own Son, as one who was both able and willing to befriend us; and the office which was assigned to him he most readily accepted. Lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." These words are expressive of his cheerful compliance with the terms of the covenant, and they are recorded in the volume of the divine decree, concerning the salvation of men, or of the scriptures, which are a faithful transcript of it. Animated with zeal for the glory of his Father, and with ineffable love to perishing sinners, he "rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth;" that is, it gave the highest pleasure to his benevolent heart to assume the character of our Redeemer, although he was fully apprised of the humiliation and sufferings to which it would be necessary to submit, in order to accomplish his design. In consequence of his consent to the terms of the covenant, he was constituted the head or representative of his people. He became a public person, who acted in the name of others. Some may think that, as men had not yet fallen, it would be more accurate to say, that it was then agreed that he should become their representative, as soon as their circumstances should require his interposition; but, if we believe that the covenant was made from eternity, and that they were chosen in him before the foundation of the world, there seems to be a necessity for admitting that he was invested with this character prior to the commencement of time. A new relation was formed between him and the guilty, in virtue of which he was made answerable for their guilt, and came under an obligation to perform the obedience which they owed to the law, that his righteousness might be imputed to them, as if they had obeyed and suffered in their own persons. That this doctrine has a foundation in Scripture is evident from the comparison, formerly referred to, which Paul institutes between Christ and Adam, whom we acknowledge to have sustained a federal relation to his children. "But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead; much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." I have quoted this long passage, in order to show you how the Apostle runs a parallel between Adam and Christ, with a design to teach us at once in what respect they agree, and also in what they disagree. The disagreement consists in the difference of the effects resulting from their respective agency, the one having been the cause of guilt and depravity, and death; the other, of righteousness and life. The agreement consists in their public character, and the representation of Christ is as clearly stated as that of the first man. In both cases the language is similar, and implies, not an accidental, but an instituted connexion between them and others, in consequence of which others are affected by what they have respectively done. By the one came condemnation, by the other justification; by the one we are made sinners, and by the other righteous. If Adam had not been our federal head, we should not have suffered by his first transgression more than by his subsequent sins, or by those of our nearer progenitors; and we may reason in the same manner, that, if Christ had not been our federal head, we should have been no more benefited by his obedience than by that of any of the saints. • Ps. xl. 7, 8. † Rom. v. 15-19. Its merit would have terminated in himself, and its influence upon us would have been merely that of example. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is called the surety of the covenant." A surety is a person who gives security for another, that he will perform something which the other is bound to do; that is, in case of failure, will perform it for him. The title, as given to our Saviour, implies that he came under an obligation to fulfil the condition of the covenant for his people. He undertook, as we shall afterwards see, to yield the obedience which they owed to the law, and to make satisfaction to Divine justice for their sins. Some, however, have taken a different view of the matter. Christ, they say, is surety for God to man, or has pledged himself that, to those who enter into covenant with God, the promises shall be performed. It is true, that "all the promises in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God;'t or, in other words, that he has ratified them in this sense, that his blood having been shed as the price of the blessings which they contain, the performance of them ought to be confidently expected by believers. But the performance depends solely upon the justice and faithfulness of God. A surety is admitted, when a doubt or suspicion is entertained of the person for whom he is bound, and his credit is brought forward to supply what is wanting in the other. Keeping this idea of a surety in mind, we shall perceive, to say the least, a manifest impropriety in calling Christ a surety for God; for it implies that the simple promise of God is not worthy of trust, and could not be depended upon till it was confirmed by the pledged truth of another. But the Scriptures represent the word of God as the sole ground of faith. We must believe, because he is true and faithful, and will not deceive us. His word is the highest possible security; it stands in need of no confirmation; and if he has been pleased to sanction it with his oath, it is not because an oath was necessary to render it worthy of credit, but in condescension to human infirmity. "God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." The promise is as immutable as the oath; and the latter was added, not to render the former more sure in itself, but to remove our unreasonable suspicions. How could any person be a surety for God? Is his sincerity more fully ascertained? Has his faithfulness been more clearly established? I know not what some men mean, nor am I sure that they understand themselves, when they say that Christ was surety for God. There are others who, granting that he was surety only for man, explain his suretiship in a manner not consonant to Scripture. He was surety, they say, that men would perform the obedience which God requires from them in the covenant of grace. In some instances, this mistake is founded upon another respecting the nature of the covenant, as being an agreement entered into between God and men themselves, in which spiritual blessings are promised upon certain conditions. I shall afterwards consider this opinion; and, in the mean time, I observe, that the notion of Christ's being surety for our obedience, receives no countenance from Scripture. He has, indeed, obtained for his people that grace by which they are enabled to obey; but the actual communication of it belongs to the Father, who has engaged in the covenant to bestow it. The obedience of believers is secured, not by any pledge which Christ has given in their name, but by the following promise of the Father: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an Heb. vi. 17, 18. Heb. vii. 22. † 2 Cor. i. 20. heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." A surety for a bankrupt for this is the only comparison which the present case will admit-is one who engages to satisfy his creditors, by paying his debts. Hence, when Jesus Christ is called the Surety of the new covenant, the meaning evidently is, that he undertook to discharge the debt which sinners owed to the law and justice of God, the debt of obedience, and the debt of suffering. Our Saviour is farther called the Mediator of the covenant; a title which imports that he interposes between God and men with a view to reconcile them. "There is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." For this office he is qualified by the constitution of his person. Possessed of the Divine nature from eternity, he agreed to assume the human, that he might be allied to both parties; and he knew how to establish a perfect harmony between the glory of God and the salvation of his guilty creatures. There are so many observations to be made upon the necessity of the Mediatorial office, the qualification of our Saviour for it, and its effects, that they would detain us too long from entering upon the other parts of the subject. I shall therefore reserve them for another occasion. The covenant by which men are saved is one, and was made with Christ before the foundation of the world. Many Theologians, however, are of opinion, that there are two covenants connected with the salvation of men, which they call the covenant of redemption, and the covenant of grace, and distinguish them in the following manner. The covenant of redemption was made from eternity; but the covenant of grace is made in time: The parties in the former are God and his Son, the parties in the latter are God and sinners: The covenant of redemption is the agreement between the Divine Persons, which we have already explained, and the condition of it is the righteousness of Christ; the covenant of grace is the agreement which God makes with sinners in the Gospel, promising to them spiritual and eternal blessings upon the condition of faith. There is no reason to exclaim against this statement as fraught with dangerous error; nor should we give way to that weak zeal, which is startled at modes of expression different from our own, and hastily concludes, that they are meant to convey a difference of meaning. If we examine it with candour, we shall find that, in substance, it accords with our own views of the subject. I acknowledge, that there does not appear to be any ground in Scripture for the notion of two covenants. The blood of Christ is called "the blood of the covenant," not "of the covenants," as we may presume it would have been called, if it had been the condition of the covenant of redemption, and the foundation of the covenant of grace. The truth is, that what those Divines call the covenant of grace, is merely the administration of what they call the covenant of redemption, for the purpose of communicating its blessings to those for whom they were intended; and cannot be properly considered as a covenant, because it is not suspended upon a proper condition, as we shall presently see. At the same time it is right to remark, that it is frequently spoken of as a covenant, and is said to be made with men themselves. "I will make with you an everlasting covenant." "This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord." "He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure."|| I may add, that the Confession of Faith, which we receive as a standard of doctrine, although we sometimes beg leave to dissent from some of its expressions, gives the same view of the covenant of grace: "Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by the covenant of Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27. Heb. viii. 10. † 1 Tim. ii. 5. + Isa. lv. 3. works, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; whereby he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe."* Still I am persuaded that the doctrine taught in our church, which has been adopted also by many others, is more accurate, that the covenant by which we are saved is one, whether you call it, the covenant of redemption, or the covenant of grace, for neither the one name nor the other is found in the Scripture; and that what some call the covenant of grace, is nothing but the dispensation by which the benefits that Christ purchased by his obedience and death are imparted to believers. The use of the term condition, in reference to the covenant of grace, may also be considered as objectionable, because it commonly means something, which when done by one party, gives a right to what was promised by the other. To call faith, therefore, the condition of the covenant, may seem to imply, that there is merit in faith, which entitles us to salvation. This, however, is far from being the meaning of those whose sentiments we are at present considering. The term is used by them in a lower sense, and simply signifies something which goes before another, and without which the other cannot be obtained. They do not assign merit to faith, but simply precedence. According to them, faith is the condition of the covenant, because the promise of salvation will be performed to none but believers. They hold as well as we, that it is only the means of obtaining an interest in the salvation offered in the Gospel; and that it is itself an effect of grace, being wrought in the heart by the Spirit of regeneration. If they err, then, it is not in sentiment, but in language; and we should be cautious in affirming that they err even here, lest the censure should recoil upon persons of whom we are accustomed to speak with great veneration, and to whom some are disposed to look up as almost infallible oracles, the framers of those public standards which we have adop ted; for they did not hesitate to make use of the obnoxious term. "The grace of God," they say in the Larger Catechism, "is manifested in the second covenant, in that he freely provideth and offereth to sinners a Mediator, and life and salvation by him; and requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him, promiseth and giveth his Holy Spirit to all his elect, to work in them. that faith, with all other saving graces." As, however, the word, condition, has been often employed in an unscriptural sense, and is apt to suggest false ideas to the ignorant and unwary, it is more prudent to lay it aside. I remark by the way, that the vehemence with which some in our church have opposed the use of the term, while they might have known that nothing improper was meant by it, is altogether unjustifiable. It arose either from ignorance that the term is found in our standards, or from dishonest zeal, which condemns in an antagonist what it tolerates in a friend. And here we may remark the improper conduct of most churches in reference to their standards. Having once adopted them, they regard them as the laws of the Medes and Persians, which must never be altered. As if their infallibility were ascertained, they are never subjected to revision; whereas they should be frequently revised, that such changes may be made in sentiment and language as are suggested by more correct views of the Scriptures. Then we should have avoided the awkwardness of having standards to which we assent without reserve or qualification, but in which there are expressions that we cannot use without incurring the suspicion of error. I know only of one exception from this practice, so unbecoming Protestants and daily students of the Scriptures.‡ † Quest. 32. • West. Conf. c. vii. § 3. It is believed that the exception here alluded to, was that of the Protestant Church of France, which revised its standards at every period of two years. VOL 1.-63 2R2 We cannot exercise the same indulgence towards every view which has been given by Theologians of the covenant of grace, for, by some, it has been grossly misrepresented, so that nothing remains but the name. According to them, the design of the death of Christ was to make God reconcileable to sinners, and to procure a new covenant with them, in which pardon and eternal life are promised on the condition of faith, repentance, and obedience. If sometimes they call faith alone the condition of the covenant, we must beware of being imposed upon by the sound of a word, to which they have affixed a peculiar meaning favourable to their own system; for it does not signify, as in the language of other divines, reliance upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation, but such a belief of the truth as leads to obedience, and derives all its value and efficacy from its effects. Having erected this fanciful structure, they give it the name of the new covenant, the gospel covenant, or the covenant of grace, because they pretend God has manifested his grace in it by proposing easier terms. In the first covenant, he exacted perfect obedience; but now he requires only sincere obedience, in consideration of the infirmity of man, who, being enfeebled by sin, and surrounded with temptations, is incapable of complying with the strict demands of the original law. The remedy, in this case, is repentance for defects and transgressions; and, through the mediation of Christ, God accepts of our upright endeavours to serve him. But, whatever name may be given to this imaginary transaction, it is truly and formally a covenant of works, the nature of which consists in suspending the reward upon certain performances, whether they be many or few, difficult or easy. That is a covenant of works, which makes works of any kind the condition of the promise. The words of the Apostle are express, and expose the vanity and criminality of this attempt to join together two things, which are, and ever will be opposed to each other: "If it be by grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more of grace; otherwise work is no more work." There are only two laws by which men can hope to be saved, the law of works, and the law of faith; of which the former says, "Do this, and thou shalt live;" but this is the language of the latter, "To him that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." The scheme which we are now considering, is a clumsy and audacious attempt to blend together two methods of salvation which are essentially different. It supposes, besides, what is absolutely impossible, that God may relax the strictness of his law, and require less from men than he once did, because they are become unable to give more. But how could God demand less, if he be the same holy and righteous being that he was in the beginning? The inability of men to yield perfect obedience, is not owing to him but to themselves, and consists in unwillingness, in aversion of heart. It does not consequently deprive him of his rights, nor would it be worthy of his character to lower the standard because his subjects are dissatisfied with it, and by doing so, to give his sanction to their unjustifiable revolt. Are they not commanded "to love him with all their heart, and soul, and mind, and strength? and to love their neighbour as themselves? And is not this the whole of the law; the utmost that was ever required? "Do we make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." I add, that, although it were granted that faith, repentance, and sincere obedience are now accepted instead of perfect righteousness, the covenant, of which these were the condition, would not deserve to be called the covenant of grace on account of the easiness of its terms. None will deem them easy but the man who is ignorant of himself, and of the total corruption of human nature. To us, in whose flesh there dwells no good thing, they are as impossible as perfect obe† Ib. iv. 5. + Ib. iii. 31. Rom, xi. 6, |