(2.) Divine relationship renewed between God and the soul of man. "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." Man, as a sinner, is cast out from the favour of God, regarded as a rebel under the curse. But the covenant founded on mercy to unrighteousness has in it the promise of restoration to the divine favour, and that to the largest possible extent. God says here, not only, "I will be to them a father," or any such finite relation, but, to include these in a name which contains the sum of all that is glorious and gracious, "I," saith he, "will be to them A GOD." There is no attribute of my nature but I will have it, I will exercise it, toward them and for them; I will be to them, what I am to myself, a fountain of consummate happiness. "And they shall be to me a people;" not, as Israel of old, by external relation only, but a spiritual people, a peculiar people, "formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise." (Isaiah xliii. 21.)

(3.) Divine illumination. "They shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest."

Mark how God seems to disparage all the knowledge of himself which was enjoyed under the old dispensation, in comparison with that which is here promised. The Jews, though truly

in covenant with God as a nation, knew, many of them, nothing of him. They needed continual exhortations from their judges, prophets, and pious rulers, to "know the Lord." The mode also, as well as the extent, of God's revelation of himself was inferior. The teaching which the Jews had respecting God was, for the most part, by types, and shadows, and sensible images of spiritual mysteries, ill understood by the generality of that nation. A veil was upon their faces, that they discerned not the real glory of the dispensation under which they lived. (2 Cor. iii. 7, 13, 14.) Their whole system required much and painful explanation from the wiser among them as to its spiritual import, and that which was to be known of God by it. They needed a mutual communication of light received upon it from time to time, as persons helping one another in the dark. Such was the character of that knowledge of God which was afforded by the covenant under which they were. Whatever was vouchsafed beside was of mere sovereignty, and much even of that obscure: the prophets themselves "searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,

. . to whom it was revealed, that, not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister . . . (1 Pet. i. 11, 12.)

But, under this "better covenant," we have the

substance of the shadows, the reality of the types:
Jesus Christ; "him of whom Moses in the law
and the prophets did write," "full of grace and
truth." (John i. 45. 14.) The manifestation of
the Father's love. (1 John iv. 9.)
"The bright-
ness of his glory, the express image of his per-
son." (Heb. i. 2.) Moreover, the Spirit of God is
himself the great teacher of his covenant people.
(John xiv. 26; xvi. 13.) There is now, therefore,
an enlarged knowledge of God; such a know-
ledge of the mystery of his person as the Triune
Jehovah, of his character and grace, in the gospel
of Jesus Christ, as "in former ages was not made
known unto the sons of men." But, now, there
is not one in covenant with God who has not his
measure of this blessed knowledge: the least, as
well as the greatest, is privileged to enjoy it: the
babe in the school of Christ has a clear under-
standing of those things which the holiest of the
Old Testament saints saw but darkly, if at all,
under the law.

Such is the exceeding fulness of blessings promised in the covenant to those who are interested therein; all resting on free mercy and grace in

whom

God, as the ground of their communication to un-erkent by ave

worthy, sinful men. I proceed to notice a third

feature in it especially deserving our attention,

arising out of the freeness of grace which is its basis. This is,

Its security-The effectual provision which God has made in it for the sure enjoyment of its rich benefits. In other covenants God pledges himself to what he will do for his people on the supposiThe tiation of their fulfilment of certain terms contained therein. But here we find him engaging, not only for his own part, but for theirs also. will," and "they shall." They shall be to me a people." "All shall know me.'

This, then, is a very peculiar distinction and glory of the better covenant," that in it God is pledged to accomplish by his Spirit, in the hearts of his people, all that is necessary for their enjoyment of its blessings. There can be no forfeiture of them from the folly and waywardness of the creature; for this covenant takes the sinner up, as it finds him, in his sin and ruin; freely "justifies the ungodly;" (Rom. iv. 5;) and then, for the rest, it consists of full and absolute promises to fulfil in him all that can make him well pleasing to God. Thus is it a covenant" ordered in all things and sure;" (2 Sam. xxiii. 5;) a rock on which the most guilty may build his hopes for eternity, and he has the truth of the unchangeable God to rely on, that his hope shall never make him ashamed. The security of it lies herein, that God undertakes for man as well as for himself.

There is yet one more feature of this better

covenant which demands our attention, and which is closely connected with the preceding. This is,

Its everlasting continuance.--Hence it is expressly called, (Heb. xiii. 20,) "the everlasting covenant." The objection which God takes to the old covenant, contrasting it herein with the new, fully establishes this truth. It shall not be, saith God, (ver. 9,) according to the former covenant made with their fathers at Sinai,-and why not? "Because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord." Nothing can be more evident, than that this new covenant was to be so ordered as to have a different issue-it was a covenant to be continued in. See, again, how God expresses this in the chapter of Jeremiah following that from which this whole passage is taken. (Jer. xxxii. 40.) "And 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 into their hearts, that they shall not depart from me."

Contemplate, then, this covenant, brethren, in the amazing freeness of its forgiving grace, in the exceeding fulness of its promised blessings, (divine renewal, divine relationship, and divine illumination,) in the absolute security given for their enjoyment, by the pledge of God that he will, and that man shall, and in the everlasting