in all the majesty of manifested Godhead, pronounced on Mount Sinai; but it threatened, at the same time, death for the breach of any one commandment.

And though much, according to the Divine institution in this covenant-at least after Moses descending from the Mount had broken the first "two tables of stone, in utter despair, and was commanded to make two others, and to place them in an ark inclosed by a mercy seat-might be purged with sacrifice and offering; yet, all a sinful man would need, could not; there were things from which "they could not be justified by the law of Moses." There were ever "transgressions under the first covenant," which only the death of the victim under the second " could remove." So that not only the dispersion of the nation, but the death of every individual Israelite, manifested him a violator of this special covenant. The death of an individual before this transaction, and beyond the bonds of this covenant, attached by the imputation of Adam's transgression ;-the very notion of being taken into the Berith of Elohim "the author of eternal life to them that obey him," removed this sentence, and the Israelite died on the land of promise,

condemned by the law as a violator of the covenant of Elohim. The believing seed of Abraham, as we have just observed, who "walked in the footsteps of his faith," had not on that account the promise of length of days for ever and ever in the land of promise; but, they were interested in the true Berith, the promised covenant; and, like the father of the faithful, after the known forfeiture of the present life, under the. curse of the broken law looked for a resurrection, and a "heavenly country,' and to be with him "heirs of the world to come." The Sinaic covenant they all transgressed; it was to them, as far as it went," the administration of death:"

But God promises, in the texts we are considering, that when he shall finally restore the Israelites, he will make with them a new covenant, respecting their life and possession of the same promised land, and it is called, as we have seen, a "new covenant," as contrasted with the one that he made with their fathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. And we may say from the passages before us, it is entered into on the same terms; they are to keep his commandments, the commandments of the moral law, of which the decalogue is a summary, and all of which and every comment thereon, hangs on the two commandments, “Thou shalt love God with all thine heart, and thy neighbour as thyself."

Here, however, will be the difference. These terms are not exacted as a condition on their part, which they are to supply, or forfeit the privileges of the covenant: but God engages, on his part, to supply an influence from his Almighty Spirit that shall secure