love thereof.

Those birds which live much in the higher regions of the air, are generally of a most cleanly kind. They love to ascend and sing aloud, and to repeat their songs again and again, as their well-kept plumage bears them to the skies. But those creatures that grovel in the mud, are dirty and disgusting in their habits. Could you make a lark happy amongst animals so offensive? No, neither will the child of God, whose element is "in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," be otherwise than pure and spiritual in the holy habits of his regenerate mind.

FRAGMENT VI.

THE COVENANT OF GRACE.

THERE is a wide difference between a covenant made by man with man, and the covenant of grace God has revealed to us. In a human covenant there must be a previous agreement between both parties. But were the Lord to wait for man's acquiescence while he is in his carnal state, he might never find a moment for the agreement to take place. The covenant

of grace implies the unconditional operation of grace, and therefore I do not understand the doctrine of those, who say that faith and repentance (here I speak guardedly) are conditions of the covenant. They are not the conditions, but the graces thereof. Some say, you may repent if you will. True it is that you will if your hearts are so inclined; but we pray in the communion service, "incline our hearts to keep thy law," and sum up our petitions with the words "write thy laws in our hearts we beseech thee." This we could not do, if we did not believe that there is no fruit without grace. If we think we can have faith, repentance, or true obedience, without it, we shall never enter the presence of God. I will endeavour to explain what I consider to be the nature of the covenant of grace, and may I be so guided by the Spirit of truth, that I may speak nothing but truth concerning it. There was originally at man's creation this wondrous consultation between the persons of the Triune God, "let us make man in our own image." Thus Jehovah spake as three in one. In the covenant of grace after the fall of man, God said "let us restore in man our lost image." The Lord Jesus Christ was the Messenger of this covenant, and in him reposed also the cove

nant itself according to the words, “I will give thee for a covenant of the people."

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The Lord our Saviour was made the head of the covenant of grace. But did the Lord, it may be asked, make no covenant with man? Certainly not, in his fallen unrenewed state; but it behoved Christ to take upon him our nature, that he might fulfil the covenant for us. The covenant was made between the Father, Son, and Spirit, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was "the second Adam, the Lord from heaven."

do not know where the character of the covenant of grace is better explained than in the epistle to the Hebrews, where St. Paul describes how it accomplishes the salvation of the children of God. The promise there quoted is, "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 when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them

1 Isa. xlii, 6.

in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And 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. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."2 What a beautiful manifestation is this of God's love to his creature man; how honourable to the character of Deity, whilst it displays the power of divine grace brought home to the renewed sinner, whereby he is enabled to live to God all the days of his life. In contemplating these things, we exceedingly bless God that he has given us a holy law that shall not be altered. O what a manifestation was there of the divine hatred to sin in Paradise, when sin ruined the sinner! Shall we trifle then with such an evil? Is there anywhere a passage in the bible that hints any change in the divine mind? Has he withdrawn his law, because man has disobeyed it? I abhor the Antinomian heresy which says, that if we do the law as well as we can, God will accept us. Why, when a man says he does as well as he can, who credits him? I question whether I could find through2 Heb. viii, 8-12.

out my long life, that moment in which I did any action as well as I could. Alas for me, I feel that there is not an instant in which I am not acting defectively. But the new covenant finds grace and mercy for the transgressor, and restores the covenant of works to honour. We are not to suppose that the covenant of grace disannuls our duty to obey God. God forbid it should. If the Lord were to take away my obligation to love him, he would remove the very strings of my heart. I should be miserable. I am sure I shall never experience heaven till I am made holy as God is holy.

The apostle tells us that Christ "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" as man's representative; but he says also "I had not known sin, but by the law." Take away the true pattern, and you will have no copy to go by; and if you go by yourselves you will go badly indeed. Christ is our surety, and the surety of the covenant; he is also its Mediator and ours, and his atonement is our reconciliation. By the doctrine of

grace, I understand that my sins were all transferred to him; "the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all." This was the doctrine preached typically on the day of atonement, when the people's sins were laid upon the scape