whose perfect righteousness was shadowed forth by its typical services. In other respects, too, the original dispensation established with Adam will be found to illustrate both the Mosaic economy and the everlasting covenant ratified by Christ.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE DIVINE COVENANTS, PARTICULARLY THOSE IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGES.

SECTION I.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE DIVINE COVENANTS.

THE redemption of mankind was the subject of an eternal purpose, and this purpose was originally revealed in the form of a promise. Thus, it is

written in the commencement of the revelation of mercy, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent; and, in many subsequent promises, the same blessed truth is declared. The great plan of redemption was fixed in the eternal counsel of Jehovah, and its different parts are carried into execution by the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, acting in the several characters in which the Scriptures exhibit them. It was the

eternal purpose of the one Jehovah, that the Word should become incarnate, and, in human nature, effect the redemption of man by the sacrifice of himself. Hence, the manifold wisdom of God is said to have been revealed in the plan of salvation, "according to his eternal purpose, which he purposed in

Christ Jesus our Lord." Ephes. iii. 11. In his eye, the eternal Word was from everlasting considered as Emmanuel; and hence we are said to be saved

according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. 2 Tim. i. 9. As the Lamb of God, Jesus was foreordained before the foundation of the world; but it was only in these last times, that he was made manifest for us. 1 Pet. i. 20. To God all things are, and must ever have been present; and, accordingly, the things which he hath purposed are represented as if existing from the date of his purpose. But still the purpose and the execution of it are in themselves quite distinct; the latter being the result of the former. In reference to the promissory form in which the revelation of mercy was first made, eternal life is said to have been promised by God before the world began; because all in relation to the plan of redemption was then fully determined; and of this determination, the promise of redemption was but the transcript and develop

ment.

God having revealed his purposes of mercy in the form of a promise, the plan of redemption is denominated a covenant. That which the Scriptures call the covenant of God, his covenant of peace, and the new and everlasting covenant, is just the Gospel of his grace, in connection with the blood of Christ, as the ground on which it proceeds, and the medium through which its blessings are dispensed; and of this the other covenants recorded in Scripture were so many signs and pledges. In particular, when we

IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGES.

read in Scripture of the old and the new, or of the first and the second covenants, the reference is to the Mosaic and the Christian dispensations. Gal. iv. 24-26; Heb. vii. 22; viii. 6-13; ix. 15-23; xii. 24; Matt. xxvi. 28. And when the latter is denominated "the everlasting covenant," the reference is to its everlasting duration, as distinguished from the temporary nature of the former. Heb. xiii. 20. The old covenant stood related to the new as its type or figure, and was, therefore, subservient to the latter, as that in which it met its ultimate design; and hence it vanished when the second was established. Heb. vii. 18, 19; viii. 13. But the latter shall never wax old or vanish away, as did the former; and it is on this account that it is said to be everlasting.

These two were not merely different dispensations of the same covenant, for they are expressly contradistinguished as separate covenants. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them." Jer. xxxi. 31, 32. He does not say, I will establish a new administration of my covenant; for there is a plain opposition of covenant to covenant, which does not accord with a mere modification of the same thing. The apostle distinguishes between the covenant made with Abraham and the Sinaitic covenant, when he says that the former existed four hundred and thirty years

before the latter, and was not disannulled by it. The former, then, must have been the same in substance with the gospel covenant, and quite distinct from the latter, which is now abolished. They are contrasted also by the apostle, as two distinct covenants, when in allegorizing the history of Sarah and Hagar, he says: "These are the two covenants;" and proceeds to contrast the new and everlasting covenant with "the one from the Mount Sinai, which is Hagar," Gal. iv. 24. In many respects they are distinguished in the Epistle to the Hebrews, not as different administrations of the same covenant, but as different covenants.* They are called the first and the second, and the latter is denominated a better covenant than the former: "But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he (Christ) is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second," Heb. viii. 6, 7. Now, if the ministry of the former priesthood respected the same covenant as did that of Christ, the force of the argument is weakened; for if so, the better covenant is the same in substance with the other. And how, then, could it be said, that the second covenant is better than the first, because established upon better promises? For if the two are the same covenant, then the promises must be the same, and therefore cannot be

* Petto on the Covenants, page 91-98; Jamieson's Use of Sacred History, vol. 1. p. 351–354.