you of all the eternal mercy of that everlasting covenant. O then draw healing and refreshing waters out of the wells of falvation. Make ferious preparation for this ordinance, and give holy attendance on it. Then may you hope, that God will there put joy and gladness into your hearts, which will ferve to carry you through all the troubles of this life, and at last through death itself, and which then fhall terminate in fulness of joy and rivers of pleasures for evermore. Doct. II. God beftows fure mercies, on all them that are interested in the covenant of grace.Thofe with whom God makes an everlasting covenant, he confers upon them the fure mercies promifed to David, and purchased by Jefus Chrift, of whom David was a type. Queft. i. What are the mercies, which God beftows on them that are interested in the covenant of grace? Anfw. Spiritual and eternal mercies. Not merely temporal mercies, which are only common mercies, that others partake of as well as they, and oftentimes in greater abundance than they do; but fpecial and faving mercies, which are peculiar unto them that are really in covenant with God. Now thefe mercies are manifold. Mercies are fpoken of, in the plural number, to denote the variety of them. Such as thefe following. 1. Pardon of all their fins. This is one of the mercies of the covenant, promised to them, and bestowed upon them. Thus we read, Heb. viii. 12. I will bè merciful to their unrighteousness, and their fins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Here is a promife of full and everlasting pardon of fin. Full pardon, for God will be merciful to their unrighteoufnefs, their fins and their iniquities, which comprehend all the forts and degrees of fin, they have been guilty of, how aggravated foever. They fhall all be pardoned, not one unpardoned. And as the pardon is full, fo it is everlafting. God will remember their fins and iniquities no ΜΟΣ more for ever, fo as to impute their fins to them, or bring them into condemnation for them. This is one of the choice bleffings which God's covenant-people are made to partake of. And how great a mercy this is, we have David bearing his teftimony---Pfal. xxxii. 1, 2. Bleed is the man whofe tranfgreffion is forgiven, whofe fin is covered. Bleffed is the man, to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. 2. Adoption of fons. This is another of the mercies promised and granted to God's covenant-people. 2 Cor. vi. 18 I will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my fons and daughters, faith the Lord Almighty. They ftand in relation to God as his children, partaking in the glorious dignity of fonfhip to God. This is a moft wonderful mercy and favour, that we who were by nature children of wrath, children of the devil, and children. of difobedience, fhould be made the children of God. The apostle John fpeaks of this as a moft excellenc privilege, and a fruit of the aftonishing love of God. Job. iii. 1. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we fhould be called the fons of God! No relation to the greatest perfons on earth, is fo high, and honourable, and beneficial, as this relation of fons to God. 3. Saving knowledge of God. This is another mercy promifed to, and beltowed upon, all that are really ins terested in the covenant of grace. Heb. viii. 11. They fball not teach every man his neighbour, and every man bis brother, fdying. Know the Lord; for all fhall know me, from the least to the greateft. It is not a knowledge of God merely humane, fuch as one man may teach another; but a divine knowledge, fuch as God himfelf will teach them. He will inlighten their minds, open their understandings, and give them a faving knowledge of himfelf Such a knowledge of himself, as fhall humble and abafe them before God, as fhall draw forth their love to God, as fhall be obediential and fruitful in every good work, as fhall at last iffue in the full and eternal vifion of God and Christ in glory. 4. Renewing N 4. Renewing and fanctifying grace. This is another mercy promifed, and bestowed on God's covenant-people. Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26. Then will I Sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye fhall be clean: from all your filthinefs, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart alfo will I give unto you, and a new Spirit will I put within you. God will purify them from all their fpiritual polluti ons, fubdue all their corruptions, put a new principle of grace into them, whereby they fhall be made to live to God, in newness of life. Their understanding, will, and affections fhall be renewed, fo as that they fhall become new creatures. They fhall no more be the fame creatures that they were before, but quite other creatures. They fhall have new thoughts, holy, fpiritual, heavenly thoughts: new wills, to will the things. that pleafe God, and that are conformed to the will of God: new defires, after righteoufnefs, grace, God, 'Chrift, and the kingdom of heaven: new delights, delighting in God, and in his word, and ordinances, and people new griefs, grieving for their own fins, and the fins of others: new ends, aiming at the glory of God in Chrift, the falvation of their own feuls, and the good of others. Thus all old things are done away in them, and every thing is become now. 5. Perfeverance in grace to the end. This is another mercy promifed to and bestowed upon God's covenantpeople. Jer. xxxii. 40. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good: but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they fball not depart away from me. They fhall not wholly and finally depart away from God, and fall away from that state of grace and favour with God, which they are brought into. Adam might, and did, fall from his ftate of primitive holinefs; but believers fhall never fall from that ftate of holinefs which they are reftored unto. They may fall from fome degrees of grace received, but not from all grace. They fhall never return again, out of a state of grace, into a state and way of fin. They may fall into fins, great and feandalous fins; but they fhall not lie in them impenitently, and go on in them cuftomarily and finally. No, God will bring them to repentance and reformation, that they perifh not. In the covenant of grace, the believers prefervation in grace, is every way fecured. They hall be preferved by the power of God unto Salvation, 1 Pet. i. 5. The divine power is engaged for their prefervation, and nothing fhall be able to defeat Omnipotency. Jefus Chrift continually intercedes for their prefervation in holiness, through this evil and tempting world. Joh. xvii. 15. I pray not, that thou fbouldeft take them out of the world, but that thou fhouldeft keep them from the evil. And fince he ever lives to make interceffion for them, they fhall be faved to the uttermoft, Heb. vii. 25. His interceffion for them is always prevalent with God, and cannot poffibly fail of fuccefs. God always bears him in his requests. .. 6. Eternal life. This is another thing promifed, and that fhall be granted, to them that are interested in the covenant of grace. This eternal life is made over to them by divine promife. I Job. ii. 25. This is the promife that he hath promifed us, even eternal life. And the God who has made this promife to them, is a God that cannot lie. Tit. i. 2. In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, hath promifed. They can therefore no more mifs of eternal life, than God can fail of being the God of truth. God may as foon lie, as they fall fhort of glory. Eternal life is theirs now by fure promife, and it shall ere long be theirs by actual enjoyment. And therefore Jefus Chrift, in whom all the promifes of God are yea, and amen, has faid, that he will give them eternal life, and that they fhall never perish, nor fhall any be able to pluck them out of his hands. Joh. x. 28. Thus for the first thing, fhewing what are Covanant-mercies. Queft. 2. Why are thefe covenant-bleffings called mercies ? Anfw. Becaufe they flow from the pure mercy of God. The new covenant is a covenant of grace and mercy. The first covenant, was a covenant of juftice. Man was, in that covenant, to earn life by his own works. If he had perfectly and perpetually obeyed God, life had been due to him as a debt. Rom. iv. 4. Now to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. Whereas now under the fecond covenant, all the bleffings of grace and glory, are conferred on men, in a way of free and rich mercy. And this is implied in their being called mercies. For this fuppofes thefe two things, viz. 1. That the fubjects of thefe bleffings do ftand in need of divine mercy. The object of mercy, is a crea ture in mifery. Thus all men, by the breach of the first covenant, are brought into a moft miferable condition. Sin has plunged them into the depths of wee and mifery. And in this ftate, they are no ways able to help themfelves. They cannot, by any power of their own, deliver themfelves out of their deplorable condition. Nor is there any help for them to be had from any, or all, meer creatures. None of them all, can deliver the fouls of finners, out of their unhappy and doleful circumftances. If therefore they obtain any relief, it must be from the pure mercy of God. If his eye do not pity them, and his hand help them, they muft lie and die in their mifery. Believers therefore muft fay, as in Lam. iii. 22. It is of the Lord's mercies, that we are not confumed, even becaufe his compaffions fail not. 2. That the fubjects of thefe bleffings are undeferving creatures. The fubjects of mercy, are fuch as have no merit. For mercy excludes all merit of good. Thofe then that are made partakers of the bleffings of the covenant of grace, are unworthy of those bleflings. Yea, they are not only undeferving creatures, but illdeferving creatures. They deferve to have all evils inflicted upon them, instead of good things. They were fo far from being lovely, that they were in themfelves moft loathfome, fuch whom God might moft juftly have abhorred for ever. Whatever bleffings therefore God beftows |