many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." But believers are set beyond the reach of the curse; ver. 13, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Rom. viii. 1, "There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." They are dead to the law as a covenant of works, Rom. vii. 4, "Ye are," says the apostle, "dead to the law by the body of Christ;" and death sets one altogether free. They are under the covenant of grace, and they cannot be under both at once; Rom. vi. 14, "Ye are not," says Paul, "under the law, but under grace."

3. That believers must do good works to answer the demands of the law, as a covenant of works, if they will obtain salvation. Truly our good works will never be able to answer these demands; and if we pretend to do them for that end, as the covenant of works will never accept them, so we cast dishonour on Christ, who has answered all these demands already for believers, by his perfect and perpetual obedience. When God set Adam to seek salvation by his works, he was able for works; it was a thousand times easier to him to give perfect obedience than for us to give sincere obedience. So we may be sure God bringing in a second covenant for the help of lost sinners, would never put them again on seeking salvation by works, after their strength for them was gone.

USE III. For exhortation. Consider seriously of this covenant, with application to the particular state and case of our own souls. Here was a solemn bargain made with our first father, of the utmost importance to him and all his posterity. Will ye not lay to heart your own case with respect to it? Consider,

1. That this covenant was made with Adam in your name, for you in particular, as well as the rest of his posterity. So that you were all once under it, as really as if you had in your own persons consented to the terms of it; and the obedience it required of Adam was equally required of you; and the curse he subjected himself to by the breach of it, lies heavy on you as well as him.

2. Whether ye be delivered from it or not. If ye be, happy are ye; if ye be not, there is a weight lying above your heads that will sink you for ever in the bottomless gulf of perdition, if ye get not loose from that covenant, Gal, iii. 10, forecited.

3. None are delivered from it, but those whom God himself, man's covenant party, has discharged. The breaking of a bargain can never deliver the breaker from it, but lays him under the penalty. Nothing can deliver him but a discharge from the party he bargained with.

4. God discharges none from it, but upon full satisfaction made to all its demands on them. For our Lord has determined the matter thus, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall in no wise

pass from the law, till all be fulfilled," Matth. v. 18. The sinner shall be obliged to give the law fair count and reckoning, and payment, else he cannot have his discharge. Consider if ye have any experience of this being done in your own case.

5. Lastly, The only way to satisfy this covenant, is by faith to lay hold upon Jesus Christ the surety, and to plead his obedience and death. The believer counts up to the law all that Christ has done and suffered, as done for him; so the accounts are cleared, the believer is discharged, the discharge being written with the blood of his Surety. And so he is set free from it for ever.

Thus much of the reality, nature, parts, &c. of the covenant of works.

PART II.

OF THE BREACH OF THE COVENANT OF WORKS.

HOSEA vi. 7,

But they like men have transgressed the covenant.

In the beginning of this chapter, we have the Jews brought in repenting and turning to the Lord; which looks to that conversion of theirs that is yet to come, and hereby is insured, and that by virtue of the resurrection of Christ. Meanwhile they were to be laid under heavy strokes, and after a sort rejected. They were to be under a long eclipse of God's favour, the valley of vision being turned into a land of darkness. This looks to the Assyrian and Babylonish captivity, and further, to the ruin of the whole nation by the Romans, and their long rejection, which they are under to this day.

The causes of this are specified, to justify God's proceedings against them. (1.) Their inconstancy in that which is good, ver. 4, "Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away." Sometimes they seemed to promise fair for reformation, but all their fair blossoms quickly fell off. Such was the promising appearance Israel made when Jehu came to the kingdom, and such was that made by Judah in the days of Hezekiah and Josiah. Such too were the hosannas and loud shouts made at Christ's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, which were soon changed into Crucify him, crucify him." Therefore did the prophets and apos

tles testify against them, and denounce the judgments of God against them, and thereby ministerially hew and slay them; ver. 5, "Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth." (2.) Their breach of covenant with God; quite slighting and perverting, instead of pursuing the ends of the covenant; vers. 6, 7, "For I desired mercy and not sacrifice ; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offering. But they like men have transgressed the covenant; there they have dealt treacherously against me." (3.) An universal deluge of sin and defection from God, that had spread itself over all ranks. Israel and Judah both were carried away with it," Israel was defiled," ver. 10, &c.; and Judah was ripe for destruction; ver. 11, "Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee," &c. Priest and people were quite wrong, vers. 9, 10, magistrates and ministers, church and state; Ramoth-Gilead, a city of refuge, protecting wilful murderers, or delivering up those they ought to have protected; the priests profane, no better than robbers and murderers, vers. 8, 9. General defection is a cause and presage of a sweeping stroke. It is the second of these that concerns our purpose; "They like men have transgressed the Covenant." Wherein two things may be considered.

1. The crime charged on them, transgressing the covenant, covenant-breaking. This is a crime of a high nature; it strikes at the root of society among men, and therefore is scandalous and punishable though it be but a man's covenant. How much more atrocious is the crime where God is the one party? God took the Israelites into covenant with himself when he brought them out of Egypt. It was entered into with awful solemnity, Exod. xxiv. The design and ends of it were to lead them to Christ, and so to real holiness in the practise of the duties of the moral law. But, instead of this, they rejected Christ and sat down upon the poor performances of the ceremonial law, ver. 6, without faith and love. So they transgressed the covenant, and broke it, Jer. xxxi. 32; Heb. viii. 9. 2. Whom they resembled in breach of covenant. In this they acted like men, as our translators and others turn it; that is vain, light, fickle, and inconstant as man. But the Vulgate, Tigurine, Castalio, Arias Montanus, Rabbi Solomon, Grotius, and the Dutch translation and our own translation in the margin, read, like Adam. There is nothing about the Hebrew word to weaken this; on the contrary, at this rate the word is taken in the proper sense, and this reading is evidently the more forcible of the two; and therefore is the preferable and genuine one, agreeably enough to the context. Besides, as I shewed before, the original word does but twice more occur in the scripture, viz., Job xxxi. 33; Psalm 1xxxii. 17; and in both these places is

taken the same way. So the sense is, "They like their father Adam, have transgressed the covenant," for so the word is. He broke covenant with God, and so have they; he the covenant of works, they the covenant of grace, which they externally entered into. God set down Adam in paradise in covenant with him, the end of which was to make him completely happy; but he perverted the end of the covenant, preferred the fruit of a tree to his moral duty to God, so broke the covenant, and was cast out of paradise; and God set Israel down in Canaan, in covenant with him, the end of which was to lead them to Christ, as the end of the law; but they perverted the end of that covenant, and,.preferring ceremonial observances to Christ and moral duty, transgressed the covenant, and therefore must be cast out of Canaan. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was, by God's appointment, a seal of the covenant, fitted to help man to the keeping of it; but he used it the quite contrary way; the ceremonial law was, by God's appointment, for sealing the covenant of grace, and leading the Jews to Christ; but they used it the quite contrary way; and so it was a stumblingblock to them.

The doctrine clearly arising from the text is,

DOCTRINE. Our father Adam broke the Covenant of Works.

In discoursing from this doctrine, I shall,

I. Consider the fatal step by which that covenant was transgressed and broken.

II. How this fatal step was brought about.

III. How the covenant of works was broken by it.

IV. Apply the subject.

The Fatal Step by which the Covenant of Works was broken.

I. I shall consider the fatal step by which that covenant was transgressed and broken. I think I need not stand to prove that this covenant was broken by Adam. The truth of Moses' narration, Gen. iii., puts it beyond controversy; as also doth the doleful experience of his posterity, Rom. v. 12. Our father Adam was once in a flourishing condition, had in his hand a noble portion of holiness and happiness for every one of his children; and he had more in hope for himself and them, which would have made them eternally and completely happy. He had a goodly stock to set up with at first; and a trade with heaven to improve his stock in, which, rightly managed, would have made all his family happy for ever; the which trade was opened to him by this covenant. But, alas! the whole family is ruined, we are all born beggars, we have nothing left us;

nay, we are pursued for our father's debt as well as our own, Rom. v. 18, "By the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation ;" and we are in hazard of dying in prison for evermore. A plain evidence that our father was broke, his trade mismanaged, and he run in debt, the communication with heaven stopt; and so the covenant was broken. Besides the Lord's making a new covenant, a covenant of grace, with Christ, as the second Adam, for the salvation of lost sinners of Adam's family, is a plain proof that the covenant of works was broken, and the transgressors thereof ruined by the first Adam. And what was the fatal step?

It was the eating of the forbidden fruit, Gen. iii. 6, " When the woman saw that the tree was good, &c. she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." This was that by which the covenant was broken, and man ruined. No wonder eating and drinking is the destruction of many to this day; this engine of ruin had too much success in the hand of the great deceiver, not to ply it still. God gave Adam a dominion over the creatures, to use them soberly for his own comfort and God's glory. He "put all things under his feet;" he only kept one tree from him, that he might not eat of the fruit thereof, and that for the trial of his obedience. He was discharged, under the pain of death, to meddle with it; to which prohibition he consented; and yet, over the belly of the solemn covenant, he laid hand on it, ate of it, and broke the covenant. Here, for the understanding of this sin aright, consider the progress, the ingredients, and the aggravations of it.

The Progress of the Sin of breaking the Covenant of Works.

First, Consider the progress of this sin. It is not to be imagined, that Adam and Eve were innocent till they had the forbidden fruit in their mouths; the coveting of it in their hearts behoved of necessity to be before that; but the eating of it was that whereby sin and apostasy from God was completed. The beginning of their sin was unbelief and doubting. At the suggestion of Satan they doubted the truth of God in the threatening, Gen. iii. 3—6. So, in this fatal battle, their faith got the first stroke. And it being once foundered, their heart plied to the temptation, and the lust after the forbidden fruit arose, and then the sin was completed by actual eating, Gen. iii. 6. The eye of the mind was first blemished; a mist arose from hell, which they admitted, that by degrees darkened their understanding, so that they first doubted, and then disbelieved the threatening of the covenant. Then their will was easily conquered to a compliance with the temptation, and turned away from