sions suggest to our minds, the union of a re luctance and a determination. They are intended to warn us of our extreme danger, by the value of the remedy. They manifest, at the same time, the paternal affection of the great Father of all, towards the perfect mediator appointed, and towards his offending offspring.

We attempted, in a former disquisition,* to explain the nature and boundaries of that kind of imputation, by which the moral characters of the good and virtuous,, render them the mediums of conferring blessings, upon those who have no characteristic merit of their own. Signal honours have thus been frequently conferred, by him who loveth righteousness, upon the Conscientious and Worthy. They have been selected from others, to convey important blessings to the less deserving. We remarked that the family of Noah was chosen to renovate the world, "because Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation:" that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah would have been spared at the intercession of the righteous Lot, had they not passed the bounds of reformation. It was through his faith and piety that Abraham

* See Disq. on Jew. Dis. ch. III. §.).

obtained the promise, that" in him all the na tions of the earth should be blessed."

Of all these men the merit was partial, merely comparative, and the characters were imperfect. They flourished in ages of great degeneracy; but they preserved themselves from the grosser vices of their day, and they found favour with God, even for their imperfect vir tues. The Piety of Moses, in union with his intellectual acquirements, qualified him to be a leader of the chosen people from Egypt to the land of Canaan; and he is frequently represented as interceding for that perverse nation, when they had incurred the divine displeasure, although his own imperfections rendered him unworthy to enter himself into the land of Promise. Our advocate with the Father is Jesus Christ the Righteous, in whom the Father was always well pleased. As his superlative merits were once prevalent, they must always be prevalent; and thus may it be said, that he ever lives to make intercession. The other Intermediates, were honoured for their conditional and comparative merits. In him were united the absolute merit of perfect obedience, and perfection of character; the conditional merit of completing the work which his Father sent him to do, which entitled him to the great recompense of

reward; and respecting comparative merit, as he was without sin, not one of the other sons of Adam could be compared with him. The advantages they procured for the undeserving were many and great; but they were transient. The advantages procured by this last Mediator between God and Man are durable as our existence; and this he has rendered eternal. Once more; God in his relative character, fre quently condescends to represent himself as entering into a covenant with his rational offspring. This is manifested in each dispensation, and it is so frequently declared in the divine oracles, that these dispensations themselves are represented in light of testaments, covenants, containing conditionsor articles of agreement to be respected by the parties engaged or concerned. Under the first dispensation, the Deity is represented as promising to to confer immortality upon Adam and his posterity, upon condition of their obedience to his commands. "This do and ye shall live," was the tenour of the covenant. They have disobeyed, and of consequence forfeited the stipulated blessing. After the destruction of the degenerate race of man by the flood, in order to appease the alarm and consternation which such an event must have excited among the children of Noah, and the recent inhabitants of

the earth, God gave unto them a token of security. "God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, I, behold I, establish my Covenant with you, and with your seed after you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more, by the waters of a flood. This is the token of the Covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a token of a Covenant between me and the earth."* When God promised to Abraham "I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and I will establish my Covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations for an everlasting Covenant," he enjoined upon him and upon his posterity, the rite of circumcision, as a condition of their claim to the Covenant. His promises to the Israelites of national prosperity, upon condition of their obedience to his laws, are termed Covenants. Similar language, and similar engagements, are so frequent in the Old Testament, that it would be tedious and unnecessary to enter into farther particulars.

Human transactions, covenants or solemn

* See Gen. ch. ix.

engagements between parties were, in ancient times, usually ratified by sacrifices. Beasts were slain upon the altar, and the contractors went between the parts of the sacrifice, as an implication, that the violator of the treaty would acknowledge himself to be deserving of death. The numerous sacrifices appointed in the Jewish religion, were manifestly ordained as the Tokens of a covenant. The promise of God was that their errors and imperfections should be forgiven, upon the condition of their performance of certain rites, in token of their guilt and penitence. Those numerous sacrifices were enjoined, that the Israelites might be impressed with a sense of their numerous transgressions; and they were diversified in value and solemnity, according to the gradations of immorality in the offence. Of these facts instances have been given under a former disquisition.* All the sacrifices which were enforced on account of transgressions, were considered as solemn acts of atonement; for, if they were performed precisely according to the manner appointed, they were graciously accepted, and the particular offence was considered as obliterated.

Such were the conditions and tokens of the ancient Covenants.

* See Disquisition on the Jewish Dispensation, p. 184.

S