on their side, the never-failing fulfilment of these terms. So that it will no longer be, strictly speaking, a conditional covenant, that leaves them in a capacity to violate it, as was the case under the former covenant. Respecting that covenant which pledged no divine influence-when the people, in their alarm at the terrors of Sinai, exclaimed: “We will hear it and do it!" the expression of the divine wisdom is, "O, that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever." * Moses too, after an experience of forty years, saw the deficiency of this covenant: "Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharoah, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; the great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles; yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day."†

How different the circumstances of the new national covenant, which the Lord will make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, when "he shall bring again their captivity:" "I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them, and ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your Elohim." This is certainly an unconditional covenant, as to + xxix. 2, &c.

* Deuteronomy v. 29.

any condition to be supplied on the part of Israel, where they might a second time fail, God engages for both parties in the transaction, "I will not turn away from them from doing them good, and I will put my fear into their hearts, that they may not depart from me." This certainly is a "covenant ordered in all things, and sure." And we may safely infer, the perpetuity of restored Israel's prosperity, and their deathless state,-for, through the good hand of God upon them, they cannot fail to do those things "which whosoever doeth shall live by them,”—as well from the nature of their new covenant relations to God, as from those express declarations of his holy word, which we before considered; when they have been made righteous, therefore, the blessing written in their law will indeed come upon them: "That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon earth."*

"For he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers," &c.t

It has, however, been a great mistake among Christian divines, to confound the provisions of this national covenant, to be made with the Israelites of the last days, with the salvation of the remnants according to the election of grace under the gospel dispensation; which, though it be the first enforcement of the new covenant, and is the same as that

previously promised to Abraham, and shown from the very period of the Fall, prescribes to "the remnant according to the election of grace" "faith in the righteousness of God our Saviour," and "not works of righteousness which we have done,”—imputed, not inherent, righteousness, as the means of our being accepted and preserved in the covenant of life eternal; not indeed to possess the land of Canaan, but that heavenly country and the new Jerusalem which is to come down from God out of heaven.

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In this Berith, Christ, "both God and man, one Christ," uniting in his one undivided person the Godhead and the manhood, is set forth as the "purification sacrifice,” a piacular victim cut off for those whose sins he bore, that they "may obtain remission of sins through his precious blood:" a "whole burnt offering" is he offered on their behalf, "without spot to God," "an ascending sacrifice" coming up before God as "a sweet smelling savour;" and he hath left a peace offering" behind him, that believers "baptized by his Spirit" "into his death," and "into his resurrection," may be fed by the same Spirit, "with the flesh and blood of this sacrificed passover," that they may "eat the bread of life, and live for ever," -that Christ "may dwell in us, and we in him; that we may be one with Christ and Christ one with us;" that he may "raise us up in the last day" as "the children of God, being the children of the resurrection."-Ay, that we may "sit with him on his throne, and inherit all things."

To enter into this covenant, whether promised or

put in force and proclaimed by him who now speaketh from heaven, there never was any other means appointed, on our part, but faith, and this is the gift of God, "no man can come to me, except my Father that has sent me draw him." And, therefore, in whatever sense it can be held forth as conditional, inasmuch as Christ is preached in the wide world, and the proclamation is gone forth, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," and "the condemnation of the world" is, that "they love darkness rather than light;" yet the transaction assumes not the nature of a covenant, till by a lively faith we are united unto Christ; then all the promises in him are not "yea and nay," but "yea and amen." "He that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness:" and "he is kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last day." "Christ, moreover, is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth," so far as the Spirit of Christ moves and operates in the believer, he subdues carnal self, resists temptation, and overcomes the world-is influenced by that love which is the fulfilling of the law...

But he is not moved to fulfil this as the terms of a covenant of life, it is "the gift of eternal life,” through the righteousness of Christ, begun to be manifested in him, the earnest and first-fruits of that "divine nature" of which, in some sort, he will be shewn to have been made a partaker, when he is

fully "conformed to the image of the only begotten Son," and "perfected with Christ in glory." He is now imputed-estimated in the view of the Fatherto be what Christ is; he will then be made such. An inherent righteousness far above the conditions of a mere creature's obedience, will be then his everlasting endowment. He will "be like minded" with Christ Jesus, and so a meet companion for the Lord of glory, in his "heavenly places."

The believer in Jesus, however, is not now saved by the infusion of inherent righteousness, which is an error that lies at the basis of the Papacy, and of all kindred corruptions of the truth, and of all pretended gospels, which "beginning in the Spirit," would teach us "to be made perfect in the flesh." "To us Christ is the only righteousness, and faith, the only hand that receives him, and puts him on." "Christ is all in all."

Through this Berith or covenant, also, in subserviency to its higher objects, are the restored Israelites with the inhabiters of "the new earth" to be reconciled and brought under the dominion of Christ; and the circumstances of their being "brought" as a nation within the bonds of this new and better covenant, will afford the antitype of that former covenant made with their fathers when they came out of Egypt, which has been annulled, "found fault with," and removed "for the unprofitableness thereof:" but with this great difference, the victims actually slain to sanction that former covenant, were bulls and goats and the firstlings of the flock; but the blood which sanctions this new