nances under pretence that ye can spend the time otherwise to as great advantage; this is but to look on them as divided in their ministration from Christ, and so to cheat your own souls, 2 Cor. v. 20. Luke x. 16. What God then has joined, it will be dangerous so to put asunder. If ye took Christ himself for the party dealing with you, as indeed he is, it would engage you to take good heed how ye entertain the administration of the covenant among you.

3. They who would partake of the covenant, must come to Christ by faith, Isa. lv. 3. for that effect. He has the administration of it in his hand; so it is from him we must get it, with all the benefits and privileges of it. The whole of it is in him; so uniting with him we have it, and only that way we can have it. As is your interest in Christ, so is your interest in the covenant of grace: if he is yours in the way of special interest, your souls being married to him; then the privileges of the covenant are all yours, and the covenant is the security ye have for them, if ye are strangers to Christ, ye are strangers to the covenant of promise too, and so without hope and without God in the world.

4. Such as are personally entered into the covenant in a saving manner, and would improve the covenant for their daily needs, must still be coming to Christ for that end; since he is the Administrator of it, all the benefits of it are dispensed by his hand, John i. 16. So the life of a Christian comes to be a life of faith: forasmuch as the whole supply afforded them from heaven is benefits of the covenant, and the riches of the covenant are in Christ's hand as Administrator of it; and the way of believing in Christ is the way appointed for receiving them from him. So the more a Christian is in the exercise of faith, the more he employs the Administrator; and the more he lies about his hand, the more liberally he shares of the things of the covenant.

5. Sinners have abundant encouragement and security for their coming into the covenant, by believing in the Lord Jesus. We are not called to come to enter into a covenant with an unvailed God, the rays of whose glory in his holiness, justice and truth, and all his other perfections, might quite damp and dispirit the guilty creature; but as Christ as a second Adam has made the covenant with his Father, and fulfilled it in the whole of the condition thereof required on cur part; so it is put in his hand, who is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, to administer it unto any of the family of Adam; and in him we have the whole of it. Here all is ready for us, suited to our case. And we have his word of the gospel for our security, Matth. xxii. 4. and John vi. 37. And well may we trust him, believing the Son, believing his word, since the Father has trusted him with the whole administration of the covenant.

6. Lastly, There is no man who has the offer of Christ made him in the gospel, but if he continue in his sin, and die in it, he will perish with a witness, without all shadow of excuse, John xv. 22. The covenant is the contrivance of Heaven for salvation to lost sinners: in the administration of it, none are excluded from the benefit thereof; the net is spread out for even the worst of sinners, wherever the gospel comes. There is enough in the covenant for the worst of cases; the promises of it are made suitable to the sinner's case, both in respect of sin and of misery; so that whatever is their case, in the covenant there is a suitable cure. And that the sinner may at once lay hold on all, God has given Christ as the covenant to the people, making the embracing of Christ, the short and sure way for the sinner to have all. In him is lodged the quickening Spirit: so that by applying to him we may have life. They must then be left inexcusable who reject the offer of Christ, and will not come to him, that they may have life, John v. 40.

And now having opened to you the doctrine of the covenant of grace, that covenant on which the salvation of our souls depends, in discoursing of the parties in it, the parts of it, and the administration of it, I shall shut up the discourse on this subject, with a twofold use of the whole.

USE I. Of trial. Let every one put the question to himself, What interest have I in this covenant ? Are ye personally brought within the covenant of grace in a saving manner, or not?

For your help in this inquiry, I shall offer you some marks or characters of those who by grace are personally instated through faith in the covenant of grace, before the Lord, under Christ the second Adam as their head.

1. They are such as have fled for refuge from the covenant of works to the covenant of grace, Heb. vi. 17, 18.

2. They are such as cordially approve of and acquiesce in the plan of the covenant, as suited to the honour of God, and to their case in particular, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5.

3. Having the discovery made to them of the covenant as made from eternity betwixt God and the second Adam, and in the gospel offered to them, they will satisfy themselves with Heaven's draught of it in their covenanting, so far as they understand it, and not go about to add to it, or diminish from it, Acts ix. 6.

4. The love of God in Christ, is habitually predominant in them, Prov. viii. 17. 'I love them that love me.'

5. Jesus Christ, the head of the covenant, is their head with their own consent.

6. The condition of the covenant, as fulfilled by Jesus Christ, is the alone ground of their confidence before the Lord, as to acceptance with God for time and eternity, and as to any of all the benefits of the covenant they look to par take of, Phil. iii. 3.

7. The promises of the covenant are a satisfying portion to their hearts, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5.

8. The spirit of the covenant is in them; and that is another spirit than what the men of the world are actuated by, Ezek. xxxvi. 27.

9. The laws of the covenant are in their hearts the holy law of the ten commandments, the eternal rule of righteousness, Heb. viii. 10*.

USE II. Of exhortation to sinners and to saints.

FIRST, Let sinners be exhorted to come into this cove nant, by embracing it personally for themselves, so as they may be instated therein to all saving purposes. This covenant is brought to, and set before you in the gospel; so that you and every one of you must either be receivers or refusers of it. O refuse it not, for the refusing is dangerous beyond expression. Take hold of it, and embrace it, for it is your life: come, enter into it without delay. Ye are under the covenant of works, O sinners! where ye can have no life nor salvation. But the door of the new covenant is opened unto you, come, flee from the covenant ye were born under, and are living under; and let the sacred knot be cast this day, by your entering within the bond of the covenant of grace, accepting and embracing the offered covenant, to the instating of you personally in it, to all the purposes of life and salvation, grace and glory, by it.

But that ye may more clearly perceive the duty ye are called to, and may not walk in the dark, in your aiming at embracing the covenant, and that the motives to it may have the more weight, I shall,

1. Lay before you, by what means it is that a soul embraceth the covenant of grace, and is instated in it effectually to salvation.

2. Offer some motives to press the exhortation on sinners to enter personally into the covenant.

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FIRST, I shall lay before you, by what means it is that a soul embraceth the covenant of grace, and is instated in it effectually to salvation. This, in one word, is by faith in Jesus Christ, Acts xvi. 31. The covenant is held forth in the gospel to you: God saith to every one of you, I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.' And to state you in it personally, and to close the bargain with you, to all the intents and purposes of salvation, all that is required of you is to hear, that is, to believe, Isa. lv. 3. He that believeth is within the covenant of grace personally and savingly? he that believeth not, is still under the covenant of works, where the first Adam left him. This is the hand that takes hold of the covenant; thereby one signs the covenant for himself, and closes the bargain for his own salvation. This is the mouth of the soul, by which it consents to the covenant; and God becomes your God in cove nant, and ye his covenanted people. So when we call you to embrace the covenant, and enter into it personally, all that we call you to is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

That believing on Christ should be the appointed mean of entering sinners into the covenant of grace, is very agree able to the nature and end of that great transaction. For,

(1.) Hereby the grace of the covenant is preserved entire in the dispensation of the covenant; and by that means the promise is made sure to all the seed, Rom. iv. 16. Faith is contradistinguished to works, as grace is to debt, Rom. iv. 4, 5. If any work or doing of ours were that upon which we were instated in the covenant, and got the right to the promise, then the covenant, and benefits of it, would be of debt to us, contrary to the very design of that method of sa! vation, which is to exalt the free grace of God, and cut off all boasting. But the nature of faith on Christ is adapted to the exalting of grace, inasmuch as it is a grace purely reVOL. I. 3. E

ceiving, not giving; taking all from Christ, without money and without price; laying the stress of the soul's acceptance with God wholly on what Christ has done and suffered; and renouncing entirely all doings and sufferings of our own in that point.

(2.) Hereby the sinner enters into the covenant, by uniting with Christ, who was the representative with whom it was made, John x. 9. and so the unity of the covenant and the representation in it, are preserved. If men entered into the covenant another way, as by accepting such and such properly called terms to them proposed, and promising for themselves the performance of them, the representation in the second covenant is marred, and there would in effect be as many covenants of grace, as there are persons embracing it at different times; at least Christ's covenant would be one, and ours another. But the covenant of grace being made with Christ, as the second Adam, in the name of all such as should be his, it is evident, that the only way of one's personal entering into such a covenant, must be by becoming his, standing related to the head of the covenant, as our head: and it is by faith, and no work or consent of ours differing from faith, that we are united to him, and become members of his body, Eph. iii. 17.

But here ariseth a weighty question, necessary to be touched, for clearing your way into the covenant, viz. What is that believing, by which one unites with Christ, and so enters into the covenant of grace? Believing, in the scripture-use of the word, is trusting a word, person, or thing. And hence the scripture-phrases of believing to, and believing in i. e. having trust to and in; phrases, however unusual with us in conversation, yet ordinary both in the Old and New Testament. It is the trusting a word, as to report, Isa. liii. 1. in God's words, Psal. cvi. 12. It is trusting a person: thus the Israelites 'believed the Lord and his servant Moses; Heb. believed in the Lord, and in Moses his servant.' Job iv. 18. Heb. He believed not in his servants,' i. e. trusted them not. And it is the trusting a thing too, Job xxxix. 12. 'Wilt thou believe him,' viz. the unicorn? Heb. ' believe in him,' i. e. trust in him. Deut. xxvii. 66. Heb. Thou shalt not believe in thy life.'-And thence I conclude, that saving faith is, in the general, the trusting of a word, and of a person and thing held forth in that word.