covenant is established, which are of a spiritual and eternal nature. In this covenant he is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Mediator of it, and in whom all its promises are yea and amen; and so is the God and Father of all who believe on the name of his Son, blessing them not merely with temporal blessings, but with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ, according as he had chosen them in him before the foundation of the world; see John xx. 17; Gal. iii. 26; Eph. i. 3, Rev. xxi. 3, 7. In short, to be their God, imports, that all his perfections will be engaged on their behalf to make them completely and eternally happy.

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As he promises to be a God to them, so he also promises that they shall be to him a people. This imports not only that he will own and treat them as his people, but that they, on their part, will acknowledge, fear, love, obey, and worship him as their God, placing their trust in his power, wisdom, faithfulness, and grace, and their happiness in the enjoyment of his favour; so that the honourable and distinguished titles given to old Israel, as a typical people, while they obeyed God's voice and kept his covenant, Exod. xix. 5, 6, are applied in their spirit and truth to the people of the new covenant: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light,” 1 Pet. ii. 9. Another promise on which the new covenant is established, is in these words,

Ver. 11. "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.] This promise is not to be understood as if under the new covenant, there was to be no farther need of the outward means of instruction in the knowledge of the Lord; for that would be to set aside Christ's institution of preaching the gospel, and of teaching his disciples to observe all things whatsoever he hath commanded, and which was to

continue to the end of the world, Matt. xxviii. 19, 20. It would make his gifts of pastors and teachers to be of no farther use for the work of the ministry, or the edification of his body, the church, Eph. iv. 11—13; and it would contradict the repeated injunctions in this very epistle, to Christian brethren to exhort one another, chap. iii. 12, 13, x. 24, 25.

But I apprehend that this promise is to be understood not in an absolute, but comparative sense, and by way of opposition to that ignorance of God, which so generally prevailed among the people of the old covenant. Though the Lord had manifested himself in a most wonderful and sensible manner to old Israel by a train of miraculous interpositions, in redeeming them from Egyptian bondage, entering into covenant with them, and giving them his laws and institutions as the rule of their obedience, attended with the most striking and awful appearances of his presence, all which laid a sufficient foundation for that faith, love, and obedience which he required of them; yet the generality of them knew him not. The Lord often complains of them as a stiff-necked and froward generation, children in whom is no faith; a nation void of counsel, and of no understanding; who always erred in heart, and did not know his ways, Deut. xxxii. 20, 28; Psalm xcv. 10, 11. They were also prone to the grossest idolatry, Exod. xxxii. 4, Num. xxv. 1—4, Judges ii. 10— 14, and so needed constantly to be taught to know the Lord, as distinguished from heathen idols.

This promise also imports, That the light of revelation under the new covenant would far excel, in point of clearness, spirituality, and efficacy, all the discoveries which God made of himself under the former covenant. The law had indeed a shadow of good things to come, but not the very image of the things. It was such a representation of future good things by types and figures, as at the same time vailed them; and this was emblematically represented by the vail which Moses put upon his face to

hide the dazzling, though vanishing glory of it, when he delivered the law, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished, Exod. xxxiv. 29-35; 2 Cor. iii. 13. But, when the new covenant was ratified by the blood of Christ, and published in the gospel with great plainness of speech, then the vail was done away, so far as it affected the outward revelation, 2 Cor. iii. 14.

Yet it must be observed, that however clear and plain the gospel revelation is, there is an internal vail upon the hearts of men, consisting of their own prejudices, unbelief, and depravity, which, till it be removed by the enlightening and regenerating influences of the Spirit accompanying the word, so blinds their minds, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ does not shine into them, verse 14, 15, chap. iv. 4. This was remarkably the case with the greater part of the Jewish nation, who, though the gospel was clearly preached to them by Christ and his apostles, and fully confirmed to them by miracles and the predictions of their own prophets; yet the vail still remained upon their hearts, as it does unto this day: "And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive; for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them," Matt. xiii. 14, 15; Acts xxviii. 26, 27. Nor is this opposition to the light peculiar to the Jews, but is common to all mankind in their natural state. 1 Cor. ii. 14.

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But herein lies the excellency of the new covenant above the first, that all the people who really belong to it know the Lord; and this knowledge is not obtained without divine teaching; for it is promised, "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord," Isa. liv. 13. This teaching

our Lord represents as having a particular respect to himself as its object, and as absolutely necessary to faith in him, "No man can come unto me, except the Father who hath sent me draw him;" and he at the same time.

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represents it as effectual to that end. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and learned of the Father, cometh unto me," John vi. 44, 45. It is the knowledge and belief of the gospel of salvation, and of the character of God as therein manifested: or, as the apostle emphatically expresses it, it is "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," 2 Cor. iv. 6, and which our Lord in his prayer connects with eternal life, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent," John xvii. 3. Now, no man can effectually teach his neighbour or his brother this knowledge, any more than he can regenerate him, or write God's law on his heart. Faith, indeed, cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God preached, Rom. x. 14, 17; yet, when Paul did plant, and Apollos water, it was God who gave the increase, 1 Cor. iii. 6. And herein the divine sovereignty is manifested, that while these things are hid from the wise and prudent, who enjoy all the outward means of instruction to the best advantage, it pleases the Lord of heaven and earth to reveal them unto babes, Matt. xi. 25, 26. As all the people of this covenant have the true knowledge of the Lord, that being essential to their being actually within the bond of it; so that they have no need that their neighbour brother should teach them to know him, as if they were yet wholly ignorant of him. There are indeed different degrees of this knowledge among them, and they have constant need to be growing in grace, and in the knowledge of Christ; but they all know the saving truth. The apostle John writes to them thus, "I have not written unto you, because ye know not the truth; but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth: And, distinguishing them by their different degrees of

knowledge, he distributes them into three classes, viz. little children, young men, and fathers; he says to the least of these, "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake:" And again, "I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father," 1 John ii. 12, 13, 21. So that though there are among them different degrees of knowledge and strength of faith, they are all taught of God to know him from the least of them to the greatest of them. Another promise on which the new covenant is established is this:

Ver. 12. "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."] The sacrifices of the first covenant could not take away sin, though they were of divine appointment. The apostle informs us that it was not possible for them to do so, chap. x. 4. They indeed, by virtue of divine appointment, served to purify the body from ceremonial defilements, chap. ix. 13, and the annual atonement served to free the nation, as a body, from those civil penalties which they had incurred during the preceding year, Lev. xvi. 30, but they could not purify the conscience from guilt, nor procure an everlasting remission of sins. There was no proportion between the sacrifices of brute animals and the demerit of sin, or the high demands of God's law and justice, upon the sinner. They could not in the nature of things display God's infinite opposition to sin in the punishment of it, nor declare his righteousness in the remission of it. Their main design was to prefigure a better sacrifice, whilst the repetition of them, year by year continually, demonstrated their own insufficiency, and that God was still calling sin to remembrance by such an appointment, chap. x. 3.

But in this respect the new covenant infinitely excels the old, for therein God promises to remember the sins and iniquities of his people no more. This promise is grounded on the sacrifice of Christ; for as to the sacri